When you start seeing your life as your responsibility, your project, your creation, it reorients your sense of direction and destiny.
Robert: Welcome. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present but not yet fully recognized. You have, within you, the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way, with new eyes, so stay with us and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Our topic today is the will as a spiritual power. We always think of God as not being present or not being active with the human being, with the individual, but not according to this statement by Alice Bailey: “It is the Will of God to produce certain radical and momentous changes in the consciousness of the human race which will completely alter our attitude to life and our grasp of the spiritual essentials of living.” I suppose God still looks upon us as an unfinished product according to that thought. How would you define the will in spiritual terms?
Sarah: Well, this being the spring, I like to think of an example in nature to describe the spiritual will, which is positive. It’s positive energy, we could say. It’s life-bearing energy. You’ll notice the first plants up in the spring are the crocus and the daffodil that push their way out of the snow and say, “I’m here and I’m alive.” And to me, that’s an example of the will. The persistence to overcome cold temperatures, snow on the ground, the hard frozen earth, “But it’s spring and I’ve got to live and bear my blossoms and here I am.” It’s a beautiful and reassuring image that we’re given by the natural world every year when we come out of a long, long winter and see the renewal of life. It’s possible within human beings, too, to draw upon the energy of the will for the renewal of life. That’s what lies behind the festival of Easter, which we’ve just observed. Yet I think most people think of will, as you said, as something that belongs to God. God has will but we’re just helpless, hopeless, and passive, and that really renders a person impotent in terms of his own life and direction. I don’t accept that view.
Dale: Well, everyone has free will, whether they exercise that free will or not, but it’s there as a potential. It’s demonstrated in some people more than in others, but that free will is also related, in a small way, to the greater Will of God. It’s important to understand the distinction between the two.
Sarah: Well, I think of another example in the natural world of the will, which is a baby colt, a baby horse, who is up on his feet and running around almost immediately after his birth. This again demonstrates the persistence and the will to carry forward, of the impulse of life. I think we can apply those analogies from the natural world to the human psyche. Anytime anyone overcomes a great sorrow or a great setback, a disappointment, a failure—I think we’re all acquainted with failure and some of us may be very intimately acquainted with failure over and over again—but we pick ourselves up and carry on and hopefully move forward. To me, this is an example of the spiritual will. Even though we may not equate it with a religious belief or call upon God for help, when we take ourselves in hand and try to redeem whatever situation we’re in, try to put it right, try to rescue something from disaster, I think that’s the spiritual will, because it’s progressive and positive.
Dale: It’s a unifying and a synthetic force, and it also stimulates incentive to succeed. Like you said, the incentive of the crocus is to come up in spite of the cold weather. I suppose in incentive, even at the plant level, there is that aspect of the will. It gives us direction and incentive through life.
Sarah: You mentioned a word earlier that I think applies to the will. You mentioned exercise, and really that’s how we develop the will in our personal expression of it, we have to exercise it. Like any strength, any capacity, it has to be exercised. It has to be developed. It doesn’t just come handed to us on a silver platter. We have to develop it. And I think we do that in a number of ways: one, by beginning to see our life as a series of choices that we make. A lot of people might think that their life is something that sort of happens by the impact of experiences and the impact of other human beings on them and the impact of bosses and employers and superiors and health and education or lack of it. But in fact, when you start seeing your life as your responsibility, your project, your creation, it reorients your sense of direction and destiny. A lot of people might find it surprising to think that the things that have happened to them over the years have been through their choices, choices they made. You can probably pick most any situation and be able to identify the outcome of that situation, trace it back to a particular choice you made or allowed to happen at least. And when you start to take more control over your choices, to be more conscious of them, to be more aware, you can see how you do make determining choices—sometimes on a very small level, but over and over again—that lead to the unfoldments that we have to live with.
Dale: That’s why these choices tend to give us direction. Sometimes they’re bad choices and they send us off in the wrong direction, but it’s related to the will in the sense that it is the choices we make that offer the direction that we go in our lives.
Sarah: And we have to equate the two and be able to see how they play themselves out in the future.
Dale: Right, and there’s a difference there between simply determination, because some people mistake the will, I think, with determination. It isn’t that, really. Not the spiritual will, it isn’t that. There is that part of us at the personality level that is just determined to get through this ordeal, this siege or this plan, this painful thing, or whatever it is, but that’s not quite the same as the spiritual will, because the spiritual will, as I said, has more to do with fixed direction in one’s life.
