Getting free from masturbation

Q: How can one get rid of the habit of masturbation/ pornography?
A:  The first and foremost requisite is the strong urge to achieve redemption from their vicious grip. Your intent is laudable and positive. In order to succeed practically, the following points carried out in tandem should help:

1.   Keep the mind busy with constructive work:
This is one of the best panaceas in helping one stay clear of the problem. The desire to watch images & masturbate requires one to spend time, energy and thought in this direction. If you keep yourself busy with other productive work with an aim of achieving something valuable for yourself, this vice will automatically get squeezed into negation.

2.   Indulge in physical exercise/ sport:
Regularly indulging in physical exercises or an outdoor sport that we like, helps convert sexual energy into bodily health and strength. The onset of lust and its growth into libido is nothing but flow of vital energy into the sexual domain. Exercise draws up energy from the sex center to our muscles and brain, thereby revitalizing the two. This will leave much less energy available for wanton activities.

3.   Developing mental resolve:
This is the next important step. When one realizes the human body to be nothing more than a combination of bones, blood, flesh and other disagreeable secretions, dispassion will dawn at reality. Minus skin, the human body looks exactly like the cut up carcass of an animal. If necessary go to a morgue and have a look at the cutup body on an autopsy table. We shun in distaste secretions such as pus, phlegm, urine and excreta when they come out and yet try to fantasize on the very same body which is a bundle of all of these! Isn’t it such an irony? This irony is a result of ‘maya’ or illusion. Sensual attraction is just a trick of the mind. In the first place there is nothing really to be attracted to. Further to death, the skeletal bones of a person lie in a heap, if the rotting flesh is separated. Where did the beauty go then? It was never really there. Remember it is this very flesh and bone on which one wastes his vital fluid to no avail. With time, the most beautiful body develops wrinkles, ages and goes into oblivion. Where did the beauty go then? Again it was never really there. Wasting semen on the body of a woman is like throwing hard earned money and assets on a fake investment plan. At least money can be regained with effort; semen once lost can never, never be reclaimed. With every ejaculation man loses a little bit of his very self! In course of time he will age very rapidly and debilitate into a degenerate at the mental, physical and karmic level.

4.   Food and prayer:
To the extent possible, avoid extremely spicy food. Give up eating meat, onion and garlic. If you can’t, eat meat not more than once or twice a week. From my own personal experience, meat eating is not at all the food for the Brahmachari. It produces animalistic tendencies and is a sure shot in giving food for sexual thoughts. Substitute it with protein sources from the plant kingdom and dairy products. Give up alcohol, tobacco and other addictions completely. Set aside some time of the day to meditate upon God and request him sincerely and longingly to help you tide over lust and to give you strength to keep the mental resolve.

With honest and sincere practice, god always extends his hand. We alone are the cause of our failures. When persistence and commitment tapers, failure is bound to set in. With will power, determination and tenacity, no one can snatch away success.

ॐ तत् सत्
(That Supreme being is the absolute truth)