How Do You Develop Discipline

By George A. Boyd © 2019

Q: I find that I have intentions to do something, and then I never seem to do it? Could you give some suggestions about how you develop discipline?

A: You progressively develop discipline as you grow spiritually and personally. It appears to follow these steps as you mature as a person and evolve spiritually:

  1. Discipline in one area – you concentrate your attention and develop good habits in one area that is important to you. This may be in sports, weight lifting, playing music, or you may be able to be disciplined at your job.
  2. Coordination of discipline – when you have developed the capacity to discipline yourself in more than one area, you schedule blocks of time when you can act in a disciplined manner in more than one area of your life.
  3. Disciplining others – when you have learned to discipline yourself to reach your objectives and adhere to high standards of behavior—and you internalize this—you gain the capacity to discipline others. You do this when you perform supervision of others or you patent you children.
  4. Disciplining your ego – as you begin to function more as the Self and are able to more fully embrace the executive functions of your personality, you use your conscience to improve your character and check the wayward impulses of your ego, and overrule your ego’s rash decisions with the more considered and mature choices of the Self.
  5. Disciplining your entire personality to achieve specific goals and objectives – at this level, you begin to take charge of your life. You identify those goals that you want to achieve in your life, and you enact them through making a plan. Through this means, you progressively actualize your core life’s dreams.
  6. Disciplining your Self to carry out the Soul’s Purpose – as the Soul evolves and rises into its crown of purpose, your Soul begins to direct your Self to enact aspects of its Soul Purpose—beginning with education and training; practice of the skill as creativity, in your career, and in service to others; and then perfecting the skill through insight and innovation.
  7. Disciplining the Soul to follow the Divine Will and complete the Divine Plan – When this stage dawns, you embark on the path of discipleship. You work with your Supervising Initiate to unfold your Soul and actualize your spiritual destiny. Step-by-step, you ascend closer to Mastery and Liberation under the guidance of your spiritual Master.

Wherever you are on this scale today, start generating greater discipline through visualizing the next step in this process. For example:

  • What does discipline in one area look like?
  • In what other areas could I develop discipline? What would that require of me to achieve this?
  • Now that I’ve disciplined myself in several areas, how could I schedule these disciplined blocks of time, so I can make my day more productive?
  • What ways do I know to encourage others to observe self-discipline to be more orderly, efficient, productive, and respectful?
  • In what ways does my ego run the show? What behavior and attitudes could I change? How can I change that behavior?
  • Now that I’ve begun to restrain my ego, and I’m less distracted, what core goals do I want to achieve in my life? What are these goals? What is the plan to achieve each one? By when do I hope to accomplish each of these goals?
  • In what ways has my Soul intimated its purpose to me? What do I need to do to align with this purpose? How can I improve my ability to get clear on what I need to do?
  • If I have begun the spiritual Path, what do I need to do to make spiritual progress, and improve my ability to meditate and commune with the spiritual Master(s) of my tradition? What is required of me to move into the next step of my spiritual growth? What does Mastery in my tradition entail?

In general, to improve your productivity and your discipline, try these things:

  1. Aim to accomplish one key thing each day
  2. Put aside blocks of time in which you can focus exclusively on your goal without distraction
  3. Sit with your resistance to change until it subsides, then press on to accomplish your objective
  4. Work on your goals tenaciously; do not relent until you accomplish them. Engage your commitment and your resolve.
  5. Challenge yourself to improve yourself; strive for excellence
  6. Set up your workspace to be distraction free and orderly. Do one thing in that space, so you can gain the association that you will do that activity in that place.
  7. Reflect on how you will feel when you accomplish this goal. If you think of this as a reward, it will motivate you to keep working to reach your goal, even when there are obstacles.
  8. Do one part of your goal at a time, and progressively work to finish each remaining part. Check off your progress towards your goal on a checklist.

If you can set up your life to allow you the space to accomplish your goals, you can make this a productive, fruitful, and fulfilling life. Resolve that you stir your native will power into action and take charge of your time and your life, and make your dreams come true.

Don’t wait for others to make your dreams come true. If you want them, make them happen!

Reflections on Discipline

© 2011 by George A. Boyd

In keeping with the theme of setting New Years resolutions, we are offering for our last blog post of 2016, an article we wrote on the topic of discipline. This article was written in 2011, and first published in our Initate’s Library level two book, The Winds of Adi Sat Guru Desh in 2013. It is important to realize that simply resolving to do something, but then, not following through, is doomed to failure. Discipline requires that you sustain your activity until your goal is achieved. Discipline is more than saying you will do something; it requires committed and perseverent action. Here’s the article:

Discipline occurs when the volition focuses activity and attention towards a specific objective over a sustained period of time. Those that gain personal mastery of any genre do so because they are able to discipline the faculties of their personality to achieve peak performance and functioning.

Across the Seven Rays, we can identify different types of personal discipline. These are shown in the table below.

