Lust Quotes - Quotes, The Story Of My Experiments With Truth | The Story of My Experiments with Truth - Summary & Themes - Novels PDF Download

I am sure that, had my love for her [his wife] been absolutely untainted with lust, she would be a learned lady today; for I could then have conquered her dislike for studies. I know that nothing is impossible for pure love. (1.4.6)

Yup, Gandhi says sex gets in the way of pure love. Love without sex is sometimes called platonic love.

Brahmacharya means literally conduct that leads one to God. Its technical meaning is self-restraint, particularly mastery over the sexual organ. (1.7.12)

To be a brahmachari means to be someone who abstains from sexual behavior…totally.

This was also the time when my wife was expecting a baby—a circumstance which, as I can see today, meant a double shame for me. For one thing I did not restrain myself, as I should have done, whilst I was yet a student. And secondly, this carnal lust got the better of what I regarded as my duty to study, and of what was even a greater duty, my devotion to my parents, Shravana having been my ideal since childhood. Every night whilst my hands were busy massaging my father's legs, my mind was hovering about the bed-room—and that too at a time when religion, medical science and commonsense alike forbade sexual intercourse. I was always glad to be relieved from my duty, and went straight to the bed-room after doing obeisance to my father. (1.9.2)

Because he's thinking about having sex with his own wife, Gandhi is distracted while he cares for his fatally ill father.

The shame [...] was this shame of my carnal desire even at the critical hour of my father's death, which demanded wakeful service. It is a blot I have never been able to efface or forget, and I have always thought that, although my devotion to my parents knew no bounds and I would have given up anything for it, yet it was weighed and found unpardonably wanting because my mind was at the same moment in the grip of lust. I have therefore always regarded myself as a lustful, though a faithful, husband. It took me long to get free from the shackles of lust, and I had to pass through many ordeals before I could overcome it. (1.9.10)

Gandhi says he's never been able to forget the shame of paying attention to sex instead of caring more fully for his fatally ill father. This incident may have played a big role in his later choice to become a brahmachari.

What then, I asked myself, should be my relation with my wife? Did my faithfulness consist in making my wife the instrument of my lust? So long as I was the slave of lust, my faithfulness was worth nothing. To be fair to my wife, I must say that she was never the temptress. It was therefore the easiest thing for me to take the vow of brahmacharya, if only I willed it. It was my weak will or lustful attachment that was the obstacle. (3.7.3)

Gandhi's wife doesn't protest when he considers giving up sex. So, it's his decision, not a joint one.

Many aspirants after brahmacharya fail, because in the use of their other senses they want to carry on like those who are not brahmacharis. Their effort is, therefore, identical with the effort to experience the bracing cold of winter in the scorching summer months. There should be a clear line between the life of a brahmachari and of one who is not. The resemblance that there is between the two is only apparent. The distinction ought to be clear as daylight. Both use their eyesight, but whereas the brahmachari uses it to see the glories of God, the other uses it to see the frivolity around him. Both use their ears, but whereas the one hears nothing but praises of God, the other feasts his ears upon ribaldry. [...] Thus both live as the poles apart, and the distance between them will grow and not diminish with the passage of time. (3.8.7)

Earlier we said a brahmachari is someone who gives up sex, but according to Gandhi, such a person needs to do more than abstain from sexual behavior. They also have to learn to restrain their other senses rather than indulge them.

It was a time when I thought the wife was the object of her husband's lust, born to do her husband's behest, rather than a helpmate, a comrade and a partner in the husband's joys and sorrows. (4.10.9)

So, if a spouse isn't for sex, what's a spouse for? According to this book, they should be a helpmate, comrade, and partner. Gandhi and Kasturbai are still very much devoted to one another as partners in life, so even though they don't have sex, they're still married and in a unique relationship they share only with one another. Consider what might happen in a marriage if one spouse cannot have sex for whatever reason, say, a physical injury. Gandhi thinks it's completely possible for the couple to remain just as married as before—in fact, he'd say they're more married, more true to one another, without sex getting in the way.

I too took the plunge—the vow to observe brahmacharya for life. I must confess that I had not then fully realized the magnitude and immensity of the task I undertook. The difficulties are even today staring me in the face. (4.24.9)

Gandhi admits it isn't easy to give up sex. A life without sex seems to be something you never fully get used to.

Life without brahmacharya appears to me to be insipid and animal-like. The brute by nature knows no self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint. What formerly appeared to me to be extravagant praise of brahmacharya in our religious books seems now, with increasing clearness every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on experience. (4.24.9)

It's hard for most people to imagine giving up sex forever. But, Gandhi says life with sex is insipid and animal-like. He clearly prefers life without it.

I saw that brahmacharya, which is so full of wonderful potency, is by no means an easy affair, and certainly not a mere matter of the body. It begins with bodily restraint, but does not end there. The perfection of it precludes even an impure thought. A true brahmachari will not even dream of satisfying the fleshly appetite, and until he is in that condition, he has a great deal of ground to cover. (4.24.10)

Okay, so you gave up sex. And thought you had everything covered. Nope, says Gandhi, there's more. You can't even have impure thoughts. Whoa.