Will power is love; in spiritual terms, love is will power. If one says, "God is love", it means in reality "God is Will". The love of God, the Will of God, causes the creation, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Universal laws pervade our earth and our heaven. When a person says, "I love to do it", it means, "I will to do it", which is a stronger expression and means, "I fully love to do it with all my heart and soul".
Never again clutter your days or nights with so much "busi-ness" and unimportant things that you have no time to "be in love" and "live with love". This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived, with money as the only reward, is no cause for celebration. In its purified state, the human heart is the hologram of the seen and unseen worlds; it is the part that reflects the whole. The heart is the point at which the individual human being is closest to the Divine. The heart is the centre of our motivation and our knowing, possessing a depth and strength of will that the personality lacks. When we say that the heart has an integrative power, we are not talking in abstract, metaphorical, or merely intellectual terms. The realisation and purification of the heart both opens a doorway to the infinite, and also results in a restructuring of neural pathways, a refinement and reorganisation of our entire nervous system, which allows the fullest expression of our human possibilities. We can so easily fall into the world of life to work rather than work to live. Time can rush by, we are so busy getting ready to enjoy life, that we are too tired to take advantage of it. To manage our life, for the benefit of love, we must master the power of will. This, in another language, means discipline.
No more busy work. No more hiding from love. Leave time, leave space to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!
Love in action. The heart of Love
Discipline is the turning point. The pain of regret always outweighs the pain of discipline. Therefore, as we shift from the ego focus of pleasure, short term pleasure, toward purpose, dreams, and longer term results, the ego loses control and becomes the lion, and you to tamer, The vast majority of spiritual practices like yoga, meditation, tai chi and more, hold this as the most critical ingredient of the transformation between ego life and love life. Discipline.
Will is a different kind of power. Will acknowledges that there are temptations, that there are always old patterns, but that all the righteousness, devotion and fanatic adherence to dogma will never remove the source of temptation. An alcoholic is still an alcoholic while they are in a phobia about alcohol. With will power, there is a different approach; there is simply something more important to do.
Will does not rely on righteousness or goods that are separated from bad. Like the healing fanatic, who will tell you for hours about the virtues of organic food. No, that is the ego in blind fanaticism building dogma, separation. There are two sides to everything, good and bad, including organic food. But will is different. Will asks, "What are my long term goals, and what choices are best for me to make to achieve them?" Like, "I want to travel the world helping children". I would ask "When?", and you might say, "Until the day I die", and I might say "When?", and you might add, "Ok, when I am 90". So now we got past a loose fantasy, with no detail, to a little more detail. Then we go for lunch and you are sitting opposite me, and the menu comes, "What are you having for lunch?" You think, and say, "Oh there are so many delicious choices", and I would reply, "Not if you are serious about living until you are 90 and still traveling around the world helping children." Then you might choose the organic salad, because it might help you live your dream. That choice is made with "will power".
Will power comes from the heart.
A part of the body just beneath the breast has been labeled as the heart. As humans cannot grasp the idea of a heart outside the body, there is a part in this body of flesh dedicated to housing the idea of the heart. This area is most sensitive to feeling and has been called broken at times, although no physical break actually occurs.
Thought, memory, will and reason, combined with the ego, make up the heart. The surface of our ego is mind, while the depth of it is heart. The heart is a clear descriptor of our identity. It is through the heart that we feel ourselves, or know ourselves, as the ego prefers. Once a person understands the nature, the character, and the mystery of heart, they understand the language of their ego. So a real understanding of the ego, and turning it to work for you, instead of for itself, comes from the heart.
Will power is what makes the difference between our ability to feel an emotion (which is honesty), and act on an emotion (which is foolishness). It is human nature to have all kinds of emotional reactions to the world around us; these are simultaneously the human illusion, and precisely the traits that make us human. The experiencing of emotions over the whole spectrum of existence is what makes us whole, just as a musical piece is composed using the whole set of piano keys, not just one. The joy of life is experiencing emotion, but the suffering of life is to act, or legitimise them.
Action and reaction based on emotion are at the surface of life. Will is the junction between this, and the ability to live deep below this surface, in love. When we act on emotion, our will power (God power) is overridden, and we become like a leaf in the storm, driven by the comings and goings of others. There is no certainty in a life driven by reactions to emotion. While it provides the flavor and spice of life, it is an appalling guidance system for your decisions and direction. Will is, therefore, the gentle power that can honor the experience of emotion, but prohibits action based on it.
Ambition can be based on emotional escapism and egotistic attachment, or the human spirit and inspired calling. If we want love, then ambition based on emotional escapism is a complete contradiction to our aims. Emotional drive is sporadic, undisciplined, it vales "How I feel now" more importantly than, "How I am going to feel if I don't live my dreams?" It is not the love-centred way of life. It will not magnetise the health and sacred love we aspire to give.
