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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.
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