Dharma only means discipline.
A life which has no discipline is no life at all."

We know what we have to achieve. We know where we are. Now, we have to join these two things. The beginning and the end have to be joined or brought together by a process of activity, which we call sadhana in spirituality. Now, you see, there can be no sadhana without discipline attendant on it.

WHAT IS DISCIPLINE?
An orderly existence means discipline. Driving on the right, giving way to traffic, obeying the red lights, in short, a sacrifice of a certain degree of personal freedom to achieve a general order, as a universal measure, for general and universal welfare. And the more the well-being or the greater the degree of well-being that we desire, the greater the sacrifice of personal freedom.

Discipline means conforming to the need of the moment. You see, without discipline you cannot control your body, you cannot regulate your intelligence and your intellectual functioning, least of all can you regulate your mind. This is what happens to those who have neglected discipline totally, become totally self-indulgent. They become the prey of cigarettes, drugs, alcohol - everything. They have lost control over themselves, and now they are the prey of things which their desire made them approach.

So, when is the time to avoid something which is bad? From the first moment. When is the time to accept something which is good and beneficial to us? From that moment itself. Therefore in spiritual parlance, my Master used to say, "Here and now." When should I be good? When should I be well-behaved? Right now is the moment. When should I eat? Now, when I am hungry, not day after tomorrow. Isn't it? So, it means regulation over my body. I must move only when I want to move, when I desire to move, when I must move. Otherwise if a man walks in his sleep, you go to the doctor. He is a sleepwalker. Isn't it? Similarly, I must have regulation over my mental, intellectual equipment. I must be able to think when I must. So we must have our body and mind oriented towards the regulation of the inner self, the ultimate mastery of the inner self, which alone leads you to a Master.

We must remember Babuji's definition for a disciple, "One who is disciplined alone is a disciple.'' Now in the ancient tradition, there are so many definitions for who a disciple is - one who serves, one who learns under a Master, one who is obedient. But our concept of a disciple is a total one. When Babuji said 'discipline', He did not mean worship of a guru, or cooking his food, or pressing his feet at night. That is by way of service, you see. Service is one expression, one way of expressing one's love.

Very often we do not know what we have to do and how to do it. How to know what we have to do with discipline? Just obey. Leave everything to the Master. Do what He says. If He says, "sit,'' sit down; if He says, "stand,'' stand up; if He says, "eat,'' eat. It is very difficult because, you know, sometimes I have found people coming to Babuji and He is giving them some prasad, holy, sacred, charged with his grace, and then the man says, "No, no, Babuji, I am a diabetic. I am not permitted to take sweets.'' He himself called it a sweet, the Guru offers prasad. So here comes the need for discipline. So what matters if you die of diabetes if the Guru's grace is permitting your entire system to be purified, not only ensuring but guaranteeing your health? What matters? This bodily life, that it is so important that you are even willing to say 'no' to the Guru's Prasadam? Because, self-interest comes there. We forget the Master, we forget the Prasad, we forget the Divine grace, we are only remembering our diabetes or whatever it may be at that moment. Master knows what is good for his disciple.

You may do all the yoga in the world, but if you have no discipline you cannot be anybody's disciple. This is my Master's definition. How can I possibly be a disciple of my Master without obedience to the principles, that he has put before me first? You know that famous principle, that the maker of the law must be its first servant.

LEVELS OF DISCIPLINE
First Level: The first one is a level of discipline for mutual understanding, like we have grammar in language. Certain words must have certain meaning, certain words must be associated with each other in certain ways, if they are to convey the same meaning to all of us. We cannot each one have a German language for ourselves and claim independence and say, "This is my German, that is your German, this is his German," because nobody would understand each other. So mutual understanding means; not only means, it demands that there is a structure, a common structure, and common rules formulated so that we can understand each other in our human intercourse. So that is the level of understanding. I am only giving grammar as an example.

Second Level: You can think of so many things like the rules of the road - traffic rules - obedience of the red lights, green lights, yellow lights......, which shows a second level: not only for understanding how to move on the roads, but how to protect each other by obeying these rules. Because at that stage it is not only understanding which suffers, but we can kill each other and many others too. So the second level of discipline is protection; protection of ourselves, protection of others. And here the protection of the others takes precedence over the protection of the self. I have to respect your life more than I respect my own. Therefore governments, traffic authorities, they punish. Punishment is not something of which we should be afraid, or which we should abhor. I find repeatedly people referring to Babuji wanting to discipline us with love. What is this love which disciplines us, and yet fails? The proof of the pudding is in the eating. So if you have more concern for another person than for yourself, you have to subjugate your desire, your dominance, your wishes to the requirements, to the safety, to the welfare of the other person. Traffic rules therefore say that you shall not overtake at certain places, you don't glare your headlights in the other man's eyes and lead him into an accident, you can overtake only when the road is free......, things like that.