Sarah: If you begin to see your life in those terms, in terms of choices and conscious or unconscious decisions that you make, then you do get a sense of the direction of your life, and you can begin to see how with a slight adjustment of values and decisions, you can reorient your life. It’s a gradual process for most of us, but it’s something that you can experiment with and see play out in your own circumstances. In fact, coming back to this idea of exercise, there are even a few suggestions that are given to us for developing the will, exercising the muscles of the will. One of them is practicing saying “no” when it’s right to say “no,” but when it would be easier to say “yes.” Another way is choosing the most important thing out of a number of things that you have to do, choosing the most important thing and doing that. And another one is making a choice without hesitation, just looking at the possibilities and choosing and then living with it. Another is learning to behave and to make decisions without worrying so much about what others think, whether they approve or not, listening to your own inner approval meter, so to speak. Another way is disciplining your speech, being more conscious of how you use language and using it in a more harmless and higher way. And of course, anytime we correct a bad habit, we’re exercising the will, overcoming any habit, large or small, that we don’t like. That takes will. And finally, my favorite, which is a very Buddhist kind of thing, is performing any action, whether it’s sweeping the floor or writing a test paper or cleaning your refrigerator, whatever it is, doing it with your complete attention and focus, being really present and focused and attentive on whatever task is yours to do at that moment. Those are all ways of developing the spiritual will.
Robert: Sarah, you mentioned about how many lessons we can learn about the will from nature, and I remember one image that I can’t forget of when you mentioned the flower that grows during the coldest times and sometimes during the severest winter. I was thinking of how sometimes you’ll walk along the sidewalks of New York and you’ll see plants breaking through the cement. That certainly is a testament to the will! How do we tell the difference between expressing the spiritual will and just being stubbornly committed?
Sarah: Well, I think Dale was touching on that, but it’s not just grim persistence as so many people might think. I think a lot of us tend to think of the will as supreme effort. And in fact, the spiritual will could be described as effortless effort. The closest example I can think of is opera singers, classical singers, who speak of making an alignment in their vocal mechanism and when they’ve made that alignment properly, the voice then just produces the sound. It does its own work. You can compare the appearance, the look on the face of an opera singer—a trained singer, classically trained—with that of a pop music belter and the belter will have their face all screwed up and really be forcing that sound out for all it’s worth whereas the opera singer lets it just come through. To me that’s a good example of the will because the alignment has been made properly: lungs, throat, head, jaw, all of that and the sound follows forth. Another example, athletes who speak of “being in the zone,” and when they are in that zone, their body is sort of, as I understand it, kind of on automatic pilot and just follows through with all the years and years of rigorous training.
Dale: Yes, and that’s the way it works out in an individual. The spiritual will is often referred to as the “Will of God,” though it’s something really inscrutable, a force or an energy that it’s very hard to identify. We don’t profess to be experts on it here, but it’s just that we should realize that the real spiritual will is something that really emanates by way of the soul.
Sarah: But you don’t think the examples of the classical singer and the athlete are examples of spiritual will in the sense of being effortless effort?
Dale: Yes, I would agree with that. The spiritual will is that energy which implements our deepest intentions, and when our intentions are fixed and in line with a definite purpose then our will energy can be focused and channeled along that direction. That’s really where the energy of the soul comes in and pours in. I suppose it does have to do with alignment with the soul, which I guess is very closely related to alignment in the voice, the singing voice—alignment with the head tones and that sort of thing—and then it flows more easily, and one is not concerned with the process so much as with the objective that lies ahead. That’s always what one is concentrating on.
Sarah: Yes. I suppose an example related to that is a really brilliant golfer does not say to himself as he raises the club, “I am now going to swing and I’m going to hit the ball.” It’s just automatic because the vision is on the goal in the distance. I think what you’re saying reminds me of that wonderful statement by Goethe: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” So, begin it now. Make the beginning. Whatever you can imagine doing, make the beginning to accomplish it now, and it will follow through.
Dale: Yes, and getting back to this distinction between the greater will and the little will of the individual: they’re related, but the small will is kind of the narrowed down aspect of the greater will. In other words, it’s the personality taking this energy of will and focusing it only on the little self. That’s where we get this thing called personal willpower and the power of domination or the power of authoritarian will, my will over your will. It’s very personally expressed, whereas the greater Will of God is not a personal expression. It’s more to do with the group life and the group expression, and it has to do more with an expression that works out through humanity as a whole, like the greater Will of God working out his Plan.
