During a Satsang Sri Swami Vishwananda was once asked.......

Swami, would you speak please about the balance of Bhakti and discipline? The aspect of discipline in exercises and Sadhana?
Here is his answer:
You see in Bhakti and discipline, devotion and discipline go together. Together with Bhakti you practice discipline. It is that discipline that you put towards yourself, so that you know how you have to do certain things, certain exercises that you do regularly.
This discipline is because you want something…
You know that there is something greater that you want to achieve and you do anything for that. Whether you have to run or whether you have to speed up- you will do anything. That’s where the discipline comes from, that’s where the Sadhana comes from.
And this is also a part of Bhakti. This is actually the beginning of Bhakti.
That devotion comes to a point, where you practice all this, but real devotion crosses over all this. There is a big different between- we start with discipline, we start with with certain Sadhana, where we throw ourselves into and which will lead us to surrender.
Until we don’t throw ourselves into something, it’s very difficult to surrender. To what to surrender? We don’t know, because the mind still plays a big role in everything, our mind still is in action with everything, but to calm this mind we need to do certain Sadhana.
This is where you take the step to throw yourself, saying “Yes”. You have the determination and you know you have the goal. You know where it is leading you. You know the goal that you want to achieve and you throw yourself into it. So how do you want to achieve it? Do you you want to put breaks and go slowly or do you want to go directly? There are different ways.