Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2

Brahmacharya

BRAHMACHARYA means the storage of energy in the body and its sublimation. The energy in view is mainly physicovital energy, the vital energy based upon and imbedded in the physical body. Brahmacharya naturally meant a strict observance of certain rules and regulations involving a strenuous discipline.

Brahmacharya was the very basis of education in ancient India: indeed, it was the basic education upon which Indian culture, Indian civilization, Indian life was based and built up. Without it there was no entry into the business of life.

Modern education means storage of information, knowledge of things-as much knowledge of as many things as it is possible for the brain to contain. The older ideal, however, was not so much knowledge, that is to say, packet of knowings, but capacity, first capacity in a general way, and then as its application, the capacity of knowledge. The problem was to locate, that is to say, find out the source of energy then master it, increase it, harness it and utilise it. The physicovital energy is the most elementary and elemental energy that is nearest to us and most easily available. It is the basic energy; man starts his life with that, a child possesses it abundantly. The first problem is how to store it; evidently it is most liable to be thrown or frittered away. The first form of the discipline in the preparatory stage of early life is regularity in habits, methodical physical exercises; even a fixed routine sometimes helps much. Next comes self-control, continence, physical purity. This is Brahmacharya proper. It means the exercise of conscious will.

We do not speak of Brahmacharya in relation to a child. The discipline can be taken up only when the body and the

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consciousness have attained a certain degree of growth and development. A child grows in the full free play of its life movements: the care or attention of others should weigh upon it as lightly as possible, maintaining only an atmosphere of happy influence and protection. The transition from the stage of free play to conscious control is marked in Indian society by the ceremony of upanayana, the first approach or initiation: it is the beginning of the life of Brahmacharya.

It must be understood that this discipline is not merely for those who wish to follow a religious or spiritual life, but for all without exception. Brahmacharya is the first ashrama, order or stage of life with which one begins one's organisation of life; one has to pass through it to others leading to greater and higher degrees of fulfilment. It forms the foundation, prepares the necessary ground upon which the life structure

can safely be raised and maintained. It is the secret fund of strength, the source of pure energies that vitalises life, enhances its values, makes it worth living.

The energy that one stores by continence, regular habits and self-discipline increases also in that way. Sometimes special methods - kriya - are adopted to help the process, Asana or Pranayama, for example. But an inner and a more psychological procedure is needed, a concentration of will and consciousness-a kind of dhyana, in other words-in order to be able to take the next step in discipline. For after the storage and increase of energy comes the sublimation of energy, that is to say, the physico-vital energy transmuted into the energy of mental substance, medha. Sublimation means also the increase of brain-power, an enhancement in the degree and quality of its capacity. This has nothing to do with the volume of knowledge enclosed (the mass of information to which we referred before) the growth is with regard to the very stuff of the mind from within, the natural strength of intelligence that can be applied to any field of knowledge with equal success and felicity.

The basis and the immediate aim of education according to the ancient system was to develop this fundamental mental capacity: the brain's power to think clearly, consistently and deeply, to undergo labour without tiring easily and also a general strength and steadiness in the nerves. The transference

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of nervous energy into brain energy is also a secret of the process of sublimation. It is precisely this aspect of education that has been most neglected in modern times. We give no thought to this fundamental: we leave the brain to develop as it may (or may not), it is made to grow under pressure-more to inflate than to grow-by forcing into it masses of information. The result at best is that it is sharpened, made acute superficially or is overgrown in a certain portion of it in respect of a narrow and very specialised function, losing thereby a healthy harmony and homogeneity in the total movement. The intellectual's nervous instability is a very common phenomenon among us.

In recent times, however, we have begun to view children's education in a different light. It is being more and more realised that things are not to be instilled into the child from outside, but that the child should be allowed to grow and imbibe naturally. The teacher is only a companion and a guide: he is to let the child move according to its own inclinations, follow its own line of curiosity; he can open up and present new vistas of curiosity, seek to evoke new interests. Sympathy and encouragement on his side giving scope to freedom and autonomous development for the child-this is the watchword and motto for the ideal teacher.

This new approach has rectified much of the wrong handling of the problem of education to which we have been accustomed. Even this new orientation, however, is not sufficient: along with freedom and autonomy, the element of discipline and order has also to be brought in, if not quite in the old way at least in a new manner. It will not do to say simply that it must be self-discipline and self-order, but the question is how it is to be practically carried out. In ancient times it was done by living the life of an aspirant, not merely by studying and going to school, being only a student-but living in the hours of the teacher, in the atmosphere of his direct presence and influence: the teacher too was not a machine issuing mechanical instruction, but a Person who loved and whom one loved, a warm embodiment of the ideal.

In our days there has been this unhappy division between the student and the aspirant. In the student life, life and study are things apart. One may be a good student, study very

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seriously and attain considerable eminence in intellectual achievement, and yet in life one may remain quite the ordinary man with very normal reactions. Along with the brain we do not endeavour to educate the life instincts and body impulses. This portion of our nature we leave all alone and do not dare or care to handle it consciously. Sometimes we call that freedom; but it is more slavery than freedom, slavery to our commonplace animal nature. Because one follows one's impulses and instincts freely, without let or hindrance one feels as if he were free. Far from it.

This hiatus in our nature, the separation between intellectual culture and life movement has to be healed up; human personality must be made a unified whole. The training given under Brahmacharya will be of immense help in that direction. The deeper purpose, however, of this discipline is not merely a unification of the personality, but a heightening also, lifting it to a level of consciousness from where it can envisage its spiritual destiny and seek to realise it.

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