Brahmacharya (Right Use of Energy)

Brahmacharya is one of those concepts that surprises people when they first encounter it. The traditional translation is celibacy, and in ancient monastic contexts, that is exactly what it meant: the conservation of sexual energy as a means of directing it toward spiritual practice. Some teachers still interpret it this way.

But for most of us living full, embodied lives in the world, Brahmacharya is better understood as right use of energy. Not specifically sexual energy, but vital energy in all its forms: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

The question Brahmacharya asks is simple and relentless: is this how you want to spend your energy?

Not in a punishing way. Not in a way that shuts life down. But in a genuinely curious, honest way. You have a finite amount of vitality. Every yes to one thing is a no to something else. Every way you spend yourself is a choice, whether or not you are making it consciously.

The practice of Brahmacharya is the practice of bringing that choice into awareness. It is not about deprivation. It is about discernment. When you know what your energy is for, spending it elsewhere starts to feel like what it is: a loss.

Brahmacharya in the Traditional Sense and the Modern Application:

Even in the monastic tradition, the logic behind Brahmacharya was not really about abstinence. It was about recognizing that every act of dispersing energy, whether through sex, anger, obsessive worry, overwork, or constant scattered attention, is an act of spending your most essential resource. The question was always: what do you want to be doing with this resource?

That question is just as alive today. We live in the most energetically demanding culture in human history. We are asked to be available, productive, connected, and responsive around the clock. We have access to an unlimited supply of things to be anxious about, stimulated by, distracted with. Most of us are running a slow leak somewhere, or several somewheres, and we have been doing it for so long we have forgotten what it feels like to not be.

Brahmacharya asks us to find the leaks.

On the Mat:

When you notice yourself pushing past your edge, stop and ask: is this effort building me, or depleting me? Both are valid sometimes. But asking the question is the practice. Notice what you carry onto your mat: the mental noise, the comparison to yesterday's practice or to the person next to you, the performance of effort rather than the actual experience of it. All of that is energy leaving the building. Every time you come into a pose with genuine presence, you are practicing Brahmacharya. You are here. The energy is here. It is not scattered across the week's to-do list. The affirmation for this month: "I direct my energy toward what truly matters."

Off the Mat:

Look honestly at where your energy is going on a regular day. Not where you want it to go or where you think it should go, but where it actually goes. Notice the difference between how you feel after time spent in ways that align with what you value versus time spent in ways that do not. Both leave a trace. Brahmacharya is not about eliminating pleasure, rest, or ease. It is about making sure the way you spend your vitality is actually yours, chosen rather than habitual. One honest inventory this month: what is the single biggest drain on your energy that you have not examined? That is where the practice lives.

Prana (Life Force)

Prana Translation: Life force, vital energy, the breath and what the breath carries. You may have heard one of your teachers use “Pranayama” techniques in class (the practice of working with prana through breath).

Prana is the animating force in all living things. It is what makes the difference between a living body and a body that has stopped living. It is the intelligence in your cells, the impulse in your heartbeat, the energy that moves through you when you feel fully alive.

In yoga, prana is both the broadest and most practical concept. At the universal scale, prana is the life force that animates all of existence. At the practical scale, prana is working with your breath: breath is the most accessible vehicle for prana, and pranayama, yogic breathwork, is the most direct way to influence how prana flows in your system.

But prana is bigger than breath. It is also present in what you eat (fresh food carries more prana than processed food), in the natural world (time outdoors, near water, in sunlight increases prana), in meaningful connection with others, and in genuine creative expression.

A few things deplete prana: chronic stress, poor sleep, isolated living, excessive screen time, food that is far from its source, and the constant low-grade noise of a mind that never fully rests.

The Pranic Body:

In yogic understanding, the human being is not just a physical body. We also have what is called the pranamaya kosha, the energy body, a layer of our being that is made up of prana and its movement through us. When the energy body is well-tended, the physical body tends to follow. When the energy body is depleted or congested, the physical body eventually reflects that too.

