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Brahmacharya : Sri Aurobindo: The sex-energy utilised by Nature for the purpose of reproduction is in its real nature a fundamental energy of Life. It can be used not for the heightening but for a certain intensification of the vital-emotional life; it can be controlled & diverted from the sex-purpose & used for aesthetic & artistic or other creation & productiveness or preserved for heightening of the intellectual or other energies. Entirely controlled it can be turned into a force of spiritual energy also. This was well known in ancient India & was described as the conversion of retas into ojas by Brahmacharya. Sex-energy misused turns into disorder & disintegration of the life-energy & its powers. [SABCL Vol. 24:1516] Manomohan Gangopadhyaya: In 1909, after his acquittal, I once invited Sri Aurobindo for lunch. He came with a shawl draped over his shirt, & had a shaggy beard.... We discussed whether one can maintain brahmacharya after marriage. I was of the opinion that one can’t. He was explaining how it was in fact possible. I was curious to know whether Sri Aurobindo himself maintained it but could not muster the courage to ask him. After a while he told me, “I can see what is in your mind. You are eager to know whether I have sexual relations with my wife or not. I don’t. I have been able to maintain my brahmacharya even after marriage.” [Shruti-Smriti, part I, 1927, p.13] ― Abinash Bhattacharya: I asked Aurobindo-babu him one day: “Sejda, on the one hand you practise the austerities of yoga & on the other you sleep in one bed with your wife. What kind of austerity is that?” Smiling sweetly he said: “It is not simply by sharing a bed with one’s wife that brahmacharya is lost. To form a group of naked ascetics is not my intention. We have thirty-three lakhs of such ascetics in India. I want grihastha sannyāsis… men leading the full life in the world who when the need arises will renounce everything at the call of duty.” [“Sri Aurobindo”, Mother India, July 2012, pp.528-39]