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| | | Book Name: Yoga - The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
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about brahmacharya, celibacy. Are they teaching suppression? They cannot, and they are not teaching.
When Buddha says, "Go on a fast," what he means? Suppress your hunger? -- no. He says, "Watch your hunger." The body will say, "I am hungry." You simply sit inside your being and watch. Don't do anything either to feed the body or to suppress the hunger. You simply watch the hunger. No activity is needed on your part, and suppression is an activity. When you suppress the hunger, what you will do? You will not be able to watch it. In fact, that is the only thing that you will avoid.
A person who wants to suppress the hunger and who has gone on a fast, as Jains go every year, what they will do? They will try to distract the mind somewhere else so that the hunger is not felt. They will chant mantras, or they will go to the temple and recite sutras, or they will go to their religious leader to listen him, so that the mind is engaged, and they need not pay attention to the hunger which is there. This is suppression. Suppression means: something is there and you don't look at it and you pretend as if it is not there. So if you are occupied deeply in the mind, then the hunger cannot penetrate and cannot bring your attention to itself. The hunger will go on knocking on the door but you are reciting a mantra so loudly that you don't hear the knock. Suppression means distracting your mind from the reality of your being.
You have taken a vow of celibacy or you have taken the life of a brahmachari; now what you will do when the sex desire arises and a beautiful woman passes by? You will start chanting the mantra: Ram, Ram, Ram. You are avoiding. You are pulling a curtain over your eyes. You are pretending as if the woman is not there. But the woman is there and that's why you are chanting the name of Rama, and so loudly.
In India, people have to take a morning bath. In my village there is a very beautiful lake, a river, and people go there to take their morning bath. There, in my childhood, for the first time I became aware of the trick of suppression. The river is cold -- particularly in winter -- people go to take their bath... In summer also I
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