Sarah: There’s a statement in the Bible, in the New Testament, that I think applies to what we’re talking about. It’s kind of obscure, but Jesus said, “If any man shall do his will, he shall know the doctrine.” If any man shall do his will, he shall know the doctrine. I think that it is related to what you’re saying in that he said if you act upon what your highest intention is, if you follow through with what your conscience and your intuition tell you that you should do, you will find in the doing that you gain understanding. And again, it’s sort of echoing what Goethe said. You have to make the beginning and then knowledge and understanding follow. But you can’t just remain passive and think about it and insist on having a complete picture presented to you before you even make a start. There’s something that happens in the process that engages the will and brings light and understanding.
Dale: Yes, and you mentioned earlier about Jesus, and here we’ve just passed the Easter festival, and Jesus, of course, went through that experience in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he cried out, “Father, not my will, but thine be done.” He, at that point, was even struggling with understanding what that divine Will was, and giving over that small little will to the greater Will of God.
Sarah: For those of us who are on a much lower level, to try to understand the Will of God is really inscrutable and impossible, but the best I can think of is that when we act upon our highest judgment, our best instinct, our best, highest intuitive recognition of what we should do, we are somewhat coming into an approximation of divine Will. We can only act upon what we know and what we understand, but in doing so, in living up to our highest purposes and our highest values and with a consideration of the greatest good for the greatest number, I think we make a beginning at being obedient to the Will of God.
Robert: Would you say then never betray the best within us because to be that way is to be in alignment with God.
Sarah: I think that’s all God expects of us, to live up to the highest that we can register and recognize, yes.
Robert: Why does humanity play such a key role in the working out of the Will of God on earth?
Sarah: Well, the Great Invocation that we close this program with each week touches on that. It says, “From the center where the Will of God is known, let purpose guide all little human wills, the purpose which the Masters know and serve. From the center which we call the human race, let the Plan of Love and Light work out, and may it seal the door where evil dwells.” That implies that the Plan of Love and Light and the purpose of God depend upon the cooperation and the consent of the human will. We are the means by which the divine Plan is being fulfilled on our earth, as I understand it. Why God has chosen to depend upon humanity’s cooperation to such an extent, I don’t know, but we’re the great question mark.
Dale: Well, we’re that middle kingdom between the three lower kingdoms, the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdom, and the higher kingdoms above humanity, the spiritual kingdoms which we’re moving into, and humanity is the mediating kingdom. It’s a very crucial point here because we receive from above and we distribute that energy below, so it all depends on humanity carrying that greater Will energy and fulfilling that task that it’s meant to carry out on Earth.
Sarah: And the best way we can fulfill that task is by creating right human relationships. That means between individuals, between groups, between nations, from the personal to the international and global level. Right human relationships are our task and our means of demonstrating that we do understand and want to cooperate with God’s Will. We express it in every group endeavor, from the smallest community project to globalism. It’s interesting to think about the significance of the problem in the Middle East in light of what I’ve just said, because in the Ageless Wisdom, it’s said that the only place of complete peace is Shamballa, that Center where the Will of God is known. And Jerusalem, the city, the name literally means place of peace. I wonder if the day when peace finally comes to Jerusalem, when right human relations are established between all of the people in that area of the world, if this won’t signify a step forward in humanity’s grasp of Divine Will for our planet. I think that’s why so much of the world’s attention is focused on that area. It affects not only the people there, but we’re all involved in the overcoming of the conflict there. It’s a major test situation, we could say.
Dale: It’s a major point of crisis for humanity as a whole, really. It isn’t just the Israelis and the Palestinians. It involves all of humanity, because what happens there will affect the rest of the world, as you say, and it all comes down to relationship, right relationship, and the right flow of energy, and the energy of love and the energy of the will, the greater will.
Sarah: Those who are interested in treading the path of spiritual unfoldment have to understand the importance of the spiritual will. Maybe that’s a good note to close on. To develop spiritually and to expand one’s spiritual consciousness is itself an act of will. It doesn’t just happen because we wish it would. It comes through real effort and discipline and sacrifice because what it requires is the complete transfiguration of the personal life. There’s no greater test of will than our redeeming our own circumstances and making them an expression of the soul.
Robert: You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with a world prayer called the Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words.
Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of the Great Invocation.
(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.)
(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod)
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