The often overlooked importance of proper beneficial efforts (I)
By eminent yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru
It is necessary to consider that each mini-lecture of this kind that we are giving to you includes, at the same time, some wisdom-filled tips which, if implemented, will help you to be happy or, in other words, will help you to trigger in your inner universe a process of occult resonance with the subtle sublime energy of the Godly Attribute of Godly Happiness.
It is necessary to know that this sublime subtle energy always comes from God and is characterized by a frequency of vibration that never modifies. This Godly energy is endless, and when it is captured and accumulated abundantly in our inner universe, it contributes to deifying ourselves, and also provokes in our being certain beneficial effects that are specific.
EFFORT – definition
In order to better understand the content of this mini-conference, we will now define the term “effort”.
The term “effort” defines the voluntary exertion of either a physical, intellectual, psychic or moral force. According to Maine de Biran (who lived between 1766-1824), effort is a primordial inner experience. Effort reveals the immediate apperception of thought, freedom and will within which, so to speak, the feeling of existing is summarized. Effort is the causal relation between the hyperorganic force and the organic resistance, from which the personal sense of existence arises.
Maine de Biran distinguishes two ways of exerting effort. One is the immanent and continuous mode, which involves unintentional effort constituting the lasting effect of the ego, which manifests itself independently of any impression, whether external or internal. Then there is also the punctual and actual mode, which is defined by intentional actions, which are constituted in time. Continuity of duration and discontinuity of intentional acts are the two faces of effort.
An effort involves mobilizing either physical, intellectual or psychic strength in order to overcome resistance, to overcome a difficulty or to achieve a specific objective. It can therefore be said that effort is the activity of a conscious being who mobilizes all the forces available or which he has harnessed through a process of occult resonance in order to resist or overcome a resistance, whether external or internal. It is for this reason that we speak of either physical or muscular effort.
The clear, obvious sense of effort is the foundation of self-consciousness, according to Maine de Biran. In the case of an intellectual effort, we speak of a tension of consciousness that seeks to resolve or overcome a difficulty. In common parlance we often speak either of an effort of the will or of an effort of the imagination.
When a human being says that he makes a sustained effort, it shows that he is doing his best. When a human being is asked to make a final effort, it indicates that he is urged to be courageous, to show a state of goodwill. When we say that something is accomplished without effort, we are thus testifying that it is accomplished without difficulty, with ease.
Every appropriate effort involves a sui generis strain, whether of physical, intellectual or psychic power, in order to achieve something. Every proper effort involves sustained activity to accomplish something. There is even a principle that is known as the Principle of Least Effort. This principle was enunciated by R. Avenarius (who lived between 1843-1896). According to Avenarius’ view, the Principle of Least Effort is the regulative principle of all physical or psychic phenomena and is basically a principle of economics.
This principle excludes the subject-object, thought-reality duality that is postulated by traditional metaphysics, as well as Spencer’s law, which assumes increasing differentiation. According to Avenarius’ perspective, all phenomena tend in the opposite direction towards simplification and reduction to something homogeneous.
It is worth noting that within the Buddhist tradition there is often reference to the four perfect efforts. In Sanskrit there is even the Sanskrit term samyaka prahanani. In reality, the four perfect efforts involve a particular Buddhist meditation exercise corresponding to the sixth stage of the Noble Eightfold Path, which consists of eight stages. This particular exercise of Buddhist meditation comprises the effort:
- to master, or, in other words, to gradually but totally eliminate all that is evil, inauspicious in the aspirant’s inner universe;
- also implies the complete overcoming of all that is dire, malefic;
- the awakening and development, through the application of the Law of Occult Offering, of the manifold beneficial qualities, especially those which favor spiritual enlightenment; and
- the preservation and constant, even optimal, dynamization of those qualities which are eminently beneficial.
Beyond appearances, every beneficial effort that is made entails the triggering of a process of occult resonance with a certain subtle, favorable energy that is harnessed from the Macrocosmos and, through accumulation, contributes to the voluntary unfolding of a certain force, including a subtle force.
The vast majority of normal human beings aspire to experience states of happiness, states which presuppose the triggering of a process of occult resonance with the sublime subtle energy of the Godly Attribute of Godly Happiness. The vast majority of normal human beings aspire to experience states of happiness and either consciously or unconsciously organize their lives to maximize the states of happiness they experience.
Even if, generally speaking, the vast majority of normal human beings all have the same goal, they adopt different strategies to achieve these states of beneficial happiness in different ways.
Broadly speaking, two approaches can be distinguished. One is the search for intense sensations of beneficial pleasure, and so human beings organize their lives to experience such moments of intense, beneficial pleasure.
