I do not advise celibacy for a householder.
Celibacy practiced by a householder in the world as we know it, can become very dangerous. It can become repressive, and those inhibitions and repressions can translate themselves psychosomatically.
When we marry there is at first a mutual attraction. One has to enhance this attraction if love is to become enduring. The reason for the divorces we see is that people are just romantic. They see a beautiful face and are attracted. They think alike, and have similar tastes—both like playing tennis, golf, or the same kind of music.
But tastes keep on differing every day—one year you might like to play tennis very much, and another year you might like something else. These tastes are not from the heart. They are from the mind, and the mind, being so fickle, is subject to change. When the mind changes and develops other tastes, then our spouse becomes incompatible. Yet every mind is an individual mind, and when your tastes change it does not mean that your wife’s tastes have changed also. This process can change however, if there is surrender, self-sacrifice, and service.
The sexual urge is one of the strongest urges, and it has to be given vent. The experience gained in total surrender between husband and wife can lead you to total surrender to God. The human being has been given the necessary equipment right from the physical level to the highest level of the soul. At every stage we have been given the tools to attain higher and higher and higher levels.
Speak Your Mind