Being a Disciple

Every New Year we hear about resolutions and how they fall by the wayside in February or March.  It points to an apparent failure of discipline, an inability to follow through, when it comes to aspirations we have for ourselves.

Discipline is defined as the quality of being able to behave and work in a controlled way which involves obeying particular rules or standards.

When I  hear this, I resist!  Controlling myself by obeying a set of rules that I've set up for myself -- the whole idea evokes being disciplined by a scolding parent, the nuns at catholic school, or a micro-managing boss.  

No wonder we lack discipline!

In mental health or personal growth, the idea of controlling our behavior is problematic.  Working with people who are earnestly trying to heal, to overcome their conditioned behavior, reveals in short order that we are driven (controlled) by factors that are often unconscious.  Dynamics encountered in our early lives caused us to draw conclusions about ourselves and the world that we may not even be aware of.  These influences seem hard-wired, difficult to uproot and update to match who we are now.

So here's an idea.  Why don't we skip the annual attempt to discipline ourselves and consider becoming disciples?

Both words, discipline and disciple come from the same Latin word discipulus, meaning pupil.

When we hear disciple, we think of the followers of Jesus.  But what could this mean for us in the New Year of 2024?

Webster defines a disciple as a pupil or follower of any teacher or school.  So who do we choose to follow?

I've decided to become a disciple of my higher self.  My best version of me.

I find this expanded sense of myself on the meditation cushion and do my best to infuse it into my daily life.  Do I fall off the wagon?  Yes, for sure, all the time.  Constantly!  But I'm aspiring to align my will for myself with divine will for me.  

It's a practice of aligning with that dimension of being -- not forcing, failing, and recriminating.  It's a practice of remembering who I AM according to what I discover daily in my own experience and in the inner realms of revelation.

Our true nature, beneath the personalities we adopted, is as vast and infinite as the cosmos.  In truth, we are kind, generous and loving.  Our True Selves are unfragmented, unified in wholeness and integrity.  In truth, we are connected, through the energetic web of life, with each other, the planet, and the Divine -- whatever that means to you in your sacred heart.

When we acknowledge this dimension of being, our consciousness expands.  When we know ourselves as directly plugged in to the Source energy that created worlds, everything changes. 

We don't have to discipline ourselves to meet standards erected by forces that simply want to corral us into acceptable, appropriate behavior.  For our own good. To fit in.

Our choices are NOT based on what we mistakenly concluded about ourselves and the world as children.  Instead, we choose in concert with who we are today.  

My hope for the New Year of 2024 is that the massive awakening that is happening across the globe helps us realize the truth of who we are, unencumbered by the weight of all the false notions we adopted growing up, and embrace our higher selves.  

My hope is that we find quiet places -- the woods, an empty church, the back porch at sunset -- and recover this spacious dimension of presence and being.

You're invited to join me in exchanging discipline for discipleship.  Let us become disciples of the spark of the Divine within-- and dedicate ourselves to realizing it's unlimited vision for us in this New Year.