You don’t need to have discipline to drink water when you are thirsty. You will simply drink it. Similarly, when you are in nature, you don’t need discipline to appreciate its beauty. No discipline is required for enjoyment or quenching your thirst. The need for discipline arises when something may not be enjoyable at first, but you know it will bear fruit in the long run, and that will be enjoyable.
Discipline becomes necessary when something may not be enjoyable in the beginning, but you know it will bring long-term benefit and joy. You may not like waking up early or sitting still for meditation, but you do it because you’ve experienced, or at least sensed, that it leads to something deeper and more lasting.
When you are centered in your Self, you are already peaceful and joyful. There is no need for discipline in that state. But more often than not, the mind is filled with negative, anxious, restless thoughts that seem completely out of your control. The mind is like a dog’s tail, constantly wagging or like a monkey, jumping from one thought to the other. Discipline is essential to calm this monkey mind so it can come back to the Self, which is the seat of all bliss. The fruit of discipline is joy and happiness.
Discipline and The Three Types of Happiness
Why is yoga called a discipline? When does the need for discipline arise? For example, a diabetes patient keeps a discipline of not having sugar. Or someone with cholesterol refrains from having fatty foods because he knows, even if eating unhealthy fats may feel good in the moment, in the long term, they will not be pleasurable.
The pleasure that comes after keeping consistent discipline is Sattvic pleasure, long lasting pleasure. That which is pleasurable to begin with but ends with making you miserable is no pleasure at all. This authentic, sattvic pleasure in life comes after sustained discipline. You don’t mind the discipline, even if it comes at the cost of temporary pain because you know the pleasure would be long lasting.
Discipline does not mean you torture yourself for nothing. The purpose of discipline is to attain joy in the long run. Sometimes you find some people impose discipline on themselves, and it does not give any joy to them or anyone else. This is Tamasic happiness, that is, where there’s just an illusion of happiness but it doesn’t really exist. But Sattvic happiness is where it begins with being not so pleasurable but in the end it gives you joy; and when the nature of happiness is Rajasic, you feel good in the beginning but you end up in misery and suffering.
To bear that which is uncomfortable is discipline. It need not be uncomfortable all the time but when it gets uncomfortable, to be able to bear and move through it, you need discipline.
Discipline is Self-imposed
Discipline is that which is self-imposed, and not something imposed on you from outside. For example, you wake up in the morning and you brush your teeth, you practice meditation and asanas, you practice kindness-they form part of your discipline. Maybe as a child, brushing your teeth was imposed by your mother but as you grew up and understood that its good for you, it became a self-imposed discipline. Now what does this discipline do for you? Discipline unites all the loose ends of your existence-connects you back to your Self.
When you are awake, you are constantly engaged in activities of the senses. Even when you sleep, you are processing the same memories. You never really get to take a quiet pause and come back to your Self. But when you unite all the loose ends of your existence, you become the object of your perception. The whole purpose of Yoga is to be unto one Self – to make you whole.
Let’s do this exercise. When you are looking at someone or something, become aware of your eyes. Then become aware of the mind that is looking through the eyes. Now close your eyes and retrieve your mind from the five senses. Become aware of your whole body, your heart and the core of your existence – the “I” that is you. Now simply, rest and relax in this space. Abiding there in the form and nature of the seer is Yoga.
And this is not new to you. You abide in the form and nature of the seer whenever you experience joy, ecstasy, bliss or happiness. This can only happen when you are not involved in the activities of the mind.
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Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
