This ancient Sanskrit term identifies one of the major yama’s or ‘ norms of restraint’ enjoined by the scriptures on spiritual aspirants.  It literally means ‘God-conduct,’ but is normally applied to the vow or practice of celibacy. Gandhi came to feel while still in South Africa (1906) that in order to overcome the tremendous challenges he faced in rousing an entire nation to nonviolent resistance he would have to take this vow, as there was no deeper source of power in the human psyche than the sexual drive.  Mastering it which took him many years, proved to be a source of “a joy and a sense of wonder in the power of nature that [he] had no power to describe.”