The Obstacles to Exercising the Will

Whatever experience an individual has in life, there come moments when he determines that he needs to exercise his will-power. it may be related to overcoming habits of laziness or procrastination, or overcoming a form of addiction, undertaking a diet to manage his weight, restraining the uncontrolled vital impulses, developing certain new directions for his study or mental development, or developing a program to develop his physical body, Whatever form this takes, he inevitably comes face to face with the obstacles that arise in terms of inner sense of weakness, conflicting priorities, contrary thoughts or arguments, or a powerful drive that overrides all the best intentions as expressed in the resolution he has taken. 

In the context of a spiritual seeker, the will is focused on organising the actions of the being, the body, the life-energy and the mind, around the soul, the psychic being, which is attuned to the divine intention in the universal manifestation and thereby excluding all those responses, reactions or drives which oppose, limit or retard this spiritual endeavour.

A disciple asks: ”Sweet Mother, how can we make our resolution very firm?“

The Mother observes: ”By wanting it to be very firm! (Laughter) … No, this seems like a joke… but it is absolutely true. One does not want it truly. There is always, if you… It is a lack of sincerity. If you look sincerely, you will see that you have decided that it will be like this, and then, beneath there is something which has not decided at all and is waiting for the second of hesitation in order to rush forward. If you are sincere, if you are sincere and get hold of the part which is hiding, waiting, not showing itself, which knows that there will come a second of indecision when it can rush out and make you do the thing you have decided not to do….”

“But if you really want it, nothing in the world can prevent you from doing what you want. It is because one doesn’t know how to will it. It is because one is divided in one’s will. If you are not divided in your will, I say that nothing, nobody in the world can make you change your will.”

“But one doesn’t know how to will it. In fact one doesn’t even want to. These are velleities: ’Well, it is like this…. It would be good if it were like that… yes, it would be better if it were like that… yes, it would be preferable if it were like that.’ But this is not to will. And always there at the back, hidden somewhere in a corner of the brain, is something which is looking on and saying, ‘Oh, why should I want that? After all one can as well want the opposite.’ And to try, you see… Not like that, just wait… But one can always find a thousand excuses to do the opposite. And ah, just a tiny little wavering is enough… pftt… the thing swoops down and there it is. But if one wills, if one really knows that this is the thing, and truly wants this, and if one is oneself entirely concentrated in the will, I say that there is nothing in the world that can prevent one from doing it, from doing it or being obliged to do it. It depends on what it is.”

“One wants. Yes, one wants, like this (gestures). One wants ‘Yes, yes, it would be better if it were like that. Yes, it would be finer also, more elegant.’ … But, eh, eh, after all one is a weak creature, isn’t that so? And then one can always put the blame upon something else: ‘It is the influence coming from outside, it is all kinds of circumstances.’ “

“The breath has passed, you see. You don’t know… something… a moment of unconsciousness… ‘Oh, I was not conscious.’ You are not conscious because you do not accept… And all this because one doesn’t know how to will.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 196-198