In plain words
If you tell them, ‘Pray to God for five minutes at least,’ they say there is not a moment's leisure. But they waste any amount of time on bad thoughts and bad habits. Young men must first of all keep the foundation of brahmacarya secure. Brahmacarya does not mean staying unmarried. Brahmacarya is nothing but moving ever in Brahman. You must keep the principle of Brahman ever in your mind; you must nourish purity; you must dedicate your life to the principle of Prema. Only then will the mansion of your life have the security it needs. The walls are visible to our eyes. The building and its beauty are visible. But the foundation is not visible. Yet the foundation that is not seen is itself the support of the building that is seen. They design the walls and the roof that are seen above to look attractive. But the foundation stones laid in the ground need no beauty. Yet they alone bear the weight of the building. Man today gives importance only to the beauty of the ‘building’, but gives no thought at all to the security of the ‘foundation’.
The ideal of Bhīṣmācārya
You must think of God constantly and move in the principle of Brahman. That itself is brahmacarya. In olden times they called the guru ācārya. Ācārya means one who practises and then teaches. One who teaches without practising may be called an upādhyāya, but cannot be called an ācārya. An upādhyāya can only teach lessons, but cannot help at all with control of the mind. Only an ācārya can help fully with control of the mind. In the Mahābhārata, Droṇācārya and Bhīṣmācārya played leading parts. Droṇa was the guru who taught the Pāṇḍavas archery, while Bhīṣma became the guru of their hearts. He was a great jñāni. What is Jñāna? It is not reading great big books. “The vision of non-duality is Jñāna.” You must keep in mind nothing but the one Divinity. You must offer your body, senses, Manas and Buddhi to the Divinity.