Stop the Madness of Self-Discipline
The Art of Meditation: Personal Development and Spiritual Growth:
Everywhere you look nowadays the new holy grail of success seems to be self-discipline. From, diet plans, to sports, to the stock market, to the arts and also, most unfortunately, even in the practice of meditation, yoga and the related spiritual sciences. Raw material enters boot camp, is put through the patented regiment, and out comes a finished product. Discipline yourself to eat right, exercise right so you can get healthy, discipline yourself to sleep less so you have more productive time, discipline yourself to sit endlessly hour after hour watching your breath so you can gain enlightenment. Is this the way? Is self-discipline necessary? I don’t think so. Let me tell you a story…
Story: The War of The Rice Farmers
In a small village far from the hustle and bustle of the city, there lived a rice farmer, Barbary Rao. He was a simple man and had a small rice paddy, which he would tend to diligently and which rewarded him with ample harvest to support his family. Now Barbary loved to farm. He was born to farm. He loved to hoe the land, build irrigation canals, study the weather patterns, research fertilizers, and most of all he loved his rice…. yes eating it also. He knew all about farming rice. From end to end he was an expert farmer. Barbary had also developed new systems to improve the quality and quantity of his dear crop and other farmers would often visit him and his farm to learn from him new techniques in de-husking, storage, aging, packaging etc etc. One such visitor was Coolun Das.
Coolun Das was from a neighboring village and he was a very strong man. His body was strong, his will was strong and most of all his ambition was strong. Coolun was eager for success and worked very hard to make his farm productive and profitable. He knew that Barbary was his main competition in the region and so worked very hard to learn his systems. One season, there was great excitement among the villages, that Barbary had developed a formula for new hybrid rice seeds that would double the yield of the harvest. Upon hearing this news, Coolun was very disturbed. What if Barbary refused to share the formula? What if he decided that this was too good to give away, as he had done with his other discoveries, and using it made himself the richest and most powerful of the region? Coolun began to have nightmares. So one night he snuck into Barbary’s farm and stole the formula and seedlings. Barbary was unable to reproduce the stolen formula and eventually moved on to other work.
Coolun utilized the formula and had a bumper crop that year and in the common market, where all the farmers would bring their crop and samples, he sought out Barbary to gloat. Much to his surprise and irritation Barbary was quite undisturbed by his success. Barbary congratulated him on having such a good year and began discussing with him new techniques in polishing that he was working on. Coolun wondered how come he was not as contented as Barbary. He decided it was probably due to the fame Barbary had in the region, so Coolun made up his mind to achieve greater fame than Barbary and thus greater gratification. Coolun knew Barbary worked very hard so he decided to discipline himself to work even harder. He started sleeping in the barn so that the dawn calls of the cocks would awaken him. He trained himself to eat only one time a day, so he would be even more time efficient. He learned to concentrate and work through pain, discomfort and fatigue becoming a non-stop farming machine. All that hard work brought him great success and in a few short years he became the richest and most famous farmer in the region. But alas, every year that he met Barbary in the market, he would be reminded that he was not the happier of the two.
Coolun tried everything, he had a huge estate built, purchased large farm lands, grew in political power, gave away rice to the hungry, all the time using great self-discipline to achieve these successes, but even when old and gray whenever he met Barbary, he know there was something he had missed. Eventually, they both grew very old and as luck would have it they passed away on the same day. In the line outside the pearly gates, Coolun and Barbary met again. As usual, Barbary greeted him happily and began discussing the latest research on creating vitamin enriched rice. Finally their turn arrived to meet the Big Boss.
Once inside the Big Boss turned to Barbary and said, “Well done my boy, here come take a seat you need the rest.” He then turned to Coolun and asked, “Any questions?” “Yes,” Coolun replied, “How come you have asked him to rest and not me? I have worked just as hard, if not harder than him, throughout my life. Also, how come Barbary was always happier than me, even though I achieved so much more success, so much more wealth, power and fame?” “Well that answer is really very simple,” replied Big Boss. “You, Dearest Coolun, were meant to be a wrestler not a rice farmer. So your work is yet to be done. Off you go…” and with that Coolun was sent back down for another go.
