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Read Summary of '''[[Discipline Summary|Discipline]]'''

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=What is Discipline?=

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>

===Vital===

<center>~</center>

===Mental===

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>

==Helps in Understanding the Parts of our Being==

Things are not so clear-cut and separate as they are in speaking; that is just why it is quite difficult to see very distinctly and clearly in oneself the different parts of the being, unless one has had a very long training and a long discipline of study and observation. There are no watertight compartments between the soul and the mind, the vital and even the physical. There is an infiltration of the soul into the mind. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/9-april-1958#p2</ref>

… generally those who are against this outer discipline of sports, this concentration on the material realisation, are people who completely lack control over their physical being. And to realise the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo the control of one's body is a first indispensable step. Those who despise physical activities are people who won't be able to take a single step on the true path of integral yoga, unless they first get rid of their contempt. Control of the body in all its forms is an indispensable basis. A body which dominates you is an enemy; it is a disorder you cannot accept. It is the enlightened will in the mind which should govern the body, and not the body which should impose its law on the mind. When one knows that a thing is bad, one must be capable of not doing it. When one wants something to be realised, one must be able to do it and not be stopped at every step by the body's inability or ill-will or lack of collaboration; and for that one must follow a physical discipline and become master in one's own home. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/10-april-1957#p11</ref>

And even if by discipline and effort you have liberated your mind and your vital of apprehension and fear, it is more difficult to convince the body." <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/14-march-1951#p24</ref>

The speculative mind needs discipline for its development. If it is not disciplined methodically, one is always in a sort of a cloud. The vast majority of human beings can harbour the most contradictory ideas in their brains without being in the least troubled by them. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/8-january-1958#p12</ref>

=Discipline and Other School of Thoughts=

==Discipline and Raja Yoga [Mental Discipline]==

It[Rajayoga]commences with the drawing both of the mind and senses from outward things...the real object of this mental discipline is to draw away the mind from the outward and the mental world into union with the divine Being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/rajayoga#p9</ref>

The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is a careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, glad, clear state of mind and heart is established. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-systems-of-yoga#p12</ref>

There is one thing which is not spoken of here, in the Dhammapada: a supreme disinterestedness and a supreme liberation is to follow the discipline of self-perfection, the march of progress, not with a precise end in view as described here, the liberation of Nirvana, but because this march of progress is the profound law and the purpose of earthly life, the truth of universal existence and because you put yourself in harmony with it, spontaneously, whatever the result may be. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-brahmin#p43</ref>

That is to say, ordinary human life, such as it is in the present world, is ruled by the mind; therefore the most important thing is to control one's mind; so we shall follow a graded or "conjugate" discipline, to use the Dhammapada's expression, in order to develop and control our minds.

There are four movements which are usually consecutive, but which in the end may be simultaneous: to observe one’s thoughts is the first, to watch over one’s thoughts is the second, to control one’s thoughts is the third and to master one’s thoughts is the fourth. To observe, to watch over, to control, to master. All that to get rid of an evil mind, for we are told that the man who acts or speaks with an evil mind is followed by suffering as closely as the wheel follows the hoof of a bullock that ploughs or draws the cart.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p6</ref>

When you take up the Buddhist discipline to learn how to control your thoughts, you make very interesting discoveries. You try to observe your thoughts. Instead of letting them pass freely, sometimes even letting them enter your head and establish themselves in a quite inopportune way, you look at them, observe them and you realise with stupefaction that in the space of a few seconds there passes through the head a series of absolutely improbable thoughts that are altogether harmful. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/evil#p16 </ref>

...with the method of the Buddhist discipline, if you follow up within yourself the causes of your way of being, you always find out that persistence in error comes from desire. It is because you have the preference, the desire to feel, to act, to think in a particular way, that you make the mistake. It is not simply because you do not know what is true. You do not know it precisely because you say in a vague, general, imprecise way, "Oh, I want the truth." In fact, if you take a detail, each detail, and put your finger on it, you discover that you are playing the ostrich in order not to see. You put up something uncertain, something vague, a veil, in order not to see behind it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p69</ref>

Buddhist discipline makes you a good master of the mental instrument and mental domain. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/11-august-1954#p31</ref>

But I must say that the scientific method of work is a marvellous discipline; and what is curious is that the method recommended by the Buddha for getting rid of desires and the illusion of the world is also one of the most marvellous disciplines ever known on the earth. They are at the two ends, they are both excellent; those who follow one or the other in all sincerity truly prepare themselves for yoga. A small click, somewhere, is enough to make them leave their fairly narrow point of view on one side or the other so as to be able to enter into an integrality which will lead them to the supreme Truth and mastery. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/5-october-1955#p21</ref>

