Greetings! This is Gary Bean welcoming you to the L/L Research Podcast, In the Now, Episode #61. L/L Research is a nonprofit organization dedicated to freely sharing spiritually-oriented information and fostering community. Towards this end, we have two websites: the archive website, LLResearch.org and the community website, Bring4th.org.

During each episode we respond to questions sent to L/L Research from spiritual seekers like you. Our panel consists of Jim McCarty, Austin Bridges, and me—each of us a devoted student of the Law of One. Your questions allow us to explore the Law of One and related matters of metaphysical interest. We hope only to offer a resource that enhances your own seeking process. Please know that our replies are not the final word on these subjects. We ask each who listens to exercise their discernment and be sensitive to their resonance in determining what is true for them.

If you would like to submit a question for the show, please do so. Our humble podcast relies on your questions. You may either send an email to [email protected] or go to LLResearch.org/podcast for further instructions.

Again, I’m Gary Bean and we are embarking on a new episode of L/L Research’s weekly podcast, In the Now.

Jim McCarty and Austin Bridges, how do you guys feel today?

Umm, pretty good.

Doing well. Ready for the show.

I think we can work with that. So, as Austin mentioned on the last podcast, we’re trying to freshen things up a bit. Instead of going around a circle replying to multiple questions, we’ll all be replying to an initial question and riff off of each other afterwards.

Today’s question comes from our very dear friend, Jeremy Wieland, whose username on Bring4th is RVA_Jeremy. Fairly brilliant guy who really helps out this podcast because he sends us good questions such as this one:

“Can you comment on the tension and unity on the spiritual path between compassion for the self and the need of discipline?”

Either one of you guys want to go first or shall I pick?

You go ahead and pick.

I knew none of us are the type that are going to say, “I’ll go first”. All right. Eenie, meenie, miney, Austin.

All right. I’ll go first.

Great question, Jeremy. I think that the motivation and intention behind discipline are sort of the key factors in reconciling it with the compassion and the easing of this tension that you’re talking about. I think that the field of self-development and self-improvement, while intending to help people, can create imbalances in the self. Charles Eisenstein talks about this mentality of going to war against the self.

One of the more common types of self-improvement is one where you are asked to identify an aspect about yourself that you want to change because you don’t like it. You’re then expected to enact discipline in order to bring about new behaviors or something like that. I see this type of self-improvement mentality as a type of discipline that excludes compassion for the self because it’s essentially asking you to find a piece of yourself and say, “You go away! I’ll force you out with the power of my will and replace you with something more acceptable. You don’t belong here. I don’t accept you so you have to leave.”

Obviously, we can’t really expel those things about ourselves that we don’t like. We can hide them and push them down because they’re still a part of us. When we are taking that route of self-improvement or enacting discipline in that way, our motivation for discipline comes from an attempt to expel those things or hide those aspects of ourselves. So I guess the question is what other motivation is there to change besides finding something that we want to change about ourselves because we don’t like it? I wish that I had a good answer to that, but I can try, I guess.

I think that maybe it has to do with our reasons for wanting to change. Do we want to change because we dislike something about ourselves, or do we want to change because it will allow us to walk a certain path of service—in whatever way that we feel is service—more effectively? Evaluation of our personal aspects become about compatibility, rather than judgment in that case. Instead of saying to a part of yourself, “I don’t like you, so you have to leave and go away,” we instead can say, “I appreciate you as a part of myself and my journey, but you seem to interrupt my ability to do the things that I want to do. I love you and I will integrate you into my being, but I hope to find a more balanced way to walk this path.” This way, when we find ourselves engaging in behaviors and activities that aren’t quite compatible with our paths, we don’t have to get upset at ourselves.

If we are truly not judging ourselves, we wouldn’t get upset at ourselves because this isn’t some internal enemy that’s presented itself. Instead, it’s an old friend who pops up because maybe he feels like he hasn’t quite had his say yet. When that happens, you can greet that part of yourself with love and sit with it—giving it time and patience and searching for its balance within you.

