A break in secular academics added great depth to my brahmacharya stage of life
By Rutvij Holay
Brahmacharya, “divine conduct,” is considered to be the first, or “student phase” of a Hindu’s life, marked by learning and restraint. In a world where education is considered to be a degree, most Hindus assume that college fulfills brahmacharya.
In reality, however, education is to brahmacharya as exercise is to yoga. While the former is certainly a major benefit of the latter, mere education cannot make a brahmachari. Even celibacy alone does not constitute brahmacharya. It is so much more: self-discipline, spiritual knowledge and knowing oneself. It is to speak truth and personify peace as directed in the Upanishads. All this has appealed to me since the age of six.
As I grew and learned more, my need to embody brahmacharya grew as well. This desire came to a head in 2023, as floods diverted a Vishwa Hindu Parishad project I was sent on from Uttarakhand to Kerala. I had the chance to spend significant amounts of time with sannyasis like Swami Advayananda of Chinmaya Mission, who had, through years of effort, become lifetime brahmacharis. Within a day, he was able to take the clutter in my mind, and help me organize it in order to ask questions in a more efficient manner—a skill that has helped me both in spirituality and the material world, one more valuable than anything else I have been taught in the latter.
That meeting stayed with me: if a day living amongst brahmacharis could do so much, how much more could I gain by staying longer? By the time I returned to the US, I had worked up the courage to tell my mother I wished to defer my admission to Stanford, and instead pursue brahmacharya. After days of continuous, passionate discussion, a compromise was reached: I would complete one year at Stanford alongside a summer internship in order to fully understand what I might throw away, and if I still wanted to go, a gap year could be considered after my freshman year.
True to my word, I completed an enjoyable internship at a venture capital fund after freshman year at Stanford, taking courses mainly in computer science and economics. To my parents’ dismay, however, my desire to study our shastras in a traditional manner had not diminished whatsoever. While they were never happy about my leaving, what eventually convinced them to oppose it less vehemently, ironically, was a talk with one of Stanford’s academic counselors. Students are required to talk with them before taking a leave of absence, and my parents hoped that she would “knock some sense” into me. Instead, she pointed out that students who took gap years at any point in their college career tended to have higher grades and better job placements, and so wholeheartedly encouraged me to go.
While convincing my parents, I had also begun the process of creating a tentative plan, including finding an ashram to study in. With the help of monks at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, I found a place to start my journey in Kerala at the ashram of Swami Chidananda Puri. The ashram seemed to have more of an intellectual focus (in line with my personality), was smaller and so would allow me to directly interact with Swamiji. Further, I had previously worked in the area and knew the local language.
The rest of my trip was rather unplanned: I would stay in Kerala as long as I “felt like it,” and go to other ashrams where I had made contacts as circumstances demanded. The only other set part of my agenda was to visit the Kumbh Mela at Prayag. The idea was that, since swamis from all of Bharat would come, I could perhaps learn more in one month at the Kumbh than I might learn in a year of wandering Bharat. Logically, this plan bordered on foolhardy. Looking back, however, I feel that by proceeding anyway, I fell back on the Divine and let it guide my journey, which made it more fulfilling than anything I could plan.
Advaithashramam: Kolathur, Kerala, India
So, I wrapped up my summer internship and took a flight to Kozhikode, from where I was picked up and taken to the village of Kolathur, around two hours away. From what I understand, this is one of the few remote areas left in a rapidly industrializing Kerala. There were only three places of interest in the area: the ashram, a mandir to Shiva, and a Narasimha Mandir with a kund (holy pool) in which I bathed daily.
Besides that, the area was surrounded by forest, at least from an American perspective. It provided a certain serenity, waking up to the sounds of birds and seeing the rays of sun break through the trees. At the same time, for me it was scary, too, living in a forest. Creatures—from mosquitoes to spiders the size of your hand—would easily find their way into our sleeping quarters.
The first things that we were told to do at the ashram were those that would add a certain amount of basic discipline into our lives: how to cut vegetables, how to clean and how to wash our clothes. It was the last one that was the most difficult for me, given that, living in the US, I had never even seen clothes being washed by hand, rather than in a washing machine.
For around a month, Swamiji would come up to me, smell my clothes, and issue an assessment ranging from “terrible” to “bad, but not as bad as before.” After a month of trial and error, I was finally able to get my clothes to a decent level of cleanliness. From this, I was to learn two lessons. First, just as the clothes returned to their natural state of cleanliness by removing the dirt from them, we would return to our natural state of godliness by removing the dirt from our mind: desire, anger, greed, attachment, ego and jealousy. Second, considering how much bigger and more complex we are compared to a piece of cloth, if it took me a month to clean a shirt, it could take me years to cleanse myself. These incidents alone, perhaps, disprove one of the criticisms of the ascetic life—no matter how one views it, it is not easy.
