Sutra 38
When the sadhaka is firmly established incontinence, knowledge, vigor, valor and energy flow to him.
Sexual morality varies from culture to culture and age to age. Even in the Bible, there are accounts of men having multiple wives, and widowed wives then being married to the husband’s brother. Then after Jesus came things change again. In our culture, as Christians we are taught to save our purity for marriage before we are married we are to be married in a sense to the word of God. After marriage we become as one in the eye of God, not to divorce or mistreat our spouse. Read Song of Songs, the holiness and purity that comes from making love is amazing.
Song of Songs 6:3 “I am my lovers and my love is mine.”
1Corinthians 6:12-18
12 “Everything is permissible for me”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”–but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”–but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
1 Corinthians 7 1-9
1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. 8To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. 9But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
The Bible says nothing about giving us vigor and valor and energy, but it is very clear that sexual relations should be enjoyed and kept holy. In this case, I believe the Bible and this sutra agree.
