(04-10-2012, 10:19 AM)plenum Wrote: [ -> ]a deficient Will is full of fantasies and longings, envy and discontent.
a powerful Will sees the fullness in each moment, and the pregnancy in each Thought.
I really like this--we exercise our Will on OURSELVES, not on others, the environment, etc. I think it does actually come down to self-discipline...which relates to growing up and out of "desire" and "attachment to outcome".
Ultimately, we must outgrow "desire", not overcome it. We just need some self-discipline in the mean time. Things just can't matter so much to us...
More excerpts from the Cosmic Doctrine...which I think resonates beautifully with the Ra Material and seems relevant to this topic (I've underlined the relevant parts, but these parts needed a little intro--so please bear with the length--and as always, please ignore this if it doesn't resonate; I don't mean to propose my truth as The Truth
):
"The Fourth Death...Sleep is a miniature death just as death is the major sleep, and a knowledge of the naure of sleep assists to eplain death...In sleep the physical plane is dissociated from the other planes, and the soul thus freed receives no longer the impressions coming through the five gates of the senses and we say 'it sleeps and is passive;' but the Individuality wakes and is active.
In waking life the Individuality sleeps, and in sleeping the Individuality wakes. This is the rule for the majority; but there comes a time in the evolution of some when the Personality is capable of being used by the Individuality to express itself.
"
During the waking life of the body, the Individuality is intent upon translating into its own terms of abstraction the concrete impressions flowing into the lower soul. When it is no longer thus inturned it becomes objective upon its own plane and beholds the 'face of the Father.' It then measures itself by the Divine standard and makes adjustments as are within its power; but the adjustments of the spirit are aeonial and are measured by the span of Heaven.
"
During sleep the little-evolved soul may not, however, sink into oblivion, but, being much concerned with the unsatisfied desires of the flesh, may continue to function in relation to the thought-forms begotten of these desires. It then dreams derived from unsatisfied passions and the urge of the instincts. The Individuality is not freed, and instead of beholding the 'face of the Father which is in Heaven' beholds the reversed image of the human form and thereby develops in its likeness. The Individuality, being unable to function on its own plane, makes no growth and remains unevolved; and the Personality becomes an exaggerated caricature of itself. From this it can be freed only by the Third Death, thereby enabling the Individuality to assert itself, but if the Third Death be incomplete the lower soul will continue to dream on teh astral plane. This leads us to the question of the Fifth Death.
(**The Personality is the "I" we are for one lifetime; the Individuality is the combined "I" of our own evolution--all of our lifetimes distilled, all the Personalities refined and perfected.
**The Third Death is the meditation done that extracts abstract concepts and truths from concrete experience.)
The Fifth Death is the death of the Personality. The Personality, when withdrawn by death from the body, yet continues to live and to function as a Personality, and the man is in no wise changed and still 'answers to the name he bore in the flesh.'
In the Lower Hells he burns with desire until the possibilities of desire are burnt out. Desire then remains only as an abstract idea and is part of the Individuality. He then dies to the lower desires and continues to live in the higher desires.
"
These in their turn he learns to be finite and mortal; he finds them to constitute barriers between himself and his Father Whose face he would behold, and he desires to escape them. He would no longer love with the personal love which loves a person, but with
the higher manifestation of love which itself is Love and loves no person or thing but is a state of consciousness in which all is embraced. He then seeks freedom from the lesser love, and it is this desire for release from that which though good is finite in order to realize the good that is infinite which causes the Fifth Death and he is born into consciousness of the Individuality, and lives upon the plane of the Individuality, perceiving the 'face of his Father Which is in Heaven.
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But with the waking of desire come again the dreams, and with the dreams comes the recall into matter. The Spirit, beholding the face of its Father until consciousness is weary with Its brightness, closes its eyes and sleeps; and sleeping, it dreams of its unfulfilled desires and so it is born again, for
upon the plane of desire a state of consciousness is a place, and as we desire, so are we reborn. Thus each man makes his own karma.
"
It may be asked, how then is it that men make for themselves suffering and limitations which they could not desire? It is because they reap not the fruits of fantasy, but the fruits of actuality.
They are given the results of that which they have permitted themselves to desire, not the thing they desire. To exemplify--the man who desired power would obtain vanity. To obtain power he would have to desire the qualities which confer power, namely, strength, foresight, and wisdom. The man who desires power builds for himself the consciousness of the vain egotist. The man who desires strength, foresight, and wisdom, builds for himself the consciousness of power." (pages 120-122)
So the Will is what is applied to the Personality so that it may become a better vehicle for expressing the Individuality and through that, return us to the One.