Yoga psychology recommends conscious suppression followed by sublimation of the sexual instinct, but never repression. Sublimation of the sexual instinct is largely a conscious and deliberate process involving ‘facing actual facts and dealing with them creatively’. Initially, this may lead to conflicts and troubles, but a sincere aspirant soon overcomes all these conflicts of the lower planes and ascends to higher planes of consciousness.
It is important to note the difference between these two
processes: suppression and repression. Suppression is ‘the restraint of an
idea, activity, or reaction by something more powerful’ or ‘the conscious inhibition
of unacceptable memories, impulses, or desires.’ Repression, on the other hand,
is a subconscious process involving ‘the action of forcing, desires and urges,
especially those in conflict with the accepted standards of conduct, into the
unconscious mind, often resulting in abnormal behavior’. Sublimation is a
process of conscious suppression and canalization of libido and not subconscious
repression. In this process the person involved knows that a particular impulse
is being suppressed and why it is being suppressed. In addition, the person
also exercises sublimation by directing the suppressed energy into higher
channels of consciousness with a definite purpose in view.
When all the suppressed energy is sublimated, there is no
energy left to draw the person down to lower levels of consciousness.
Therefore, it is absolutely harmless. Sublimation can also take place
spontaneously without much of suppression, even without one being conscious of
it, if one’s psychic energies are fully focused on higher intellectual or
spiritual ideals. Repression, on the contrary, is a harmful process. It pushes
the impulses to the unconscious where they remain hidden, though the behavior
of the person continues to be under their influence.
The sexual instinct is a form of energy, and energy can
never be destroyed; we can only change its form. All those who have sublimated
the sexual impulse ask us to direct our efforts more to the attempt at holding
on to higher ideals than to the mere struggle with base instincts. When the
hold of the higher ideals is stronger than the pull exerted by base instincts,
the latter fall off in a natural way.
What is required for sublimating our energies into higher
channels is the purification of our samskaras and the neutralization of
negative samskaras. The major portion of our minds is unconscious, the storehouse
of samskaras. The purification of the unconscious mind releases great energy
because the unconscious mind is also the storehouse of psychic energy. The
problem with every fresh spiritual aspirant is that the higher ideal is
accepted only in the conscious mind while the unconscious mind continues functioning
in its old way. If the unconscious mind can be purified and integrated with the
conscious mind, intra-psychic conflict is reduced and brahmacharya greatly
facilitated.
Great spiritual personalities have put stress on certain
means for effective sublimation: earnest desire for God, japa, prayer,
discernment, meditation, among others. Aids to sublimation can be physical or
mental.
Source - excerpts from article titled 'Brahmacharya and Its Practice' by Swami Yukteshananda published in the Prabuddha Bharata Magazine January 2010 issue.