There is a vast difference between the goals of the ordinary human individual and those who have chosen to take up spiritual sadhana. This difference defines the way they respectively look at things, including the various normal and natural functions of human life. For the ordinary individual, it turns out that their lives are very much defined by their interests, their careers, their relationships and the various forms of enjoyment they seek. For the spiritual seeker, however, all of these things, so important to the normal life of the world, take on a much lesser importance, and in some cases, they are seen as impediments or obstacles to the practice when they draw the attention and energy away from the focus.
Fixating on food, fulfillment of a particular ambition or desire, or the lure and enjoyment of sex act as distractions for the spiritual seeker. For such an individual, it is not a matter of ‘sin’ or ‘virtue’ but of concentration of conscious force, tapasya, for the spiritual realization.
Sri Aurobindo observes: “As to the sexual impulse. Regard it not as something sinful and horrible and attractive at the same time, but as a mistake and wrong movement of the lower nature. Reject it entirely, not by struggling with it, but by drawing back from it, detaching yourself and refusing your consent; look at it as something not your own, but imposed on you by a force of Nature outside you. Refuse all consent to the imposition. If anything in your vital consents, insist on that part of you withdrawing its consent. Call in the Divine Force to help you in your withdrawal and refusal. If you can do this quietly and resolutely and patiently, in the end your inner will will prevail against the habit of the outer Nature.”
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pp. 76-77
Sri Aurobindo Studies 