The Three Types of Discipline of the Bhagavad-Gita: 2. Swami Krishnananda.

=====================================================================================

Thursday 16, October 2025, 21:15.
Article
Scriptures
The Three Types of Discipline of the Bhagavadgita: 2. 
Swami Krishnananda.
(Spoken on September 18th, 1974)

======================================================================================

The first six chapters deal with what we may call self-discipline. The second six chapters deal with a vaster and more comprehensive type of discipline, a self-discipline in relation to the whole of the world outside, which takes into consideration not only the individual personality of one's own self but also the world in which one is situated, or of which one is a country. The third discipline is universal discipline, which is the pinnacle that we have to reach in this divine practice of coordination which we have to establish within and without.

As I mentioned, the first six chapters deal with personal discipline. They deal with the individual, the person, the human being as such, how a human being can be integrated psychologically, morally and intellectually. The human personality is not exhausted merely by the physical body. You or I as an individual person does not mean merely this physical vesture that is visible before the eyes. The personality of a human being is more than the physical body. Your character, for example, is the determining factor of much of the success that you are expected to achieve in the world. Your character is not merely the demeanour of the physical body; it is an internal manoeuvre of your mental makeup or status of consciousness. The way of thinking, the inner conduct of the psychological organ, and the capacity of your reasoning faculty to comprehend things all combine to constitute your personality.

Now, what is the human personality, which is supposed to be disciplined, and by which we mean self-discipline? The physical body is only an outer vehicle of a power that is working within the physical body. The body is only a vehicle; it has to be driven by a motive force which is other than the body, and this motive force is intelligent enough. There are the vital organs, the sensory powers, the thinking principal, the volitional faculty, the intellectual endowment, and the moral conscience. All these are present in us not as isolated ingredients thrown together in an unconnected manner, but in a beautiful blend. The faculties that constitute the human personality are not thrown together pell-mell. Our personality is a systematised presentation of self-consciousness, and it may be defined as a centre of self-consciousness. We are aware that we are such and such or so-and-so.

In this consciousness that we have of our own self, we have an integrated feeling of a totality that we are, and not an isolated makeup of bits of essentially isolated characters. It is very difficult to conceive what a human personality is. I mentioned that, psychologically at least, we seem to be made up of various phases of inner conduct, character and understanding. But all these various aspects of our conduct, feeling and understanding, etc., are brought together into a harmony of function, and it is this intelligence which brings the faculties into a harmonious function. It is this that goes by the name of the human individual.

Though there are millions of cells in our body, all different from one another, and though each thought of the mind may be said to be different from other thoughts, and every limb can be separated from every other limb, our consciousness does not feel this isolated location of the parts of the personality. We are a total, we are a whole, we are a completeness. This is an inviolable law of consciousness operating in every person right from childhood up to old age, even up to the event of death.

Now, the Bhagavadgita expects us to discipline ourselves in the sense that these faculties of the human individual should be harmonised so that they do not war among themselves internally. What is this war that is likely to take place within ourselves? This war is what is called psychological aberration, a subject for study in abnormal psychology. Psychological problems are generally the consequence of a war that takes place internally between or among the faculties in the subjective individual. How can a war take place inside our own personality when we are one single complete compact individual?

*****

Continues

==========================================================================================================