BENGALURU: Each trade, each skill, has its own discipline. If you are a carpenter it has a particular discipline, scientist, architect and so on, each function has its own discipline. And human beings throughout the world are used to this idea of discipline, not only in the technological field but also in the psychological realm.
And we are, through education, through our culture, in every form of relationship there is, as we have accepted, a certain discipline. I would like, if I may, to go into this question rather deeply: why human beings need discipline at all. Don’t jump to any conclusion and say there must be no discipline, we must live in a permissive society, as we are now, and any form of restraint, any form of holding, is inhuman and therefore the other extreme.
As we were saying the other day, we must all have the capacity not only to be able to listen, to observe together, but also think together, which apparently is much more difficult because we are so trained through our religion, through our culture, to think individually, separately. And so there is always diversity of opinion, judgement, evaluation - your belief opposed to another belief, ideals opposed to other ideals and so on.
These differences, contradictory, opposing, keep the individual separate and when there is separation there must be conflict, which is so obvious: national conflicts, racial conflicts, class conflicts, ideological conflicts and so on, so on.
Now we are asking, we are thinking together if that is possible - I think it is possible when you put aside your own particular opinion, your particular evaluation, experience, conclusions and feel the necessity of thinking together. Right? Please do this as we are talking, not when you go home or later on, but now as we are sitting together let’s find out if it is possible that we can communicate with each other so that there are no barriers.
The speaker is only sitting on the platform not to assume any authority but it is convenient because you can all see the man. That is the only reason he is sitting on the platform. And is it possible to think together about this whole question of discipline, effort, and whether it is possible at all in life to live without a single effort.
Effort means strife, struggle to become something, to achieve something, not only in the psychological realm, but also in the physical realm. Is it possible to act without effort, to have a relationship with each other in which there is no strife whatsoever, between two people, and no conflict within oneself, to think clearly without the determination to think clearly?
All that implies conflict. Can we together think out this question, and as we are thinking it out eliminate as we are going, so that we can together put aside through our clarity of perception, clarity of hearing, clarity of thinking, that very movement sets aside the contradictory elements. That's what we are going to discuss this morning, if we may.
Like the soldiers throughout the world are highly disciplined people and that very discipline encourages violence. I don't know if you have not thought about this. A soldier is trained, day after day, month after month, suppressing his personality, suppressing his desires, conforming to a pattern, and there is this very, very strict discipline. And that discipline when it is in action against somebody it is violent. That is war. Obviously. The word 'discipline' means to learn, not to conform, not to suppress, not to imitate but to learn.