When you can justify the act, you justify the thought process also. Plain stimulation of the organ without any involvement of the mind cannot lead to orgasm. Anything repeated loses its charm soon. Therefore, the need for variety of thoughts and fantasies. Is masturbation only physical! Not always. This preoccupation often gets carried forward to the office, outside it, at parties, during journeys. The mind keeps playing the game. Accustomed to the act of enjoying such thoughts we do not mind indulging in naughty thinking. It often becomes a past time. And that is the cause of all that is bad. We lose our power of concentration. We lose our personal charisma. We lose our glow. It happens slowly but steadily. We become irritable. We often become infatuated physically and think it is love. We look for escapades. We look for means of releasing ourselves. The more we try to release our urges the stronger they become. What often holds us back from performing actual fantasy is the fear. Fear of society and our upbringing. But we feel free to engage our thoughts and to engage in our fantasy through masturbation. Some still cannot hold back and it results in crime.
Any activity that tends to involve your mind towards continued sexual thoughts is harmful for the mind. It leads to self-indulgence and gives rise to sexual fantasies. Most of us waste our precious teen and youth in trying to indulge in such thoughts thus weakening our mind. Our mind is one of our most precious gifts. It is also a source of unlimited energy. The aim of every teen and youth should be to garner and harness it for greater and greater powers for the benefit of all. However, the continued indulgence in such carnal desires and fantasies weakens the powers of our mind. This needs to be taught to every child. This is what needs to be covered in sex education too. Sex education is not just about sexual organs and sex activity but also about the need of controlling sexual impulses. The concept of Bramhacharya was born out of such a need. The wise (wo)men of the bygone era understood the subtle yet harmful effects of indulgence in matters of sex at an early age. They did not deny sex but delayed it till the age of marriage (grihastha). Bramhacharya did not merely insist on physical abstinence but on complete eradication of sexual thoughts from the realm of mind till one became a Grihastha.
Sex has become an all too important facet in marriage. Legally too, the mere absence of it can be a ground for divorce. Hence the need for sex has somehow become all pervasive. Sex is often the cause of personality disorders in women and men. Unable to express or eradicate it from the realm of dreams and desires, they sulk and the passion often expresses itself in other forms. While in case of men such ex-pressions may be, to a larger extent, exercised on the external world; in case of women the damage may be more internal. And masturbation only fuels up such desires. Instead of removing such latent carnal urges from the realm of mind, we often fuel them up by resorting to masturbation.
I ask you plain and simply. Is it OK for you to think of your spouse's friend while masturbating? Is it OK for you to think of another partner while masturbating? Is it OK for you to think of another partner while having sex with your spouse? If it's OK mentally then it should be OK physically too. And that goes for the spouse too. Then where is the sanctity of marriage? Is physical attachment the only thing in marriage and love? Is it not all about two minds? Is it only about physical needs? No wonder we have this element of distrust between partners. No wonder we have breaks and divorces. Sex predominates. All because the minds are sullied by continuous indulgence in wayward carnal desires. The mind waves interact. They clash. The purer the waves, the easier for them to resonate. Go to any temple or mosque or any religious place, which is reasonably clean. Doesn't it give you a different feeling, a feeling of purity, a feeling of confidence, a feeling of calmness and serenity? That's because the place has so many minds resonating in pure reverence. The sum total of thought waves interacting there is purer.
My advice to them who are young is. Avoid masturbation or any such activity that takes your mind towards carnal fantasies. It is fine only in so far it helps in temporary release of the pressures of the libido. It's a solution for the weak and not for them who are strong. Use it to become stronger but not as an end by itself. It is not a prescription. Even to them who are married. Avoid as far as you can. Being faithful means being faithful in the mind too. Avoid the thoughts, not just the act. Mark my words. Do it for a month and see the difference yourself. Do it always and you become a powerhouse. Think clean in the presence of your friends, your loves, your children, and your colleagues and see the difference for yourself. Start from your bedroom and expand to the world. The mind waves you generate make the difference. They affect those around you. That is why chastity is so important. Not just in action but in thoughts too.
“In my first speech in this country, in Chicago, I addressed that audience as “Sisters and Brothers of America”, and you know that they all rose to their feet. You may wonder what made them do this, you may wonder if I had some strange power. Let me tell you that I did have a power and this is it ? never once in my life did I allow myself to have even one sexual thought. I trained my mind, my thinking, and the powers that man usually uses along that line I put into a higher channel, and it developed a force so strong that nothing could resist it.” — Vivekananda
We may not have that kind of control, but at least we can draw our own conclusions out of it.
