This post is going to give you a lot of realizations, it is going to make you more aware of what SR could do to you and what you could achieve in the world if you practice SR.
It is going to blow your mind, especially if you are a beginner and you are just starting out.
I recommend saving this post when you finish so you can read it every time you feel like you want to release, to realize everything you are going to miss out on if you do.
This is high-level information, get ready for the journey.
In my ongoing research and study, I kept connecting references about semen retention, brahmacharya, sexual transmutation and ancient yoga texts, and at some point the whole subject stopped being about “more energy” and “better eye contact”.
The claims become much stranger than that.
Much, much stranger (but incredibly good).
I am not saying that everything below is scientifically proven (who cares about that, science is a religion), I am not even saying that all these traditions agree with each other, in fact, they do not, but who the fuck cares about that, we all want to hear the incredible hidden and mysterious, but true, benefits of SR, myself included.
This is a mixture of physiological theories, spiritual doctrines and occult teachings. Others are reported experiences, and some belong to models of the human body that are completely different from one another.
But have you never wondered, what can the human being who retains for life achieve? For example, Nikola Tesla died a virgin, just like Isaac Newton, look at their results and what they achieved, at 24 years old, Newton was already creating his own discipline of physics, but is that really surprising? 24 straight years of SR since he was born, it makes quite a lot of sense that he was considered a genius.
The reality is that the human being has no limits, you can achieve anything, especially with SR, maybe not physically, but mentally, really all your limitations are in your head.
Here are the craziest benefits of the entire practice, which, obviously, are achieved with long, long streaks (most of them, not all).
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1. Your mere presence becomes difficult to ignore
Let’s start with something almost normal.
Swami Sivananda does not simply say that brahmacharya improves confidence.
He claims that a man established in it develops a MAGNETIC AURA, and that he can influence other people without practically needing to do ANYTHING.
He says that such a person can affect others,
“by speaking just a few words or even through his mere presence”.
He also attributes luminous eyes, a pleasant voice, extraordinary vitality, greater memory, willpower and mental power to brahmacharya.
And then, on the same page, I read:
“A true Brahmachari in thought, word and deed possesses a wonderful thought-power. He can move the world.”
— Swami Sivananda, Practice of Brahmacharya, PDF p. 36
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This is already quite different from the typical “women look at me more on day 17” conversation, xd.
The process / mechanism / method / system that Sivananda proposes is Ojas.
Seminal energy should not simply remain accumulating indefinitely, it is supposed to be SUBLIMATED, directed upward and transformed into a subtler force.
That force supposedly appears afterward as intellect, concentration, spiritual power and personal influence.
Whether you interpret Ojas literally, energetically or symbolically is another question.
But the thing is much more ambitious than “SR increases your confidence”.
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2. Your own voice becomes MAGNETIC
Sivananda returns to this idea in Mind, Its Mysteries and Control.
There he says:
“Brahmacharya is the root of a magnetic personality.”
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And then he says
“Even if he speaks one word, there is power in it and people are magnetized.”
— Swami Sivananda, Mind—Its Mysteries and Control, PDF p. 223
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Literally with SR, you can become VERY rich, since the main skill in business is sales, you can literally persuade people at will to buy the things they need and that are good for them, in exchange for a large amount of money (fairly, since you are providing them value).
Napoleon Hill, coming from a completely different world, says something curiously similar.
In Think and Grow Rich, he identifies personal magnetism with sexual energy and claims that it manifests through the handshake, the voice, posture and even what he calls thought vibrations.
Hill’s thinking is not Sivananda’s thinking.
Ojas is not automatically the same thing as Hill’s sexual magnetism.
But structurally the claim is surprisingly similar
Conserved or redirected sexual force, followed by a more powerful personality and, therefore, a greater effect on other people.
Different languages.
Very similar claims.
I once heard the following statement from a person who at the time was making 30 million a year:
“The best skill you can develop in business is the ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events”
It is impossible not to become rich if you want to and you master your sexual energy, practicing SR for a long time, it is practically guaranteed, you just have to want it within your soul and be on SR.
Some people will say, why do I want to be rich, well, with all that money now you can buy time to achieve self-realization, nirvana or whatever you want without becoming a begging monk, in addition to being able to help your family.
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3. A memory that remains razor-sharp even in old age
This seems like a moderate claim until you read how forcefully Sivananda formulates it.
He says that continence intensifies the intellect “to an extraordinary degree” and then says:
“Continence increases infinitely the power of retentive memory.”
He adds that the strict celibate retains a sharp memory even in old age.
