Page 246 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

Hita, or Means and the Methods
The importance of a proper method (upasana) to attain the highest state of spirituality is well recognized in all the schools of religion, but it is not so well understood or emphasized in the schools of philosophy. The moral preparation for any curriculum is usually forgotten. Indeed, thanks to the present day tendency, any emphasis on moral preparation or direction is said to produce in the minds of the disciples and students a contrary response - an opposition to discipline. Therefore directives or commands and imperatives are looked upon as dangerous, and provocative of counter responses.
Therefore it is that moral precepts and other guides to conduct have fallen out of favour in most religious and educational institutions. However, it is clear that no one can progress unless he imposes on himself disciplines and controls which would fit him for the noble tasks ahead. In other words yama or self-controls are very necessary.
They obviate avoidable suffering. They make one free from fear and all types of moral turpitude. They make one self-reliant and submissive to truth, however, unpalatable it may appear. If, in the modern world, freedoms are sought to be assured to man by giving him his living needs, the ancient and eternal law of self-conduct (carya) is willingness to give up needs in order to uphold the truth, the love and kindliness, nonstealth or honesty and non-robbery and non-profligacy, which are the fivefold s'ila (virtues), the yama. To yield to temptation is to be in mortal fear of death and punishment. Our derelictions are criminal, and the courage of a robber or thief or profligate is a short lived triumph after all.
In the normal development of our life then, we have to pay heed to the spiritual nature of these sila rather than the mere ethical and sociopolitical codes. Even here these are important, and no one who has not abjured the wrong path or the fivefold vices can ever attain the highest good or the spiritual. The Upanisad has stated that for one who has not turned away from wrong (na virato duscaritat), there can hardly be the attainment of santi (peace of mind), nor of the worlds here and hereafter.