New Year, New Level: The Yogic Power of Discipline
New Year, New Level: The Spiritual Power of Discipline
By Yogacharya Satyam Ehinger
NOTE: At the end of this article is a special offer to receive a 30 day meditation challenge video series for free!
This new years count down I challenge you to start from 66 instead of 10. Why? Because then you might have a feeling for the discipline it takes to really reach your resolutions for the year. Research shows that on average, it takes approximately 66 days for a habit to become automatic (FSUnews), but only 12% of new years resolution makers make it past day 40. Discipline is the missing link to make our resolutions into realizations. But as we all know discipline is something money can’t buy— it’s something that must be grown and cultivated from the inside, where it can fuel our spiritual growth and transformation. Discipline is anything but one dimensional, it’s anything but mundane or full of doership— discipline is the wish fulfilling tree, the bestower of grace, the redeemer of imperfection and the source of our spiritual growth. Reflect on anything significant you have ever accomplished in your life, and you’ll see discipline was there, walking with you step-for-step. So let’s take a moment together to see how the yogic tradition describes and cultivates discipline, so that we may can take our resolutions into the realm of realization.
Here at Konalani Yoga Ashram, we have seen this fact proven first hand. In 2020, like so many, we pivoted to doing our work online, which for us is meditation and yoga teacher trainings. Meeting once a week for nine weeks means these trainings typically last about 63 days, and the results have been astounding— making deeper and more meaningful connections than ever before and seeing students reach new levels of their practice. If there was one silver lining of quarantine, it’s that it helped all of us reach into new levels of discipline that we never knew existed. We were given the golden ticket of discipline in the form of ‘stay home’ orders, and as an ashram we really maxed it out. And at the heart of this growth spurt is nothing other than the transformational power of discipline, and it’s clear role in our practice as the building block of spiritual growth.
It’s easy to mistakingly equate discipline with a dull state— like just showing up at work everyday in a ho-hum kind of way. In fact, I couldn’t get myself to put discipline in the title of this essay because I thought it would deter people from reading it! The yogic tradition has a very different perspective on this word, one that describes it as the fuel of transformation. Transformation is a product of heat, which is why teachers in the yogic tradition wear orange, to represent an inner state of growth and change. Did you know that the Sanskrit word for heat, Tapas, can also be translated as discipline? That’s just how important the concept of discipline is for yogis, it’s synonymous with the actual fuel of growth. This is because discipline takes focus, focus creates heat, and heat generates transformation. For example: What does it take to keep your mind on a mantra? Discipline. And what happens when you practice a mantra with discipline? You probably start to heat up. They go hand in hand. As Babaji teaches in his book Spiritual Practice, “We are able to create such a tremendous flow and heat that we are performing a massive purification. There were times that physically I was so hot in winter weather that I would wear a tee shirt because I was burning up so much stuff from deep inside” (77). Discipline is not a dull state, far from it, discipline is a dynamic and vibrant state, a glowing state.
Our culture usually equates discipline with a negative experience, like the fact that “disciplinary action” means you’re being punished— but to the yogic tradition, discipline is actually a source of great solace and peace. Patanjali writes in his Yoga Sutras that “By cultivating discipline, one is redeemed of all guilt and imperfection, and the higher abilities of the body and senses are attained (2.43)”. Ponder this for a moment. Through discipline we are redeemed of guilt and imperfection. This is particularly important for all of us to remember as we approach our new year’s resolutions because those resolutions usually involve a wish to be different than how you are at the moment. This can lead us to feel discontent about our current state, which is unnecessary when seen through the lens of discipline. Let me show you what I mean. Let’s say you make a resolution to get in shape. If you apply yourself to this end in a disciplined way, you will feel better about your current state long before you lose the weight— why? Because when you do something with discipline, day in and day out, you feel inside that you are walking in the direction of your resolution— and even though you might not be there, your mind can rest assured that you are on the right track. It’s a subtle form of magic, you are able to have the experience of reaching your goal while on the path to it. Discipline, the redeemer of guilt and imperfection, the bestower of gifts.
Discipline is also the bestower of knowledge. According to Patanjali, “devoted practice”, disciplined practice, is the fuel that ignites the radiance of wisdom which eradicates our ignorance (2.28). Discipline is actually synonymous with understanding itself within the yogic tradition. Sacred texts and teachings in the yogic tradition are known as “Śastras”, which contains the root “Śasa”, which also means discipline. Understanding a Śastra, a yogic teaching, therefore, takes discipline— you can’t just read it and understand it— you gotta live the teachings over time and allow the transformation to arrive. And when you step back to think about it, this makes sense— the sutras are maps that guide us on our path, it is assumed that aren’t just reading the sutras as a book, but as a guide-book, a set of rules that must be followed in order to arrive at the described destination. Jai Deva Singh goes on to illuminate the nature of Śastras in just that way: “[A Śastra] expounds the fundamental principles of reality but at the same time lays down certain rules, certain norms of conduct, which have to be observed by those who study the particular Śastra. A Śastra is not simply a way of thought, but also a way of life.” If you want to understand a high yogic teaching, you can’t just read it, you have to live according to it, you have to let the teaching discipline you.
Lineage teacher Swami Rudrananda once said that truly understanding a spiritual teaching will cost you “tremendously”, meaning that we have to pay deeply with our own personal effort to achieve the teachings we are given. As they told Marvel comic’s “Doctor Strange” in his spiritual pursuit, ‘that kind of reward comes at a great price, but we’re not talking about money here’. The price of real understanding, real transformation, takes personal effort in your actual life, there is no expense greater. This is the real heat of discipline. For example, what does it really take for you to do more mantra during your day? What does it really take for you to surrender when they’re wrong and you’re right? In my experience it takes everything I’ve got— I have to empty my wallet to afford that kind of growth! We’re not talking about money here, we’re talking about effort. But of course, as Rudi taught, what we are emptying out of our pockets is really just the tension that is causing us to suffer, and what we are buying with that tension is a richness of life that we could never think we could afford. So, even from a novice financial perspective, you can see that it’s a very worthwhile investment.
So as we all embark on a new year, and a new level of our practice, take a moment to reflect on the role of discipline in our practice. If you like to journal, take a moment to reflect on what discipline means to you. How have you benefitted from it in your practice? How can you work with it in it’s most positive light, as the yogic tradition implores us to do ? If you write a new years resolution, take time to see it through the lens of discipline, through the lens of spiritual growth, in order that you don’t just make it through February, but make it to a new level of your Being.
SPECIAL OFFER: Being yogis, we know how important it can be to have structure when trying to cultivate the power of discipline in your spiritual practice— to that end we have created a 30 day meditation journey. In just 30 minutes a day you will be guided through pranayama and meditation practices, as well as yogic philosophy and spiritual texts. There is also a reflective journal question for you to post in each day, and a place to see other people’s posts. This is normally only available to students taking our 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, or our meditation teacher training, but we are making it available to all seekers of growth for the new year! Here’s the offer: Send us an email (konalaniyoga@gmail.com) and tell us what discipline means to you, and we’ll send you a link to the 30 day journey! That’s it! We want to walk with you step for step as you reach new levels in your practice in 2021. Namaste, and happy new year from all of us at Konalani!