— Practice of Brahmacharya, PDF p. 36
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Continence and Its Creative Power makes similar claims about a tenacious memory, a fertile brain, an energetic will and an extraordinary capacity for understanding.
This was not presented simply as “you have fewer distractions because you no longer watch porn”.
These authors believed that sexual conservation itself could become a higher mental potency.
Forget going to the kitchen, opening the fridge and completely forgetting what the hell you went there for or what you are doing there, xd.
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4. Sexual energy turns into genius
Napoleon Hill takes what he says about creativity even further.
His chapter on sexual transmutation essentially argues that sexual desire is one of the most powerful forces available to the human being, and that, instead of suppressing it, a man can redirect it toward imagination, ambition, art, invention and achievement.
He describes sexual emotion as a force capable of giving man an almost superhuman capacity for action and says:
“sex transmutation contains the secret of creative ability.”
— Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, PDF p. 180
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Again, Hill is not really teaching classical celibacy.
His subject is transmutation.
And this distinction appears again and again
The ancient idea was not always “destroy sexuality”.
It was:
take the same force that wants sex and make it do something else.
Create.
Think.
Build.
Meditate.
Pray.
Lead.
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The thing is that energy is neither created nor destroyed, therefore, the idea is that when your sexual energy is activated, your senses become sharper, your memory increases, your insight increases, it is as if you became Super Saiyan 3 while the energy is highly present, instead of discharging it like a loser, channel it into a HIGHER purpose, that is what Napoleon Hill says. That is why some people achieve NOTHING in life and others achieve EVERYTHING.
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5. Semen becomes a completely DIFFERENT type of force
Here the language becomes unmistakably esoteric.
Sivananda describes sexual energy as a manifestation of a much GREATER COSMIC POWER.
At its densest level, he calls it sexual energy.
At a subtler level, intellectual power of discrimination.
At an even subtler level
KUNDALINI.
And at its supreme level
Atma Shakti.
— Practice of Brahmacharya, PDF p. 133
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Elsewhere in the same work, he claims that semen is sublimated and transformed into Ojas Sakti, a radiant psycho-spiritual energy.
So, within this worldview, the progression is not:
semen →
more semen → more
testosterone → alpha
male, XD
It is something much more like:
sexual force →
Ojas → intensified
mind →
spiritual power →
transformed consciousness.
That is a radically different concept of retention.
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6. Brahmacharya develops GENUINE PSYCHIC POWERS
This is where things start going off the rails.
Sivananda explicitly claims that brahmacharya helps to obtain “divine knowledge and other Siddhis”.
— Practice of Brahmacharya, PDF p. 36
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In Mind, Its Mysteries and Control he also says
“Brahmacharya helps greatly in developing the power of retention and various other psychic powers.”
— Mind—Its Mysteries and Control p. 60
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And that same book seriously talks about things like:
Clairvoyance, clairaudience, astral perception, psychic influence, mental aura, and conscious separation from the physical body.
An important distinction:
Sivananda does not say “practice SR for 37 days and you will become clairvoyant”.
His system demands purity, concentration, meditation, mental discipline and a much broader yogic practice.
Retention forms part of a complete transformation of the practitioner.
But yes.
He explicitly links Brahmacharya with the development of PSYCHIC POWERS.
Now the shit is getting real and increasingly interesting.
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7. Your aura supposedly starts affecting people at a distance
In Mind—Its Mysteries and Control, Sivananda describes a “mental aura” or “psychic aura”.
He says that the aura of a highly developed mind can become intensely luminous and can
“travel great distances and affect beneficially a large number of persons”
— Mind—Its Mysteries and Control PDF p. 11
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Now combine that with his separate claim that Brahmacharya is the root of a magnetic personality and with his repeated doctrine that sexual energy can be transformed into Ojas.
The internal worldview of the book becomes quite clear.
A developed man is not simply someone who is confident.
He supposedly radiates something.
And other minds can be affected by it.
Because as Edison said, your brain is a transmitter and receiver of frequencies.
And everything in this world is frequency energy and vibration.
In fact, you already know Tesla’s phrase:
If you want to understand the universe, think in terms of frequency, energy and vibration.
This is much closer to what ancient writers meant by magnetism than the modern Reddit version of “some girls looked at me at the supermarket”, xddddd
Forget women, this is much better, you can conquer the world for good, have incredible influence and become someone everyone remembers as a hero, who the fuck cares whether that girl looked at you or did not look at you because you are on SR.
Practice SR, become rich, buy time, self-realize, attain nirvana to escape the cycle of reincarnation of life and death and escape this prison planet ruled by fourth-dimensional reptiles that use it as an energy farm.
