Discipline - key to achievement -& - Patanjali "Atha Yoga Anushasanam"

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Discipline  -  key to achievement -& -  Patanjali "Atha Yoga Anushasanam"

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Today's topic is about Discipline and about the concept of discipline as a key criterion for achievement.

Now one might ask the question - achievement of what?   Well, the answer is the achievement of everything or anything really.

For example, if you think of many varied and apparently dissimilar things like Sports, Music, Dance, Academic study , or business or your job or career … anything!

Atha Yoga Anushasanam

The first yoga sutra of Patanjali says that "Atha Yoga Anushasanam" which is in Sanskrit and it basically means " and now ( begins)  the DISCIPLINE  of Yoga".

So practically in our lives, we can take 'discipline' as a challenge to us. 

It is a path that is fulfilling in addition to being challenging. As a fun experiment, try to set the alarm 30 minutes earlier for tomorrow morning. See what happens when the alarm rings in the morning. Your body and your mind come into conflict. The mindset is the alarm to wake up, but the body does not want to physically get up. This is the age-old mind and body at play again. 

Again the mind and body connection. That is also Yoga! Yoga is the connection!  

So again we see that the mind has to 'force' the body to wake up and get up and again that is 'discipline'.  

The conflict needs to be resolved with the discipline of the mind and body. 

Another pointer to this aspect of discipline is when we talk about 'Meditation'. 

In meditation, the idea is sitting still and not move , this requires  discipline. This requires the mind to tell the body not to move and control the impulses. 

The sitting still is a physically challenging step, but then there is the 'stilling of the mind' ! That is the more difficult part to control and again that is discipline!

Why am I saying this?

 It is a realization that I made not just in my everyday life and career and music practice and such but even while learning Yoga and Wellness techniques and related philosophies. It is not that I am great in those aspects but I learned a lot about the need for discipline.

This whole topic can go on and on and can be related to many other practices like for Music or Sports or other arts or any other stream too,  but let me conclude by saying that these are just a couple of examples of discipline being part of ancient traditions to achieve greater things in life.  This still remains the same and is in every kind of achievement of personal objectives in life.