I think that we have a tendency to get upset with ourselves when we lapse in our discipline and when we lapse in our spiritual path. I think this is probably a sign we haven’t quite found acceptance for that part of ourselves yet or found a balance of where that is coming from yet.

Let me give a quick example to illustrate my point . Let’s say that you have this habit of just watching mindless television to wind down at the end of the day and you feel like that disrupts your ability to do the things that you want to do. So, one night you come home and you’re just exhausted and you turn on the TV until it’s time for bed, and then you go to bed. How do you react to yourself after that happens? I think most people in that situation would probably feel disappointed and anger towards themselves, all while internally scolding themselves and promising to resist that urge next time.

But what if instead of anger towards ourselves, we decide to offer love for that aspect of us that has this urge to just sit down and watch TV until it was time for bed. And instead of trying to push away that urge next time, maybe we could observe that urge with mindfulness by taking just five minutes before turning the TV on to sit with the urge and to give it space to just let it be within us. Do this without judgement and without beating yourself up for feeling it. Instead, just allow it to be within you in the space of love and acceptance. And after five minutes, feel free to just turn the TV on and veg out for the rest of the night.

I think that taking a habit like this and introducing mindfulness into our desire for discipline and our path of discipline really helps to ease that tension that Jeremy’s talking about between acceptance of the self and discipline of the self. I think this is because it is not as effective to force our discipline as it is to really honor and balance thoe urges that remove us from our path of discipline. Balancing these urges naturally, and allowing them to fall away will allow us to more smoothly and naturally walk that path of discipline.

Those are my initial thoughts for Jeremy’s question.

Yeah. That’s good. Thank you very much for those very good initial thoughts. Jim?

Yeah, that was great, Austin. Way to go.

Thank you.

Well, I have some thoughts on the topic. There’s a number of ways of looking at the discipline. If discipline is used as a punishment or an attempt to curb what we think is bad behavior, then I can definitely see that there could be a tension between discipline and compassion for the self. If the self has judged the self in a harsh manner for some sort of unwanted behavior, then it could be said there is a lack of compassion for whatever behavior was expressed and for the self that expressed it.

The more compassionate approach might be to meditate on the causes of the unwanted behavior and to see if there is a chance to limit the kinds of situations that might lead to this behavior repeating. It seems to me that discipline used to punish the self or limit unwanted behavior would constitute an uninformed way of relating to the self.

I think that there is a child of God in all of us that may or may not have been accepted by the mature self—the societal self that grows up and is taught how to do this and that and how to look at itself by the culture around it—which isn’t always in a good way. It is this child that is being reprimanded and punished. But I think this child needs to be nurtured in its desire to express itself because it stands closest to the unconscious mind and can help to unlock the secrets of our greater Self if it is allowed to explore and express itself without judgment or punishment. It needs guidance more than it needs discipline, judgment, or punishment.

Now, on the other hand, if discipline is being used not as a punishment, but as a means of learning some new skill or lesson, I don’t see such a damaging relationship between it and the compassion for the self. If new skills are being learned, it will take discipline or repeated exercises of this new skill over a period of time in order to master the skill. If we are attempting, for example, to learn how to improve our meditating practices, we’ll need to be regular in our practice or we may not realize our potential in a timely manner, which may cause us to get discouraged and even quit the practice.

To ask the self to be disciplined in the learning of any new skill does not have to reflect any kind of lack of compassion for the self. In fact, seeing the self as being enhanced by the learning of a new skill is a loving thing to do for the self.

So those are my thoughts. Gary, how about you?

My own thoughts proceeds along yours, which were very excellently articulated. Thank you so much, Jim. Jeremy, I have, as I always do, an essay for reply here, which I divided into two parts. One part is how discipline and compassion are in unity, and the other part is on how they intersect, which the “how” there can be a tension between the two.

So, as to the first part, my contention is that without discipline we are likely not to experience true compassion for ourselves or for others. I will sketch the background milieu of living life on the material plane of planet earth to back up what I’m saying.