The problem with such an approach, however, is that such human beings eventually become aware that, if they seek happiness only in such moments, the rest of their lives eventually become something bland and pathetic that reveals itself as a more or less painful sui generis parenthesis between two fleeting, transient moments of intense pleasure.
But there is another, far superior, approach, which involves human beings organizing their lives in such a way that the happiness they experience settles in, lasts and never leaves them.
In order to better understand the issues and ideas that we are going to present, we will use a significant example, which can also be considered as an analogy. We will therefore refer to the example of a sexual act. As you will see, this example can help you to understand the perspective from which we are speaking.
An ordinary, ignorant, superficial young man can easily be fascinated by the brief moments of pleasure he discovers at the moment of physical genital orgasm, which is always accompanied by ejaculation, and it will seem natural to him to have the desire, even overwhelming in some cases, to reproduce such a moment again and again. Such a young man may even be tempted to indulge in excess, ejaculating several times in a row during such experiences.
Sooner or later, however, if such a young man is lucid enough, attentive enough, sensitive enough to the phenomena occurring in his inner universe, he will realize that, although these moments may be quite frequent, his vital energy is diminishing. He will even feel weakened, and the intensity of love, including the intensity of attraction, as well as the intensity of the joy of life that appears in his life and manifests itself for his beloved, begins to diminish. And such a state will eventually, inevitably lead to the diminishing of love, the fading of erotic attraction, and finally the young man will lean, will choose to make a change and will blame his lover. And then choose to break up. And then he will engage in a new sexual relationship and then, with slight differences, the scenario we have described here will be repeated.
On the contrary, at the other pole, the human being who has acquired a certain maturity, who has discovered and then carefully and systematically put into practice what we call erotic amorous continence, based on mutual love, based on the incessant transfiguration of the being of the opposite sex whom he loves, based on erotic attraction, based on the prior consecration of the fruits to God, such a spiritually mature human being will discover that love fusions based on sublime, pure erotic energy, which then accumulates abundantly in his being, based on full erotic amorous continence, which are then followed by the systematic sublimation of the global occult energy (ojas) in the higher layers of his being, will bring about the harmonious integration of a fulfilling, beautiful, happy relationship into his life. But for this it is obvious that such a human being needs first of all manage not to be and not to remain a slave to the fascination for the brief moment of pleasure of the physical genital orgasm, which is always accompanied by ejaculation.
And for this, the human being needs to become capable of experiencing the love life in a totally different way, in a perspective full of eminently beneficial wisdom and in a Godly integrated way, transforming himself inwardly, even accumulating overwhelming love experiences, being capable of experiencing the spiritual leaps that arise. All this is accessible to him on one condition, namely, that he knows and even becomes capable of not giving in to the temptation to ejaculate every time he engages in an intimate experience, including when such an experience is based on mutual love and even erotic attraction.
As many of us know, by the way, such a success involving considerable inner maturity, especially on the part of the man, is very easy for women, who are natively endowed to practice erotic amorous continence, except for those who have gone to excesses of some kind by masturbating and have disturbed, so to speak, their native mechanism which makes it possible for other women to integrate erotic amorous continence with astonishing ease with minimal effort, and for some (women) erotic amorous continence is spontaneously realized even when they know nothing about it.
Now, in the case of such men who have chosen to enthusiastically and persistently embrace erotic amorous continence, such men will implicitly acquire a certain state of maturity which will greatly help them to continue to take sure and rapid steps on the spiritual path on which they have embarked. Of course, for some men, approaching and then deepening love fusions based on full erotic amorous continence will seem to them to involve a constant effort, a considerable effort, especially at first.
However, if they will manage to master better and better the substantial procreative potential, including using some effective methods that are characteristic of the Hatha Yoga system, such as: mula bandha, ashvini mudra, shaktichalana mudra, uddiyana bandha, nauli kriya, yoni mudra and even maha mudra, the proper but systematic effort to realize these modalities, aimed at discovering and deepening full erotic amorous continence, will then help them to acquire excellent erotic amorous continence. This is also to the extent that they will aim to be very careful each time they engage in amorous fusions, taking care not to be tempted by certain passionate rhythms that could cause them to lose control and ejaculate. By doing so each time, they will succeed in transforming themselves, in maturing inwardly, they will acquire the necessary experience, and if these appropriate, systematic, persevering, attentive efforts are coupled with the attendance of a Vira Group in which they will seek to awaken and energize the secret power of the lingam, all these beneficial, constructive efforts will help them to acquire an excellent erotic amorous continence.
