What is Knowledge : Ch-7.26.

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Chapter 7: Yoga Discipline-26.

Remember that discipline is something that you voluntarily accept upon yourself, and even when a law seems to be operating outside and you may mistake it for an action imposed upon you by people around you, it is not something that is acting from outside; it is a pressure that is exerted upon you by your own larger reality. And your reality extends beyond your physical reality.

Reality is more profound and active in its operation and insistence upon you as it expands more and more, even externally. You cannot consider the discipline that you have to maintain as a member of the family to be a pain that is inflicted upon you, because you know the well-being of your family is your well-being, and vice versa. Likewise is the discipline that you are expected to maintain in the society in which you are living, in the country of which you are citizen – or rather, as a unit of humanity itself.

But as long as you limit your concept of reality to family, to community, or even to humanity, you are likely to feel that this discipline comes from factors which are outside you, because you cannot feel that other people are the same as you. But, to repeat what I said earlier, reality is not exhausted by humanity. It is larger. That which is finally real, in which every other lower reality is included, is the whole universe, and there is nothing outside the universe.

Hence, the law of the universe which expects you to behave in a particular manner is not an imposition from outside, because the universe is not outside you. So do not be under the impression that discipline is something that is imposed upon you by others – because there are no ‘others’ in this world. The others are only a content of the universe with which you are organically connected.

Thus, yoga discipline, which will take deeper and deeper significances as we proceed further, will make you more and more happy, rather than make you feel constrained to believe that you are undergoing a painful exercise. Yoga is a great satisfaction, which you will realise shortly.

END of Chapter - 7. Yoga Discipline.
Next : Chapter-8. 8.Control of the Instruments of Knowledge.
Swami Krishnananda
  To be continued ....


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