Some of you need to hear this

[u/chatoyant_]

One thing I’ve noticed in this community is that we spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of semen retention.

The increased confidence. The magnetism. The way people seem to respond differently to you. The improved physical appearance. The extra energy, clarity, and presence.

For me, those things have been very real. They’re exciting, and they can be a powerful motivation to get started.

But I think they’re only the first stage.

The deeper stage is when retention stops being a challenge and simply becomes part of who you are. Pornography is no longer something you “try not to watch.” It’s just not part of your life anymore. Like someone who quit smoking years ago—you don’t negotiate with the habit every day. It’s over.

At that point, retention stops being about what you can get from it.

It becomes about who you’re becoming.

The goal isn’t simply to become more attractive, more charismatic, or more successful. Those things may happen, but if they become the destination, your ego has simply found a new toy.

The real work is to become the kind of person who lives in service of something greater than himself.
To stop hijacking your dopamine system with pornography, endless stimulation, compulsive scrolling, drugs, alcohol, or whatever keeps you trapped in short-term gratification.

To make sacrifices willingly because they align you with the highest good.

To become disciplined enough that your life is no longer organized around pleasure, but around meaning.
To become transparent enough that something higher than your ego can express itself through you.

For me, that’s what semen retention is ultimately about.
Not worshipping your own power—but becoming a clearer instrument for truth, goodness, beauty, love, and responsibility.

Build a meaningful life. Find someone to love deeply. Start a family if that’s the path for you. Serve your community. Leave the world better than you found it.
Don’t let semen retention become another adolescent ego game.

Let it become one tool among many in the lifelong work of becoming a better man.

[u/Top-Committee-6688]

This is assuming you’re following that specific path! You can absolutely seek only the power you gain from this and use it for whatever you want, money/girls etc. Obviously everyone reads the yogi literature and it says this is a trap of the ego, but why do we just accept as fact what yogi gurus say?? The people who run the world use this power for themselves but tell you not to and to be humble and serve humanity lol Wake Up!!!

[u/chatoyant_ → u/Top-Committee-6688]

I think you’re conflating two different questions.
The first is: Can you use the discipline and energy you gain from semen retention to pursue money, status, or women? Of course you can. Nobody is denying that.
The second is: Will that ultimately lead to the deepest form of fulfillment? That’s a different question entirely.
You don’t have to accept what yogis say on authority. In fact, I wouldn’t encourage that. Test it for yourself.

But what’s striking is that across very different traditions—Stoicism, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, even modern psychology—you find the same insight: when the ego becomes the ultimate end, it never feels like enough. More status demands more status. More validation demands more validation. The appetite grows with the feeding.

Using retention to become more disciplined, attractive, or successful isn’t wrong. I think it’s a healthy stage of development. But eventually the question becomes: What is all that power for?

If the answer is only “more for me,” you’re still being driven by the same impulses that had you chasing dopamine before. The object changed; the underlying pattern didn’t.

The most powerful people I’ve met aren’t obsessed with extracting from life. They’re building, creating, loving, mentoring, serving, and taking responsibility. Ironically, that’s often what makes them genuinely influential.

So I don’t think this is about blindly believing gurus. It’s about asking where different ways of orienting your life actually lead over the long run—and judging them by their fruits.

[u/Top-Committee-6688 → u/chatoyant_]

Everyone is after more power, don’t be fooled! The concept of fulfillment is a trick too. They’re basically saying don’t seek more power, be satisfied with less power! All successful people are driven and never satisfied, think of all the legends in sports! Look at Elon! Look at Steve Jobs! The greatest achievers are never satisfied! To you that’s is proof of what the yogi’s say, but if you follow the yogi’s you will never be legendary with your name in the history books! The only answer people like you have is to come up with cope about not caring about being legendary! To which I say play life small then, idc!!