Every day, we make dozens of small decisions about where our energy goes. Some are obvious, like what to wear or what to cook. A lot of them, though, happen without us really noticing.
The mental spiral that starts when someone doesn’t reply to a message.
The energy spent rehearsing a conversation that may never happen.
The worry about an outcome that is completely outside your control.
None of these feels like choices at the time. They just feel like things that are happening to us, but Brahmacharya asks us to look at them a little differently. It asks us to notice where our attention and energy are going, and whether we are choosing it or just getting pulled along.
What Is Brahmacharya?
In the Yoga Sutras, Brahmacharya is the fourth of the Yamas, the ethical principles that form the foundation of the eight-limbed path.
Yoga Sutra 2.38
Brahmacharya pratisthayam virya labhah
‘Upon being firmly established in brahmacharya, vigour is gained.’
Most of us know Brahmacharya as celibacy, and traditionally, that is what it means: the conservation of sexual energy in service of spiritual practice.
But for householders like you and me, I think there is another way of looking at it too. The underlying principle is about managing desires and energy. Every sense we follow without awareness costs something. Brahmacharya asks us to notice which things are actually worth our energy and which ones quietly drain us.
Gossip can feel like connection, but it costs energy.
Worrying about things we cannot change can feel like caring, but it costs energy.
Scrolling through social media can feel like a break, but sometimes we come away feeling more tired than before.
Brahmacharya asks us to look honestly at where our energy is going. Are we putting it there consciously, or are we doing it because it has become a habit?
What This Means for the Nervous System
The nervous system uses energy too.
Every worry spiral, every unresolved tension, every time we keep going over something we cannot control, keeps the system slightly switched on.
It is that quiet background hum where you are never quite resting because your mind is always processing something.
From a nervous system perspective, Brahmacharya can be about turning that background hum down a little.
When someone doesn’t reply to a message, there is a pull.
What did I do wrong?
Should I follow up?
Can I trust this person?
Before we know it, we have spent half an hour thinking about something that may have nothing to do with us. Brahmacharya is noticing that spiral and deciding not to follow it.
Easier said than done, I know.
How I Try to Practise This
Brahmacharya is hard to practise, but there are a few things I have learnt that help.
Taking each day as it comes rather than living three weeks ahead in my head.
Planning enough to feel safe, but not so much that the plan itself becomes another source of anxiety.
Putting my energy into what is actually under my control and leaving the rest outside of me.
And probably the hardest one, when things don’t work out despite my best efforts, trying not to beat myself up about it.
This is where Brahmacharya meets Ahimsa for me.
Conserving our energy isn’t only about choosing where to put it. It is also about not wasting more energy punishing ourselves when things don’t go the way we wanted.
Sometimes we did everything we could, and it still didn’t work out.
That has to be okay too.
The Vigour the Sutra Promises
The Sutra says that when we are established in Brahmacharya, vigour is gained.
I don’t think that means becoming more productive, more driven or squeezing more out of every day.
It is the steady energy that becomes available when we stop spending so much of ourselves on things that were never ours to carry.
The energy that is left when we stop leaking it.
A Question to Carry With You
Where is your energy going today that is outside your control?
And what will become available if you gently brought some of it back?