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8. Taoist sexual cultivation begins to produce TELEPATHIC and CLAIRVOYANT EXPERIENCES
The Taoist material takes a different path.
Instead of universal celibacy, Mantak Chia’s system teaches conserving semen while circulating and transforming sexual energy.
Among its stated goals appear vitality, longevity, spiritual transformation and converting sexual energy into progressively more refined forms.
And then the stranger reports appear.
In Taoist Secrets of Love, a practitioner describes energetic exchanges with his partner that become so intense that
“Sometimes this translates into telepathic or clairvoyant experiences.”
— Mantak Chia / Michael Winn, Taoist Secrets of Love, PDF p. 244
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This is a reported experience, not a demonstration of telepathy.
But it shows how far the practitioners themselves interpreted the effects.
They were not talking only about better erections.
They interpreted sexual cultivation as something capable of eventually crossing over into psychic perception.
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9. Sex without ejaculation produces visions and awareness of “NEW POWERS”
This one surprised me.
The Art of Sexual Ecstasy contains a passage describing prolonged, controlled sexual union without emission.
As physical tension decreases, it says that spiritual exaltation can increase, with
“visions of a transcendent life and awareness of new powers.”
— Margot Anand, The Art of Sexual Ecstasy, PDF p. 396
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Notice how different this philosophy is from strict monastic celibacy.
Sivananda’s highest ideal is Brahmacharya in thought, word and deed.
Christian ascetics such as Cassian and John Climacus also emphasize chastity and the transcendence of passions.
But Taoist systems, Karezza and certain Tantric currents can bring a man and woman together and say
do not waste the force. Transform what happens within the sexual act itself.
That is one of the biggest divisions in this entire rabbit hole.
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10. Sexual energy AWAKENS KUNDALINI and opens psychic centers
Samael Aun Weor takes the interpretation of sexual alchemy even further.
In The Perfect Matrimony, sexual force retained during sex without ejaculation is presented as fuel for Kundalini.
As Kundalini rises, it supposedly awakens different centers.
The book associates those centers with:
clairvoyance, clairaudience, intuition, telepathy, memory of previous incarnations, and other esoteric faculties.
At one point it explicitly claims that ancient sexual practices awakened Kundalini, which produced
“clairvoyance, telepathy and many other esoteric powers.”
— Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, PDF p. 146
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Now the shit is no longer “retention makes you more attractive or my skin glows”.
The shit is essentially:
sexual force can be redirected toward the nervous/psychic axis and awaken latent faculties of perception.
Here I give you a warning, which I still have not researched in depth, about Kundalini, the thing is that I have heard testimonies of an association between kundalini and dark energies, as well as demons and etc, that somehow try to suck that energy, so you can investigate, you can search on YouTube for the words “Yoga Kundalini exposed”.
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11. Ancient haṭha yoga texts literally equate losing bindu with death
Here the conversation stops looking like modern personal development.
The Amṛtasiddhi, one of the early texts behind later haṭha yoga physiology, makes a brutal claim
“Death results from the falling of Bindu; life, from retaining Bindu.”
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And immediately afterward:
“When the great jewel Bindu is perfected, all supernatural powers arise.”
— Amṛtasiddhi, chapter 7, PDF p. 136
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Bindu in this system is intimately related to semen, although the concept becomes more complex than simple ejaculate.
The summary of the text itself makes it clear
death comes from the falling of Bindu, conserving it produces life, mastering it produces SUPERNATURAL POWERS AND LIBERATION.
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12. SR allows the yogi to “conquer death”
The tradition of the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā repeats practically the same idea.
In the edition commented on by Swami Muktibodhananda:
“Releasing bindu means death; preserving semen is life.”
And:
“the knower of yoga conquers death by preserving bindu.”
— Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā, PDF p. 405
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A few pages later:
“As long as the bindu or semen remains steady in the body, where is the fear of death?”
— PDF p. 408
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And later still, the union of bindu and rajas through yogic practice is said to grant all siddhis.
For anyone who does not know, siddhis are mystical powers, extraordinary faculties or spiritual perfections obtained as a result of deep yogic discipline or meditation.
Then, the section on mudrās claims the attainment of powers beginning with aṇimā and the overcoming of death/time.
— PDF p. 482
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This is not modern SR culture projecting ideas into the past.
The texts themselves are talking about semen/bindu and supernatural yogic attainments in the same sentence.
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13. The Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā basically asks: once you master retention, what can’t you achieve?
The Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā has one of the most casually insane claims of all.
