Paramahansa Yogananda, Sex Quotations

Paramahansa Yogananda on Sex

The following paginated and verbatim Yogananda quotations are taken from three of Yogananda's books. They present a Hindu monk's stands as to having sex. You will find he holds a restrictive view, or maybe a repressive one. Book references are given further down.

I have arranged the sayings from the "Yogananda universe" according to a scheme, furnished the headings, and written a comment at the end.

- Tormod Kinnes

Yogananda teaches that married couples should be moderate in having sex, and singles should not have it

The sexual man . . . man forgets his own position, and his relations with society, and commits great blunders that ruin his life and the lives of others. [Ak 200]

A most important way to eliminate fatigue is to conserve the sex vitality. The single person should be fully self-controlled, and married couples should be moderate in their sexual relations. [Dr 184]

It is extremely important to conserve your power of sex. Overindulgence in sex and misuse of Nature's creative force will bring on disease and old age quicker than anything else. It devitalizes the body and weakens the immune system. Married couples should practice moderation, and single persons should observe abstinence. [Jse 14] ◊

Slavery to habits such as drinking or sex indulgence will destroy you. [Dr 313]

Except for the purpose of procreation, and the expression of mutual true love in the holy state of matrimony, the creative urge is intended by God to be transmuted into energy and divine realization. [Ak 3159

Yogananda teaches that self-controlled people should be used creatively some way too, by associating with them

To be enslaved by sex is to lose . . . everything that man needs to be happy. [Ak 315] (3)

Who created sex temptation . . .? . . . We do find evil in the world. And where did it come from? God. [Dr 108]

Sex experience is ruinous to youthful lives . . . In India, young people never touch or kiss until they are married. [Dr 10]

The sexual person ought to be surrounded by self-controlled people; the habitual thief needs the society of honest people. [Ak 201]

Some spiritual aspirants renounce sex, money, and material desires to enter a monastery or ashram, and then want to renounce constructive activities also. [Dr 237]

Persons who are licentious in their habits might find some good in the basic aspects of practicing moderation and mental control. [Jse 184] ◊

Those who live too much on the sex plane lose their way and fail to find a satisfying marital relationship. [Dr 7-8]

The vital essence, or sexual fluid, contains a high concentration of prana. If not dissipated, the power therein can be used to enhance physical health, mental vitality and creativity, and spiritual development. [Ak 64n]

It is wrong to strive purposely to attract the opposite sex through sex appeal. [Dr 10]

Yogananda says that having much sex weakens the body and renders it vulnerable to illness

Corroding emotions of anger, greed, and jealousy, and overstimulation by sex, alcohol, or drugs are extremely detrimental to you. [Ak 194] (5)

If you are a slave to sex and misuse its power, and forget its divine purpose - to create children - you will lose energy, and destroy your physical and mental health. [Dr 368]

Sexual excess impairs the nervous system and the brain cells . . . Overindulgence in sex destroys will power, also. Hence . . . practice moderation in marital relations, as nature intended. [Ak 201]

The abuse of sex is comparable to running a car without oil; the body cannot stand it. Each drop of vital essence lost is equivalent to the loss of eight drops of blood. But the important point to remember is to learn self-control. [Dr 9]

The use of alcohol and drugs frequently leads to overindulgence in sex, which shuts out the power of spiritual inspiration. [Ak 160] ◊

The highest use of sex is the sublimation of its power in order to manifest spiritual thoughts and ideals and wisdom. [Ak 315]

To be overactive sexually is detrimental to memory, draining its power more than any other factor. [Dr 157]

Illness comes when the resisting power of the blood has been diminished by wrong eating or by overeating, or when overindulgence in sex has depleted the vital energy. To conserve the physical creative energy is to supply all the cells with vibrant life energy; the body then possesses a tremendous resistance to disease. Sexual overindulgence weakens the body and renders it vulnerable to illness. [Ak 87-89] ◊◊

Hickman, who murdered a little girl many years ago, was possessed. I have studied him thoroughly. He was a good boy, but abnormal sexual drive and abuse weakened his brain, and a tramp soul took possession of his body. This is the reason he killed the girl in such a vicious way. [Dr 291-92]