So, the first level is understanding, the second level is mutual protection: the other more than myself.

Third level: It is only related to personal growth. A discipline which we formulate for ourselves, which we obey by ourselves not subjugated to any external authority, not in obedience to anybody else, but I obey myself, I formulate rules for myself, so that I can grow. When a man is self-restrained and refrains from alcohol, for instance, it is his welfare he has at heart. It is not that he is obeying the government which says, don't drink. It is a very wrong way of looking at things to say prohibition is an imposition. That it failed does not disqualify the wisdom of the act, because in that way all religions are failures, all moral movements have been failures, our lives themselves are failures.

The failure or the success of an endeavour does not prove its rightness or wrongness. This is a typically western idea of looking at things, that the success of a venture proves its worth. The success has nothing to do with it, the success was only a result of how well we have applied the principle, of how dedicatedly we have practiced those principles, with how much truth we have continued to do it. If these things are given as premises, success has to follow. In such cases, failure is not a failure of the movement or of the truth or of the teaching, it is a failure of ourselves in that application.

When we wish to develop, when we wish to grow, our inner Self dictates to us what we should do, what we should not do, and the obedience is not to somebody outside myself, it is to myself. If this is very clearly understood, there will be no rebellion against moral law, against moral authority, because the moral law is my own formulation for my own benefit; the moral authority is my inner self, telling my external superficial, rowdy self what I should do and what I should not do for my own welfare, for my own growth.

There is yet a fourth level of discipline which perhaps we have all realised without being able to give a word to, without being able to give expression to, and that is the discipline of a person like my master, who consumes himself, who gives up his life so that others may grow. He had achieved what he had achieved. He could have very well said, "good bye, Lalaji; good bye world! I am going to my holiday home, so that I can spend the rest of my life in peace.'' But that level of discipline says, "No more shall you think of yourself. Your comforts are meaningless, your hunger is meaningless, you don't exist anymore for yourself, you exist for them. And their welfare is your welfare; their happiness is your happiness; their growth is entrusted to you. In the fulfilment of that growth is the fulfilment of your own law, is the fulfilment of the obedience of the promise you gave to Lalaji.

You see it is very glib, and it is very easy to praise Master and sit and laugh, and weep sometimes, how much he did for us, how much he loved us; but if any of us have one percent of the admiration for Him that we speak about when we talk about Him, we should touch our hearts and ask, "Am I willing to be like Him?" Not only in discipline, not only in teaching others, not only in sitting and giving transmission - this everyone is able to do, preceptors are able to do it, we don't need masters for that - Am I willing to consume myself for the welfare of others? Babuji used to give the example of a candle as an expression of a spiritual life. He said that it consumes itself, it burns itself, it destroys itself to illuminate others!

So this is the highest level, the fourth level of discipline - that He exists only to destroy Himself; He exists only to give us comfort; He exists only to give us knowledge; He exists only to teach us without a single moment of thought for himself. And if we just stop with praising Him and writing about Him and talking of His love and don't emulate Him, it would be the most shameful treatment of the Master that you can give. If you want to fulfill His purpose, His existence, and make of it a success, we have everyone to become like Him, and that means that we have to start with the first level of discipline - not in obedience to any external authority, but in obedience to our own inner voice, then proceed to the second level, go on to the third level, and when we end up at the fourth level, then we will make true, Master's statement that He did not create disciples, but that He created masters.

SELF DISCIPLINE
It is said that a Master is more a mother than a father. The father is good for discipline. But nowadays parents, without self-discipline want to impose discipline on their children. And largely we fail because when the son grows up or the daughter grows up, and they are old enough to understand what is going on - they say, "What are you doing? How are you behaving? How are you conducting your business?" This is how family structures are disintegrating, are being destroyed by corruption, where there is truthless existence, where father dare not tell the truth to his son, where the son dare not face the truth of his father's existence, and we are frittering away our existence in foolish trivialities.

A discipline which cannot come from within yourself is no discipline at all. It is enforced, and when the force that is enforcing it is removed, then will come the situation, which we say, you know, 'when the cat is away the mice are at play'. That is no discipline at all. So, the only lasting discipline is that discipline which a man creates from within himself.