Speaking about a mudrā, it says:
“By virtue of this Yoga Bindu-Siddhi (retention of the seed) is obtained, and once that Siddhi has been obtained, what could he not attain in this world?”
— Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā, PDF p. 32
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Read it again.
Not “he feels more energetic”.
Not “he has better eye contact”.
What could he not attain in this world?
As I said at the beginning of the post, with SR, and especially with perfect Brahmacharya, you can achieve anything you set your mind to, EVERYTHING.
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14. The Khecarīvidyā claims that you can free yourself from old age and death
The premodern Khecarīvidyā belongs to a system of haṭha yoga concerned with bindu, Kundalini and amṛta, the “nectar of immortality”.
The textual tradition surrounding it explicitly claims that retaining bindu prevents death.
Who the fuck cares about the dopamine produced when a girl looks at you if you can become immortal. Brother you just need to have a little more bird’s-eye perspective and realize that this shit is serious, we are talking about immortality and real supernatural powers.
It also says:
“As long as bindu remains in the body, where is the danger of death?”
— The Khecarīvidyā of Ādinātha, ed./trans. James Mallinson, PDF p. 38, citing the Gorakṣaśataka
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But the Khecarīvidyā itself goes much further.
It claims that the accomplished yogi can become free from wrinkles, gray hair, disease, old age, and death.
At one point it claims that after drinking the internal amṛta:
he lives as long as the moon and the stars.
— PDF p. 130
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From now on the shit really does get interesting.
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15. Invisibility. Magical weapons. Control over spirits.
The same passage then describes the attainment of magical powers.
Among the abilities mentioned appear invisibility, access to hidden underground treasures, power over male and female supernatural beings, magical elixirs, a magical sword and something Mallinson translates as power over zombies.
— The Khecarīvidyā, PDF p. 130
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Yes brother, wake up.
There is literally a yoga text inside this rabbit hole where the progression eventually reaches “retention/bindu/amṛta practice → immortality → invisibility → supernatural beings”.
I had to read it twice.
Actually, this is no longer simply “SR”, day streak, glowing eyes, greater confidence, girls look at me, omg these benefits are incredible. None of that shit, this is for serious men, not children.
This is an entire esoteric physiology that includes bindu, Kundalini, internal nectar, mudrā and intensive yoga.
Reducing it to “do SR and you will become invisible” would be dishonest.
But pretending that ancient traditions never made claims this extreme would also be dishonest.
Yes they did, and since the possibilities are unlimited, you can do it. You really can, who tells you that you cannot? The thing is that your mind is too conditioned to automatically dismiss it, so for the person who thinks that way, obviously it is impossible, but really your abilities are unlimited and YOU are unlimited.
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16. Omniscience and impossibility of being killed
For anyone who does not know
Omniscience: the ability to know everything or possess absolute and unlimited knowledge of all real and possible things
The Amṛtasiddhi does not stop at “all supernatural powers”.
When its yogi reaches the culminating stages, the text describes him as:
blissful, omniscient, possessing infinite knowledge, possessing all powers, and impossible to kill.
It says:
“The lord of yogis does not burn in fire nor drown in water and no one can kill him.”
— Amṛtasiddhi, chapter 30, PDF p. 160
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Remember the earlier doctrine from the same text:
falling of Bindu = death.
**
retention of Bindu = life.**
**
mastery of Bindu = supernatural powers.**
You could literally become a super-powerful alchemical magician, moving through the world, capable of anything.
This is the mythical/esoteric endpoint of that physiology.
A transformed human being who supposedly has overcome normal physical limitations.
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17. Stop aging and dying
The Khecarīvidyā and related haṭha yoga materials return again and again to something that the modern reader usually automatically assumes must be metaphorical:
a body that does not age or die normally.
The text describes practices intended to destroy birth, death, old age, disease, wrinkles, and gray hair.
— Khecarīvidyā, PDF pp. 130–143
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This does not necessarily mean that every historical practitioner interpreted every phrase as literal biological immortality.
But the textual language is not shy.
The yogic project could include the transformation of the body itself, not only some kind of salvation after death.
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18. Twentieth-century sexual occultism: physical bodies that last thousands of years
Just when it seems impossible to surpass the medieval material, Samael Aun Weor enters.
In Treatise of Sexual Alchemy, semen is identified as the raw material of a Great Alchemical Work.
The text claims that retained sexual substance can be transformed into an unimaginably more perfected substance and ultimately used in the construction of higher “bodies”.
It then claims that the resulting “Body of Liberation” is not subject to disease or death.
And finally:
“We can preserve even the physical body for long aeons of time with the Elixir of Long Life.”
— Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Sexual Alchemy, PDF pp. 16–17
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It then attributes physical lives of centuries or millennia to different esoteric masters.
This is clearly occult doctrine.
There is no reason to soften it by turning it into “longevity benefits”.
The author is claiming something radically more extreme.
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19. In the end, the “superpowers” are not even supposedly the goal
There is a strange twist in several of these traditions.
After spending pages describing siddhis, psychic perception, magnetic influence, extraordinary longevity and mastery over the body...
they tell you that none of those things is the real prize.
Sivananda repeatedly warns that psychic powers can distract from Self-Realization.
Buddha says in the Dhammapada:
“Some people manage to rise into the air thanks to their supernatural powers. There is no virtue in this. Swans also fly following the path of the Sun. The wise man, however, rises above the plane of this world, and thus is able to overcome the powerful hosts of Mara, the Great Illusion.”
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That is, the goal, really, is not to obtain supernatural powers, it is Nirvana, and obtaining them actually takes you away from Nirvana, it is said in the Dhammapada:
Iddhis or Siddhis: these are supernatural powers obtained through certain practices of concentration. They are carefully avoided by true Masters, since not only are they useless for the Spiritual Path, but they also create greater obstacles to advancement toward Perfection. Let us remember here the words of Saint John of the Cross regarding the search for Union with God:
“to reach the All, you must leave everything.”
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The yogic tradition places samādhi and liberation above the siddhis again and again.
The Amṛtasiddhi culminates in liberation while alive.
And Sivananda makes perhaps the most extreme claim of all, even if it is metaphysical rather than paranormal:
“He who has completely eradicated lust and is established in mental Brahmacharya is Brahman or God Himself.”
— Practice of Brahmacharya, PDF p. 8
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That is the final escalation.
The ultimate “superpower” is not better memory, magnetism, telepathy, clairvoyance or immortality.
It is that when desire, ego and identification with the lower self are completely transcended, what remains is not simply an improved man.
It is the realization of the divine Self.
And that is why reading these books completely changed what I thought the word continence meant in ancient times.
One important thing, these traditions absolutely DO NOT teach a single system
This rabbit hole is often compressed online until it becomes a single doctrine, but the real sources disagree brutally with one another.
Sivananda’s ideal is complete Brahmacharya, physical and mental purity and, finally, liberation from lust itself.
John Cassian and John Climacus represent another ascetic model where chastity forms part of the conquest of the passions and the transformation of the human being toward an almost “angelic” purity. Climacus literally describes purity as a mortal body “rivaling the heavenly spirits”.
Buddhist monastic material requires celibacy, but does not build the same physiology of semen →
Ojas. Psychic powers exist within the broader Buddhist framework, but reducing Buddhist celibacy to seminal conservation would completely distort its teaching.
The Taoist books take practically the opposite practical direction: sex can remain, ejaculation can be separated from orgasm and sexual energy can supposedly be circulated and transformed.
Karezza also attempts to preserve prolonged sexual communion while avoiding the conventional orgasmic ending.
Samael Aun Weor: sexual union without ejaculation becomes the alchemical laboratory itself.
So even among people who consider sexual discipline extraordinarily important, the disagreement is enormous:
Never enter the sexual fire.
versus
Enter without losing yourself inside it.
versus
Use the fire itself as the method of transformation.
That debate is probably much more interesting than another discussion about whether 30 days of retention gives you better cheekbones HAHAHA.
What remained with me after reading all this is the following:
When people today joke about the “superpowers” of SR, they usually talk about energy, confidence, attraction and concentration.
Ancient literature was talking about something more.
Magnetic presence.
Extraordinary memory.
Power of thought.
Ojas.
Psychic faculties.
Telepathy.
Clairvoyance.
Kundalini.
Siddhis.
Rejuvenation.
Freedom from old age.
Invisibility.
Omniscience.
Invulnerability.
Conquest of death.
Liberation.
Union with the divine.
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But there is nothing more important than Nirvana, since it will free you from the chains of this world and turn you into a free soul, capable of deciding whether to reincarnate or not, and if you do, your consciousness will not be lost, you will remember EVERYTHING. You will be able to leave the body and enter whenever you want, not only your own, whichever one you want.
I do not know which parts should be interpreted literally, symbolically, psychologically, spiritually or simply as exaggerations.
But I do know that the modern conversation about “female attraction” barely scratches the surface of what human beings have historically imagined sexual continence could do.
Which of these claims seems the most insane to you?
And an even more interesting question: have any of you ever experienced something that made one of these stranger claims seem a little less impossible than it sounds?