"Shameful confession, one of my own Chelas (or so it is rather incredibly reported to me) said recently: "Self-discipline is a form of Restriction." (That, you remember, is "The word of Sin.") Of all the utter rubbish! (Anyhow, he was a "centre of pestilence" for discussing the Book at all.) About 90 percent of Thelema, at a guess, is nothing <i>but</i> self-discipline. One is only allowed to do anything and everything so as to have more scope for exercising that virtue.
Concentrate on "Thou hast no right but to do thy will." The point is that any possible act is to be performed if it is a necessary factor in that Equation of your Will. Any act that is not such a factor, however harmless, noble, virtuous or what not, is at the best a waste of energy. But there are no artificial barriers on any type of act in general. The standard of conduct has one single touchstone. There may be — there will be — every kind of difficulty in determining whether, by this standard, any given act is 'right' or 'wrong'; but there should be no confusion. No act is righteous in itself, but only in reference to the True Will of the person who proposes to perform it. This is the Doctrine of Relativity applied to the moral sphere."
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Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
"The ethical aspect of the Law of Thelema is simple enough theoretically. "Do what thou wilt" does not mean "do what you please"; though this degree of emancipation is implied, that we can no longer say <i>á priori</i> that any given course of action is "wrong". Every man and and every woman has an absolute right to do his or her true will.
At the same time, to quote <i>The Book of the Law</i>, "... thou hast no right but to do thy will". So then, the new Law really announces a stricter bondage than any previous law and this in accordance with biological teaching. An organism progresses by self-imposed inhibitions."
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View PlansSelf-discipline is when your highest desires rule your lesser desires, not through resistance, but through loving action grounded in understanding and compassion.
Remember that self-discipline is not self-suppression. Suppression is when you resist and fight against your desires, keeping them as buried and unexpressed as possible. Self-discipline is when your highest desires rule your lesser desires, not through resistance, but through loving action grounded in understanding and compassion.
Actually, when you come to understand self-discipline you begin to understand the limits of freedom. You grasp the fact that freedom is never absolute, that it must always be contained within the framework of other people’s freedom.
Self-discipline is a self-enlarging process.
Self-discipline is self-caring.
With most families and most children you must have a certain number of rules to live by, and a discipline that is accepted, if the child is to realize that he has certain obligations. This is an important part of self-discipline and an essential element of being a good citizen in a democracy. Actually, when you come to understand self-discipline you begin to understand the limits of freedom. You grasp the fact that freedom is never absolute, that it must always be contained within the framework of other people’s freedom.
When you make a decision to be better. When you make a decision to do more, to BE more. Self-discipline comes when you decide to make a mark on the world. If you don’t think you are disciplined: It is because you haven’t decided to be disciplined. YET.
Discipline is the greatest weapon against the self-righteous. We must measure the virtue of our own controlled response when answering the atrocities of fanatics. And yet, let it not be claimed, in our own oratory of piety, that we are without our own fanatics; for the self-righteous breed wherever tradition holds, and most often when there exists the perception that tradition is under assault. Fanatics can be created as easily in an environment of moral decay (whether real or imagined) as in an environment of legitimate inequity or under the banner of a common cause.
Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgment, the weapon you wield delivers- and let us not be coy here- naught but murder.
And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause.
I am not against rules, but the rules should arise out of your understanding. They should not be imposed from the outside. I am not against discipline! but discipline should not be slavery. All true discipline is self-discipline. And self-discipline is never against freedom — in fact, it is the ladder to freedom. Only disciplined people become free, but their discipline is not obedience to others: their discipline is obedience to their own inner voice. And they are ready to risk anything for it. Let your own awareness decide your lifestyle, life pattern. Don’t allow anybody else to decide it. That is a sin, to allow anybody else to decide it. Why is it a sin? Because you will never be in your life. It will remain superficial, it will be hypocrisy.
President N. Eldon Tanner has said, “Self-discipline is doing what you know you should do when you don’t want to do it.
discipline means being disciplined in all things, especially little things.
Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.
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