Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume IV - Part 3
Fragment ID: 14848
That is correct1. The whole theory of Brahmacharya is based upon that by the Yogis. If it were not so, there would be no need of Brahmacharya for producing tejas and ojas.
It is not a question of vigour and energy per se, but of the physical support – in that physical support the ojas produced by Brahmacharya counts greatly. The transformation of retas into ojas is a transformation of physical substance into a physical (necessarily producing also a vital-physical) energy. The spiritual energy by itself can only drive the body, like the vital and mental, but in driving it it would exhaust it if it has not a physical support. (I speak of course of the ordinary spiritual energy, not of the supramental to be which will have not only to transmute retas into ojas but ojas into something still more sublimated.)
1 The correspondent wrote: “Is it not said that the sexual fluid, if prevented from being spent away, becomes transformed into tejas and ojas?” – Ed.