There are souls who would even say: "Let us be free, and the will be free." But what are we then? Then we are nothing! Discipline has a place in man's life. Self-discipline, however difficult and tyrannical to ourselves it may seem in the beginning, yet is that which in the end makes the soul the master of self. It is not in vain that the great sages and adepts led an ascetic life; there was a purpose in it. It is not something to follow, but it is something to understand: what use they made of it, what they accomplished through it. It was self-discipline, it was the development of will-power.