Self-discipline for growth

Why people need self-discipline for spiritual growth? | Mohanji

Self-discipline

We should have the discipline to transcend our limitations. That’s why we need discipline. Otherwise, we don’t need discipline. To transcend our limitations, we need discipline. We should keep a certain time, every time, regularly, despite the weather outside, and we should maintain a particular discipline. After a while, when you have crossed a certain stage, every discipline disappears. But when you are practising, if you don’t have discipline, you will not have progress.

I’ll tell you how I used to practice earlier. That was early 2000 onwards; I started practising seriously. I was very busy with my work; I was the head of a country for a multinational, I was the country manager of a multinational. The workload was very high. There was every reason that after work, you would go to a pub or have a drink and then you rest and watch TV, and you sleep and wake up late. That pattern was very easy. 

Meaningful practices

That’s exactly the time when I decided that I must find something deeper and more meaningful. I used to get up at 2:30 am. It was very difficult, especially during winter. But I maintained that time. Then, how do you beat your inclination for sleeping? Take a bath, head bath. That was what I used to do, but I had a little bit more hair than you that time, but not like this. The moment you take a bath, you can’t sleep anymore. It’s very difficult. 

Then I used to sit at the same place every day for meditation. So that is also very important. You should have the same location every day so that you get connected to the energy of that place. That is how I started exploring myself. That was the only time that I had with myself. Every other time, I was with somebody. And it doesn’t work that way because you are habitually going to people, connecting to various relationships, it could be business, but it’s still a relationship, energy exchange. 

Connect to yourself

So you are not coming in tune with your own energy ever in your life because you are not spending time with yourself. In the sleeping time, you are unconscious. So that’s not a connection to yourself; you are not aware at that time. Being aware, being with you, being in that zone which is called you is very important. That was the only time between three to almost eight am, five hours; that was my time. I didn’t sell that time to anybody. 

So, one question for you now. If I had changed according to the seasons, do you think I could have connected to myself that easily? Because we are connected to something external, even now, our life is connected to the external. That is why we have meditations and Kriya and stuff. Because our life is connected to something external, people, places, relations, all those things, you have to deliberately detach yourself from the external world and start coming inside. Only then will you find yourself. That’s the reason. 

Consistency

But, the practice usually evolves as you start with something, and then you start connecting with yourself, and those practices sometimes change as per your personality or your original nature. It can change, but you got to be consistent. Consistency is the main thing here. 

The moment you’re not consistent, you’re connecting yourself to some external factor, such as breakfast; it’s an external factor. When we focus on breakfast, we build everything around that, for breakfast or coffee or tea in the morning. Our aim is coffee and tea, or that’s our milestone. So we start processing everything (after breaking up) towards that. So, we don’t connect to ourselves; again, we are connecting to something outside. 

Internal connection

We do not feel so powerful as we are because our every connection is with something outside, and zero connection with something inside. We feel so powerless. We feel limited, but that’s not our true nature. We are not limited; we cannot be limited. 

For this understanding to happen, you need to come into yourself quite a lot. To stay in a level of silence long enough to experience it. It takes time, but it’s worth the effort. Because we are naturally going outside all the time, even if we do an activity of spiritual nature, we have an expectation of an experience; that’s binding. I am doing this, so I should have that experience. I am doing a practice because I want this. Then again, your mind is always active, asking for something. Then you will never get time to stay at a place where you want nothing. 

Discipline is very important to come out of our patterns. Otherwise, we are completely a victim of patterns.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali