Gandhi and Bhramcharya
Bhramcharya in context of Gandhi and my interpretation:
“Bhramcharya” is a word that can be found both in Hindi and Gujarati. It has same meaning in both languages. Literally it means “Bhram” – God and “Charya” means Proximity.
To sum up: “Bhramcharya” means being in proximity to God.
Often in India and elsewhere people connect Bhramcharya as abstaining from sex. This is a popular yet wrong meaning attached to this word.
If evaluated, in terms of physical senses and perceptions, this word only means keeping your senses under control.
Gandhi has written about Bhramcharya in Harijan Bandhu on 21/06/1936 and again about this topic in Mangal Prabhat, Page #11.
Bhramcharya essentially is a process of control – but a control over sense. It is a control over self. Gandhi calls it as control over all sense including craving for food. He says craving for food and taste buds must be controlled. If we can control our lust for food, we can also control our desire over sex and desire to eat has great proximity with Bhramcharya.
So far as Gandhi’s opinion on marriage is concerned, I don’t know, if I am mistaken but referring to Mangal Prabhat Page #7-8, he says husband and wife should live like brother and sister. In fact, he is asking not to indulge in sexual activities.
For control to be absolute, Gandhi feels that people inclined towards Bhramcharya should not marry.
MY INTERPRETATION:
As usual before embarking on my interpretation, I feel when I sit to measure what Gandhi said, it is probably like a little ant trying to measure elephant. Therefore, my interpretation may be flawed or totally conceived incorrectly.
Nevertheless, I feel I must express my feelings. When Gandhi says something, probably it does not matter if it is 1910 or 2010. He is trying to point at universal laws. They hold true for centuries.
His idea of Bhramcharya is appealing. It is controlling sense – those senses of eyes, nose, touch, speech and ears. Within these senses is comprised a need for sex and perhaps derived habit of taste.
We all tend to control others. In fact: our thought process from dawn to dusk centers around controlling others. Parents try to control children. Boss tries to control his employee. Name a relation and you will find a mechanism of control operating right there. We feel we have things and people under control and we feel desperate when we lose control.
But, under natural law, we must realize that smallest constituent of any matter is atom. Same way, first point of control should be self and not others.
As humans, animal instincts have not died in us. We feel and enjoy a savage satisfaction in controlling others, firing others, and this gives a feeling of superiority. These feelings are external. In reality, if there is a hollow, we would not even control ourselves. Then the external controls are illusory and transient. That is why people with great success and talent commit suicide. There is an inner hollowness.
If we cannot control our senses, we cannot control our emotions. We jump to subjectivity and call ourselves objective.
We start looking at things by taking our ideas and expectations into first place. Basically, we are moving out rather then inner correction.
Here is where most Gandhians (followers of Gandhi) reside, in a zone of external control. They wear Khadi – they keep photo of Gandhi and make a hue of falling ethics and declining values. We also like them tend to complain about things or people when they exist or behave contrary to our expectations.
We are unable to control our expectations. Here is a point where bhramcharya plays a role. It controls the senses as well as expectations that arise from senses. Here is a place where Gita teaches principals of “Karma”.
The moment we stop our efforts of controlling results, but push efforts for controlling our self and our actions, we practice “Bhramcharya” – the inner control – control of self.
Gandhi, as pointed hitherto links to Bhramcharya a concept of marriage. I feel probably Gandhi was not in his 20s or 30s when he first asked people not to marry. May be his testosterone levels had settled by the time he had four kids. So he was comfortable when he said “Don’t Marry”.
From my personal experience, I feel marriage does not hurt Bhramcharya. Even having sex does not hurt Bhramcharya.
You may argue that having and practicing Bhramcharya is like having food and saying I am fasting. They are two opposites that cannot coexist.
But to my belief, that argument is incomplete and therefore untrue. Such an argument emanates from misconception about Bhramcharya.
To clarify, Bhramcharya does not mean eliminating the senses, it means controlling the sense. It does not and cannot mean eliminating or destroying senses and self. This cannot be right interpretation.
Controlling taste is like eating cucumber when you have an option to eat cake. Nevertheless, it does not mean starving yourself to death – Gandhi would never mean anything like that and ascribing Gandhi like that to my understanding would be incorrect.
Same way, controlling sex, does not mean stopping it completely. I mean if that was intention of God, he would not have taken a deep trouble of creating male and female sex organs and sex hormones. In that case, we would be born as asexual organisms. But God gave the organs to use just as he gave mouth to eat.
Excessive eating leads to obesity and therefore loss of health – same is with sex. It leads to loss of health and loss of focus. Eating moderate food having right combination of nutrients and fibers leads to good health. Same way using your sex energies may lead to their transmutation. Sex with spouse is not bad and does not a bad idea and does not hurt bhrancharya – but going to brothel must be shunned.
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