Śivasaṃhitā 5.250

The vīryavatī/nirvīryā opposition establishes a direct energetic law on spiritual knowledge transmission. Vīrya is concentrated vital potency—on the physical plane the seminal energy, on the mantric plane the phonetic potency of the bīja, on the knowledge plane the transformative charge of the teaching. This potency is conserved or dissipated according to the care with which it is guarded.

Vīryavatī = full of potency (vīrya = vital force, potency; in Sanskrit the same term for seminal energy and spiritual power, vatī = possessing), guptā = kept in secret (gup = to guard, protect), nirvīryā = without potency (nir = without, privative), prakāśitā = revealed, illuminated outward (prakāśa = light radiated outward).

The correspondence between the brahmacharya practitioner’s seminal vīrya and the mantric vīrya of secrecy is deliberate in tantric terminology. The yogi who conserves their physical vīrya accumulates spiritual potency; the guru who cares for their teaching maintains the potency of the knowledge transmitted. In both cases, the economy is the same: conserve to concentrate, concentrate to transform. The law of śakti recognizes no squandering.