Quotes about Discipline

Build your inner environment. Practice Silence! I remember the
wonderful discipline of the Great Ones. When we used to talk and
chatter, they would say: "Go back into your inner castle." It was
very hard to comprehend then, but now I understand the way of peace

Eventually, as we become more fully aware of our problems, another critical point is reached, when insights really have occurred and we try to act upon them. We then discover to our dismay that our attempts to solve them by an effort of will avails us nothing, that our good intentions, as the saying goes, merely pave the way to hell. Good intentions all too readily can foster the illusion that we have settled an issue, when actually it is far from settled and seems to have not the slightest intention of ever being settled. This leads to a deadlock in which we see we need to change but cannot, try as we may. We know we need to renounce our egoistic controlling attempts but we cannot even make ourselves do that. We are up against the paradox that discipline and conscious effort are indispensable but do not get us far enough in our really critical areas. We reach the point where we are tempted to give up in despair because after all, what's the use? We begin to feel that analysis is like deliberate, organized torture; the most problematic things are rubbed in again and again and no matter how we exert ourselves there is no way to change them.

This state has its meaning too. As Dante puts it, the entrance to purgatory is at the deepest point of hell. A resolution of this seemingly hopeless impasse eventually occurs by virtue of the awareness that the ego's claim of a capacity to control rests on an illusion. Without the actual experience of this sort of impasse the ego cannot renounce its claim to the central position. It is only when we have come to our wits' end, and this in the face of our most sincere and extreme efforts, only when we realize that we are hopelessly incapable of changing ourselves, can we begin to accept our real existential position in the life drama. When we are able to say. "this is I, this is my being, and nothing can save me from or free me from being this sort of person," then we have come to the point of acceptance that initiates a fundamental transformation of which we are the object, not the subject. Transformation of our personality occurs in us, upon us but not by us. The unconscious changes itself and us in response to our awareness and acceptance of our station, of our cross.

Repression will always call forth a compensatory counteractivity of the unconscious which will, through the back door, force upon us the very thing we are trying to repress. On the other hand, conscious discipline-deliberately planning, curbing or directing our acts in awareness of their effects, or renouncing action if that should be required-can be borne and is eminently human.

When one has learned to live with manifestations of the "not-I" in an attitude of concrete acceptance, bearing one's seemingly inferior personal characteristics as a burden rather than identifying with them and at the same time humbly remaining open to the demands of hitherto unrealized transpersonal powers, a new phase of psychological transformation is initiated. The instinctual drives themselves may change character and consequently the needs for suppressive discipline or sublimation can be lessened. Much of what formerly seemed evil, or at least compulsively disturbing, reveals itself as merely primitive and therefore capable of constructive growth. The instinctual drives thus transformed and matured cease to be sources of moral danger, temptation or sin; instead they become the originators of new creative impulses and possibilities of expression which eventually widen the scope of the personality and with it the whole life.

To explain too much is to steal a person's opportunity to learn, and stealing is against the Law.

Bless the upward hearts who find all war, all envy, and all regret to be unacceptable, especially inside themselves.

The price of greatness is that we continue to expand what we do best, putting aside what we do well, especially if what we do well is expected by others.

Over God's Throne:     Blisters Before Bliss

People who put aside a career for convenience get very little
of a career or convenience.

The undisciplined man doesn't wrong himself alone--
he sets fire to the whole world.

Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light;
discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy.

Let the heart of your practice guide your response to yourselves and others. Let the law of your practice guide your actions. And where and when the two appear to clash, therein lies the space for deeper practice, for breath, for awareness — for awakening.

Real peace comes only to those who control the body and mind with self-discipline.

"Suppose you assume, as most so-called religious people do, that there is in you, fundamentally, deeply, the essence of reality; and that if, through cultivating virtue, through various forms of discipline, control, suppression, denial, sacrifice, you can get into touch with that reality, then the required transformation will be brought about. Is not this assumption still part of thought? Is it not the outcome of a conditioned mind, a mind that has been brought up to think in a particular way, according to certain patterns? Having created the image, the idea, the theory, the belief, the hope, you then look to your creation to bring about this radical change."

It isn't easy, it does take an incredible amount of discipline, you don't just write just when you feel like it or you're not going to build up much of a body of work. Inspiration comes to you while you're writing rather than before....For me the discipline of writing and the discipline of prayer are identical, in that I have to let myself be got out of the way because that's not a do-it-yourself activity, and listen....When you write, don't think, write. You think before, you think after, you don't think during. When I'm praying, when I'm truly praying, I'm not thinking, I'm not speaking, I'm shutting up, so perhaps if God has something to say I can hear it. So writing too is an act of listening, listening to what has to be said.

When you study the lives of all great achievers--those who have had the greatest influence on others, those who have made things happen--you will find a pattern. Through their persistent efforts and inner struggle, they have greatly expanded their four native human intelligences or capacities. The highest manifestations of these four intelligences are: for mental, vision; for the physical, discipline; for the emotional, passion; for the spiritual, conscience. These manifestations also represent our highest means of expressing our voice.

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly.  Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.  To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly -- you usually don't use it at all.  It uses you.  This is the disease.  You believe that you are your mind.  This is the delusion.  The instrument has taken you over.

Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. Once you have determined the spiritual principles you wish to exemplify, abide by these rules as if they were laws, as if it were indeed sinful to compromise them. Don't mind if others don't share your convictions. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer.

Diligently practice identifying yourself as a limitless expression of an unliminted Universe.  

Ask any great athlete or the concert pianist or the successful actor if they have arrived at the place where they need no further practice. They will tell you that the higher you climb in proficiency and public acceptance, the greater the need for practice.

Everyone would like to be the best, but most organizations lack the discipline to figure out with egoless clarity what they can be the best at and the will to do whatever it takes to turn the potential into reality.

...the purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incomptence and lack of discipline--a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place.

...culture of discipline. When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy.

You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace to extract the silver from the dross. This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away.

Don't think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.