When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.

Question:

I love your work, you are an inspiration to my friends and I. I’m a young male pursuing my dreams right now and am having a hard time dealing with the issue of masturbation. I feel great when I go for weeks and months without it, but I’ve always ended up succumbing to society’s notion that it’s a completely natural and necessary thing to do. The next day afterwards I always feel physically weak. It’s no longer a “guilt” issue or anything like that…I actually feel physically exhausted and feel a lack of motivation. I’ve been looking into how to channel my energy upwards and this has been something I’ve been getting better at over the past year, I feel like I don’t ever want to masturbate again and the next time I let go of my energy it will be after I’ve made significant progress towards my goals and when I’ve found another like-minded partner. What do you think about this issue and how sacred our fluids are?

Response:

In terms of Ayurveda and Yoga philosophy there is a subtle form of energy associated with reproductive fluid that is valuable for spiritual awakening and therefore should not be diminished excessively. But what most wisdom traditions that encourage conserving sexual energy often neglect to tell you is that suppression of one’s natural sexual drive is also detrimental to one’s spiritual growth. Furthermore, suppression doesn’t work anyway and just creates other psychological and physical problems elsewhere. Sex is a natural, powerful, and necessary part of human existence. And medically speaking, the notion of retaining semen is misguided since excess semen is expelled through one’s urine over time.

Now I understand that until you are in a meaningful relationship you don’t want to suppress this energy, but instead want to channel it into more spiritual expressions. Sublimation of sexual desire is the right idea, but you still need to be patient and non-judgmental with yourself as the process unfolds, because as a young healthy male, with high levels of testosterone coursing through your veins, this spiritual transformation is not going to be as quick and smooth as your spiritual ideal would like. Find healthy outlets for your sexual desire, like artistic or other creative expressions, being of service to others through volunteer work, exercise and competitive sports, etc…, but don’t feel like you have failed if you slip up occasionally. What is important is having the intention to transform your life energy’s overall direction toward enlightenment. Let that inner force of evolution be the engine of your growth, not your ego’s image of some spiritual ideal. I get that you are trying to frame this as an issue of physical exhaustion and not guilt or shame, but even so, the self-recrimination and judgment against yourself is still there in a disguised form, and that creates an internal conflict between your sexual drive and your spiritual ideal. That conflict takes you out of your natural evolutionary flow of spiritual existence. Learning to be at peace and accepting with your spiritual journey through all it’s odd twists and turns physically and psychologically is the way to maximize your progress and enjoy it fully at the same time.

Love,

Deepak