“I too took the plunge - the vow to observe brahmacharya for life. I must confess that I had not then fully realized the magnitude and immensity of the task I undertook. The difficulties are even today staring me in the face. The importance of the vow is being more and more borne in upon me. Life without brahmacharya appears to me to be insipid and animal-like. The brute by nature knows no self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint. What formerly appeared to me to be extravagant praise of brahmacharya in our religious books seems now, with increasing clearness every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on experience.”
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Source: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Autobiography), on taking the vow of brahmacharya.
About this quote
What separates a person from an animal isn't appetite but the capacity to govern it. A serious commitment often looks simple when you make it and reveals its true weight only in the years of keeping it — the discipline is what lets a person actually grow.
When to use it
- Someone who quits drinking discovers the vow was easy to say and hard to hold at every party after.
- A person committing to daily practice learns the difficulty only in the months of showing up tired.
- A saver who swears off impulse buys feels the real test each time a tempting sale appears.