So the most important aspect of discipline is self-discipline. We are all obedient, especially in India, when we see a policeman. We do not spit anywhere, we do not enter a "No Entry" street, we do not park in a "No Parking" place. That is why there are so many policemen in our country you see, because signs are not enough. There must be a policeman even when multimillionaires who are educated at Harvard say, "It does not matter," - nobody is looking at you, you go through the street - "I will save half a litre of petrol." This is the fallacy and tragedy of this country that, discipline has to be imposed upon us at all levels from the highest to the lowest.

If the highest were disciplined, automatically the lowest would be disciplined. It is a truth, that if the father is a disciplined person, he obeys the natural laws and is disciplined in his existence, the son automatically patterns himself on the behaviour of the father. Now here lies the tragedy that unless you are disciplined, you cannot discipline your son or your daughter. Unless you are obedient, you cannot make your son obedient. Those who are in authority at the highest positions in the land, unless they are disciplined, moral, ethical, how can they enforce ethics and morality upon the people?

Whether it is a preceptor or a Master, it does not matter. We must be disciplined first, before we can teach discipline to others or expect discipline from others. Now this is what I would like our preceptors to understand very keenly with their hearts. I mean, intellectual understanding exists. It is not enough. An abhyasi comes for a sitting, the preceptor says, "I am too busy, come tomorrow." So if the preceptors would only understand that, if a man comes with a great burden in his heart, he needs a cleaning, he wants a sitting, some sympathy, some words of love from the preceptor and the preceptor abruptly says, "what do you mean by coming to me at this time? Come tomorrow. Seven o' clock is my sitting time" - it is a disservice not so much to the abhyasi you see, as to his Master, from whom he has undertaken this responsibility voluntarily. It is never imposed on anybody, voluntarily we have accepted the job of serving humanity by serving our Master. So the preceptors must understand that they are servants of the Master twenty four hours a day. If the preceptor lacks discipline, he is no more fit for the job. Preceptor's insult, if taken seriously, is Master's insult.

DISCIPLINE IN OUR DAILY LIFE
We are all familiar with the idea that people think they are disciplined. But somebody else finds they are not so disciplined. I have found that people are by and large very sincere. And, even their apparent indiscipline springs, not from the intention to be undisciplined, but because they don't really understand what it is. I have found that when we meet in Shahjahanpur, or in places like this, it generates a great deal of love and a consequent discipline. But it seems to evaporate when the function is over. It is because people do not realise that discipline is not something of a momentary interest or a momentary need. It cannot be said that discipline is necessary here but not on the street; or that discipline is necessary in the Ashram but not at home; or that it is only among abhyasis but not among the general public. It is an unfortunate fact of our education - educational system I should say - that we are taught that discipline is a need of the moment for certain situations and not others. For instance, when our son goes to school we tell him, "Don't misbehave in school," which can possibly give him the implication that he need not be well behaved in the house.

So, discipline is a way of life. It has no specific situational impact or need. Nor is it limited to the need of a moment. It must be the governing factor of our 24 hour daily existence; and what it really means is regulation. Discipline does not mean enforced rules, obedience - all that is nonsense you see. That is why most people rebel against discipline. They think it leads to lack of freedom. But what discipline really gives is an orderly life. Everything should be done when it should be done. Because you will appreciate that you cannot put out today's fire tomorrow, or cure yesterday's illness next year. So the first thing to be understood is that, each thing has to be done when it must be done. See, Babuji used to be quite upset when people would come late for meditation. He never gave public expression to it. But after the meditation He would ask me privately; "Can these people afford to go late for a train, or do they go late for a cinema?" So, everything in its time.

Second requirement is to lay down an order of priorities of what should be done, when and where. That means, ascribing to each activity its relative importance. What is the most important thing I have to do? That should be done first. The next important, the second and so on. But we find students when they should be studying they are at the football ground. And then, they are upset when they are told, "You should not be playing now." And they will even quote, "A healthy mind in a healthy body," all these things! But people do not explain to them: "Yes, my dear son, you need exercise, but this is the time for study." Similarly meditation. If an abhyasi understands that the spiritual life is the most important thing for him, then he will give the greatest importance to Satsangh. But they have not yet understood the importance of the spiritual life; therefore they are willing to sacrifice sadhana for a brief moment of pleasure or fun. So, when we have a list of priorities - "What is most important, what is the second most important," we have become accustomed to dealing with our situations, life situations, in a relative grade of importance. So, relative importance governs every activity of our lives.

