Jagat

As I have been trying to say, I am approaching the question of Krishna consciousness and sexuality from my own life experience. I should therefore confess that my sexual drive has been (I believe) comparatively low in comparison to the majority of the population, particularly in the West. I did not have an especially great struggle as a brahmachari and my motivations in becoming a householder in Iskcon may sound rather strange to most: I saw it as a psychologically purificatory experience. I slipped out of that experience rather easily in the late seventies and did not find it a great jump to taking sannyas in 1979. The straw that broke the camel’s back of my stay in Iskcon was, in fact, the experience of listening to a brahmachari masturbate in the toilet cubicle next to mine in the Hyderabad temple. It was my feeling then that the Iskcon environment was too sensual to assure self-control. The lifestyle of Bhavananda Maharaj seemed to caricature the true renunciate lifestyle, which is...