Studying Vedanta at the Ashram
In our studies, alongside me there were two other brahmacharis: one from Kerala named Sanju, and the other from Tamil Nadu named Bijin. Given Swamiji’s fame in Kerala, it would not have been hard for him to do some advertising, similar to how even schools as prestigious as Harvard do in the United States, and attract many more students. Instead, Swamiji let students come naturally, with me finding him online, Sanjuji being a devotee from childhood, and Bijinji coming on a recommendation from Mata Amritanandamayi. It was a reflection of part of the first verse of the Ishopanishad: “Do not desire, for what wealth is one’s own?”
As we began going through the content, what also struck me, especially in contrast to the industrialized American education system, was the personalized education we received. Given that I already knew Sanskrit at a basic level, instead of starting from the very beginning with everyone else, I was told to bring my Sanskrit up to a level from which I could fully understand the shastras by studying the Laghu Siddhanta Kaumudi, a relatively short text on Sanskrit grammar. In order to support my studies, Swami Chidananda Puri and the other sannyasis would spend hours answering my questions on grammar, with their knowledge being supplemented by shastris from Bengaluru as well. Such a level of support for students to go above and beyond is something I’ve never seen in Western education.
At the same time, where I fell behind, I was provided support as well. While I speak Malayalam, being Marathi, my skills are nowhere near those of a native speaker, and so, to ensure that I understood everything, Swamiji would often repeat the same information in English whenever he saw a blank look on my face. Swamini Sivananda Puri would spend around an hour after each class ensuring that I understood everything.
With this system, we slowly made progress on the academic side. In two months I covered the Laghu Siddhanta Kaumudi and texts that provide an introduction to Vedanta philosophy: Tattvabodha, Manishapancakam, Sadhanapancakam and Drk Drshya Viveka. The Ishopanishad, with commentary by Adi Shankaracharya, was assigned by Swamiji to me personally to give a taste of the heart of Vedanta before I returned to college, so I could decide whether I wished to study further.
It was through this studying that I rooted out many of the fundamental misconceptions about the Vedanta school in Hinduism. Once, for example, we read the Tattvabodha, in which we discussed the karanasharira, the root of our gross and subtle bodies, purely composed of maya and described as unexplainable. When Swamiji said that this is because maya is not real, I—seeking to confirm what I had previously studied—asked whether that means that maya is false. Swamiji responded, “No! It is just not real.” In other words, maya is unexplainable precisely because it is neither real nor false.
I had always been under the impression that Advaita Vedanta views the world as an illusion, which leads to the question of why we do anything if everything is false. It was only after I came to this ashram, however, that I realized Vedantins do not deny the world. They hold that it is not wrong to say that what we do in the world matters, at least for our own spiritual journey, if nothing else. It is just that when we become tired of the gross world, there is a deeper truth, and a deeper satisfaction, waiting for us.
It was also through staying at the ashram that I understood the proper way to study the shastras. Initially, I would try to read them as one may read Harry Potter: finishing a page in less than a minute, with the conception that the truths of the texts can be understood by merely looking at the words on the page or hearing them spoken. When I didn’t understand the shastras after reading them at home, I would assume it was because of a lack of Sanskrit knowledge and go online to learn more Sanskrit before attempting the texts again, often to no avail.
When Swamiji started teaching the Ishopanishad, however, he took two or three hours on merely the first shloka. First, he broke down the grammar of the shloka, explaining its meaning, and then going into the commentary on it. Then the class was dismissed, and we were told to spend some of our free time meditating on the verse and its meaning. The process was frustrating at first, but eventually it revealed secrets in the text that I would not have even imagined existed. It was as if I was slowly peeling the layers of an onion, getting to subtler and subtler meanings in the hopes of one day reaching the heart of the text, and reveling in it.
It is incidents like this that show the dangers of studying without a guru. As Yama warned Nachiketa all those years ago, “The path is as hard to travel as walking upon a knife’s edge.” This is, of course, because of the usual pitfalls of the senses, but also because the scriptures are difficult to understand. There is so much misinformation in the world that it is very easy for a well-meaning person to get distracted by a misunderstanding. At least at the beginning, it is essential that we have a guru who is able to guide us through the method of reading and understanding the scriptures, so as to avoid any wrong turns.
Perhaps even more important, however, is that the guru, rather than just being a knower of the shastras, may be said to be the very incarnation of them. It is one thing to merely hear the line “Do not desire, for what wealth is one’s own,” and discuss it academically. It is another to understand what that looks like. That can only be seen in a guru. Just as for a student aspiring to become a doctor, no amount of hearing about the doctor’s job can match shadowing a doctor, so too do descriptions of liberation fall short of seeing someone who is liberated.