VARIETIES OF DISCIPLINE
All that discipline means is, following it. For example, when a pilot is about to take off in a plane, they have a check list. No. 1,2,3,4....... he has to press every switch and see it is functioning. And, when the complete check list has been gone through and every thing is okay, then only can he take off. What do we do? We go to the station, we have no tickets; they are left at home! Because, we have not bothered to check: "Do I have my money? Do I have my ticket? Do I have myself with me? Or, have I left myself at home?" The last statement is not a joke, though it appears amusing. Because, Babuji once told me that most of us leave ourselves behind when we come for Satsangh. What it means is that my body is here but my mind is at home.

Discipline is of several varieties: physical, mental and moral.

Physical discipline: Sit where you should sit. Sit in the way you should sit. Maintain silence during meditation, in fact, at all times. When it is not necessary to speak, you should be silent. Now, because we are unable to be silent, we speak. Most people who speak today speak because they don't know how to be silent. When you can learn to be silent, you don't need any admonishment to be still, because a still mind makes for a still body. But we have to start. Sit: we must sit. Sit still: We must be still. If you are able to do this, we are able to still the mind to a certain extent, which is the purpose of meditation.

Mental discipline: Don't think of other things when you are meditating. Am I able to discipline my mind? Then the next step is given. If your mind is straying, bring it gently back to the object of our meditation. You are taught how to do it. "No, no sir, I get too many thoughts." "Yes, why do you allow yourself to get so many thoughts?" A technique is there. When the first disturbing thought came, if you got your mind back to the meditation, I dare say, the second disturbing thought would not come.

But what is important to understand is that if there is no mental discipline, physical discipline cannot exist. That is why we meditate; to achieve regulation over the mind, make it disciplined, make it possible for us to apply the mind where we choose, apply it, not use it, apply it - and thereby achieve a 100% strength of mind, which makes possible that promise of yoga, that a yogi will be skillful in anything he does.

Moral discipline: I have often said that in India, this unfortunate concept, that morality is only in the sex life of the individual, is a tragedy in this country. That is not a proper understanding of morality. Morality is in everything that we do. Am I doing what my Master would have done in this situation? It has nothing to do with truth or lies, it has nothing to do with celibacy or non-celibacy, even adultery. Is it what the Master would have done in this circumstance, in this situation? Let me do that. I believe this is to be the test of morality.

So, discipline is not something of the moment, for the moment. It is like our breathing which supports our circulation. It cannot afford to stop for even one minute. A man who has stopped breathing for a few minutes is a man who has stopped breathing for ever. Similarly, when a man has stopped being disciplined for some time, he has stopped being disciplined for ever.

LOVE AND DISCIPLINE
Unless one's total life in existence is in discipline, we are lacking in discipline. Hatred needs no discipline, but love must have discipline. And the more you love the Master, the more you must have discipline. Discipline, not because we are going to lock the gates or put barbed wire fences, but because there is an open door, into which I must not enter, unless I am called in. In my opinion, in my experience, open doors are the most forbidding of doors, because they invite, while saying no. It is like flashing a green and red light simultaneously at the oncoming car. He doesn't know whether to go or stop. What should tell you which light to obey? Your heart! Refer to your heart. Does it mean that the door is open for me? Where love is, there must be humility.

Everybody wants love, but they do not want the discipline. But if you think on the lines of the old Vedic instruction in India, love cannot exist without discipline. Is it possible? What is love combined with discipline? It is marriage. When you seek love outside marriage without the discipline of marriage, it is called lust, it is called vice, it is called so many things. When a child is born from love, arising out of the disciplined conduct of the love life in marriage, it is a legitimate child. But if the child is born without the benefit of marriage, without the sanction of society, without the sanction of moral laws, the child is called a bastard. So the oldest teaching of India is that love and discipline are two sides of one coin. This must be very clearly understood. Because for the ordinary human being, we all want love, but we do not want discipline.

Love and discipline go together. We have a saying in Tamil which I would like to translate in English, that "The hand that beats is the hand that hugs." Why I am saying this is, that love and discipline are really two sides of the same coin. What this saying in Tamil means, that the hand that beats is the hand that hugs, should be clear - that only one who loves will be bold enough to also discipline, correct. And in a person or in a society, when this ability to correct is lost, that means love is also lost.