Commentary & Analysis of Passion vs. Self-Discipline
One of the most important things in life is to figure out what you really love to do. This is not always easy. What makes it harder is that what you love to do is not necessary what you want to do. You may want to spend all your time sitting around watching TV, or playing World of Warcraft, or golf. This does not mean you have figured out what you love to do. I am not saying you don’t do the things you want to do either, its just if you have not figured out what you love to do in life, you will do these things to escape from the tedium that your life will eventually become. So how can we figure out what we love to do in life? That is your first and foremost challenge and I have found the following questions to help with that process…
Questions to Help You Discover Your True Passion:
- What is it that you like to do for its own sake, without any concern for reward or compliment? Do you like the joy of building things? Do you like to just create music? Do you like to teach? Do you like the challenge of watching your thoughts in action?
- If you won the lottery, I mean the really, really big one how would you like to spend the rest of your life?
- If you were informed you are about to die shortly, what would you regret most as not having spent your time doing?
- No matter where on Earth you are. In a rich, first world country, in the bush lands of Australia or high up in a Himalayan village what do you see yourself doing regardless of location?
- What activity do you always find yourself coming back to throughout your life?
- What activity can you just not see yourself doing without?
One important thing to remember is that nowhere am I saying that what you love to do is going to be easy. It may be very hard, very challenging, but what I can assure you is that you will do the hard work, with a smile on your face and not needing a shred of self-discipline.
The passion for the work will carve its own discipline. It is like a river carving its own banks, making its own path, no outside influence is required. Similarly when you are doing what you love to do, you don’t need to impose any external discipline. You just do what you love to do. Pay attention to the demands that the work makes on you and you will find your life being given great order by that.
Self-discipline being imposed from outside is violence. It is not born out of intelligence and the natural demand of the work at hand. You can look at it this way, either you are devoted to yourself and, like Coolun, discipline yourself through will to attain what you believe you need to succeed in life, or like Barbary, you are devoted to your passion and you do what it requires from you. One leads to frustration and one to contentment. Time to stop the ugliness of imposed self-discipline and embrace the path of wisdom and grace.
Dear Tbh,
i see you kindfully need a little guidance, before posting a comment, please do not mistake mere ingnorance for wisdom, if you are wise, there is no room for evil.
Ignorance is to not knowing the difference between right and wrong, when you are ignorant, you may be carried away by the dark side. Since good is “safe”, someone may try to “dicsipline an evil one. The wise doesnt doubt what to and what not to do, he just live the truth and right.
God bless you!
Hi Tbh,
Thanks for your thoughts and feedback. Like your energy and passion and may it guide you well. Excellence is certainly a way point on this journey.
All Good Wishes,
Anmol
Completely ridiculous…..imagine if the world consisted of nothing but people with no self discipline that did nothing but pursue their “passion” with no concerns of discipline….. It’s the self disciplined people of the world that make it a safe place for people like you to espouse thIs crap that you do to try to feel better about your less than average life that you’ve “passioned” your way into a feel good about it…..I call complete bullshit.
Hi Anmol, i cant describe the value of your posts here, this is outside any teachings, i very much appreciate your great efforts for humanity, i accepted your “yearning to be free vs. the tipic self-disciipline that many poor deceived persons do for the sake of meaningless things like “loosing some fat or kilos” or the tipic “stress killer”, however, i hope everyone to get the benefits of your great work regardless their intentions, sorry to post this but i have to say to everyone that the point of yoga is not acomplishing astounding asanas to show everyone or to get some siddhis and be proud of them, but like i said before i hope everyone get the benefits of all your site no matter what they want, these are my sincere wishes for everyone!
