Garland of Brahmacharya - based on yoga

Brahmacharya is abstaining from all kinds of Maithuna or sexual enjoyment forever, in all places and in all conditions, physically, mentally and verbally.  Thinking of a woman or her picture, praising a woman or her picture, sporting with a woman or her picture, glancing at a woman or her picture, secretly talking to a woman, thinking of a sinful action towards a woman actuated by sensuality, determining upon the sinful action, and bodily action resulting in the discharge of semen are the eight characteristics of copulation; and Brahmacharya is quite contrary to all these eight indications.

Know that in this world there is nothing that cannot be attained by one who remains from birth to death a perfect celibate In one person, knowledge of the four Vedas, and in another, perfect celibacy - of these, the latter is superior to the former who is wanting in celibacy.

Brahmacharya or spotless chastity is the best of all penances; a celibate of such spotless chastity is not a human being, but a god indeed.  To the celibate who conserves the semen with great efforts, what is there unattainable in this world?

Those students who find that world of God through chastity, theirs is that heavenly country; theirs, in whatever world they are, is freedom.

A wise man should avoid married life as if it were a burning pit of live coals.  From the contact comes sensation, from sensation thirst, from thirst clinging; by ceasing from that, the soul is delivered from all sinful existence.  These sexual propensities, though they are at first like ripples, acquire the proportions of a sea on account of bad company.

Sensuality destroys life, lustre, strength, vitality, memory, wealth, great fame, holiness and devotion to the Supreme.  Death is hastened by letting out semen from the body; life is saved and prolonged by preserving it.

There is no doubt that people die prematurely by letting the semen out of the body; knowing this, the Yogi should always preserve semen and lead a life of strict celibacy.  Caution in diet is of threefold value, but abstinence from sexual intercourse is of fourfold value. The Sannyasi had, and has, a rule never to look at a woman.