Learning the Right Use of Will

A series of steps as provided in the Natural Order Process, Vol. 2 - Lesson 35:

Step one:  Be very careful about decisions.  Once a decision has been made do not change; or change most reluctantly and not until newly discovered factors have changed the original basis upon which the decision was made.  Avoid stubbornness, be reasonable, open and receptive to new factors, remain or stand always on extensional grounds, but hold fast to clearly perceived and valid convictions.  Superficially considered, this may seem contradictory, but study it carefully; a firm position is here described, yet a tenable one.

Step two:  When striving to achieve something--some plan, some work, some objective--dwell with it, quietly and alone; do not mentalize nor emotionalize about it, but sustain a quiet, steady feeling that it is coming into being.  Notice that the word thinking was not use.  The word feeling was used--"quiet, steady feeling".  This is because one must work in, with or through feeling until the apperceptive faculty of Mind has been sufficiently developed to be available.  Very few today have perceptive faculties of Mind developed, saying nothing of the apperceptive faculty; so let us work with that which we do have available; then in very reasonable times the other faculties will come into use.  A vivid imagination will help here if it is kept well under control, but allowing it to run free or loose is worse than not employing it at all.  However, keen, vivid imaginative feeling, as if the objectives sought were already enjoyed, describes the approach here intended.  Dwell with an idea quietly; do not talk about it.  When one tells another, no matter how close that other may be, the telling dissipates the stored up energy which should go forth as frequencies in creating and sustaining the matrix, web or field-pattern in the consciousness respecting the new creation.  The rule is this:  the more a feeling is repressed, the stronger becomes the force, energy-frequencies, etc. thereof.  So, to accomplish anything worthwhile, feel strongly about it; keep silent.  REMAIN STEADY; for here the turning point in the development of will may be reached.  Vacillation, wavering, fits and starts, can never develop will.  Hold steady like a rock.  Do not allow enthusiasm today and forget all about it tomorrow.  To hold steadfastly to the feeling that it now IS means success.

Step three:  Arouse the faculty of determination.  Lay down a law within the feeling-realm of your own being like a divine decree sent forth in your conscious realm.  (Remember no one else is concerned in this nor knows anything about it.)  Determine that it is so.  (The antecedent of it, of course, means that which a given individual may have as the objective of his will.) Determine it.

These three steps as given, culminate in the fourth and last step.  These steps operate on forces in the psychic-nature in a manner similar to that which takes place when a bar of soft iron is converted into a magnet.  If a bar of iron is wrapped with a coil of wire and an electric current is turned through the wire, or if a bar of iron is placed in a strong electro-magnetic field, the positive and negative poles of the molecules of which the iron is composed will become aligned--a positive pole of each molecule will be immediately opposite a negative pole of the adjacent molecule, throughout the bar of iron.  (Before the bar of iron was converted into a magnet the positive and negative poles of the molecules were at odds with each other, positive repelling positive; negative repelling negative, etc.)  The alignment in polarity of the molecules causes the force within the bar of iron itself to flow, the negative force flowing to one end of the bar, and the positive force flowing to the other end.  The force hitherto "locked up" now becomes available; the bar of iron attract to itself.

To accomplish these steps as given creates alignment of forces "locked up" in the psychic-nature.  The feel, the experience, the realization of this alignment in one's own consciousness leads directly to KNOWING.  This knowing or will is NOW available; only sense of separateness prevents immediate realization.  Right use of will becomes a serious and real responsibility accompanying its realization.  Francis Bacon never tired of reiterating, "Knowledge is power."  But he could have added that with power comes responsibility.  Many religious teachings and practices respecting goodness, morality, virtue, etc. with the expectation of reward in some 'hereafter' or 'other than' are ineffective because understanding and knowledge of karma has been left out.  It should be said here that to injure another is to suffer injury to one's Self.  To put another in bondage is to go into bondage.  Therefore:

Step four:  "The right use of will" is to use this power to further consciousness of Self; it is not to be used in or on the level of elemental-self, object-predicate manifold, for personal or selfish reasons, for acquisitiveness, etc.  In directing energies and forces out of one's own psychic-nature, development of will--this inflexible knowing--gives one a tremendous advantage.  The right use of will, therefore, is to control forces and energies in the psychic-nature and direct them to the level of the Master-self.  On this level one becomes a seer and the master of his own house.  Leaving these forces locked up in the psychic-nature, unavailable for the great work to be done, amounts to a crime against the Most High and constitutes the basic cause for individual and world-wide misery.

No one can develop will and escape responsibilities which come with it.  The warning and promise has been given:  "Whosoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whosoever though shalt loose on earth shalt be loosed in heaven."  Think of the responsibility of exercising such power!  Peter had this power of will, but he did not have realization of the responsibility which came with it; you know, of course, the story of Ananias and Sapphira.

