Wisdom of today by Sri Aurobindo.

Sex and sexuality and all that springs from sex and testifies to its existence had to be banned and discarded from the spiritual life, and this, though difficult, is not at all impossible and can be made a cardinal condition for the spiritual seeker. This is natural and unescapable in all ascetic practice and the satisfaction of this condition, though not easy at first to fulfill, becomes after a time quite feasible; the overcoming of the sex instinct and impulse is indeed binding on all who attain to self-mastery and lead the spiritual life. A total mastery over it is essential for all spiritual seekers, the eradication of it for the complete ascetic. This much has to be recognised and not diminished in its obligatory importance and its principle.

But all recognition of the sex principle, as apart from the gross physical indulgence in the sex impulse, could not be excluded from the divine life on earth; it is there in life, plays a large part and has to be dealt with, it cannot simply be ignored, merely suppressed or held down or put away out of sight. In the first place, it is in one of its aspects a cosmic and even divine principle: it takes the spiritual form of the Ishwara and the Shakti and without it there could be no world-creation or manifestation of the world-principle of Purusha and Prakriti which are both necessary for the creation, necessary too in their Association and interchange for the play of its psychological working and in their manifestation as soul and Nature fundamental to the whole process of the Lila. In the divine life itself an incarnation or at least in some form a presence of the two powers or their initiating influence through their embodiments or representatives would be indispensable for making the new creation possible.

(…) The love of man and woman would also undergo the elevation of consummation; for all that can feel a touch, the ideal and the spiritual must follow the way of the ascent till it reaches the divine Reality.

(…)

Another difficulty that the transformation of the body has to face is its dependence for its very existence upon food, ad here too are involved the gross physical instincts, impulses, desires that are associated with this difficult factor, the essential cravings of the plate, the greed of food and animal gluttony of the belly, the coarsening of the mind when it grovels in the mud sense, obeys a servitude to its mere animal part and hugs its bondage to Matter. The higher human in us seeks refuge in a temperate moderation, in abstemiousness and abstince or in carelessness about the body and its wants and in an absorption in higher things. The spiritual seeker often, like the Jain ascetics, seeks refuge in long and frequent fasts which lift him in temporarily at least out of the clutch of the body's demands and help him to feel in himself a pure vacancy of the wide rooms of the spirit. But all this is not liberation and the question may be raised wether, not only at first but always, the divine life also must submit to this necessity. But it could only deliver itself from it altogether if it culd find out the way so to draw upon the universal energy that the energy would sustain not only the vital parts of our physicality but its constituent matter with no need for aid for sustenance from any outside substance of Matter. It is indeed possible even while fasting for very long periods to maintain the full energies and activities of the soul and mind and life, even those of the body, to remain wakeful but concentrated in Yoga all the time, or to think deeply and write day and night, to dispence with sleep, to walk eight hours a day, maintaining all these activities separately of together, and not feel any loss of strength, any fatigue, any kind of failure or decadence. At the end of the fast one can even resume at once taking the normal or even greater than the normal amount of nourishment without any transition of precaution such as medical science enjoins, as if both the complete fasting and feasting were natural conditions, alternating by an immediate and easy passage from one to the other, of a body ready trained by a sort of initial transformation to be an instrument of the powers and activities of Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo, The Mind of Light