You may already know this intuitively. You have probably felt the difference between being in a room where the energy is alive and being in a room where it is not. You have probably noticed that some places, some activities, and some people add to you while others quietly drain something away. That is your pranamaya kosha giving you information.

On the Mat:

Start paying attention to your breath as a carrier of prana, not just as an inhale-exhale mechanism. A full, conscious breath is a practice of drawing life force in. In poses that feel energizing, breathe deeply and let the energy move. In poses that feel restorative, let the breath slow and receive. Notice the quality of your energy at the beginning and end of each class. That shift, from scattered to settled, from tight to open, is prana reorganizing itself.

Off the Mat:

This month, start noticing what genuinely increases your sense of aliveness and what diminishes it. Make it practical: after one hour of this activity, how do I feel? Spend time outside intentionally this month. Not as exercise. Just as exposure to a world that is full of prana in forms our indoor lives rarely encounter. Morning breath practice: before getting out of bed, take ten deliberate, complete breaths. Inhale fully, pause briefly at the top, exhale completely. That is pranayama. It takes less than two minutes and it shifts the whole tone of the morning.

Ojas (Vital Essence)

Ojas is one of those concepts that people recognize immediately when they hear it, even if they have never had a word for it before.

You know those people who seem to radiate health and aliveness? Who have a brightness in their eyes, a warmth in their presence, an energy that is not frenetic or performed but just genuinely deep and real? That quality is ojas. It is the visible result of a body and a life that has been consistently, wisely tended.

In Ayurveda, ojas is described as the most refined product of good digestion. When your body processes food, experience, and emotion well, when your agni (inner fire) is working cleanly, what remains after all that transformation is a kind of vital essence that accumulates in the body. That essence is ojas.

Ojas is not stamina. It is not the ability to push through. It is deeper than that. Ojas is the reservoir. Stamina draws from the reservoir. When ojas is high, you can meet life fully. When ojas is depleted, even small things feel heavy.

What Builds Ojas:

Consistent practice. Abhyasa, which we will explore in the next section, is one of the primary builders of ojas. Showing up regularly to practice, not perfectly, not dramatically, just steadily. Genuine rest and sleep. Not just hours in bed, but actual restoration. Nourishing food, particularly warm, cooked, whole foods. Meaningful connection and love. Time in nature. Creative expression that comes from a full place rather than a pressured one. Reducing excess. Every act of Brahmacharya, every choosing of what matters over what merely clamors for attention, conserves ojas.

What Depletes Ojas:

Chronic overwork and over-commitment. Too little sleep for too long. Constant stress without completion (the nervous system never getting to rest). Fragmented, scattered attention, the modern condition. Excessive stimulation: screens, noise, information overload. Giving past the point of genuine replenishment. Not this as a shame list. This as an information list. Most of us recognize our main ojas drain if we are honest about it.

A restorative practice is one of the most direct ways to build ojas. When the body is fully supported, the nervous system moves into its recovery mode. The systems that get put on hold during effort and stress, repair, consolidation, deep nourishment, come back online. You are not just resting. You are actively restoring the reservoir.

(This is why the Art of Letting Go workshop on July 31st is such a fitting close to this month. Not a sprint to the finish. A conscious, intentional restoration before we move into August.)

On the Mat:

Approach your practice this month less as performance and more as investment. Each class is adding to your ojas when you practice with presence and appropriate effort rather than grinding or holding back. Savasana is not the end of class. It is the most important part of class. It is the moment when the body integrates everything that happened in practice. Give it your full attention this month. When you are tired, come to class and do a gentle version of what is offered rather than not coming at all. Consistent gentle practice builds ojas. Sporadic intense practice does not.

Off the Mat:

Identify your main ojas drain this month and make one small change. Protect your sleep this month. Not as a health habit but as a practice. Seven to nine hours is not laziness. It is how ojas is built.

