Bob: I've asked devotees about how they feel towards sex in their relations, and I see the way they feel, but I can't see myself acting the same way. See, I'll be getting married at the end of this summer.
Bob: I'll be getting married at the end of this summer, in September or August when I return to America. And the devotees say that the householders only have sex to conceive a child, and I cannot picture myself at all in such a position, and—What kind of sex life can one lead, living in the material world?
Śrīla Prabhupāda: The Vedic principle is that one should avoid sex life altogether. The whole Vedic principle is to get liberation from material bondage. There are different attachments for material enjoyment, of which sex life is the topmost enjoyment. The Bhāgavatam says that this material world...
puṁsaḥ striyā mithunī-bhāvam etam
[SB 5.5.8]
Man is attached to woman, and woman is attached to man. Not only in human society—in animal society also. That attachment is the basic principle of material life. So, a woman is hankering or seeking after the association of a man, and a man is hankering or seeking for the association of a woman. All the fiction novels, dramas, cinema and even ordinary advertisements that you see simply depict the attachment between man and woman. Even in the tailor's shop you will find in the window some woman and some man.
pravṛttir eṣā bhūtānāṁ
nivṛttis tu mahāphalām
(Manu Smṛti, 5.56)
So this attachment is already there.
Bob: Attachment between man and woman?
Śrīla Prabhupāda: Man and woman. So if you want to get liberation from this material world, then that attachment should be reduced to nil. Otherwise, simply further attachment—You will have to take rebirth, either as a human being or as a demigod or as an animal, as a serpent, as a bird, as a beast. You will have to take birth. So, this basic principle of increasing attachment is not our business, although it is the general tendency. Gṛha, kṣetra, suta [home, land, sons]. But if one can reduce and stop it, that is first class. Therefore our Vedic system is to first of all train a boy as a brahmacārī—no sex life. The Vedic principle is to reduce attachment, not to increase it. Therefore the whole system is called varṇāśrama-dharma. The Indian system calls for varṇa and āśrama—four social orders and four spiritual orders. Brahmacarya [celibate student life], gṛhastha [married life], vānaprastha [retired life] and sannyāsa [renounced life]—these are the spiritual orders. And the social orders consist of brāhmaṇas[intellectuals], kṣatriyas [administrators], vaiśyas [merchants and farmers] and śūdras [ordinary workers]. So under this system, the regulative principles are so nice that
even if one has the tendency to enjoy material life, he is so nicely molded that at last he achieves liberation and goes back home, back to Godhead. This is the process. So sex life is not required, but because we are attached to it, therefore there are some regulative principles under which it is maintained.
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