Discipline is not conformity or mere obedience. It is essentially the ability to live intelligently. Practically and pragmatically, discipline is an attitude of being open minded in a given situation with an attentive approach to the persons and the problems therein. It is a cultivated capacity to set aside the inherent prejudice prone mindset and appreciate the present moment and respond appropriately.
It is the sense of responsibility, the ability to respond but not react. A disciplined person can see through his inherent conditioned reflexes and egoistic reactions averting the impulses of misplaced beliefs and complex-induced mannerisms.
Such a person combines sensibility and sensitivity, capacity and communicability, and affability and amiability. A disciplined person is ever inclined to respond from heart but not react from the head, and exudes unaffected natural elan and sophistication.
Such nobler and finer instincts, the hallmarks of a truly educated person, are not manifest in an undisciplined individual stymied by attention. Such mind-catering inattention does not unfold the inherent intelligence that nurtures the maturation and evolution. Atrophy marks an inattentive personality. Smug and complacent, one vegetates and even degenerates if not concerned to grow mentally through the attention.
We are conditioned to control the uncontrollable thought and create conflicts, contradictions, confusion and chaos in our mind. This chaotic mind dulls us into a state of inattention. This dull-some inattention lets the chaos in mind to continue holding us as the helpless creatures of our own mind. The inattention and the chaos reinforce each other, And the perpetual battle, as JK puts it between ‘what is’ and what should be or what should have been’ continues in our psyche dissipating the vital energy, And this dissipative and debilitative inattention rules the roost in every situation.
We cant will away our addiction. The inattention sustains the addictive mentality. We vow before god to abstain from health-impairing addictive fixations or obsessions like smoking, drinking, gambling, over reacting etc., and renew our resolve everyday.
But to our bewilderment, that consistency renewed resolve inexplicably lapses and paves the way for our relapse into addition. Then the wily ego ensnares us with a fresh resolve to be broken again by our overpowering subconscious that is conditioned at the level of brain-cells by compelling sensation and feeling of the alluring addiction. The very sight or smell or even mere visualization of the addicted item, especially drink, drug or smoke, enlivens the passion that effaces the resolve to desist from the ingrained addiction.
So long as we are inattentive towards such addiction-related conditioned reflexes, we are helpless. It is not merely the resolve to abstain but the resoluteness to beware of the subconscious impulses and cravings through the heart-felt attention coupled with faith in soul power that could wean us away from the deep rooted addictions.
The article has been taken from the book ‘The Art of Living and The Art of Being by Captain KV Reddy