God bless you all
And on the issue of self-discipline. I think sometimes it is irreplaceable, for example when you need to do physical exercises, but your body doesn’t want to. You just know you need to do it to keep your body fit and healthy, but it doesn’t serve your passion. Or another example, when you walk by some sweets or junkfood restaurant and you smell those scents and your legs carry you there by themselves, but you know you don’t need it :) So it takes a bit of self-discipline to control your body impulses.
Hi Dims,
This is the greatest of debates. Passion versus practicality. At the end of the day, you have to embrace insecurity and take a chance. I actually think there is a Universal Law which says, if you wish to support yourself, go ahead and I will leave you be, but if you wish to go with the flow and just trust me, then I will support you.
I sense one of the biggest regrets most people have in life, is that they cling to security and don’t take the risk. Tough tough question, thanks for sharing it with us.
Glad you enjoyed the article and story.
All Good Wishes,
Anmol
Thank you for the great article, Anmol.
But here’s what I thought while reading. Not every passion is going to lead you to a decent life conditions or allow you to make enough money to support your family’s needs and status.
What would be your answer to that?
Dear Skeptic,
Really not sure how caste or wealth has come into this story or topic? The point of the story is to live your passion regardless of everything. Thank you though for taking the time to stop by and give your feedback.
All Good Wishes,
Anmol
Sent back for another go? Strange — but your line of thinking implies that a lower caste person must live in utter poverty beneath others created in a higher social status in order to be a “success” ; ridiculous rubish!
Great site Anmol – thank you!
Great story. Really makes you think, and that is what it is all about, isn’t it. I think we all need to think what is really important to us, especially in these economic times.
Hi Melania,
Wonderfully put and very insightful. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
All Good Wishes.
Anmol
I think more should be written under this title “stop the madness of self-discipline”. I think sometimes we are willing to do anything, from trying to change who we are to pushing ourselves to the maximum. The only thing we find difficult to do is to think and to be true. It’s easier to comply to a set of rules than to think for yourself. A lot of wisdom is available to all of us, and wisdom always says the same things everywhere in the world. But still, wise people are rare. I think this happens because negative influences are more powerful and they do anything to keep people blind, asleep and busy with useless activities. Media, trends, junk books and everything is more loud than we are. Anyway there are many of us who can not be satisfied with what “the world offers us” and by world I mean the mainstream society. This thirst , this hunger for more, this unwillingness to settle for less is what brings us to look for truth, for real happiness. We can call it the search of the soul, the return to our true nature, the recognition and acceptance of a Mistery behind our egos. For some, this leads to God, for some it helps to get to know themselves better, to answer the questions their spirit forces them to deal with, for some it helps to improve their life-style and relationships or to follow their passions like you have said. Anyway , it is the thing that brings GOOD into our lives. Sufficiency, denial, delusion, laziness and lie are some of the demons that only the Truth can cast away and make us free.
Keep up the good work and may you see the greater mistery in every person you encounter.
Hi Yajni,
Am always happy to be of service :-). Hope things get better for you real fast and all your dreams come true.
Best,
Anmol
hi anmol – thank you yet again for another fab article – im going thru a sort of difficult patch right now and somehow this article sheds some clarity on the problem – its like a “sign” that yes things will improve – much appreciated and god bless – regards yajni
Anmol Mehta,
Thank you so much for such a brilliant and true post. Spirituality can be a topic that is complex and sometimes difficult to understand. Your story made the message very clear and powerful.
I practiced law for the past five years, even owned my own law firm. But the whole time, I felt I was missing something in my life. What was missing was spirituality. Unfortunately, some professions can drain you from all your energy and even spirituality.
I closed my Firm two months ago and have begun online copyrighting about meditation. I have never been happier and because I am so passionate about what I write, I know that slowly but surely more visitors will find out about the site and I’ll be able to share all the benefits of meditation I’ve gained with others. Thanks again for your insightful post.
All the Best,
Sonia Gallagher