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To act according to a standard of Truth or a rule or law of action (dharma) or in obedience to a superior authority or to the highest principles discovered by the reason and intelligent will and not according to one's own fancy, vital impulses and desires. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/practical-concerns-in-work#p11</ref>
 
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To live and act under control or according to a standard of what is right—not to allow the vital or the physical to do whatever they like and not to let the mind run about according to its fancy without truth or order [is the meaning of discipline]. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-nature-of-the-vital#p29</ref>
Outwardly there are a few limitations, because, as there are many of us and we don't have the whole earth at our disposal, we are obliged to submit to a certain discipline to a certain extent, so that there may not be too great a disorder; but inwardly you live in a marvellous liberty: no social constraint, no moral constraint, no intellectual constraint, no rule, nothing, nothing but a light which is there. If you want to profit by it, you profit by it; if you don't want to, you are free not to. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/8-june-1955#p56 </ref>
 
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… precisely by inner discipline; you can create your atmosphere by controlling your thoughts, turning them exclusively towards the sadhana, controlling your actions, turning them exclusively towards the sadhana, abolishing all desires and all useless, external, ordinary activities, living a more intense inner life, and separating yourself from ordinary things, ordinary thoughts, ordinary reactions, ordinary actions; then you create a kind of atmosphere around you. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/6-october-1954#p31</ref>
 
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If in your inner discipline you begin to pretend, you may be sure of falling into the worst hole—of all things pretence is the most ruinous. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/5-february-1951#p12 </ref>
 
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Without outer and inner discipline, one can achieve nothing in life, either spiritually or materially. All those who have been able to create something beautiful or useful have always been persons who have known how to discipline themselves. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/23-june-1934#p3</ref>
Digestion, growth, blood-circulation, everything, everything is a discipline. Thought, movement, gestures, everything is a discipline, and if there is no discipline people immediately fall ill. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/correspondence#p372</ref>
 
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There can be no physical education without discipline. The body itself could not function without a strict discipline. . Actually, the failure to recognise this fact is the principal cause of illness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/correspondence#p371</ref>
 
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Physical exercises are not done for fun or to satisfy one's whims, but as a methodical discipline to develop and strengthen the body. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/correspondence#p378</ref>
 
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The psychic or spiritual consciousness gives you the deep inner realisation, contact with the Divine, liberation from external fetters; but for this liberation to be effective, for it to have an action on the rest of the being, the mind must be open enough to be able to hold the spiritual light of Knowledge, the vital must be powerful enough to handle the forces behind appearances and dominate them, and the physical should be disciplined, organised enough to be able to express the deep experience, in the movements of each day and each moment, and live integrally it.
Here we must mention the discipline of the vital. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain. With the collaboration of the vital no realisation seems impossible, no transformation impracticable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-science-of-living#p7</ref>
 
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It is true that for the external vital an outer discipline is necessary for the purification, otherwise it remains restless and fanciful and at the mercy of its own impulses—so that no basis can be built there for a quiet and abiding higher consciousness to remain firmly. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-nature-of-the-vital#p28</ref>
 
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When one is in contact with one's reason, with the rational centre of the intellect, the pure reason, it is a powerful control over all vital impulses. All that comes from the vital world can be very firmly controlled by it and used in a disciplined and organised action. But it must be at the service of something else―not work for its own satisfaction. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/20-june-1956#p26</ref>
… this [mental] Discipline consists of four consecutive movements...to observe, to watch over, to control and to master.
To observe the thought, the first movement then is to step back and look at it, to separate yourself from your thoughts so that the movement of the consciousness and that of thought may not be confused... First you look at them and then you watch over them. Learn to look at them as an enlightened judge so that you may distinguish between the good and the bad, between thoughts that are useful and those that are harmful, between constructive thoughts that lead to victory and defeatist thoughts which turn us away from it. It is this power of discernment that we must acquire... Thought-control is the third step of our mental discipline. Once the enlightened judge of our consciousness has distinguished between useful and harmful thoughts, the inner guard will come and allow to pass only approved thoughts, strictly refusing admission to all undesirable elements. With a commanding gesture the guard will refuse entry to every bad thought and push it back as far as possible... <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p13,p17,p18,p24,p25</ref>
 
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The more the mind is educated and has applied itself to various disciplines, the more it becomes capable of proving that what it puts forward or what it says is true. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-9#p7</ref>
The starting-point is what can be called the psychic discipline. We give the name “psychic” to the psychological centre of our being, the seat within us of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know this truth and set it in movement. It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us, to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-science-of-living#p7</ref>
 
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… a truly harmonious personality implies a conscious arrangement of the inner individualities. This arrangement may be effected spontaneously before birth, but that is rare. The arrangement is achieved later, by means of a discipline, a proper education. But to succeed in this one must consciously take the psychic being as the centre and arrange, harmonise the various individualities around it. True harmony, inner organisation is the result of such a persistent effort. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/30-december-1950#p14</ref>