Vedantham : ( 07/11/2012. )

Chapter 7: Yoga Discipline-25. There is a deeper and higher requirement on our part in the light of yoga – which is the restraint of the senses, the disciplining of the way in which our mind or our consciousness works in terms of sense organs. Again I am coming to the point of discipline, which generally no one likes. The world ‘discipline’ is always very unpalatable because we have an inveterate habit of convincing ourselves that discipline is something which we do not voluntarily take upon ourselves but is imposed from outside. This is a thorough misunderstanding of the meaning of discipline. Discipline is not what you are asked to do by somebody else. It is a need felt by you yourself to maintain an inner relationship with the larger dimension of reality – from which you are not different, and outside which you do not exist. Discipline is a voluntary acceptance of the existence and operation of a law of your own higher being. Swami Krishnananda  To be continued ....

Chapter 7: Yoga Discipline-24. There is a deeper and higher requirement on our part in the light of yoga – which is the restraint of the senses, the disciplining of the way in which our mind or our consciousness works in terms of sense organs. Again I am coming to the point of discipline, which generally no one likes. The world ‘discipline’ is always very unpalatable because we have an inveterate habit of convincing ourselves that discipline is something which we do not voluntarily take upon ourselves but is imposed from outside. This is a thorough misunderstanding of the meaning of discipline. Discipline is not what you are asked to do by somebody else. It is a need felt by you yourself to maintain an inner relationship with the larger dimension of reality – from which you are not different, and outside which you do not exist. Discipline is a voluntary acceptance of the existence and operation of a law of your own higher being. Swami Krishnananda  To be continued ....

Chapter 7: Yoga Discipline-23. Thus, reality is not merely social existence, as psychoanalysis may say. Yoga considers reality as something which is superior to what is merely visible to the eyes. Therefore, in our advance in the pursuit of yoga, we do not merely content ourselves with being a little good with people in the form of what is called yama and niyama, or even being contented with maintaining the positions or yoga asanas. There is something more about yoga than all these things told to us. The qualities of being a very good person, a very helpful person, a very serviceful person, a well-respected person, and a very great master of physical yoga exercises – with all this, yoga is not complete. Perhaps, it has not even started. It starts with a deeper understanding of the profounder implications of one’s relationship with the universe. The egoism of the human being apart, there is a common difficulty felt by every one of us in exercising even proper understanding in re