Valuable Values:
The value of time
The success of perseverance
The pleasure of working
The dignity of simplicity
The worth of character
The power of kindness
The influence of example
The obligation of duty
The wisdom of economy
The virtue of patience
The improvement of talent
The joy of originality
If you say you are going to do something in your life, and you don't do it, you beat yourself up. Make commitments of discipline in your relationship. If you break them, don't lie. Admit it. No one can beat you up more than you. But then work on more discipline, more will, more love power, by finding a better reason to follow your commitment. Being committed to something is all about having a good enough reason. If you love yourself enough, then emotional blackmail is not a good enough reason to be committed. If someone says, "I won't like you if you don't do that" then only if you already hate yourself is that a motive. But at this level of will, there has to be a dream, a dream you'd love so much that the cost of emotion is too high, that emotion is not worth the worry.
People get this when they lose something. I had a friend who had a heart attack. They were so not disciplined; they had absolutely no will power. Then, after that catastrophe, they became a health fanatic. A year later they were emotional again and eating junk. They were disciplined out of fear. This is not sustainable. In your relationship, find a dream that is big enough, that you would love to live enough, and then work out what the cost is in terms of lifestyle. If you aren't willing to pay the price, get out of the way so someone else can live it. But don't expect your relationship to last if you can't find a dream worth living for.
After two or three shattered dreams you might find it hard to come up with real commitments for long-term dreams. Simply start with little ones and work your way up. There is a process in the last chapters of this book on dream matching.
The will of the human heart is an unbridled experience of doing something that you love, rather than something that loves you. Then you bring this choice making awareness into all facets of your life, discernment, and without compromise. Will is the heart choosing long-term benefit over short-term emotional expression.
Sacred relationship is not found in emotional drama, but in the wisdom of choices made, the sacrifices made in recognition of dreams and Love. If you do not have the will to choose wisely, then you'll choose low priority activities to fill your mind. Because these are self sabotaging (they do not fulfill your dreams), then your lover will not be able to wait for you to grow up in love, they will probably leave you. If you are treating yourself as unworthy of love, unworthy of higher purpose, unworthy of long-term investment, then your lover will not treat you any differently. Remember that nobody does to you more than you do to yourself. Will is love, will power is self love.
Self love is found in the doing of life, not in the thinking of it. Self love is action, action of choices. Your self worth grows when you do things worthy of your own respect. Emotional drama and working on low priorities, working on other people's priorities, living vicariously through children, is all self-deception. Nature will not have it. Nature will bring disaster, catastrophe and humbling circumstances to anyone who does not work on the higher priorities that manifest their dreams. If you do not have a dream, there is only ego to love.
A person who can say, "I love doing this" is far more rewarded on the cosmic level than the ego that would profess, "I love this, because these are the things I get for doing it". Achievements last for moments, but life is a journey. There is no solace for the wealthy person who, surrounded with material items and victories, cannot smile in the face of a days work, or at the idea of walking to the garden for a few moments of reflection. It is in the eyes of loved ones where we find God, rather than the buildings we create to house them. It is in the doing of things of high priority to our dreams that the wealth exists, not in the gratitude of those we help.
Will is not power, although it is all the power that exists. How does creation function in the universe? The world? The answer is, by will. The laws of the universe hold all the chaos into a magnificent order. It is the power of will, Gods will, that all of the universe conforms to a discipline of just five simple laws. Emotion is the defiance of those laws. Therefore, what we call willpower in us, is more accurately, God power; and emotion is hell power. Will power is a combination of physical and mental strength. Our hands, with all their perfect mechanics, cannot hold a glass of water if there is no willpower to support it. If will power fails us, a seemingly healthy person will not be able to even stand. Therefore, fish do not swim with their body; they swim with their will power. And when man has the will to swim, he swims like fish.
Will power has enabled humankind to complete tremendous things. Will brings us to success, yet when will fails, however intelligent the person, they too fail. Therefore, it is not the human power solely that moves us, it is a divine power found in the human body that makes unbelievable feats possible. The work of the mind is still greater, for no one can hold a thought in their mind for a moment if there is not the strength of will to hold it. If a person cannot concentrate, cannot keep their thoughts still for a moment, it means that will power fails them, as it is will which holds a thought.
Rumi, "Birth, water, fire, air seemed to us as things, as objects, but before God they are living beings; they stand as his obedient servant's and obey divine Will".
We received a part of that divine will as our own divine heritage, and it is our consciousness of that will which makes it greater. If we are not conscious of it, it becomes smaller. An optimistic attitude towards life develops the power of will, while the pessimistic attitude reduces it and robs it of its great power. Thus, it is only ourselves that hinders our progress in life. There is no one in the world that can be a worse enemy to us than ourselves, for at every failure we see ourselves standing in our own light.
