The Power of Will

What is the will?

The energy which dictates the action or prevents a wrong action is the Will.

By energy is meant the life-force. If energy is the will, why do we sometimes find the will without any power or energy?

Energy is energy, it is not the life-force. I have not said that “energy is the Will”. There is a whole qualifying clause there which you treat as if it were meaningless nonsense.

The will is a part of the consciousness and ought to be in human beings the chief agent in controlling the activities of the nature.

Will is will whether it is calm or restless, whether it acts in a yogic or unyogic way, for a yogic or an unyogic object. Do you think Napoleon and Caesar had no will or that they were Yogis? You have strange ideas about things. You might just as well say that memory is memory only when it remembers the Divine and it is not memory when it remembers other things.

Is there no difference between the will used by a worldly man and that used by a Yogi?

Who said there was not? but both are will, different forms of the same thing. To say one is will and the other is not is nonsense.

Is it not true that the will becomes or changes into desire when it comes down into the lower nature?

It usually does so in the vital or at least it gets a strong mixture of desire.

I suppose the vital despair is the cause of my not being able to put up a persistent and calm aspiration and will.

The calm and steady will must be the mental being’s. There is no reason why the mental being should allow itself to be at the mercy of the vital.

The fundamental remedy is to strengthen the vital at any rate. But that cannot be done if the inner vital remains weak and indifferent. The only way to do it is to reject all vital desires and bring the Mother’s peace and force.

That is the way. If there is a constant use of the will the rest of the being learns however slowly to obey the will and then the actions become in conformity with the will and not with the vital impulses and desires. As for the rest (the feelings and desires etc. themselves) if they are not indulged in action or imagination and not supported by the will, if they are merely looked at and rejected when they come, then after some struggle they begin to lose their force and dwindle away.

Peace is not a necessary precondition for the action of the will. When the being is troubled, it is often the business of the will to impose quiet on it.

There is no such thing as an inert passive will. Will is dynamic in its nature. Even if it does not struggle or endeavour its very presence is dynamic and acts dynamically on the resistance. What you are speaking of is a passive wish — I would like it to be like that, I want it to be like that. That is not will.

I have mentioned several methods available to me for dealing with my human nature. Which of them do you find best for me?

Whatever method is used, persistence and perseverance are essential. For whatever method is used, the complexity of the Nature — resistance will be there to combat it.

There can be no persistence or insistence without will.

Insist on the effort till it becomes persistent. Especially you must make up your mind to be master of your vital, not “helpless” before it.

Impulse is not enough; steady carrying out of a resolution is necessary.

You wrote, “One need not ‘feel’ a Force in order to use the will.” By “feel” I meant that there should be at least some force or energy to make the will work.

The will can make itself work — it is in its own nature a force or energy.

I find my will power almost veiled and forceless. How to bring it out and use it is itself a problem.

That is the suggestion that has been enforced on you by the physical inertia. It has covered up your will and persuaded you that there is no will left and no possibility of any will.

One can always use the will. The idea that you cannot is only a suggestion of the inertia.

I lack the requisite energy to stand up against the opposite forces. Where does my difficulty lie?

In the indolence of the will which does not want to make a sustained effort for a long period. It is like a person who moves slightly half a leg for a second and then wonders why he is not already a hundred miles away at the goal after making such a gigantic effort.

You cannot expect a persistent inertia like that to disappear in three days because you made some kind of a beginning of effort to resist it.

The will sometimes seems to be without energy or like something that can act only if some additional energy pushes it from behind.

It simply means that your will is weak and not a true will. Queer kind of will! Perhaps it is like a motor car that won’t go and you have to push from behind.

I suppose it must be because you have not been in the habit of using the will to compel the other parts of the nature — so when you want it done, they refuse to obey a control to which they are not accustomed and it also has not any habitual hold upon them.

The difficulty of managing the mechanical mind is part of the human constitution. But I find it more active and burdensome in me than in the majority.

That is what everyone thinks about his difficulties — this idea is an effect of tamasic egoism and forms an excuse for not making the necessary effort. What is more in you than in the majority is the entire laziness of the nature in facing the need of dealing with this difficulty.

