If our world is magical, how can we best participate in this
magic?
How do we reconcile acceptance of “what is” with our urge to
grow in Divine Love?
Our attention and our life force is all we have to invest in
will. Will is a concentration, or commitment, of attention followed by action. It
is a commitment to how we choose to be in relationship with the Divine, ourselves,
others, and the environment.
We can exercise two types of will, our soul’s will and our conditioned
will. Both are spiritual in the sense that everything is100% spiritual, but
they have different outcomes; and, therefore, our consideration of them has
very practical implications to our lives.
Our soul’s will is our portion of Divine will; the
intrinsic, innate will that we came into this life with. Our soul’s will
operates only in reality. It is the creative impulse. It is as unique as our
finger prints. Each of us has a different experience, a different perspective,
and we are each precious to the whole. If we live our soul’s will on earth,
life is enriched for all. Since our soul’s will is closer to the Divine, when
we express it we experience ease, unity and joy.
Our conditioned will is like a computer virus spread by our
parents and society to our early mental operating systems. It is a collection
of thoughtforms, beliefs, and habitual grooves. Rather than being creative, the
conditioned will limits and separates. There is an efforting and suffering
about it; for example, I must, I have to, I should, I can’t, etc. This is the
will we commonly think of as will power. With conditioned will power we
vacillate between shame and pride. When we are being moved by conditioned will,
we are like the human pods in the movie Matrix, living in an imagined world
separated from reality. At one time we gave these thoughtform machines
instructions to separate us from life for apparent safety. We are safe and we no
longer need them but they gather momentum if we remain asleep in the Matrix
pods.
Our conditioned-will machines are not alive but they do take
energy or life force to run. When they are running they are depleting our life
force and therefore squandering our natural human health, vitality and
happiness. The more attention/energy we allocate to conditioned will, the less
is available for our soul’s creative life in the world.
The difference between the two wills is not about any
particular activity but the motivation behind it. For example, take exercise.
If you are walking, running, dancing, etc., because you love the feel of your
body in free motion in the world, like a child playing, you are using more of
the soul’s will; while if you are pushing yourself to exercise out of fear of
being overweight, or so you can be proud of
your physique, or even to stave off death, you are operating more from conditioned will.
Now, having defined the two wills, what about the spiritual
ideal of always accepting “what is” appearing in our world rather than trying
to change it? When we are free of conditioned will, then our soul easily and
naturally accepts “what is.” No choice is necessary. But if we
mentally adopt, as a spiritual stance, accepting “what is” while we have
conditioned will still running, we are selling out our souls in a pretense and
being manipulated by conditioned will. If conditioned will is still operating,
it behooves us to choose the soul’s will.
Many of us are choosing to allow our souls more expression
in the world, and agree with this prayer of intention from The Book of Runes
manual, “I will to will Thy will.”* In this agreement, we exercise our soul’s
will to move our attention away from our conditioning. This means we say, “Nonsense,”
to the thoughtforms again and again, millions of times, by withdrawing our
attention from them and putting our attention on something neutral like our
breath. This is like pulling the plug on the Matrix machines.
Another analogy: recently, while in Madrid If street
Many teachers tell us to replace a negative thought with a
positive one. I view this idea with caution. If we withdraw our attention from
a troubling thought and immediately replace it with a pleasant affirmation, we
are still giving energy to the negative thoughtform. When we are saying we
don’t like it and must replace it, we are colluding with its pretense that it’s
real. For instance, if I am in an argument with you, the very premise of the
argument is based on the fact that you exist in the first place. So I am giving
my attention and energy to you in proportion to my argument or opposition. A
simple, “Nonsense,” and then moving your attention onto something neutral like
your breath is more effective. Affirmations can be very powerful if said from
the heart in peaceful times since all the energy is going to the affirmation
rather than being split between the affirmation and the opposing negative
thought.
Here is a personal example: Recently I had a session with
one of my early teachers. This teacher, Robert Tennyson Stevens or Bob to me,
was in South Florida for the first time in
several years. Among many other things, Bob is a master iridologist, who reads
not only physical symptoms in the eye but also the thoughtforms which cause the
physical symptoms. Then he offers suggestions for changing persistent beliefs
and thoughtforms. He has documented that when the beliefs change, the eye
changes. For the first time in the 16 years that I have known Bob, I was ready
to have an in-depth iridology reading, ready to be fully seen. Among other
things, he found I am still holding onto a belief that love equals loss. My
soul’s will is to feel massive amounts of God’s love. But this thoughtform’s
mandate, which I gave it early in childhood, is to protect me from feelings of
loss and it does that through fear, as if saying, “Don’t go deeper in God’s
love. The greater the love, the greater the loss.” Bob gave me an affirmation
to say: “I have my love, my God’s love, and my love stays.” Rather than saying
the affirmation when I notice I am blocking a deeper connection with a limiting
thought or behavior, I move my attention to my breath or to the energy in my
palms. Many, many, many other peaceful times throughout the day, I say my
affirmation. Repetition is how we learned the old beliefs and repetition in a
relaxed state is how we reprogram ourselves. (As a hypnotist, I learned that it
is imperative we give suggestions when in a neutral, relaxed state.)
Having said that, feeling our feelings is different from
giving ourselves affirmations. A feeling is a sensation or energy moving in the
body and any feeling, even fear around the loss of love, requires a different
approach. When I notice a feeling, rather than moving my attention to the
breath, I move it directly to the sensation. I concentrate my attention so
completely on the movement of energy in my body that the thoughts, the
storyline about any cause of the feeling, drops away. I follow the sensation
inside my body. I welcome it, however unsettling it is. I
love it by giving it room to expand if it does. Attention minus any thoughts or
story eventually balances the energy in the body. If the sensation is the product of a thoughtform, it will lessen when the thoughtform (not the body sensation) is deprived of our attention. If the feeling comes from the soul, it will enlighten with wisdom and love.
Noticing and understanding which of our wills is operating
moment to moment gives us the opportunity to make a choice. If you have
difficulty discerning between the two wills in any moment, just remember The
Book of Runes prayer, “I will to will Thy will.”** With our intention and our
ability to move our attention, we are answering Mary Oliver’s question, “…What
is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”*
*New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver.
**The Book of Runes by Ralph H. Blum, page 132.
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