Developing Will-Power

When we are interested in something we naturally focus on that to the exclusion of other distractions. Time passes and we do not notice it. Things that would ordinarily engage our attention are disregarded. This power of ‘one pointed’ concentration is however elusive when it arises just out of natural interest. If we try to engage this power of concentration in other aspects of our lives, we find it is not so easy. The primary issue is one of distraction, and again, the distractions arise through various parts of the being seeking their own interests and forms of fulfillment.

What is true for the power of concentration is also true for the exercise of the will. The major issue in forming and maintaining a will to accomplish something, to do something or to avoid doing something is the issue of distraction, of having multiple different objects before us that move our attention away from the specific act of will. For the most part, this is due to the diverse nature of the different parts of the being and their various forms of fulfillment in their ordinary state. Thus, the body may seek rest or food, the vital may be trying to fulfill some type of desire, the mind may be interested in some subject other than the one that is the subject of the will. 

As long as these various aims and objectives are active and move the being in one direction or another, in some cases quite randomly and inconsistently, we cannot implement a will, even if, in our central being, we are awake to the aspiration and want to consecrate our being to the divine intention. In order to accomplish this we must then find a way to obtain the consent and adherence of all the parts of the being around this central aspiration.

The Mother notes: ”To learn how to will is a very important thing. And to will truly, you must unify your being. In fact, to be a being, one must first unify oneself. If one is pulled by absolutely opposite tendencies, if one spends three-fourths of his life without being conscious of himself and the reasons why he does things, is one a real being? One does not exist. One is a mass of influences, movements, forces, actions, reactions, but one is not a being. One begins to become a being when he begins to have a will. And one can’t have a will unless he is unified.”

“And when you have a will, you will be able to say, say to the Divine: ’I want what You want.’ But not before that. Because in order to want what the Divine wants, you must have a will, otherwise you can will nothing at all. You would like to . You would like it very much. You would very much like to want what the Divine wants to do. You don’t possess a will to give to Him and to put at His service. Something like that, gelatinous, like jelly-fish… there… a mass of good wills — and I am considering the better side of things and forgetting the bad wills — a mass of good wills, half-conscious and fluctuating.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 197-198