The Atma Jyoti Blog

“When a man is resolute and recollected, pure of deed and persevering, when he is attentive and self-controlled and lives according to the Teaching, his reputation is bound to grow.”
–Gotama Buddha

Many of us suffer from–and suffer because of–what I call the Pinochio Complex. Pinochio lived in the continual hope that one day he would wake up and find himself a real boy instead of a puppet. We think that if we just wait long enough and lounge around the vestibule of spiritual life (reading the magazines in the Dharma Waitingroom) we will one day find ourselves out on the track and on our way–and soon at the goal. We are not really lazy, otherwise we could not even sustain our life on earth, yet Effortlessness appeals to us endlessly, especially in spiritual matters. Any yogi who adopts the soap-commercial line about how quick and easy–just like magic–it is to meditate and attain enlightenment will sell very well. His customers will not get anything in the long run, but maybe they did not want to, anyway.

Before we can know our true, inmost self, we must first gain control over our untrue, outer “self.” It is this control that is meant by “self-controlled.” And when we attain that control we restrain the false self in all its aspects. Moderation is not the purpose here, either, but eventual effacement so the true self can resurrect, ascend, and reign (the real meaning behind the same events in the life of Christ).

Read more on this verse from the Dhammapada in Expanding Glory.