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		<b><font face="Times New Roman"><i>Brahmacharya</i> </font></b></p>
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<font face="Times New Roman">BRAHMACHARYA means the storage of energy in the body and
its sublimation. The energy in view is mainly physico-vital
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.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Brahmacharya was the very basis of education in ancient
India: indeed, it was the basic education upon which Indian&nbsp;
culture, Indian civilization, Indian life was based and built
up. Without it there was no entry into the business of life.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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
physico-vital 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.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We do not speak of Brahmacharya in relation to a child.
The discipline can be taken up only when the body and the</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">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 <i>upanayana,</i> the first approach or
initiation: it is the beginning of the life of Brahmacharya.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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, <i>medha.</i> 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.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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 </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">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.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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:</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">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.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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.<b> </b> One may be a good student, study very</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">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.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 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.</font>
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Page 196<hr>

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