Those who like to live like slaves are called cattle or sheep because they do not have willpower. They do not have direction, but they follow the direction of their own glamors and illusions and the direction of the glamors and illusions of other people.
It is possible that man moves, desires, and thinks by the effect of external forces using his urges and drives, desires, glamors, illusion, prejudices, or superstitions. External forces appear in man as if they were his own free will.
People demonstrate strong urges and drives and powerful desires and force their body to take strenuous actions. People also demonstrate intense mental activities, forced by desires and urges and by other outside influences, giving the illusion that they are working with a strong willpower. The fact is that such people do not even have will energy in them, and they are victims of blind forces.
It is interesting to note that man for most of his life is like a machine, like a car which is driven by some other force. If you ask anybody on the street, "What are you doing?" he will say, "I am going here, there... I am talking about this or that... I am feeling this way, that way..." The reality is that the majority of people do not even exist. It is their bodies that are walking, directed by an emotion, thought, urge, or desire.
Stop any moment and ask yourself:
-Why am I doing this?
-For what reason?
-What is forcing me to do this?
-For whom am I working?
-Who is my boss?
-What is my purpose?
When you ask such questions, you will suddenly realize that you are really not the owner of your mechanism. Other thoughts, emotions, desires, and interests of outer agents are controlling your life, and in your innocence you are calling such a life your "own life."
Disciples are those individuals who cultivate willpower through a life of discipline. Once you commit yourself to a heavy discipline, you will see that willpower is really awakening within you and putting all your systems into order, into the right direction.
The Teacher makes you attack your self-pity, touchiness, hatreds, fears, jealousy, revenge, desires for revenge, greed, and sensitiveness because as long as you are infected with such maladies, the fire of the will cannot be awakened within you. It is only after freeing yourself from such pollution that you can feel the first rays of willpower within you.
The Teacher makes you face harder and harder conditions so that you cure yourself and bring out the spiritual essence hidden in you. Sometimes you do not even need to have a Teacher. A great beauty, a great idea, a great Teaching manifested by some powerful Individuality, such as Christ or Buddha, acts as a Teacher, as a direction. Once you dedicate yourself to such a direction, you will face a great challenge and you will submit yourself to a strict discipline.
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There is only one willpower, one central powerhouse. The same electricity can run through all wires. To develop willpower means to tune your True Self to that powerhouse and make the flow of energy come and connect your True Self with the powerhouse. There is only One Will, the Will of the All-pervading Architect.
Surrendering your will to that realized Almighty Will is in fact an act of developing willpower. Until one resigns his physical, emotional, and mental "wills" for the One will, he will not find will within him and become one with the Almighty Will.
The path of renunciation is a process in which you leave your self-will, or free will, to gain the real will of your divine Self and fuse with the One Will. Every time you stop the process of your renunciation, you turn into a slave, no matter where you are found on the Path.
In its real sense, advancement is progressive renunciation of your separating self.
Those who run after their own tail in a life of luxury and a life dedicated solely to physical, emotional, and mental amusements and pleasures are called builders of their own prisons. They want to be prisoners for a long time. This is how one loses his willpower, his own divine heritage, and becomes body, urges, drives, desires, glamors, and illusions.
Will is developed in many different ways:
1. The first step is to engage yourself in responsible duty, task, or labor which is carried on as a service to others in the light of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth.
2. The next step is discriminative rejection of things that distract your divine direction.
3. The next step is accepting Beauty, living in Beauty, thinking in Beauty so that ugliness is rejected. Accepting Beauty, Goodness, and Truth makes you reject ugliness and ill will. As you increase in Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, you manifest greater willpower.
4. The next step is to put all your heart, soul, and strength into the things you are doing, speaking, or thinking for Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. We call this a state of beingness when it is present in all your expressions and labor. This develops a great power of will because it calls forth your inner essence. To have willpower means to bring yourself into existence. You exist to the degree that you have willpower. Willpower makes you exist.
You exist not because your body exists; you exist not because your emotions and thoughts exist; but you exist because your will-to-be exists.
Every one of us must do the things we are doing with all our heart, soul, and might. It is through such a concentrated tension that the True Self, the divine Presence in the form of man, manifests Itself.
Things done without concentration, attention, and observation; things done without lovingness, dedication, and devotion; things done without direction cause disintegration within ourselves. Disintegration is a process of losing willpower. Integration is accumulation of willpower. A man of integrity is a man of willpower. That is why virtues are manifestations of willpower.
Focus is willpower when things are held in integrity. Focus is manifestation of integrity, manifestation of the Self in action, in thought, in direction.
Concentration is not focus. Focus is clear projection of the attained image of the essence. Concentration is the ability to sustain the direction of the essence in any field of activity.
Concentration is exercised in difficulties and in crises. Difficulties and crises develop your concentration to keep the flow of essence in the right direction.
All great Teachers come to earth to present a model of life of crises and difficulties and challenge us to engage ourselves in such a life. Their intention is to develop willpower within us which transcends all urges and mechanical reactions of the lower planes.
The real Teaching tells us to live a life of difficulty, labor, and crisis because it is after graduation from such a life that the real joy and bliss will manifest for us. Joy and bliss do not exist without a cultivated willpower.
If you do not have trouble, create it. But understand this statement in the right way. To create difficulties and crises means to set higher visions in front of yourself and strive to achieve them. A man of willpower does not escape from difficulties and crises because for him the joy and bliss are senses in overcoming the crises, difficulties, and problems. Willpower is gained on the path of victory, not in the cave of inertia.
Willpower is measured by the degree of self-mastery, joy, and renunciation.
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People sometimes think that when a man has willpower he can dominate the wills of others and make them his slaves. This is an error. True willpower does not enjoy creating slaves and dominating their will. On the contrary, true will is an agent of liberation and freedom. It is only those who have willpower who never try to dominate other people's will.
It is possible that a man of willpower is a king or a president or the commander of an army. But if this man has real willpower, he will use all his power to create peace, freedom, and creative joy.
It is fear that creates totalitarianism. Fear is the absence of spiritual will. Fear is the source of many crimes. Fear does not tolerate freedom but tries to make other people live the way it wants. Those who are limited to their self-interest cannot develop willpower. Willpower cannot survive in separate interests. Willpower is inclusive and universal.
-Torkom Saraydarian
The Mysteries of Willpower
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