Ray

Type of Discipline

Keynote

Dominant Personality Function

1st

Sports and Military

Courage

Will

2nd

Relationship and Therapeutic Communications

Empathy

Intuition

3rd

Management and Scholarship

Acquisition and Application of Knowledge

Intellect

4th

Musical and Artistic

Creativity

Imagination and Senses

5th

Scientific

Search for Objective Truth

Reason

6th

Religious

Development of Virtue and Holiness

Feeling Center

7th

Yoga/ Spiritual

Self-Mastery

Body and Vehicle of Consciousness Awareness

The following signs mark the emergence of personal discipline:

  • Regular behavior practice and drilling to perfect skills
  • Acquiring specialized knowledge about this specialty
  • Developing strong desire and commitment to succeed in the achieving this goal
  • Continued reflection and introspection about this specialty with an aim to improve your performance and knowledge
  • Focusing the attention upon this area to develop powerful concentration
  • Willingness to sacrifice desires in other aspects of your life to focus on this area
  • Associating with those who have achieved mastery in this field to learn their methods; obtaining coaching, teaching or mentoring
    from an expert or adept in this area

Discipline and the Path

Meditation is a Seventh Ray application of discipline. It includes learning to control your body and your vehicles of consciousness, to monitor the contents of awareness in different vehicles, and to actively unfold your spiritual evolutionary potentials.

Meditation begins as a process of inner observing and monitoring. After mastery of these rudimentary practices, meditation activates key inner centers: the attentional principle, the spirit, and the ensouling entity.

These types of spiritual discipline include:

Form of Discipline

Examples

Moral Discipline

Voluntary self-restraint, observance of rules for living such as Yama or Niyama.

Discipline of the body

Sitting still in a stable posture, practice of Yoga asanas or martial art poses.

Discipline of the senses

Withdraw of sensory current (Pratyahara), and detachment from the objects of sense (Vairagya)

Discipline of the attention

Steady gaze (Tratakam), Concentration (Dharana), Contemplation (Dhyana), and Absorption in the object of meditation (Samadhi)

Discipline of the attentional principle

Using suggestion programming and creation to control the vehicles of consciousness; using intention to the attention to perform attunements and to travel in full consciousness on to inner Planes

Discipline of the spirit

Engaging in remembrance of the Divine, voluntarily surrendering to God and the spiritual Master, dedicating all possessions and wealth and energy to the service of God, and following the Divine Will as it is revealed to you

Spiritual discipline aims to ultimately prepare the meditator to become a spiritual Master. This process of inner discipline, which yields progressively deeper egress into the depths of the mind, may be said to pass through 12 stages:

Level of the Mind

Stage

Abilities

Conscious

(1) Rudimentary Stage

Meditators are first introduced to very basic meditations that do not go deeper than the Conscious mind. They are capable of Practical meditation, relaxation, self-soothing, and introspection.

Subconscious

(2) Liminal Access Stage

The meditator can access the chakras of the Subconscious mind, and focus on the seats of the attentional principle and the spirit. With some practice, they consciously can enter the astral body, and utilize hypnotic suggestion. They can also scan through their personal unconscious to access early experiences.

Metaconscious

(3) Personal Empowerment Stage

These meditators can access self and utilize the faculties of the Metaconscious mind consciously. They can activate the will to take charge of personal destiny; they can set goals and accomplish them. They are capable of Centering meditation.

Superconscious

(4) Subtle Realm Access Stage

These meditators can enter the first band of the Superconscious mind, the Subtle Realm. They can access the higher octaves of the will operating in this band of the Great Continuum of Consciousness and may practice invocation, and magical or shamanic rituals. Those that reach this stage or above can practice Transcendence Meditation.

(5) Planetary Realm Access

(Psychic Attunement Stage)

These meditators activate their vehicles in the Psychic Realm, which grants powers of psychic sensitivity, healing, channeling, and reception of intuitive guidance. They may consciously commune with spiritual guides and can consciously unite with their Soul.

(6) Planetary Realm Access

(Holy Spirit Attunement and
Solar Angelic Attunement Stage)

These meditators can invite the Divine through prayer and invocation to anchor the Holy Spirit. Advanced meditators in this band can utilize the power of the spoken word (decree) to manifest their intentions.

(7) Planetary Realm Access

(Mental Attunement Stage)

These meditators can attune with the Manasic and the Buddhic Realms, and can receive, integrate, and transmit thought directed from the Soul, the Monad, and Initiates of the Planetary Hierarchy.

(8) Planetary Realm Access

(Empowered Union Stage)

These meditators unite the Soul with the Monad and become Adepts. They are capable of ministering the Light of Spirit to others; they become instruments of the Divine Will.

(9) Higher Octave Access Stage

These meditators can access the ensouling entities, spirits, or nuclei of identity of the Transplanetary Cosmic, Supracosmic, or Transcendental band of Great Continuum of Consciousness. They can direct their attention to these levels and perform inner spiritual work at these levels.

(10) Higher Octave Empowerment

As a result of these higher octave practices these meditators gain mastery over one band of the Continuum and become Initiates within that zone. This confers Higher Octave spiritual Mastery.

(11) Multiple Higher Octave Empowerment

Certain advanced Initiates gain mastery in more than one band of Great Continuum of Consciousness, and may have forms of Mastery in the Planetary, Transplanetary, Cosmic, Supracosmic, and Transcendental Spheres.

(12) Multiplane Mastery

This confers the ability to work in any realm of Great Continuum of Consciousness, and extends the mantle of mastery to all 12 spiritual domains and to all 13 ensouling entities.

The ability to discipline yourself will lead to progress and mastery of your chosen genre in personal life. When applied to spiritual development, it will lead you progressively across the Great Continuum of Consciousness, and ultimately, help you achieve spiritual Mastery. Without discipline, you will accomplish little in your personal and spiritual development. With discipline, all things become possible.