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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.
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