… spiritual discipline, a way of seeking, touching, nearing the Divine Truth, a way which is proper to the potentialities of his nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-evolution-of-the-spiritual-man#p15 </ref>

To work, to act with devotion and an inner consecration is also a spiritual discipline. The final aim is to be in constant union with the Divine, not only in meditation but in all circumstances and in all the active life. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/21-april-1929#p29</ref>

The supreme discipline is integral surrender to the Divine and to allow nothing else either in one's feelings or in one's activities. Nothing should ever be omitted from this surrender—that is the supreme and most rigorous discipline. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/correspondence#p359</ref>

To discover the Transcendent Divine one has to follow the intellectual discipline, the way of knowledge, and by successive eliminations arrive at the one sole Truth, the Absolute beyond form and time and space. It is a long and difficult path, a very arduous path.

Whereas with one’s heart, one can set out to discover the Immanent Divine. And if one knows truly how to love, without desire or egoism, one finds Him very soon, for always He comes to meet you in order to help you. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/12-november-1960#p5</ref>

In the ordinary life a personal, social or traditional constructed rule, standard or ideal is the guide; once the spiritual journey has begun, this must be replaced by an inner and outer rule or way of living necessary for our self-discipline, liberation and perfection, a way of living proper to the path we follow or enjoined by the spiritual guide and master, the Guru, or else dictated by a Guide within us. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-divine-work#p12</ref>

This Yoga implies not only the realisation of God, but an entire consecration and change of the inner and outer life till it is fit to manifest a divine consciousness and become part of a divine work. This means an inner discipline far more exacting and difficult than mere ethical and physical austerities. One must not enter on this path, far vaster and more arduous than most ways of Yoga, unless one is sure of the psychic call and of one's readiness to go through to the end. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-call-and-the-capacity#p3</ref>

When the sadhaka has followed the discipline of withdrawal from the various identifications of the self with the ego, the mind, the life, the body, he has arrived at realisation by knowledge of a pure, still, self-aware existence, one, undivided, peaceful, inactive, undisturbed by the action of the world. The only relation that this Self seems to have with the world is that of a disinterested Witness not at all involved in or affected or even touched by any of its activities. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-passive-and-the-active-brahman#p3</ref>

But neutrality to the imperfect touches of pleasure and the perverse touches of pain is the first direct and natural result of the soul's self-discipline and the conversion to equal delight can, usually, come only afterwards. The direct transformation of the triple vibration into Ananda is possible, but less easy to the human being.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/delight-of-existence-the-solution#p16</ref>

Self-discipline and self-mastery are the secret; the secret is to find in oneself the source of the Truth and that constant government of the Divine Will which can alone give to each formation its full power and its integral and harmonious realisation… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/19-may-1929#p4</ref>

You must create a discipline for yourself and impose it on yourself at all costs if you want to put an end to vital bad will and mental depressions. Without discipline one cannot do anything in life and all yoga is impossible. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/study#p32</ref>

Inner experiences are helpful to the mind and higher vital for change, but for the lower vital and the outer being a sadhana of self-discipline is indispensable. The external actions and the spirit in them must change—your external thoughts and actions must be for the Divine only. There must be self-restraint, entire truthfulness, a constant thought of the Divine in all you do. This is the way for the change of the lower vital. By your constant self-dedication and self-discipline the Force will be brought down into the external being and the change made. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-lower-vital-being#p27</ref>

The stilling of this current, running, circling, repeating thought-mind is the principal part of that silencing of the thought which is one of the most effective disciplines of Yoga. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/purification-intelligence-and-will#p12</ref>

At first it might seem the straight and right way to silence the mind altogether, to silence the intellect, the mental and personal will, the desire mind and the mind of emotion and sensation, and to allow in that perfect silence the Self, the Spirit, the Divine to disclose himself and leave him to illuminate the being by the supramental light and power and Ananda. And this is indeed a great and powerful discipline. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-intuitive-mind#p5</ref>

One of the most powerful aids that yogic discipline can provide to the sportsman is to teach him how to renew his energies by drawing them from the inexhaustible source of universal energy. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/energy-inexhaustible#p1 </ref>

==How to Cultivate Discipline?==

on circumstances or on whom you live with or on the conditions you live in, because you are enclosed in your own spiritual atmosphere. And that is how one obtains it: by turning one’s attention ''solely'' to the spiritual life, by reading only what can help in the spiritual life, by doing only what leads you to the spiritual life, and so on. Then you create your own atmosphere. But naturally, if you open all the doors, listen to what people tell you, follow the advice of this one and the inspirations of that one, and are full of desires for outside things, you cannot create a spiritual atmosphere for yourself. You will have an ordinary atmosphere like everybody else. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/6-october-1954#p32</ref>

