Discipline

I’m going to make myself do it!

I like to think of The Monkeyland Series as a crash course on what you’re going to have to go through to find yourself.

I’ve spoken of the need for discipline. One needs discipline to ignore the distractions of the world and find (reveal/manifest) his true self…his spirit…the ‘I am.’

I’ve spoken lightly of sado-masochism as a practice to emulate discipline, and under whose whip is the aim of revealing the spirit.

Obviously, S&M is a false discipline, because a person must discipline himself. He/she can never be disciplined by another. I could kill somebody and reveal their spirit in that way, but there isn’t much to see.

So let me speak briefly of the discipline that I utilized to help me find The Muse.

I began karate in 1967. I studied all kinds of martial arts. I ignored some of the foibles that go along with martial arts, the desire to gain glory, the desire to be a domineering bully. Instead, I was obsessed with finding ‘The Zen’ of the martial arts. I wanted those mystical abilities of the ancients.

Somehow, I avoided the traps, and I became aware that I wasn’t fighting people, I was fighting myself. Discipline wasn’t doing the kicks and punches, it was getting rid of the distractions that stopped me from doing what I truly enjoyed.

Enough discipline and I realized that what I truly enjoyed was myself.

I gave up. I quit the fight and let myself be. And that discipline, that wonderful loss of resistance, transferred into my other interest, my other obsession, writing.

From the pursuit of being a mystical master I was enabled to find The Muse in writing, and in everything I do.

Karate is not the only discipline that enables a person to find himself. The four disciplines touted by the sages are: yoga, martial arts, religion, and negativism (negating the world in all your thoughts and actions until only you are left as the creator of the universe).

But if one educates himself as to the differences between virtue and vice, and if one practices virtue, then almost any discipline can work.

Dancers, sculptors, poets, managers, housewives, musicians, teachers, and on and on…if you isolate your basics, ignore distractions, and follow the path of virtue…you’ve got a discipline that can lead you to wondrous achievements.

Almost anything can provide the necessary discipline if you can ignore distractions and focus on the one thing you really want to do.