Of course, all this will seem like a lot of hard work, but it will be beneficial, creative efforts, especially in the beginning. But if they manage to persevere and master their substantial procreative potential very well, and if they manage to achieve the biological transmutation of this potential into immense energy, they will eventually discover that this substantial procreative potential, which is never lost, never wasted, provides them with extraordinarily intense amorous experiences and subsequently makes it possible to reach the so-called dry orgasm states without ejaculation. Moreover, they will discover that this substantial procreative potential can be gradually transformed into immense energy, energy that is accumulated in their inner universe, energy that expands their aura every time, energy that can be given to their beloved to polarize her, to propel her to reach states of overwhelming happiness and amorous fulfilment.
In doing so, on the basis of such appropriate efforts, they will discover that this substantial procreative potential remains in their bodies even when new erotic amorous fusions are realized, just like the gasoline in the tank of a car whose engine runs flawlessly, that gasoline, which in our example is the seed, the sperm, is transformed into immense energy that allows them to continue the lovemaking act for hours on end, experiencing on that occasion, if they have reached a certain erotic level, a multitude of orgasmic states that are never accompanied by discharge, by the ejaculation of sperm.
Such a mature approach to love, based to a large extent on love, on pure erotic sublime subtle energy, will provoke a veritable inner revolution, will provide them with a huge energy that can be sublimated in the higher levels of their being and will then accelerate their spiritual transformation, and in some cases will spontaneously make possible the appearance of obvious spiritual leaps.
Moreover, the resulting subtle energy, which will eventually become immense, can be channeled, can be successfully sublimated into the higher levels of the being, easily activating, in a pleasant and harmonious way, the subtle centers of force that have been less energized up to now; and this will contribute to a rapid, eminently beneficial and amazingly effective spiritual transformation.
In addition, to the extent that this immense energy will be available to him, (here we are referring to the energy resulting from the transmutation of the substantial procreative potential into energy), when this energy is carefully and systematically sublimated in the higher levels of being, such as, for example, the subtle center of force anahata chakra, the subtle force center vishuddha chakra, the essential subtle, spiritual force center sahasrara padma, the sublimation transfer of this immense energy will begin to nourish the oceanic and constant love, the ceaseless erotic attraction and even the euphoric state of yearning that such a loving man will feel for his beloved.
And in addition, his life will acquire a completely different connotation that will often surprise him, will fill him with wonder and will make him experience intoxicating states of amazement when he will be in nature and will be able to spontaneously admire the beauties that nature has to offer, beauties that previously, when he did not have so much energy, he was unable to discover, to feel – analogically speaking, just like a radio, just like a cell phone with an anemic, almost dead battery.
All this is certainly possible, it is undoubtedly achievable in the case of those men who manage every time to practice in an impeccable way the amorous erotic continence, while making their beloved happy. As all those of you have noticed, those of you who successfully practice amorous erotic continence every time, engaging in this kind of love games every time, the pleasure, happiness, fulfillment, joy that both women and men fully experience are very intense, sometimes overwhelming and are implicitly present when amorous erotic continence is embraced every time, without exception. We are referring here to the exceptions that some mediocre men invoke in terms of erotic amorous continence, when they still orgasm with discharge, with ejaculation despite being in an advanced year in this Esoteric School of Integral Yoga. Of course, especially in the case of men, all these obviously marvelous realizations certainly become possible in the case of inner mature aspirants who practice erotic amorous continence successfully every time.
As we have pointed out on this occasion, such an achievement, which brings with it a host of advantages, some of them surprising, requires the prior realization of eminently beneficial efforts. In addition, the fact that women are natively endowed with the ability to practice amorous erotic continence almost effortlessly is an element which emphasizes the superiority of women, which is often neither suspected nor realized by them.
So here it is the meaning of these beneficial, appropriate and necessary efforts, to not let ourselves be led by that undercurrent, to not let ourselves be carried away like a leaf in the wind by the clearly inferior, instinctual drives which, especially men, are compulsively attracted to. In the case of an aspirational orientation, aiming at a gradual inward maturation, such appropriate beneficial efforts, which we make again and again in a ceaseless way, help us to orient ourselves towards a much higher, sublime goal, an ideal which is much greater and which, when we succeed, will bring us much more happiness, much more fulfillment, much more satisfaction, much more beneficial pleasure, much more energy that we will have available to us at any time in our aura and which will promptly help us to realize with amazing ease, almost effortlessly, what other human beings will not be able to do, because they do not have at their disposal immense energy, because they have not previously made the appropriate beneficial efforts that we, then once, realized and then were able to achieve mastery in discovering and deepening love fusions based on full amorous erotic continence.
Read the second part of the article
yogaesoteric
September 11, 2025
Also available in:
Română