Be gentle with yourself, precious child. Many well-meaning people put discipline rather than surrender at the heart of their spiritual practice.
There is nothing wrong with discipline. Discipline is necessary to rouse the heart, body and mind from complacency. But when discipline becomes the central focus of your spiritual practice, it may lead to rigidity, which blocks intuition. Creating structures rooted in discipline might prevent you from responding to life’s magic. When this happens, force replaces strength and self-determination replaces trust.
Discipline can lead to pride. Trust, which is inherent in surrender, provides protection from ego’s trickery. Both discipline and surrender will eventually lead to your intended destination. But the path of surrender is far simpler.
Again, the discipline to overcome inertia is important. But the vast majority of your disciplined habits are driven by permission slips as opposed to inspired action.
A permission slip is a conscious or sub-conscious belief that you need to do certain activities over an arbitrary period of time to achieve a desired result. With discipline, you earn your permission slips, because you don’t trust your own innate value, your own intrinsic worthiness. In truth, it is your belief, not your hard work, that gives those permission slips power.
Attachment to a specific practice creates karmic tension. Surrender releases that tension, allowing dreams to manifest easily.
You are worthy now, in this moment, of the love you desire. No amount of discipline will make you more worthy. Surrender to the sanctity of your relationship with the Divine, and a relatively small amount of inspired action will yield the manifestation of every desire.