Without this basic structure of love supporting discipline in guiding a new life through its course, that life is a wasted life. When the mother conceives, she has to be disciplined. She must not smoke, drink, or take drugs. Because there is a child growing up in her, a new life. If you love that child, if the child is born out of love, you will discipline yourself. After all, by your actions you are protecting the child which is growing in the womb. Is it not logical to continue that protection and guidance after the child has become independent of you physically, but not emotionally, not in a life-living way?

If you want to correct other people, the foundation of that ability to correct, that willingness to correct, the love alone that can make you correct others, is to discipline yourself first. Otherwise it will not work. Absolutely. So we come back to the purpose of Sahaj Marg: that if each one of you here is not willing to correct yourself, you have no right, no authority, to correct others. You have no moral right to correct others. You lose the ability to correct others. You lose the ability even to correct yourself - you have already lost it. He who would help others must help himself first to be strong. If I want to cure sick people, I must be able to be a doctor myself first. If I wish to give money in charity, I must earn money first. If I want to teach people, I must teach myself first. Always.

It is love alone which can give the ability to correct, the ability to teach in the right way, and the ability to discipline. And such love comes out and shines only when it is backed by self-discipline of the one who is giving this corrective discipline, because that alone gives you the moral courage, the moral faith, the moral right to discipline others. So, there is no use if there is love not backed by discipline. Authoritarian discipline is easy to enforce but difficult to uphold, whereas discipline growing out of love is self-maintained, self-created. We are not disciplined by the outside, but we become disciplined ourselves. We accept it as a necessity with which to guide our lives.

It is the love that God has for us that is transmitted, and it is that love which makes us grow. And that is why there is no compulsory discipline in Sahaj Marg; because love cannot demand or force; love must evoke. Therefore even the Ten Maxims tell us only what to do and leave it to us to do it when we have developed sufficient love for the Master and for our Goal.

FREEDOM AND DISCIPLINE
Children are not being trained properly by their parents in the name of freedom. Children are going to the dogs in the name of personal freedom. Love at fourteen, sex at sixteen, child at seventeen - in the name of freedom. What is this freedom where there is no discipline? So if you think you love your children, for heaven's sake, start disciplining them, so that later on the children may not say, "My parents never cared about me." At least we should be aware to this extent, that our children should not blame us later for not having cared about them. You see, care is shown - what is caring for somebody? Caring for their welfare - not caring for their freedom. Freedom, society grants, governments grant, but society doesn't care for people, governments don't care for people.

Care begins at home. Care is a sacred thing. It is not enough to breed and send them out in the name of freedom. If you care for your children, you should teach them, you should train them, you should correct them. If you are not able to do that, you are not fit to be a parent, and you cannot parade on this pretext of freedom. "My children are old enough to look after themselves." No child is old enough to look after itself. We are not fledglings in a nest, you know, that the mother can push it out and say, "Let it fly, or let the cat take it." We are supposed to be a cultured society, a human society, a caring society, a loving society. If love means care, care can come only out of discipline.

I find this even in our own relationship between the abhyasi and the spiritual trainer. Whether it is me or somebody else, it doesn't matter. That correction, or corrective advice is always resented. But what are you here for if you are not here to be corrected and to be developed into something that you can be proud of, yourself? So you see, discipline is absolutely necessary, and if we try to correct you, it should be taken as an expression of love.

I request all the preceptors to be flexible in their approach, but the abhyasis must be disciplined. You see, it is always a very strange anomaly, that discipline and freedom must go together. There cannot be freedom without discipline, and there must not be discipline without freedom. So how much of each we need depends on us. At the lowest level of our existence we totally need discipline and have a little freedom. At the highest level of existence we have absolute freedom, but have to discipline ourselves so that we may conform to social requirements, legal requirements.

So this is the strange paradox of existence, that discipline and freedom go together like everything else, like light and shadow, like darkness and light, like vice and virtue, like truth and lies. All opposites. So we begin with externally imposed discipline and rise progressively until we discipline ourselves from inside ourselves. At the first stage it is artificial, enforced from outside. At the top it is natural, my own way of existence. It is no longer a discipline I obey - I am disciplined.

You people must learn to understand that love and freedom and discipline go together. There can be no freedom unless it's a disciplined freedom. You have this on your highways: keep to the right, flick your lights when you want to overtake, or when you want to change lanes, wait and give way to the other traffic. This is all discipline, and it goes with the freedom of being able to go accident-free, on the roads.

