Choose Your Discipline
“When you build a house, every brick counts. When you build a character, every thought counts.”
Dadi Janki
When we keep a daily discipline for the ‘self’ and stick to that practice through meditation, prayerful presence and silent reflection, these disciplines help to keep our mind anchored during the day. Whatever we do over and over again, like breathing, should become natural for us; it should become an integrated part of our life. There is just that initial effort of choosing and deciding to discipline the mind… and thereafter, it’s smooth running. In fact, once we have broken through any resistance that may occur, we will create a good pattern in life for ourselves that will stand us in good stead.
What do we need to keep ourselves on track? We need to be vigilant. When we bring our ‘self’ back to the space of conscious awareness, of knowing our thoughts by using a subtle process of checking and changing those thoughts, we will be able to create stability in our inner life, despite the lack of certainty and stability in our outer world. That way we can head off those negative and wasteful thoughts that will derail our state of peace and inner balance. When we do not have awareness that is when we find ourselves falling into negative states of thinking like overthinking; worry; anxiety or even depressive thoughts which will lead to feelings of sadness, when we have these thoughts they should be setting off alarm bells for us. These are heavy and low frequency thoughts that will definitely deplete our energy. So if we work to conserve and preserve our peace of mind, by managing the quality of our thoughts, we will be doing ourselves a great favour in life.
“The secret of change is to focus all your energy,
not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
Socrates
Yes, indeed Socrates was one wise soul who knew that all the energy we put into resistance just makes us weak and vulnerable, so instead of ‘being against something let us be for something’. This is a creative positive process, we just need the clarity of mind to be able to discriminate between high and low quality thoughts.
All thoughts are energy vibrations that go out into the field of the Universe. It is like we are in a game, living in an inter-active play station. When we change the quality and quantity of our thoughts we can change the quality and experience of our life, because everything is connected at an energetic level. The high frequency thoughts and feelings of love, compassion, acceptance and appreciation will automatically give us an uplift in life, they create a light vibration. Equally the low frequency thoughts of anger, ego, depression and fear will put us on a downward spiral. The law of energy, the law of attraction is that whatever we put out… will be attracted to us.
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s
inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
Blaise Pascal
It is good to know what is influencing our mind. Our habits are a result of repeated patterns and behaviours, we may call it our nature, but this is a product of our thoughts – words – actions. Therefore we need to be aware of how our beliefs are influenced by our education; media; propaganda, basically whatever we mentally and emotionally digest will affect our thinking. This is where we have to take care of our mind and make sure that we do not overload the mind with unnecessary information, and that is quite a challenge nowadays as we are all experiencing an information overload!
Sometimes it is good to take a little time out and review the contents of our mind, to see where are we sitting in this frequency field? This is a simple process of checking.
- Check the quality and quantity of your thoughts.
- Are your thoughts of high or low quality and frequencies?
- What is the benefit of a positive thought? Can you make a list?
- What is the consequence of a negative thought? Make a list of that too.
Spiritual light puts us on a high vibration, and spirituality is all about light. A lightness of mind, nature and being-ness. Practicing a discipline and routine will help us on our journey. Find a practice that suits you and stick to it. The consistency will bring the rewards in no time. So we cannot afford to be wishy washy in our focus or our effort. We need to create more time and space in our day to allow more light to come into our lives and meditation is a good tool for this.
“Reality is created by the mind, we can change the
reality by changing our mind.”
Socrates
Raja Yoga Meditation is all about disciplining the mind. Once that is in order, then the wheels of our life are greased well and life becomes easy to manage. Discipline does not mean rigidity. In fact, quite the opposite. Once discipline is set, then one can be flexible, trusting and knowing one’s limits and lines of boundaries. A lot like building the core when exercising or doing hatha yoga, and then one can bend and flex as needed without any strain or injury. And finally discipline in one area of your life will spread to discipline in all areas. So, start… somewhere… anywhere…
It’s Time… to find a discipline that will help to support us with our spiritual growth in life.
© ‘It’s Time…’ by Aruna Ladva, BK Publications London, UK
Indeed it is the mind I need to be conscious and aware of
Being present in the moment is the key
Thank you
This has been such a helpful and encouraging piece. Thank you.