5

www.CSEcenter.org

W

hat do you think of when you hear the word 

discipline? When it comes to spiritual 

discipline, imagine that your practice is 

permeated with joy, that you are drawn again and again to 

the delight that emanates from your soul. See yourself 

gladly turning your awareness to meditation and to 

prayer, compassionately restraining the senses from any 

tendency toward injury or harm, being drawn to self-

inquiry with curiosity and willingly cultivating an attitude 

of surrender—letting go of any sense of being separate 

from the Source. Envision your days filled with sweet 

inspiration and bold confidence in your divine life. Why 

should it be otherwise? 

 Self-discipline is an essential spiritual practice—one 

that we cannot succeed without—on our journey of awak-

ening and liberation of consciousness. It is required. Every 

spiritual tradition includes some form of it. On the path 

of Kriya Yoga, self-discipline is one of the three central 

practices for spiritually awakened living, along with study 

and self-inquiry, and surrender of the illusional sense that 

we are separate from the Source. Discipline permeates 

every aspect of practice, from the foundations for ethical 

living in the yamas or restraints, to the steps toward inner 

realization in the niyamas or observances; and beyond, to 

the step-by-step method of superconscious meditation. 

Discipline the mind, discipline the senses, and discipline 

the body. Where is joy to be found in this? 

When discipline is approached from the perspective 

that we are fundamentally flawed and must work to 

change what we are, failure is built into it. Failure, because 

its very foundation is awry. No amount of discipline will 

ever change what we are. And thankfully, this is not its 

Who could live, who could breathe,  

if that blissful Self dwelt not within the heart?  

It is That which gives joy!   

—Taittriya Upanishad