We are born into a world that, generally speaking, doesn’t place a high priority or value on compassion. Or if it does, it often does so only in the way of lip service because the collective actions instead seek profit, power, status, personal gain, conflict, defense, etc. Generally, the world communicates to us that we are insufficient or inadequate for one reason or another. It communicates that the standards we will invariably fall short of will merit not mercy, but judgement. Most importantly, the world communicates that the Creator is not with us, that we are not the Creator, that all life is not one, is not sacred nor beautiful, nor perfect. Everything is backwards here, and we are not taught the true value and meaning of anything, really.

So, in other words, we’re not taught to value ourselves as we truly are. We’re not taught to be tender, merciful, forgiving, and compassionate with ourselves, or to recognize that whatever our seeming distortions are, we are simultaneously perfect as we are. And we’re not taught to see life as a learning experience where even our seeming failures and challenges can be instructive, purposeful and food for spiritual evolution. So, we, as Austin was describing in his response, go to war with the self in an attempt to impose various levels of control, repression, and force. We attempt not to discover and accept what we already are, but to instead become an image of who we feel society wants us to be.

This divided self leads to endless confusion, especially as the heart closes and the mind loops infinitely in circular or dead-end patterns of logic. This is the state for many, perhaps even the vast majority of people on planet earth. Within each of us are various levels of judgment, control, repression, fear, and everything else that arises from the illusion of separation. If we don’t seek to become conscious beings—that is to say, if we don’t seek to use catalyst—then we are bound to blindly and unconsciously repeat and possibly worsen these patterns of uncompassionate separation. We will simply perpetuate human history, which is a long track of undisciplined, reactive, separation-based consciousness.

But with discipline, we can liberate ourselves from the loops of personal and collective history. With discipline, we can begin harnessing the will and to exercise the faculty of faith in order to actually use our catalyst. And if that discipline be wielded by the entity who has chosen service to others, then that discipline will seek to open the heart and foster all-compassionate embrace toward self, other self, and the creation itself. Opening the heart can be the work of a moment or it can happen due to a convergence of circumstance, or one can just be born congenitally open-hearted.

Discipline is also for the person that wishes to reliably keep the heart open in a world that has no limit on the supply of good reasons to close the heart. With discipline, one can reflect on their balance and compassion, and do the work to deepen, purify, and share that compassion in an ever-truer way.

So, that was just one way that compassion and discipline can intersect, which was in addition to what Austin and Jim said. I want to move on to the shorter part of my reply regarding where there may be tension between the two.

I would suppose that there are multiple ways that tension can arise in that dynamic. One of two ways, I think, happens when discipline is conceived as something that’s uncompassionate, or as an activity that is forced or imposed on one’s self to meet some perceived standard, as Jim and Austin were describing. That is certainly one way to institute or implement discipline, and I think that’s why discipline can have a pejorative feel in certain circles. Because Jeremy is a very close friend, we know of his own long-term struggles with discipline because it has felt to him something that is inauthentically foisted upon the authentic self.

But in the end, discipline is simply a consistency and quality of focus or attention. Upon what shall you discipline your attention? You can use discipline to force the self into expected behaviors, but you can also use discipline, as I mentioned, to turn the attention upon the work of compassion. Compassion and discipline are not mutually exclusive.

Another way that I think tension can appear between discipline and compassion happens when there is a difficulty within the self when the self is balancing love and wisdom. If discipline can address an over-abundance of compassion that is not balanced with wisdom, then the self may feel resistance to discipline. On the flip side, if discipline can address an over-abundance of wisdom that is not balanced by compassion, then the self may feel resistance to discipline.

So, those are a couple of my thoughts regarding the way tension can arise between the two. I have different directions we could explore discipline, but for now do either of you guys have anything to add to that first round?

No, not from me.

Nope, I don’t think so.

All right. What’s our time, Austin?

We’re at about twenty minutes in right now. We can go however long as you guys want.

All right. Another forty-five minutes more it is. Just kidding, Jeremy and listeners.

So, Austin brought up an interesting point about the motivation for discipline, which is something I hadn’t considered. I will turn the question to you guys. On the positive path of spiritual evolution, what do you think are the positive motivations one may have to use discipline as a tool?