When the mind is pushed to hold one thought for a while, it becomes restless, because it is not accustomed to discipline. The mind by itself has no hesitation to hold a thought of disappointment, blame, anger, pain grief, sorrow, or of failure; it will hold it so tightly that you cannot take one of those righteous thoughts from its grip. But when the mind is requested to hold a particular affirmative thought, often it will not hold it, responding instead by saying, "I am free and I will not be controlled". This is the ego fighting against the heart of will, the ego fighting for emotional freedom, and cursing the divinity of sacred love, dreams and joy.
You must teach your mind discipline by concentration, by the power of will, then the mind becomes tied in concentration to the focus of your work. A parent must be strong with a child because they have no discipline, and the parent must be that higher wisdom until the child becomes wise. A disciplined mind becomes your servant rather than your master. The thoughts of the heart, and the act of holding the thought in the heart, are both of great importance for the fulfillment of an individual's life's, and most importantly, their relationships.
Often a person will say, "I try my best but I cannot get my mind to concentrate, I cannot make my mind still". It is true that they cannot concentrate, but it is not true that they try their best. Once the mind has become your servant, what more can you wish? Then your world is your own, you are the king or queen of your kingdom. Although some people will argue, "Why not let the mind be free, as we are free?" But the easy answer to this is to observe the life of the person without discipline, filled with emotional drama, maybe even a filled bank balance. They have lost the essence, they are nothing but living shells of emotion.
Self-discipline is that which makes the master of the self, however difficult and tyrannical it may seem in the beginning. Self mastery is a combination of discipline and applied will. It is not in vain that the great sages live in caves with devotion and great purpose. It is not something to imitate, but it is something to understand. Such asceticism is self-discipline; it is the development of will power. This is the turning point for a sacred relationship. To invest yourself in love is to have the will to sustain it.
There are those who would sit for the whole of their lives under the coconut tree and wait for the coconuts to drop. There are those who would chop the tree, so they own the tree. There are those who would learn to climb and bring what they need to their lives. Too many of us enter a relationship and then wait to see what happens. We buy the furniture and make the babies. There is no brain required in either of those actions, and we can have pleasured sex with 90% of our brain removed. Love is will, effort, and without affirmative effort, you wait for the coconut, and survive on nothing between.
You lack nothing if you have will
The best way to cultivate will power is by first systematically putting the body through discipline. It must sit in the posture that is prescribed to it; it must stand in a place where it is asked to stand. The body must not become restless, or fatigued, by what is asked of it. You'll see this in yoga. The body must answer to the demands of the person to whom it belongs. The moment we begin to discipline the body, we begin to see how disobedient the body has always been. This body is meant to become the tool with which you experience life, not the reason for it. The body can be trained with physical exercises initiated by the mind.
The discipline of the mind is done by concentration. It can only take place after the body has become disciplined. When you wish the mind to think about one particular thought while it is thinking another thought, then the mind becomes very restless. It does not want to stand in one spot, because it has always been moving about without discipline. Very often, people tell me that during the day their most difficult time is the moment that they want to concentrate. At this time the mind will start to jump. This is because the mind is an entity. The mind and body need to be your servants, not the other way around. In order for you to manifest your dreams, your mind and body must become your servants in everyday life to fulfill your body with food and pleasure, and your mind with emotion and righteousness. They must act as you wish them to, in order for you to gain real comfort, happiness and an awareness of love.
There is a difference between concentration and silence. Silence is relaxing mind and body. It is repose and healing. Concentration is holding a certain thought before you. Further, concentration is the beginning of meditation, and meditation is the end of concentration
This is illustrated in the following two examples. What time do you rise in the morning? Anytime? Or in time to get you to work? The vast majority of people seek a flexible wake up time, depending on how they feel or what they did last night. This freedom, self- given, has a catastrophic impact on an individual's health, worth, and vitality. If wake up time is fixed, then life spins around it. Time becomes a fixture, a marker in the day. Then, emotion is not the master.
Money is another example. People on the whole spend by impulse - emotional spending, retail therapy. These are rarely people who have earned the money in their own right, nor are they often the wealthy people. If you can't control your emotion, you can't control your spending. A quest for instantaneous emotional gratification leads to emotional spending.
Freedom does not come, as many people hope, from freedom to act on impulse or emotion, nor does it come from stoic rigidity. Emotions must be felt for authentic living, and will power is the ability to feel, and not act. We act for love, we act to create dreams, we feel for honesty.
Chris Walker is a world leading change agent, an environmentalist and author of more than 20 books. Born and bred in Australia, he consults to people and organisations throughout the world on improved relationships, health and lifestyle through the application of the Universal laws of Nature. The result he offers is that we stay balanced, share loving relationships, work with passion, enjoy success, and live our personal truth. To learn more about Chris?s work and journeys to Nepal, visit http://www.chriswalker.com.au
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