IndiaPost.com - Will is the source & origin of all phenomena

Words such as wish, desire, love, and their like mean more or less the same thing; but the word 'will' has a greater importance than all those other words. And the reason is that will is life itself. The Bible calls God love. Love in what sense? Love in the sense of will.

The Creator created the universe by what? By love? By will; love came afterwards. Love is the will when it is recognized by its manifestation; then it is called love; but in the beginning it is will.

For instance, the Taj Mahal, the great building at Agra, is said' to be the token of the love that the emperor had for his beloved; at the same time, when one looks at it objectively, one cannot call it an expression of love; one would sooner call it a phenomenon of will.

For the beginning of the building at least, one may look at the spirit, the impulse which started it, as a phenomenon of the emperor's will; after it was finished one can say it was the expression of his love. When a person says, 'I desire it', 'I wish it', it is an incomplete will, a will which is not conscious of its strength, a will which is not sure what it wills. In that case it is called a desire, a wish. But when a person says, 'I will it', that means it is definite.

A person who never can say 'I will it', has no will. From this we may conclude that will is the source and the origin of all phenomena. Hindus have called the creation a dream of Brahma, the Creator. But a dream is a phenomenon of the unconscious will, when the will works automatically. The will is the action of the soul. One can also call the soul the self of the will.

The difference between will and soul is like the difference between a person and his action. There is a difference between the thoughtful and the imaginative man, and the difference is that the one thinks with will, the other thinks without will.

When once a person knows the value of will he then recognizes that there is nothing in the world which is more precious than will. Naturally, therefore, the question arises in the mind of the thoughtful man, 'Have I will in me? have I a strong will or have I a weak will?' And the answer is that no one can exist without will; everyone has a will.

The automatic working of the mind produces imagination, and the value of imagination depends upon the cultivation of the mind; if the mind is tuned to a higher pitch then the imagination will naturally be at a higher pitch; but if the mind is not tuned to a high pitch then naturally the imagination will I not be at a high pitch. Imagination has its place and its value. But when? At that time when the heart is tuned to such a pitch that the imagination cannot go anywhere else but into paradise.

The heart which is so tuned by love arid harmony and beauty, without willing it begins to float automatically; and in this automatic movement it reacts to whatever it touches, or expresses it in some form. When it is in the form of line or color or notes, then art, painting, music, or poetry is produced; it is then that imagination has value.

But when it comes to business and science and all things which are connected with our everyday life and the world, it is better to leave imagination aside and work with thought. As both night and day are useful, as both rest and action are necessary, so both thinking and imagination have their place in our life. For instance, if a poet used his will to direct his imagination it would become a thought and would become rigid.

The natural thing for a poet is to let his mind float into space; and whatever it happens to touch to let his heart express it, and then what is expressed is an inspiration. But when a person has to attend to a business affair he must not let his heart float in the air; he must think of the things of the earth, and think about figures very carefully.

Then we come to the question of how we can maintain our will. The nature of the life we live is to rob us of our will. Not only the struggle we have to undergo in life, but also our own self, our thoughts, our desires, our wishes, our motives, weaken our will.

The person, who knows how our inner being is connected with the perfect Will, will find that what makes the will smaller, narrower, more limited, is our experience throughout life.