The helplessness is there because of the habit of not using the will. You can use the will obstinately enough when you want to satisfy a desire.

You wrote, “You can use the will obstinately enough when you want to satisfy a desire.” It is true. But the difficulty is that I am not aware of using the will consciously while satisfying a desire. Would you kindly explain to me how to use it? If the process is known, I can employ it to overcome the wrong movements of the sadhana instead of for satisfying desires.

There is no process. The will acts of itself when the mind and vital agree as in the case of a desire. If the desire is not satisfied, it goes on hammering, trying to get it, insisting on it, repeating the demand, making use of this person or that person, this device or that device, getting the mind to support it with reasons, representing it as a need that must be satisfied etc. etc. till the desire is satisfied. All that is the evidence of a will in action. When you have to use the will for the sadhana, you have not the same persistence, the mind finds reasons for not getting on with the effort, as soon as the difficulty becomes strong it is dropped; there is no continuity, no keeping of the will fixed on its object.

Something ought to intervene in this inert period. How else shall I prepare myself for the coming Darshan of the 15th August?

There is not much use in thinking that something ought to be. It is better to get done what can be done by as steady a will, aspiration and pressure as possible.

The resolution, to be a real resolution, must be there always, fixed. If it is dependent on an urge, not self-dependent, it can also be knocked down by inertia.

I have said, it is the persistent will and endeavour that matter, not the date of achievement.

The ego and the vital demand feel baffled due to the strong action by the Force and by my resolution to drive them out completely before the 15th of August. That is why such a vehement resistance has surged up suddenly.

Of course, they always resist a pressure to get rid of them — and if one fixes a given time, they are all the more resistant in the hope of creating disappointment and discouragement by the failure to do it in the given time.

I wonder how my own will that was dormant all this time suddenly became so active and powerful!

The Force can bring forward and use the will.

Is not Mother disclosing my true will in this way?

It sounds like it.

If this will-power is developed fully, it may soon be possible for Mother’s Force to use my will consciously for the conquest of my lower nature.

Very good — it was that that was needed.

If I persevere in the use of my will-power, many obstructions will be worked out within a short time.

Yes.

I want to develop my will to perfection, so that it can merge into Mother’s Will.

By development it becomes fit to merge into the Mother’s will. A will that is not strong is a great hindrance to sadhana.

What was my position up to now regarding the consciousness and the will?

All the time when the sadhana in you was really active, the whole stress was on the consciousness, not on the will. It is only recently you are giving more attention to the will.

This morning also the habitual depression tried to enter. But the Mother saved the situation by pulling my consciousness above and using my will-force on the vital, with the result that the depression failed to get in. All this happened because of the intervention of Mother’s power and not of any effort on my part.

All the same, there must be a will acting on the vital in the way you describe. Such a use of will is essential so long as the Higher Consciousness has not occupied the being.

You had written, “I need not bother about it — if peace is needed it will bring itself.” Certainly the main stress should be on the Force, but the active assent of the sadhak is needed, in certain things his will also may be needed as an instrument of the Force.

The higher action does not preclude a use of the will — will is an element of the higher action.

I feel that I must make a dynamic and serious effort to overcome the inertia — at least so much as the Force wants me to do so that it can then complete the purification by itself. Do you think that I allow the inertia to play with me willingly and that I do nothing to overcome it?

Are you going to deny the tamas in you and put all the fault of your want of progress on the Divine Force?

I did not mean that the Force should do everything for me while I remain lazy. But is it not true that our personal effort can bear definite and lasting fruit only if the Force has acted in or through.

The Force also produces no definite and lasting fruit unless there is the will and the resolution to advance in the sadhak. Your argument tries to establish the very thing you deny in your first sentence — viz. that all your want of progress is due to the Force, you yourself are not to blame.

I started using the higher will because I read that this Will-Tapas is all-powerful and effective and least strainful.

Is the will you are using all-powerful? Does it succeed inevitably always and produce infallible effects?

The will of the Supreme is alone all-powerful.