HIGHER GOALS REQUIRE HIGHER DISCIPLINES
I used to wonder, why there are certain cults, organisations, systems, where discipline seems to be inculcated the moment you step into that. You know, there are margs (systems), where the discipline is so absolute that a deviation from discipline can cost you your life, I mean physical mortal existence can be terminated at the whims and fancies of the leaders of the cult and sect. But it is not fear of death alone which makes people disciplined. There seems to be a fervour, an eagerness to accept that discipline.

And, I used to wonder why, in the so-called nobler traditions where man is thrown upon his own integrity and his own assessment of what he should become, or what he should be to start with - this discipline does not come? Then, one day I heard my Master's voice telling me that "the degree of discipline depends on the Goal." You see, hitherto I had imagined that discipline per se will make the goal achievable. That is, if I am disciplined enough, I should achieve the goal. It is like saying, if I walk long enough I must get to my destination. If I eat long enough, I must fill my stomach, things like that you see. But I have found this funny contradiction, that in many societies where the highest discipline exists there is no spirituality; and the other way, where the highest spirituality exists there seems to be almost a total lack of discipline. Now, I am not trying to justify the lack of discipline in a high-minded organisation, or to decry the existence of discipline in those, where there is no apparent spiritual growth. But there is a definite hiatus, there is a definite incommensurability between these two things.

Even though Sahaj Marg offers the highest goal, how many of the abhyasis have really accepted that goal as their individual personal goals? If you have accepted the highest goal as your individual goal, you will also accept the highest discipline as being necessary for the achievement of that goal. The degree of discipline is linked very rightly with the greatness, the height, to which we aspire for. For instance, if I just wish to remain seated in my chair, I don't need much discipline. I have to sit in that chair, after that I can forget it. But if I have to walk, I have to remember that I have to walk on the left side; I should not cross the road where there are no crossing-indications, things like that, you see. If I have to go in a car, the rules become even more stringent. If I have to fly, they have to become much more stringent still.

One who aspires to the Highest, must be prepared for the highest discipline. Not because that discipline will lead him to the Goal, but because the Goal sets these limits without which you cannot achieve it. It is like this you know, you can travel in a bus with your windows open, but you cannot fly in a plane with your windows open. You may say, "I want air. I would like to wave to my wife who is standing outside." So this restriction, rather these restrictions seem to narrow the way little by little, and put in a squeezing pressure from behind, so that we have only one way in which we can possibly walk, and this is to the destination.

In essence, discipline does not lead automatically to achievement, but achievement is not possible without discipline. Now, this paradoxical statement, I would think, some of you would be able to work out, remembering that, for petty trivial things, you don't need much discipline. That is why I think most people who have lesser aims are so undisciplined. Because they don't need discipline for those achievements. And it is possible precisely because, their aims are so petty that even with corruption they can achieve that.

But can you educate yourself without discipline? That only means, something worthwhile achieving, something worthwhile striving for, has to be a disciplined activity. I can become a millionaire by doing something [hooky-cooky] in a hanky-panky way. According to the Vedas, you can have a 'pisacha' (devil) marriage by doing anything you like. But a Vedic marriage should have the sanction of society, the sanction of parents, the sanction of Divinity itself. One can get away at the lowest level with no discipline at all. At the highest level, lack of discipline means probably death.

The strict disciplinarian wants more discipline. The freedom-loving person wants less discipline, not understanding that discipline is neither interference with freedom, nor a lack of freedom, nor super-freedom. Discipline is discipline. Discipline is a way of life. It should have no restrictions. Essentially, we should discipline ourselves from inside. Now there is an old adage which says, "That country has a good government which has no government." "Oh, how can a country be governed if it has no government?" That is precisely the problem, you see, that is precisely the beauty. And I dare to venture to think that someday we should do away with our ten maxims too. If all abhyasis are disciplined, they wake up naturally before dawn, they have a nice place to meditate, naturally they go and meditate, they only eat pious food out of pious earnings, which all becomes natural. What is the need for ten maxims, and then for the commentary on the ten maxims?

So we have to create within ourselves the only source of discipline whereby, by being disciplined, we will not know that we are disciplined. You know, Sahaj Marg terminology, phraseology delights in these apparent contradictions. Freedom without freedom; freedom from freedom. If you know you are disciplined, you are still in bondage. Such a person does not know whether he is alive or dead. Therefore, of God it is said, 'He is.' He was not born; He can never die - anadi, anantam.

So, what I would finally say is that discipline is regulating your own activity yourself, to lead to the maximization of your life's potential in all spheres of activity - mental, moral, spiritual, in everything. So, kindly try to start it from today. I shall pray for your success.

"Discipline is the elementary step of surrender."