Self-Discipline and Peace of Mind.
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“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves;
they therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never
fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set. This is true of earthly as of heavenly
things. Even the man whose object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great
personal sacrifices before he can accomplish his object; and how much more so he who
would realize a strong and well-poised life.”
You require high levels of self-discipline if you truly desire to develop all your inner resources and
fulfill your true potential. Throughout the ages, in all religions and philosophies the highest human
good or idea has been peace of mind. Your ability to achieve your own peace of mind is the true
measure of your success and the key determinant of your happiness.
To develop spiritually, and to become a fully functioning person, you must regularly apply selfdiscipline and self-control to your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Spiritual development, inner peace,
and the experience of joy all require self-mastery and self-control
Outer Versus Inner Success
To succeed in the “outer world,” you must discipline yourself to focus and concentrate, work hard at
your job, take continuous action toward your goals, and become better and more capable as you move
onward and upward in life.
To succeed in the “inner world,” however, requires almost the opposite abilities. To achieve inner
peace, you must discipline yourself to let go of everything that can disrupt your sense of inner peace
and contentment.
Zen Buddhism teaches that the main cause of human suffering and unhappiness is “attachment.”
People become attached to ideas, opinions, and material things, and then they are reluctant to let go of
them. Sometimes people become so preoccupied with these external factors that it affects their mental
and physical health—even keeping them awake at night.
When you practice detachment, separating yourself emotionally from things or outcomes, the
negative emotions involved stop as well, like unplugging a light from the socket.
The Need to Be Right
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Most people have a deep down need to be right. However, when you stop caring if you are right or
wrong, all the emotions surrounding this need for rightness disappear. Dr. Gerald Jampolsky asked
the great question: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?”
Some people become passionate about their political or religious beliefs, all of which have been
learned from someone else in some way. But when you put those beliefs aside for a while, they lose
their ability to stir your emotions or to inflame your anger.
I have friends and meet people with ideas and opinions that range all over the political and
religious spectrums. In most cases, we get along well together because we simply put aside the
discussion of opinions on which we differ. We consciously and deliberately discipline ourselves to
detach from these ideas, and we focus instead on subjects that we agree on and in which we share common interest.
Refuse to Blame Anyone for Anything
The chief cause of negative emotions and the primary destroyer of inner peace is blame. As I
mentioned earlier in the book, it is not possible to have a negative emotion without having someone
or something to blame in some way or for something.
Blame requires one or both of two factors to exist. The first is identification. This occurs when
you take something personally: You identify with it. As soon as you decide to feel that someone has
done or said something negative that affects your personal interests in some way, you immediately
become angry and blame that person.
Even if someone who is hurrying to work, completely preoccupied, and who may have just had a
fight with his or her spouse accidentally cuts you off in traffic, you can immediately become angry at
that person, a complete stranger, because you took his driving behavior personally.
But when you discipline yourself to detach and stop taking things personally, the negative
emotional charge connected with the person or incident stops almost immediately. For example, when
someone cuts you off in traffic, you can detach from the situation emotionally by saying to yourself,
“Oh well, he’s probably in a hurry to get to work. Maybe he’s late.”
The minute you say that to yourself, all negativity associated with the event vanishes and you
become calm, relaxed, and positive once more.
Give Up Your Suffering
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The second root cause of blaming is justification. This occurs when you tell yourself (and others)
why it is that you are entitled to be angry or upset in this situation.
Many people fall in love with their suffering. Their past problems become a primary focus of their
lives. They think about what happened all the time. They go through the day and even the night
carrying on angry conversations with people who are not present, people who they feel have hurt
them in the past.
Whenever they get into a conversation for any period of time, they bring out their suffering, like a
trader in a bazaar, and display it to the other person. They then recycle through the unhappy events of
their lives, telling what happened, how they were badly treated, and how awful the other person was
to have behaved in this way.
