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To Learn How to Will · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  If one looks deeply at one's attempts to utilize willpower to
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  accomplish any task, to bring about some change in one's
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  being, or to develop in some direction, it quickly becomes
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  apparent that there are elements within our own being that are
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  not supporting the focus, intensity, and direction that
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  one is trying to bring about. The will is in the mind, but the
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  vital nature or the physical being are resistant or simply
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  not interested. They want to continue along
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  their habitual lines of activity and do not see the necessity or
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  urgency in accomplishing the change that is desired by the
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  mind. Or there are different aspects
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  of the mind itself that may hold opposing and quite contradictory
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  ideas. One may at the same time have a
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  great aspiration for spiritual growth and be tied down by ideas
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  of success in a career, or in developing a romantic
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  relationship, or in simply enjoying oneself without
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  concern. In some cases we see a spiritual
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  aspiration dulled and restrained, but by the idea that
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  one should not make any efforts at all, that everything is
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  preordained and one simply needs to let happen whatever is
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  intended to happen. The mother makes it clear that
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  the issue is primarily 1 of harmonizing and unifying the
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  different parts of the being so that they are all aligned to the
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  same goal, purpose and effort. She even goes so far as to point
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  out that until 1 is able to shape oneself around a will that
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  there is nothing stable that can make any clear and definitive
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  decisions and carry them out in the normal external life.
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  This generally takes place by unification around the ego
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  personality as an individual takes up a focus on spiritual
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  growth. The organization and unification
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  takes place through the psychic being coming forward and taking
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  up a central role in the individual's life.
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  The mother writes. Quote To learn how to will is a
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  very important thing, and to will truly you must unify your
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  being. In fact, to be a being one must
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  first unify oneself. If one is pulled by absolutely
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  opposite tendencies, if one spends 3/4 of his life without
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  being conscious of himself and the reasons why he does things,
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  is 1A real being? 1 does not exist.
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  One is a mass of influences, movements, forces, actions,
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  reactions, but one is not a being.
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  One begins to become a being when he begins to have a will,
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  and one can't have a will unless he is unified.
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  And when you have a will, you will be able to say, save to the
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  divine, I want what you want, but not before that, because in
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  order to want what the divine wants, you must have a will.
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  Otherwise you can will nothing at all.
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  You would like to. You would like it very much.
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  You would very much like to want what the divine wants to do.
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  You don't possess a will to give to him and to put at his
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  service. Something like that, gelatinous
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  like jellyfish. There a mass of goodwills and I
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  am considering the better side of things and forgetting the bad
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  wills. A mass of goodwills, half
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  conscious and fluctuating. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Powers within, Chapter 5,
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  Willpower, pages 49 to 50.