Rules like these [not reading newspapers, eating a fixed diet, keeping only a few things] are intended to help the vital and physical to come under the discipline of sadhana and not get dispersed in fancies, impulses, self-indulgences; but they must be done simply, not with any sense of superiority or ascetic pride, but as a mere matter of course. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/asceticism-and-the-integral-yoga#p13</ref>

Quite a discipline is needed to create in oneself the many steps which enable the consciousness not to forget what it has experienced up there. It is not an impossible discipline but it is extremely long and requires an unshakable patience, for it is as if you wanted to build up in you a being, a body; and for that you require first of all the necessary knowledge, but also such a prolonged persistence and perseverance as would discourage many. But it is altogether indispensable if you want to take part in the knowledge of your higher being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/27-january-1951#p21</ref>

So the progress lies in a normal but progressive equilibrium, periods of assimilation—reception, assimilation—and periods of expenditure, and knowing how to balance the two, and alternate them in a rhythm which is your personal one...it can be prolonged, then, with an inner discipline, a method one finds: it has to be one's own method. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/4-may-1955#p23</ref>

A free concentration of will using thought merely for suggestion and the giving of light to the lower members will take its place. This Will will then insist on the physical being, the vital existence, the heart and the mind remoulding themselves in the forms of the Divine which reveal themselves out of the silent Brahman. By swifter or slower degrees according to the previous preparation and purification of the members, they will be obliged with more or less struggle to obey the law of the will and its thought-suggestion, so that eventually the knowledge of the Divine takes possession of our consciousness on all its planes and the image of the Divine is formed in our human existence even as it was done by the old Vedic Sadhakas. For the integral Yoga this is the most direct and powerful discipline. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/concentration#p15</ref>

The other side of discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the taking up of one’s nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great difficulty—there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently removes all imperfections, brings the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself, one becomes aware of an inner Being within us—inner mental, inner vital, inner physical—silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what is necessary for the change of the Nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/seeking-the-divine#p4</ref>

In the beginning of the Yoga you are apt to forget the Divine very often. But by constant aspiration you increase your remembrance and you diminish the forgetfulness. But this should not be done as a severe discipline or a duty; it must be a movement of love and joy. Then very soon a stage will come when, if you do not feel the presence of the Divine at every moment and whatever you are doing, you feel at once lonely and sad and miserable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/28-april-1929#p15</ref>

There are some who, when they are sitting in meditation, get into a state which they think very fine and delightful. They sit self-complacent in it and forget the world; but if they are disturbed, they come out of it angry and restless, because their meditation was interrupted. This is not a sign of spiritual progress or discipline. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/21-april-1929#p30</ref>

It is by an inner discipline and by consecration to the Divine that the powers come to you. But if with your aspiration, your discipline and consecration, an ambition is mixed up, that is, an intention to obtain powers, then if they come to you it is almost like a curse. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/3-august-1955#p18</ref>

When you follow a mental discipline, you must be particularly careful not to imagine or want to have certain experiences, for in this way you can create for yourself the illusion of these experiences. In the domain of yoga, this very strict and severe spontaneity is absolutely indispensable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/29-august-1956#p11</ref>

For the mind is an instrument of action and formation and not an instrument of knowledge; at each moment it is creating forms. Thoughts are forms and have an individual life, independent of their author: sent out from him into the world, they move in it towards the realisation of their own purpose of existence...There are some men who have a very strong formative power of this kind and always they see their formations realised; but because they have not a well-disciplined mental and vital being, they want now one thing and now another and these different or opposite formations and their results collide and clash with one another. And these people wonder how it is that they are living in so great a confusion and disharmony! They do not realise that it is their own thoughts and desires that have built the circumstances around them which seem to them so incoherent and contradictory and make their life almost unbearable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/19-may-1929#p3</ref>

These are vital perturbations which show themselves in the course of the Sadhana and have to be eliminated. They must not be regarded as natural movements justified by the wrong actions of others and bound to continue so long as there is an external cause. The real cause is internal and it can be got rid of by yogic discipline, vigilance, self-detachment and a quiet but strict rejection. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-vital#p40</ref>

If the mental and psychic parts are weak and the vital strong and unruly, power is increased by entry into the inner vital, but discrimination and detached vision are deficient; the knowledge, even if increased in force and range, remains turbid and misleading; intelligent self-control may give place to a vast undisciplined impetus or a rigidly disciplined but misguided egoistic action. For the subliminal is still a movement of the Knowledge-Ignorance; it has in it a greater knowledge, but the possibility also of a greater because more self-affirming ignorance. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p15</ref>