Well, I was reading session #42.20 this morning as part of the morning offering, which is where I think Ra mentioned that the relationship between parents and children is very important. One of the key things they said was that parents need to accept the beingness of the child that has been brought with it into the incarnation. It’s also a good idea to try to teach the child the process of either seeking a service to self or a service to others, which is why some discipline is necessary.

I guess that’s along the same lines with what I was talking about earlier concerning meditation and learning a new skill to enhance yourself or to be more effective in some facet of expressing the energy, love, light, and the desire to serve others that’s in you. Discipline was considered a good idea for the raising of children in a certain way. But because they said it was necessary in that particular situation, it kind of led me to believe that in general, though, discipline might not be seen as being that important or helpful for the relationship between the parent and child. That’s just a guess, so it might not be right.

Austin, how about you, what do you think?

The question’s about motivation for the discipline seeker on the positive path, right?

Yeah, just positive.

I think in my mind I want to go to some examples because I feel that motivation in that sense and what the positive path looks like can vary. Motivation can have multiple levels of conscious and unconscious motivation.

For instance, let’s take a healer who wants to learn how to balance the self in order to heal others. In my mind, the motivation there is very directly service to others because they want to heal the self and other people as a way to share the love of the Creator. Discipline then enables them to unlock those pathways to heal and to help others.

Let’s take a teacher whose surface motivation might not necessarily seem spiritual, but their desire is to share their knowledge and admiration of the creation around them. No matter what topic you’re teaching, you’re pretty much teaching about the creation.

So, let’s say that someone learns something very relevant and meaningful in history and feels like learning about history can be beneficial to people. Motivated by this belief, they then take up the discipline to learn history and to walk the path of becoming a teacher by acquiring skills that help them teach other people things and increase their knowledge, awareness, and ability to share that information. In this case, the motivation might seem like they want to teach for whatever reason, but I feel that it’s still a motivation to be of service to others.

Another example is that of the artist who wants to create art in order to express themselves and share their view of the world with others. I also think this is a way of serving others in that they are identifying an aspect of the creation that they appreciate and moves them on a deep level. It’s probably mostly unconscious if it’s art. Inspired by this, they then take up the discipline to master their art and to become more effective at sharing this level of the creation with others. Again, the motivation might not seem directly related to serving others. But ultimately, I think that we can trace it back to serving others because they are looking to share the love of the Creator as they know it themselves.

So, I suppose at the heart of the motivation of discipline for positive-oriented people, it is for the purpose of increasing the ability to share the love of the creation as it’s known to the self.

I agree wholeheartedly with both of you, especially with your concluding thought, Austin. At the heart of it is to share the love and light as it’s known to the self as a way to serve others. And as Jim was saying, in order to learn a new skill, it’s important to recognize that some discipline is needed. If we rewind the clock back to the start of third density, we all come into this illusion not having knowledge. Maybe there are anomalies, but I presume that nobody was born innately knowing how to create a masterpiece artwork or knowing how to heal. Rather, these are skills that must be learned.

It’s the same with just being conscious. We begin third density with an animalistic level of consciousness that is carried over from previous densities, whereby we unconsciously reacted to life and repeating patterns. But at some point in third density, the self begins to wake up and become conscious. However, discipline is needed to really deepen, pursue, and enhance that path, and to become increasingly conscious. When the will awakens, it must be harnessed, used, and directed. Discipline is a means of will over a period of time—the constancy and consistency of will.

What also came to me was that suffering can be a motivation for discipline. Early on in my own spiritual path I examined why I was seeking and why I was pursuing this path because it was, you know, a massive sea change from who I was before, and it was a death and rebirth on a lot of levels. One of the reasons I identified for my seeking was suffering. I was in pain and I wanted to find an antidote for that pain—to end and alleviate the suffering. I think discipline is a means of achieving that particular goal as well.

Also, at the core of all of us is what Ra calls the original desire, which they define as the entity’s will to seek and become one. Along with the original desire that is in-built into all of us—whether it’s seen as the upward spiraling light or our inner light or both—the bottom of our identity has a program that guides us on our path to the Creator. Discipline is needed here, too, because without discipline we’re pieces of wood floating in a sea over which we have no ability to direct our voyage.