However, when you discipline yourself to stop justifying your negative emotions by continually
rehashing what happened and what the other person did or didn’t do, and when you instead calmly
accept that “stuff happens” in life, your negativity accompanying the other person or situation dies away.
Practice Forgiveness
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The height of self-discipline in spiritual development is the practice of forgiveness. The Law of
Forgiveness says that “you are mentally and emotionally healthy to the degree that you can freely
forgive anyone who has hurt you in any way.”
Every person—including you—has experienced destructive criticism, negative treatment,
unkindness, rudeness, unfairness, betrayal, and dishonesty from others over the years. These events
are unfortunate, but they are an inevitable and unavoidable part of being a member of the human race.
The only way you can avoid the problems and difficulties of living in a busy society with many
different kinds of people is to live in a cave.
The only question you need to ask and answer after you have had a negative experience is “How
long will it take me to get over this event and get on with my life?” This is a decision only you can
make. It is one of the most important types of decisions that you make in your own life if you truly
want to be happy. What’s more, it is a true test of your mental and spiritual discipline.
The Forgetting Curve
Each person has a “Forgetting Curve,” or what is often called a “Forgiveness Curve.” This curve
measures how quickly you forgive and forget a negative experience, and it determines how mentally
and emotionally healthy you really are.
Imagine a rectangle with a scale from zero to one hundred ascending the left side of the rectangle.
This is the scale of the intensity of the negative emotion you experience when you are hurt or offended
in some way. Across the bottom of this graph are the months and years of your life.
You can have either a flat forgiveness curve or a steep, downward sloping forgiveness curve. If
your forgiveness curve is flat, this means that you continue to be angry for a long time, sometimes for
years or even decades at the same level as when the event occurred.
There are countless people who are still angry about something one of their parents did or said to
them decades ago. Furthermore, they will tell you about it at the drop of a hat. They will reach into
their gunnysack of unforgiven events and pull out their childhood experiences and share them with
you.
Every psychologist and psychiatrist who deal with unhappy people are employed because their
patients have flat forgiveness curves. Their primary conversation in therapy is talking about what
someone did or didn’t do to them or for them at some point in the past—and how unhappy that person still feels about it today.
Get Over It and Get On with It
Truly healthy people, on the other hand, have downward sloping forgiveness curves. They have had
just as many difficulties and problems in life as anyone else, but they have disciplined themselves by
resolving to forgive and forget quickly so they can get on with their lives. They refuse to gunnysack
their problems and carry them forward. They simply let them go and turn their attention to the things
that make them happy.
The discipline of forgiveness is the key to the spiritual kingdom. It is only possible for you to
enjoy high levels of peace of mind when you develop the habit and discipline of freely forgiving other
people for everything and anything that they have done to hurt you.
Forgiveness Is Selfish
Some people are confused about the concept of forgiveness. They think that forgiving someone else
for having hurt them is the same as condoning that behavior, or even approving of it. Quite the
contrary. Forgiveness is a purely selfish act. Forgiveness has nothing whatever to do with the other
person. You forgive others so that you yourself can be emotionally free, so that you no longer carry
that baggage around with you.
You have a wonderful mind. You are incredibly intelligent and insightful. You can use your mind
on your behalf in order to help you to be joyous and happy or you can use it against yourself. The
way you use your mind at the highest level is to find reasons to forgive others. Instead of rehashing
and dissecting a past event, looking for rationalizations, justifications, and reasons to take something
personally, use your intelligence to find reasons to accept responsibility and let go of the negative situation
Accept Responsibility and Forgive
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The instant you accept responsibility and forgive everyone for anything that they ever did to hurt you
in any way, you liberate yourself completely. All your negative emotions disappear. In place of your
negative emotions, you experience a sense of inner peace, love, happiness, and joy.
The payoff for using your self-discipline to practice forgiveness on an ongoing basis is
extraordinary. When you use your incredible abilities of self-control, self-mastery, and detachment to
separate yourself emotionally from situations that would otherwise make you unhappy, the entire
quality of your life improves in a wonderful way.