Should discipline be imposed forcefully?
You should impose disciplines very carefully. Disciplines should be imposed or introduced in a way that you do not feel they are disciplines. Except the mind which is sattwic, every other state of mind abhors discipline, is against it and does not like it.
A dull mind can be easily disciplined. Is it that the mind becomes dull when disciplined?
No, a dull mind is not a disciplined mind, it is an inactive mind. If you ask a dull fellow to sit down, he will sit, not because he is disciplined but because he doesn’t want to move. If a fellow is tamasic by nature and you make him sit, he stays there all the time. The tamasic state is the evolving state, the rajasic state is a dynamic state and the sattwic state is a balanced state. There is a balance of all three. In sattwa there is tamas as well and also there is rajas, this is balance. When to sleep, when to play, when to jump, when to sit down quietly, when to go to meditation, how to do business, when to sit quietly – it is a disciplined, balanced state. Sattwa means balanced, rajas means only dynamic.
Is there some significance to changing one’s given name for a spiritual name?
The name you bear now is the name of your body or physical personality. How do you indicate the name of your spiritual self, your inner self? What is the name there? It becomes the means of awakening. That is why after sannyasa diksha, the name is completely changed.
It is not a change of religion. I have not changed my religion, I changed my name because that indicated one type of association and this name indicates another type. It reminds me of my spiritual duty and my spiritual personality.
20 February 1980, Bombay