Letters on Himself
and the Ashram

Discipline in the Ashram

Discipline Defined

What is discipline?

To act according to a standard of Truth or a rule or law of action (dharma) or in obedience to a superior authority or to the highest principles discovered by the reason and intelligent will and not according to one's own fancy, vital impulses and desires. In Yoga obedience to the Guru or to the Divine and the law of the Truth as declared by the Guru is the foundation of discipline.

12 June 1933

What is discipline and how does it apply here, in our Yoga?

It is not the discipline of Yoga, but the discipline of an organisation, the exterior material discipline one has to accept if one is to be part of an organisation.

9 July 1933

What is discipline?

To live and act under control or according to a standard of what is right—not to allow the vital or the physical to do whatever they like and not to let the mind run about according to its fancy without truth or order. Also to obey those who ought to be obeyed.

July 1933

Need of Self-Discipline

In the outside world there is a mental and social control and also the absorption in other things. Here you are left alone with your own consciousness and have to replace the mental and outward

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control by an inner self-control of the spirit.

1 December 1933

If there was a perception of the difficulties in the adhar, it ought to have moved you to a more strenuous effort, a deeper call on the help and Grace. To indulge in a bout of gross material self-indulgence was a quite imbecile solution. It is true that the Grace is there for all who aspire and, however one may stumble, if there is a sincere repentance and a will to atone, there need be no cause for despair.

But I must remind you that that is only the individual aspect. There is here an Asram, a group of seekers of the Divine Truth with a collective existence and aim; a work is being done for the Divine against great difficulties and in the midst of a hostile and censorious world which is only too glad of any pretext for assailing it and, if possible, injuring its fair fame and success. A conduct like this deals a wound to the work and the collective effort towards a higher life. Your proposed escape from your own fall by suicide would not have been a solution and would only do a still greater injury to the divine Work which is, as much as individual realisation, our spiritual endeavour.

I trust that you are sincere in saying that these things are finished for ever. If you had not confessed, the Mother would have been obliged to deal severely with you; but as you have confessed, this lapse may be considered as annulled, provided it is never repeated. A greater frankness and sincerity in laying yourself open to the Mother will help you avoid such aberrations in future.

There is no reason why you should not succeed in your sadhana if, having seen the defects of your lower nature, you take a firm resolve in future and keep it to be more strict with yourself, more trustful in the Divine Grace, more sincerely open to the Mother.

10 September 1933

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Some [personal] rules I have been following—not reading newspapers, not eating outside, and so forth—now seem like mental dogmas.

Rules like these are intended to help the vital and physical to come under the discipline of sadhana and not get dispersed in fancies, impulses, self-indulgences; but they must be done simply, not with any sense of superiority or ascetic pride, but as a mere matter of course. It is true also that they can be made the occasion of a too great mental rigidity—as if they were things of supreme importance in themselves and not only a means. Put in their right place and done in the right spirit, they can be very helpful for their purpose.

8 May 1934

I have read your letter. What you write is true; X has said these things in order to help you and put you in the right way. A certain inner and outer discipline is necessary in order that one may grow into the spirit of the Yoga and the natural impulses of the vital cannot be a guide to action there. One has to perceive what one should or should not do and impose this discipline on oneself; for that X's advice and guidance can be of great help to you.

20 October 1936

Importance of Obedience

In regard to obedience, X told Y, in a depreciatory way, that it was not that important, that asking for permission to do things was not necessarily surrender, but often was hypocritical.

It seems to me that one obeys rules because if one was to do the opposite, one would go out of your protection.

It is precisely that—one immediately goes out of the protection.

As far as I can see, right action and right movement (after asking you what is right) are rather the first bases of sadhana.

Yes, quite right.

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Please cast some light on this, so that I can explain it to Y.

It is a deficiency of psychic perception and spiritual discrimination that makes people speak like that and ignore the importance of obedience. It is the mind wanting to follow its own way of thinking and the vital seeking freedom for its desires which argue in this manner. If you do not follow the rules laid down by the spiritual guide or obey one who is leading you to the Divine, then what or whom are you to follow? Only the ideas of the individual mind and the desires of the vital: but these things never lead to siddhi in Yoga. The rules are laid down in order to guard against certain influences and their dangers and to keep a right atmosphere in the Asram favourable to spiritual development; the obedience is necessary so as to get away from one's own mind and vital and learn to follow the Truth.

8 June 1933

All your comments seem to rise from the fact that you object to discipline, rule and order. That seems to be the general mind of the Asram. Each must be allowed to follow his own inclination, convenience or "common sense". Those who insist on stemming the chaos of vital indiscipline and disorder are martinets like X or capricious and tyrannical like the Mother.

October 1933

What most want is that things should be done according to their desire without check or reference. The talk of perfection is humbug. Perfection does not consist in everybody being a law to himself. Perfection comes by renunciation of desires and surrender to a higher Will.

5 August 1934

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