A lot of progress, even in the material sense, happens only by inviting pain. That which we call as discipline, even in the loose sense, is nothing but an invitation to pain. Is there discipline without pain? You have to get up at some point in the morning—doesn’t that involve pain? Pleasure is to keep sleeping even after the alarm has rung—is that not pleasurable?
So, all discipline is nothing but pain. It’s very well-directed pain, it’s very discrete pain, but nevertheless, all discipline involves pain. While random and mindless pain will not help you, at the same time, there can be no discipline without pain. And there can be no progress without discipline.
This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