Yeah, I think you’re talking about suffering as sort of a motivator impetus. It’s definitely true that suffering can be an impetus for motivation on the positive path, but I think it’s possible for it to be an initial impetus on the negative path as well. Let’s say that someone is suffering and wants to relieve their suffering. They find out that the way to do that is to understand the internal catalyst that is creating the suffering. Once they come to understand that internal catalyst, they can then make a choice with what to do with it. They can find meaning in their life on the negative path by controlling others through controlling that internal catalyst, or they can choose the positive path by accepting it and using that acceptance of the self to turn outward and accept serve others.

Yeah, that makes complete sense to me as well. The negative entity just reaches a far different conclusion about the source and nature of their suffering and how to alleviate it. Eventually, it determines that it’s just best to make other people suffer.

Jim, any more thoughts on why one would be motivated for discipline?

Yeah. It seems as we go through more of the Law of One, Ra has a lot of respect for discipline and offers the suggestion that it be used. I’ll do a couple of quotes here. Are quotes okay on riffing?

No, that’s cheating. (laughs)

Okay. (laughs)

Ra says this in session #74.11:

“The heart of the discipline of the personality is threefold:

  1. To know yourself.
  2. To accept yourself.
  3. To become the Creator.

The third step is that step which, when accomplished, renders one the most humble servant of all, transparent in personality, and completely able to know and accept other-selves.

In relation to the pursuit of the magical working, the continuing discipline of the personality involves the adept in knowing itself, accepting itself, and thus clearing the path towards the great indigo gateway to the Creator. “

And then in another quote from #52.2, Ra says:

“To the disciplined entity, all things are open and free. The discipline which opens the universe also opens the gateway to evolution.”

And Ra talked about the development of will and faith in #42.12 and said:

“There is but one technique for this growing, or nurturing, of will and faith, and that is the focusing of the attention. The attention span of those you call children is considered short. The spiritual attention span of most of your peoples is that of the child. Thus, it is a matter of wishing to become able to collect one’s attention and hold it upon the desired programming.

This, when continued, strengthens the will. The entire activity can only occur when there exists faith that an outcome of this discipline is possible. “

So, it looks like as we become more spiritually-aware and conscious seekers, we can use discipline not as a means of any kind of punishment. Ra also had this to say in #42.12:

“The self, if conscious to a great enough extent of the workings of the catalyst of fasting, techniques of programming may through concentration of will or faculty of faith alone, cause reprogramming. Without the analogy of fasting or other analogous body complex distortions.”

I think discipline really has a lot of uses for the conscious seeker and doesn’t have to be seen as any kind of punishment or denigration of the self. Rather, discipline is meant to enhance the self and grow into the larger Self so that the small self becomes the larger Self, so we can seek and find the Creator.

Any thoughts on that, guys?

Yeah, while discipline can be used as punishment, I agree with you that its positive and ultimate use isn’t punishment and isn’t even really to make yourself do certain things. The discipline of learning a new skill and mastery that you guys were describing certainly involves taking particular actions repeatedly and over time. However, the discipline in consciousness that Ra is describing in the quote Jim read where they say, “ One, know yourself. Two, accept yourself. Three, become the Creator“ is a discipline of consciousness that to me involves stepping back and bringing your attention to the things that you are already doing. I think you were speaking to this, too, Jim.

Hopefully, through this process of acceptance, you can begin to discover the authentic you as you allow what is inauthentic to fall away and, thereby, make choices that are more aligned with the authentic you through this purification, crystallization, and discovery.

Yeah, good points.

I see a theme of habit-forming that connects what Jim and I were talking about regarding the discipline of learning a new skill, versus what you were talking about, Gary, regarding the concept of the discipline of stepping back and observing the larger context of the Creator in everything, which isn’t necessarily different.