In married life there is the compulsion of sex. [Ak 159] ◊◊◊

Banish all desires born of selfishness or sex compulsion. [Ak 158]

One must practice celibacy and absolutely forget sex if one wants to know divine love through friendship. [Dr 12]

Liquor increases man's desires for money and sex, and it is therefore the worst evil of the three. [Ak 86]

When sex is . . . used only to gratify lustful instincts, it becomes a tool of the devil. [Ak 282]

Satan created sex; that temptation . . . [Ak 281]

Gist

THE CAULDRON signals that the general drift - especially the last stretch of it - is generally non-productive. [Read more]

1. Yogananda teaches that married couples should be moderate in having sex, and singles should not have it.
2. Yogananda also teaches that self-controlled people should be used creatively . . .
3. Yogananda further claims that having much sex weakens the body and renders it vulnerable to illness.

Comment

All kriya yoga gurus are not as strict as Yogananda (1893-1952). In a kriya yoga tradition that stems from Swami Sivananda, for example, kriya is taught freely, in books, without imposing on the life of those who learn it. [Cy; Kta]. Swami Satyananda Saraswati, a disciple of Sivananda, says for example,

Yoga can improve or rectify sexual relationships . . . Inadequate sexual relations are often the cause of much unhappiness and frustration . . . Yoga practices . . . increase one's one's ability to enjoy sexual union. [Cy 2]

Satyananda, further, "We are only interested in helping you to gain maximum happiness and fulfilment in life. [Cy 3]"

Paying heed to silver-tongued, stiff barking and prattle against regular sex and fun can lead into a very counterproductive drift in life. Such a take is what the caudron picture signals. In other words, it says "BEWARE!"

Yogananda has decreed many sorts of regulations for members of his kriya church. One wife of an SRF devotee blurted out about Yogananda in my presence, "He ruined my marriage!" She also said she hated him.

Forewarned is forearmed. Medical expertise today may say "Good Heavens!" to some of the guru's barker views, and blood donors too. They may lose more blood than some who have lovely sex thousands of times. I guess Yogananda did not think of that. And by the way, if you drink half a glass of milk, it helps the building of blood cells very well - to compensate for fluids spent on having sex.

The repeated stance of the monk Yogananda was that money, sex, and drinking were bad and of Satan, but he also decreed that it was God who had created the sex temptation. Seek consistency, seek elsewhere.

There are four key ideals for Hindus. They are dharma, righteousness, artha, wealth, kama, delight, and moksha, great freedom. Artha is wealth, prosperity, and kama is sensual pleasure, lust, and other pleasures. It behoves humans to prosper and delight as long as universal righteousness (dharma) is not violated. Such is the firmly established stance in Hinduism. Compare what Buddha says about true friends.

What is right for humans as to having sex? Is it having it for the purpose of having children only, quite like many all right animals? After all, Yogananda blunderbuss decrees, "Have sex like animals." He tells in his autobiography that his own parents lived like that. They had sex only once a year, and eight children.

Early in their married life, my parents became disciples of a great Master, Lahiri Mahasaya of Varanasi [Benares] . . . Mother made a remarkable admission to my eldest sister Roma: "Your father and myself live together as man and wife only once a year, for the purpose of having children." [Chapter 1]

According to the Old Testament, God wanted humans to people the earth. He was not a kill-joy:

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. [Genesus 1:26-28]

This was ordained before any Fall of mankind, and not favoured in cults that dogmatise for total abstinence against "sexual slavery". The risk is that "dogmatist slavery" takes its place.

Literature  

Ak: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Man's Eternal Quest. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1982.

Cy: Satyananda Saraswati, Swami. A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya. Munger: Yoga Publications Trust, 1981.

Dr: Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Divine Romance. New ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1993.

Jse: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Journey to Self-realization: Discovering the Gift of the Soul. New ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 2000.

Kta: Satyananda Saraswati, Swami. Kundalini Tantra. 8th ed. Munger: Yoga Publications Trust, 2001.



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