"Ceasing from self-indulgence" is so self-explanatory that no comment seems necessary.  Be temperate in all things--in sleeping and eating, exercising, working, playing, the satisfying of natural hunger in sexual appetite, etc.  Treat sexual appetite just as you would any other natural appetite--no more, no less.  Be temperate in all things, because as you are temperate you can tread the path with greater facility.  But over-indulgence respecting any of the natural appetites results in over-stimulation which creates false appetite.  This counsel is given here for the reason that someone reading these words--ceasing from self-indulgence--might go into some form of asceticism and try to kill or drown out some natural appetite of the psychic-nature before he has outgrown it or directed the forces out therefrom.  It is just as deleterious to try to kill out natural wholesome appetite as it is to over-indulge it, if not more so.  The point here is one of direction, control, growth, etc., not a repression leading into psycho-somatic maladjustments, neurosis, etc.

The Natural Order Process - Volume 2 - Lesson 27

I found the below passages very beneficial and wanted to capture them:

""Sin" can be described as the violation of the law of harmony, or transgression of the law of one's own being, by following sense when it is contrary to following the urge of Self.  Thousands of persons are living in sin when they think they are perfectly decorous and virtuous, perfectly in line and in order.  For many are outraging and violating the law of unity or harmony, called the law of their own being, by conforming to codes and standards arbitrarily created instead of cultivating the inner feel of harmonic urges of their own respective Selves.

Salvation therefore means liberation from the false values given to mental images appearing substantive and has been described as "freedom from sin and the sorrow which comes from sin."  No one can reach liberation and go against the law of his own nature.  Let one violate the law of his own being (which is called the law of harmony), the law of love, the law of unity) and, no matter how much that act may be justified by the outer codes, conventions, amenities and properties of organized society, he feels deeply unhappy; and even greater sorrow and remorse will follow if he continues thus against Himself.  One's first duty therefore is to get out of every condition which is not true to the heart and soul and law of one's own being.  Once free from the violations of this law, and the sorrow which comes with it, peace and eternal well-being obtains, where the soul partakes of the bliss of Self, called the glory of God."
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One must have a strong mental conviction that with the power of the real Self it is possible to dethrone or overcome this usurper (the psyche).  The deeper this conviction, the more immediate and constant the progress on the path.  One must not waver; he should throw all of the influence of which he is capable into the conviction that the Power with which he created this usurper IS (and WAS) before there was any creation.  With this strong mental conviction it is possible to contact that Power and manifest it, not only in daily life, but for the real battle necessary to dethrone this adversary.  More than this--in one's essential nature he is that Power, and it is possible to become conscious of being that Power.
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The goal is the full consciousness of the Master-self, the seer illumined by his own light.  Nothing except the obdurate resistance of the psychic-nature keeps one from this goal.  If the psychical powers are really "spiritual" powers (forces from the level of the Master-self) drawn from their proper channels, then the task is to regain control and restore these powers to their proper channels.  This requires sharp differentiation between energies or forces and forms of activities.  We therefore emphasize attention focused upon energies or forces, not upon activities or forms thereof.
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The FIRST STEP, therefore, on the ladder of development may be stated as a simple exercise in concentration.  If one is going to withdraw creative force from integrated desire-forms, thought-forms, etc., (called psychic-nature) he must concentrate thought or attention upon these forces as separate or distinct from the forms.  As a rule this is done by attending to and thinking only of the energies or forces and ignoring the activities or character, forms, etc. of expression.

It is this process which is called control of the psychic-nature.  Emphasis must be given to the lifting up of the creative forces; it is not sufficient to just direct them out of the desire-forms, etc.  With this accomplished, one has a possibility of controlling his thoughts.  Therefore, to establish union he has three things to do: 1) He must gain control of his own versatile psychic-nature; 2) he must prevent the thinking-principle from assuming the many forms it so easily does when creative-life-forces are functioning in the cortical aspect or phase of the psychic-nature; and 3) he must come en rapport or "make connection" with the Master-self.

Patanjali's Methodology as described by Vitvan

The Natural Order Process - Volume 2 - Lesson 1

Patanjali's methodology is summarized as follows:

1) Disentangle the psyche from the elemental, animal and animalized human desire influences by the superior mental powers;

2) Direct the forces by which the psychic-nature functions to the centers in which Mind contacts the personality in identity with the 'objective world', and thence into the Mind-level of the individualized Self or Master;

3) Through control and purification of the thinking-principle and the instrumentality of Mind, induce will to take charge of the psyche;

4) By conscious functioning in will, free and clear from all hindrances or modifications by the thinking-principle, liberate the seer or Master and enter the real world.