Abhyasa (Consistent Practice)

Abhyasa is the practice half of one of yoga's most important pairings (the other one is Vairagya). It means returning, consistently, to the effort of practice. Not once, not when you feel inspired, not when conditions are perfect. Again and again. Over time.

Patanjali defines abhyasa as practice that is done over a long period of time, without interruption, and with full devotion. That is a high bar. It is not meant to be discouraging. It is meant to be clarifying.

The point is not that you never miss a day. The point is that you keep coming back.

Think about the difference between someone who practices yoga intensely for two weeks and then stops, and someone who shows up to class twice a week for ten years. The second person is practicing abhyasa. Not because they never struggled, missed days, went through phases of not feeling it. But because they kept returning.

Abhyasa is what builds the deep grooves in your life, your nervous system, your character. Every return to practice deepens the groove. Every missed session does not erase it. The groove is built through accumulation.

Abhyasa and Thriving:

This is what makes thriving sustainable rather than a temporary peak. Anyone can have a burst of energy, a particularly good month, a phase of feeling really alive. Abhyasa is what turns that aliveness into a permanent address rather than a vacation.

The practices of Brahmacharya, the tending of prana, the building of ojas: none of them are a one-time event. They are the outcome of consistent, devoted return. You cannot build ojas in a weekend. You cannot redirect your energy toward what matters most from a single moment of clarity. These things develop over time, through practice, through the everyday ordinary act of coming back.

On the Mat:

Your studio practice is your abhyasa. Coming to class is the practice, regardless of how you feel when you walk in. This month, notice the quality of your return on days when you did not feel like coming but came anyway. That is abhyasa at work. The postures are not the point. The returning is the point.

Off the Mat:

Identify one practice outside of yoga that you have been consistent with over time, whether it is walking, journaling, prayer, or a morning ritual. Notice what it has built in you. That is abhyasa. Choose one small practice this month to commit to for the full thirty-one days. Not something dramatic. Something simple enough that you can actually do it every day. Morning breathing, five minutes of journaling, drinking water before coffee. Consistency, not impressiveness, is what builds. Abhyasa does not require perfection. It requires return.

Yoga Sutra 1.12: The Two Pillars

Abhyasa vairagyabhyam tan nirodhah.

"Practice and non-attachment are the twin pillars of yoga." Yoga Sutra 1.12, Patanjali

What This Sutra Is Saying:

This sutra is short, and it is doing an enormous amount of work. Patanjali is describing the two things that, together, allow the fluctuations of the mind to settle. The mental noise, the reactivity, the constant chatter: all of it can be stilled, he says, through practice and non-attachment. Neither one alone is enough. They need each other.

Abhyasa is the active half (like we talked about above): show up, practice, return, build. Do the thing consistently over time.

Vairagya is the receptive half: release the grip, let go of outcomes, practice non-attachment to results. Do not cling to how practice is supposed to feel, or what you are supposed to be getting from it, or whether you are doing it right.

Together, they describe a complete posture toward life: active and receptive, building and releasing, showing up and letting go.

Why July and August Are a Pair:

This year, we are exploring this sutra in two halves.

July (Thriving) is the Abhyasa month. We are building the practice of consistent, intentional effort. We are learning what it means to direct energy with wisdom. We are building ojas through devoted return.

August (Flowing) will be the Vairagya month. We will explore what happens when you stop directing and simply trust the current. When you have built something through consistent practice, the next movement is to let it flow rather than hold it tightly.

You cannot flow into August well without having practiced July. And you cannot sustain the practice of July without August's release. They are not opposites. They are partners.

For now, sit with Abhyasa. Come back. Keep coming back.

What This Sutra Asks of You:

Practice is not something you do. It is something you become. A person who practices is not simply someone who goes to yoga class. It is someone who has trained themselves to return to presence, to intention, to themselves. Who does that in small ways every day, without making a big deal of it.

That is what July is building. A practice that is so woven into who you are that thriving stops being a goal and starts being what you simply are.