Such people not only allow you to see an ideal to aspire to, but also become one with whom you can be completely honest. While, since coming to Advaithashramam, I never wanted to leave, I was not fully sure if Swami Chidananda Puri was meant to be my guru. I wanted to see others and confirm the right path for me while attending the Kumbh Mela. I told him this, and where others may have been offended, he gave his blessing to the idea, with some caveats.
First, he recommended I go to Gujarat, where his guru’s guru stayed, and meditate there in isolation before leaving for the Kumbh. Second, at the Kumbh, he asked that I see as much as I can, the good and the bad, and learn to accept everything without judging. If I find a guru that I feel is a better fit, then it would be better to go with them. If not, and if I wish to continue my studies, then I am always welcome back at Advaithashramam. As I left for Gujarat, Swamiji called me to his room. Instead of asking for any guru dakshina (monetary donation), he instead tried to give me money, noting that, since I would be alone, I should have something to protect myself should the worst come to pass. In this moment alone, all the warnings I had received about greedy swamis received a fitting reply.
Conclusion
Clearing misconceptions was one of many benefits of this journey. The greatest benefit, however—the one that I am most certain will not go away—is peace. I can fully surrender to Ishwara, leaving my plans to the Divine, and know that I will be fully taken care of. Though it may not be as accessible in the cities, there is peace in knowing that a properly dharmic way of living, of learning, is not dead, and is something that we can bring back in our lifetimes. Most importantly, from all that I learned with Swami Chidananda Puri and the other swamis I met throughout Bharat, I gained a certain amount of peace in understanding the path to living a meaningful life.
It is such understanding that is needed more than ever, given how clearly the life of the average student has failed to create a dharmic society. In the US college system as of 2023, 64.7% of students reported feeling lonely. At least 60% met the criteria for at least one mental illness, with 15% considering suicide. Interestingly, the more education one has, the worse the problem becomes, with only 55% of community college students suffering from mental illnesses as opposed to nearly 70% of bachelor’s degree students. One only needs to take a glance at society to see even more problems.
Given that the goal of the Western education system—accepted by most teachers, administrators and parents—is to create a strong citizen who will contribute to society, to dharma, it is clear that the current system has failed. As Hindus, we are fortunate to have been given an alternative through ashrams and gurukuls—one that will shape our youth into well-rounded human beings, and be a medicine to the myriad of problems that we currently face. They can provide not only knowledge of the material world, but of ourselves to help us gain peace and fulfillment by abiding in our true nature.
It will likely be difficult for parents to send their child to a gurukul for 12 years (yet), or to even have them do something like I did. But taking a gap year after high school, or at least just two months in the summer, can produce a much better human being. It can ground them in their faith as they leave for college. Throughout Bharat, thousands of ashrams, mathas and gurukulas are ready and able to offer such a program. A better path awaits—it is up to us to walk it.
These are incomplete reflections on my journey in Bharat, with significant portions (such as my isolation in Gujarat and time at the Kumbh Mela) cut both for the sake of brevity and due to the private nature of certain conversations. Readers interested in additional details may email rutvijholay@gmail.com.
Heart of Brahmacharya
Even a cursory look at the ancient vows that young Hindus took shows how much stricter brahmacharya was than a modern Western celibate life. One of these vows, it seems, was repeated by the students at the gurukuls, and immortalized in the Taittiriyopanishad: “I will speak rta, I will speak truth. May Brahman protect me; may Brahman protect my guru. Om! Peace! Peace! Peace!”
While the first two lines reinforce the idea of discipline and restraint (though rta is a term that requires a much longer explanation, and thus is best left untranslated), Adi Shankaracharya’s explanation of this Upanishad heavily elaborates upon the last line, noting that “peace” is repeated thrice to prevent obstacles to the brahmachari’s education—once for the peace of the Earth (such as the prevention of natural disasters), once for the peace of all living beings, and once for peace inside one’s self. In other words, the brahmachari was meant to be the personification of peace itself.
The Chandogyopanishad supplements this understanding even further, increasingly praising brahmacharya by noting that what has been called sacrifice, worship, silence, indestructibility, amongst others, is indeed brahmacharya. According to Adi Shankaracharya, the reason for this is that brahmacharya is the means to achieve these ideals.
It is the brahmachari, who having sacrificed his desire for a family (if he takes a lifetime vow), who may truly be said to perform a yajna, and can thus gain the fruits of such actions.
It is only the brahmachari, having won over his desires and quieted his mind, that may engage in true contemplation about the atma, and can thus reach the quintessence of mauna. It is by the effective use of such tools, then, that the brahmachari will attain Brahmaloka, a fruit of penance that is perhaps only secondary to moksha itself, which is why brahmacharya is called the path of the two oceans.