Karmic merits of Brahmacharya

1. If you started contemplation and practice on the tenets of Yoga & Brahmacharya at age 28, it means that all these years were required to work out other karma’s which were blocking the surfacing of the positive karma/knowledge of Yoga which you had acquired with some effort in a previous existence. The time has now matured with a reducing inclination for worldliness and growing inclination towards realizing the absolute truth. This is how the law of karma works. Till the time the gross desires of the Jiva are very strong and till the time it hasn’t realized to some extent that that these desires for the world do not lead to happiness but only towards pain, the strong inclination for Yoga & Brahmacharya for self-realization doesn’t blossom. When most of the dross of karma which blocked ascent into knowledge starts dissolving, the Jiva gets an inclination and interest to pursue the path leading to self-realization.

Even the smallest degree of progress which is made by the ‘Jivatma’ (embodied soul) through effort in Yoga & Brahmacharya does not ever get wasted. Knowledge which has been earned in past births through efforts & practice becomes fruitful when the time gets ripe for its maturation in this birth. No merit earned through such practice ever goes waste. When the right time comes, the Jiva gets placed in such favorable circumstances where it easily adopts/recollects this knowledge that it has accrued in a former incarnation with some external guidance/impetus.

Arjuna asks this very question to Lord Krishna in the ‘Mahabharata’. “O Lord, What happens to him who though possessed of faith in Yoga and striving in that direction, fails to attain to Yoga (union), due to having become a victim of the senses further to lack of self-control? He looses out enjoying both the life of sense pleasure (for he lead a life bereft of these) and also misses the final beatitude/bliss of self-realization leading to immortality within the Supreme. Having missed both, don’t all his efforts go waste?”

To which the Lord answers:

पार्थ नैवेह नामुत्र विनाशस्तस्य  विद्यते |
न हि कल्याण कृत्कस्चित्दुर्गतिं तात गछति ||

- Chapter 6/ Verse 40, The Bhagavad-Gita   

-- “O Arjuna, neither in this world, nor in the next is there annihilation for him without doubt, who strives towards virtue and goodness”.

तत्र तं बुद्धिसंयोगं लभते पूर्वदेहिकं|
यतते च ततो भूयः संसिद्धौ कुरुनन्दन ||

-Chapter 6/ Verse 43, The Bhagavad-Gita   

-- “There (in his next existence), he comes to be united with the knowledge acquired in his previous birth (for those seeds exist in his causal body) and continues more than before towards attaining perfection”.

Hence one need not worry as regards losing the knowledge gained in this birth through the practice of Yoga & Brahmacharya. It is stored in one’s karmic account. If the Jiva fails to attain to final realization in this birth, it carries forward all the knowledge it came to realize to the next incarnation, wherefrom it continues its efforts. This is also the reason why some people progress very speedily and easily in this path, for their past actions dating back to previous births stored in the ‘Kârana Sharira‘ (causal body) [which is carried along to the next incarnation after death] are supportive to this quest. The positive Samskara-s (impressions) of Yoga that the Jiva had earned previously then act favorably in this existence leading to rapid progress. Such a Jiva grasps and adopts the required tenets very naturally without much effort. There is no question of starting again from scratch but an assured continuation from the point of stoppage.

2. Both the Jiva (embodied soul) and the Almighty exist from before the beginning of time. They are both timeless and infinite in every sense. The Jiva however is in a deranged state right from the start, having forgotten its divine connection and state of integrality with the Supreme. In this limited state of intellect of ours (before self-realization) it is beyond our ability to understand why this is the case. We can only contend in the fact that there is a definite reason for such a dereanged state of the Jiva which then falls away to help it merge into the Supreme. As per the ‘Advaita’ (non-dual) doctrine, this is a part of the Lord’s leela (play) where a part of him imagines itself to be separate, just as a drop raises into a bubble in a pool of water and eventually merges back into the same pool of water.

Every birth is meant to help raise the embodied soul a little higher and help it get closer to knowing who it truly is, which is what constitutes evolution. To know the phenomenon more clearly, one has to reach the shores of self-realization.

3. When man is used to a life of sense stimulation, the ability of the Jiva to look within for strength and well-being retards. It looks outwards for some or the other form of sense gratification thinking it to be a source of solace and happiness. This outward tendency eventually becomes a dependency without which man cannot function. All these are Vikarâ-s (distortions) converse to the true state of the Atman who is completely independent and requires no external stimulus for bliss and contentment. All addictions or dependencies on various sense stimulations such as cravings for drinks, beverages, food etc. belong to this category.

When man takes up a life of Yoga & Brahmacharya and limits his oral consumption only to basic, nutritious food eaten for the purpose of sustainence, his previous habits which stimulated and tickled his mind try to put up resistance. The mind then tries to remind him of this depravation by staging various reactions in the form of oscillating emotions. Withdrawal symptoms from masturbation, recreational sex, stimulating drinks such as alcohol/coffee/tea, partying and many more fall under this purview. All these are to be clearly given up and independence acquired. An established Brahmachari who is becoming content in the self by the self derives the greatest bliss by merging his mind into the Supreme Almighty in meditation and wants nothing more. It is a state of purity and independence from slavery to all external stimuli in the form of sight, smell, taste, sound and touch of anything appealing. One should not give the least attention to such dramatics of the mind but should adhere to winning independence with strict restraint. Persist in a life of Yoga & Brahmacharya as detailed in past answers and the withdrawal symptom from tea drinking will soon wear away to be replaced by confidence which comes from drinking the bliss of the Atman!

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