I think that both of these things happen through the will of habit. If you want to become a master at something skill-wise, you basically have to form a habit of practice and of accomplishing things, as well as a habit of bettering yourself. I think that in order to achieve the transparency of personality that Jim referenced, there needs to be a habit of recognizing the situations where you have started to inhabit the smaller self so that you can step back and recognize the larger self that is the Creator. And as you form that habit and do that more and more, I think that state of larger consciousness becomes more and more available to you, which is how that transparency is achieved.

Could you repeat that last sentence?

As you perform that habit, the perspective of the larger Self becomes more available to you. The habit reinforces itself. I can’t remember the exact sentence I said, but the sentiment was that as you realize more and more that you’re inhabiting the smaller self, the more it becomes a habit. Then, through will and choice, you can inhabit the larger Self instead.

Would you say that the habit you want to cultivate arises out of your desire to learn a particular skill?

Yeah.

Therefore, discipline is a means of discovering what that actual desire is or what your desires are. And, if you’re blocking your own desires, discipline can also discover what those are because discipline is a certain quality of attention that you bring to that process of discovery. I think I’m just repeating you.

Yeah.

And doing it very well.

In different words you could say it’s like a refining of the desire.

Yeah, giving it the space and cultivating it. It subtly reorients the perspective from forcing yourself to do something or make something happen, to allowing yourself to choose and to find out what your true self wants at that nexus in your evolution.

What about discipline as a restrictive thing? We’ve been talking about the positive aspect of discipline, insofar as discipline is used to enact or do something for gain. But what about the discipline that draws boundaries for the self and says “no” and is used in a restrictive way? Like for instance, the dieter that has the desire to eat donuts but knows that it’s probably not their best interest so they don’t. Or the person who wants to cheat on their partner, but instead draws a line and says, “no, I am committed to the relationship.” Is that the inauthentic/false discipline, or is that also a positive use of discipline as a way to corral the self and to keep the self from making choices that the self knows are poor.

Sometimes it doesn’t seem like there’s any other way in order to achieve the goal that you want to achieve—whether it’s losing weight or being faithful or whatever—other than the negative approach of saying “No, No, No.”

When I first started reading this part, I was trying to figure out what would be the alternative? How can you look at a situation that you wanted to change for the better and do something other than punishing or limiting yourself? I really couldn’t come up with anything solid. It was more of a, you know, what’s the situation and how can I positively affect the situation?

It seems to me that in the instances where you’re trying to get a basic level of purity in your behavior, you just kind of have to be a taskmaster. Anybody got any alternatives? I don’t like taskmasters.

I think it kind of goes back to what I was saying about the intention of doing so and how you relate to that self that is arising to eat that donut or to cheat on your partner. Obviously, I think it’s impossible to avoid sacrifice in discipline. Otherwise, discipline wouldn’t really be a thing, I don’t think. You have to choose to do one thing instead of another thing, especially in situations where you want to eat healthier. You have a desire to eat a donut, but you have to choose not to eat that donut to fulfil your discipline. Maybe not every time because you can obviously treat yourself from time to time. But as a habit, you have to learn how to handle the urge to eat the donut.

I think the positive and non-harmful—and maybe even nonrestrictive use of discipline—isn’t necessarily to approach that urge as an enemy. It isn’t a battle against the self as though the self inside of yourself needs to be subdued in order for you to win. Instead, the urge can be seen as a friend that needs some attention.

This is where the mindfulness aspect comes in. When that urge arises to eat the donut, maybe say to yourself, “All right. In five minutes, I will let myself eat this donut. But first, I’m going to sit with this urge.” There is truly a transformative power behind mindfulness used in that sense. When you allow it to just exist without judgment within yourself, it is truly a powerful thing, and it transforms itself. Like Ra says, that which is not needed falls away.

So, if we look at these things as friends who are trying to teach us something, then it becomes not such a harsh thing towards the self. You can be friends with those aspects of yourself that are trying to distract you from the path and realize that they aren’t necessarily trying to distract you. They’re saying, “hey, there’s something you need to do first and I’ll tell what that is if you just pay attention to me.”

