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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.
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