LEARN TO LOVE SELF-DISCIPLINE

Nonviolence is the supreme law of life. - Hindu proverb

We have ceased fighting anything and anybody.... - Anonymous

Learn to love discipline. - "God Calling," April 11

I am convinced that learning to love discipline is the most important of those three. Mainly because an undisciplined mind upon hearing the first two immediately resists, using the worst case as justification for resisting...as in, if I came upon a man abusing a baby, I'd tear him apart, and any decent person would, too! So much for nonviolence and ceasing to fight.

It may well be true that anybody would fight in that situation, but how often in life have we come upon that?...or may reasonably expect to? Learning to love discipline comes at the very beginning of our spiritual journey and lasts our entire life. So our first step in learning discipline of self is learning to minimalize our own thoughts.

In order to begin at the beginning, we must needs examine our self, our reaction to the little things, the little snarks and snips and snipes of daily life. Are we willing to accept those without reacting in kind? That takes discipline...self-discipline, the worst kind to our reasoning mind.

The secret for not reacting in kind to any snark or bait is remembering until it is a life principle:  If I don't pick that up [i.e., react in kind], it will remain his; if I pick it up, I take ownership. That non-reactive thought is easy beyond believing...after we've done it a few thousand times.

Another secret: We do not need do it more than a few times before we own it...that is, if we've committed our self to throwing in with God...to let him do our push-backs through us. That's a wobbly decision for awhile, so we keep coming back until we get it right. That's called "learning to love discipline."

Final secret: Letting God do our push-backs through us guarantees we've ceased fighting...being love, God can only act from love.

Thank you.