I really think that’s the key to the non-conflicted and non-controlling form of discipline. The positive use of discipline is—like you said—to see that which is undesired as a self or as a friend or—as Jim was describing earlier—as the child that needs nurturing. And this quality of attention that you bring to it where you’re not warring with the self is—in and of itself—a learning of compassion for the self. It’s using discipline to be compassionate towards the self—especially towards those aspects of self that are deemed undesirable.

From that standpoint, then, I think it’s not unhealthy to put the brakes on or to say no and draw a boundary. For a simplistic example, let’s say I recognize the need, hunger, and desire for a donut. I can tell that part of myself that “I hear you and I feel you so let’s work on this because I seek a different path and a different outcome. I seek a space wherein I have a body that is more fit and effective for service, which that the donut will do for me. So, I need to guard this space and nurture and protect it by saying no to this desire.” I’m mimicking an internal dialogue, of course. It’s important to do this in a way—as you were just articulating, Austin—that does not go to war with the self, but at the same time doesn’t indulge in every single desire available.

As a side note, Ra says in #18.5 that the proper role of the entity in third density is to experience all things desired. We three would all agree with that general point, of course. But desires are often mutually exclusive and contradictory where you can’t experience both simultaneously. You either experience one or the other or you’re in conflict. Like Austin was saying, sacrifice is part of discipline, too. This is because choosing one thing can mean that you’re not choosing another. But, one can do so with love for the whole self.

We’ve made some serious headway here. Thanks so much, Jim and Austin, for riffing so excellently on that and I think Austin has a quote for us before we turn to Jim for his final thoughts to the listeners.

Yeah, I hope Jim didn’t already read this one. I don’t think that he did, but it is one of my favorite quotes about discipline in the Ra material that highlights the point of discipline and what it can do for us on our spiritual journey. It’s also one of my favorite parts of the Ra material because it’s where Don and Ra were talking about spacecraft, how they traveled, and how extraterrestrials were able to travel through either spacecraft technology or through thought. Don figured out that it was the disciplines of the personality that allowed entities to travel by thought and the technology was sort of a crutch to use before one achieved the proper disciplines of personality. So, it highlights a really cool part of the Ra material regarding how there is a surface teaching, as well as an under-teaching.

At the end of the question and answer of session #52.2, Ra says the quote about the hitchhiker that I really like, which I’ll read it to you:

“To the disciplined entity, all things are open and free. The discipline which opens the universes opens also the gateways to evolution. The difference is that of choosing either to hitchhike to a place where beauty may be seen, or to walk, step by step, independent and free in this independence to praise the strength to walk, and the opportunity for the awareness of beauty.

The hitchhiker, instead, is distracted by conversation and the vagaries of the road and, dependent upon the whims of others, is concerned to make the appointment in time. The hitchhiker sees the same beauty, but has not prepared itself for the establishment, in the roots of mind, of the experience.“

To me, that quote illustrates that there are two paths to discipline. One is a shortcut where I think highlights the discipline in which we punish the self and try to suppress these things. The other path, I think, highlights the patience and the acceptance of the positive path where you really try step-by-step to understand the self in this discipline, and to understand the things about ourselves that we might find counter to this discipline, as well as to identify the strength and patience it takes to accept those and to see how that pays off in the end.

So, I just wanted to share that.

Thank you very much. Jim, any thoughts for the listeners?

Yes. We thank you all for listening to us. You are our reason for being here today and each time we have a podcast, In the Now, we appreciate your questions so much. To us, those are verbalized love. We also feel your love coming through the airwaves and the pod waves, if that is possible, and we send our love back to you. We love you so much. Thank you so much for everything you do for us. Hope you have a great two weeks. We will see you again.

You’ve been listening to L/L Research’s bi-weekly podcast, In the Now. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please visit our websites, LLResearch.org and Bring4th.org. Thanks so much for listening and for supporting the podcast with your questions. Also, a special thank you to Jeremy for sending us this question, along with all the others he has helped us with over the times.

If you’d like to hear us ramble on about a particular topic, please read the instructions on our page at LLResearch.org/podcast. New episodes are published to the archive website every other Wednesday afternoon Eastern or so. Have a wonderful couple of weeks and we’ll talk with you then.