Session 7 question 10

[Pavel]

Secondly, each of the group may become aware of the will to a greater extent. We cannot instruct upon this but merely indicate, as we have previously, that it is a vital key to the evolution of the mind/body/spirit complex.

I'm wondering what's ment by the will in this answer. Earlier in the session Ra speaks about how it might be helpful to contemplate one self as the creator and i can understand that but this will doesn't really ring any bells.

[nwthomas]

Firstly, what is meant by "will" in general contexts? In general it means something along the lines of "want," but refers to something deeper, perhaps more persisting, more significant. Think of the difference between the statement "I want to get a divorce," and the statement "I will get a divorce." The latter is not a prophecy, but a statement of intent. Yet it suggests that the intent will make it true. This is one of the basic principles of magic: that willing something makes it so. Perhaps the will is, among other things, the faculty that enables magic.

Ra frequently discusses the concept of "will" in conjunction with the concept of "faith," speaking of them as faculties to be developed together. Faith, to my understanding, is a oneness with intelligent infinity obtained through proper functioning of the indigo ray center. Will is somehow related to faith. They may be congruent, or they may be distinct and related concepts. I am not clear on this point.

There is a Bible passage which says that if a person has faith, they can move mountains. Ra claims to have built the pyramids by a method along these lines, and his explanation of his method of building the pyramids suggests that magic depends inherently on contact with intelligent infinity (apology for the long quotation):

3.8 Questioner: How were the blocks moved?

Ra: I am Ra. You must picture the activity within all that is created. The energy is, though finite, quite large compared to the understanding/distortion of your peoples. This is an obvious point well known to your peoples, but little considered.

This energy is intelligent. It is hierarchical. Much as your mind/body/spirit complex dwells within an hierarchy of vehicles and retains, therefore, the shell, or shape, or field, and the intelligence of each ascendingly intelligent or balanced body, so does each atom of such a material as rock. When one can speak to that intelligence, the finite energy of the physical, or chemical, rock/body is put into contact with that infinite power which is resident in the more well-tuned bodies, be they human or rock.

With this connection made, a request may be given. The intelligence of infinite rock-ness communicates to its physical vehicle and that splitting and moving which is desired is then carried out through the displacement of the energy field of rockness from finity to a dimension which we may conveniently call, simply, infinity.

In this way, that which is required is accomplished due to a cooperation of the infinite understanding of the Creator indwelling in the living rock. This is, of course, the mechanism by which many things are accomplished which are not subject to your present means of physical analysis of action at a distance.

This suggests a connection between faith and magic, and if faith is the faculty that enables magic then it may in fact be congruent with will. This would mean that faith and will are congruent, both refer to the contact with intelligent infinity, and the contact with intelligent infinity enables magic. Furthermore from this we would learn that at the highest level our own will is congruent with the will of the Creator, and by contacting intelligent infinity we are furnished with the energy necessary to carry out this will.

All that is open to revision, though, as I haven't thought about it enough to be sure. What do others think?

[Pavel]

thx for the answer.
i think that this is a big and hard one to ponder. and as Ra ends by saying an important one for the development of the mind/body/spirit.
and he says that this is one of those things one has to figure out for one self, because of the law of free will i figure.

So what i didn't notice yesterday was what Ra says at the end of the previous question about Carla not needing physical but mental/spiritual healing techniques. And then Don asks which techniques and this is where Ra mentions the will. But not only Carlas will (to heal) but the whole groups.
So one aspect of this could be that when the three people involved function as a group, then they are one unit or just One. They are one and their will is one and when it comes to the work of the group they should remember to unite or somehow harmonise their will.
The second aspect is the will itself and I'm still lost on this one. I don't know anything about magic andi know only little of faith. I understand what is said in those other quotes about the pyramids but i don't have anything personally i can relate it to.
I have heard a little bit about the law of attraction, where one should state ones will and then has to have faith so that the stated can be able to manifest. simply put. this is realy faith based i think. but that doesnt sound like magic to me. magic would be a much more conscious action. So i guess what im saying is that i don't see faith and will as being so congruent. Also Ra speaks about connecting to the intelligent energy in the stones and speaking with it. All that done in the awareness and not least because of the awareness of how things are, that there is an energy in the stones to speak to.
I agree that at the highest level our will is congruent with the will of the creator. We are after all One, and so are the stones and the Orion group

I will post this as this is as my thoughts are getting all mingled and mangled and will have to think some more about it all. Oh, the will is a tricky thing

[nwthomas]

I agree that the will is a tricky thing, and also that personal contemplation of the concept might prove more helpful than discussion. Since you mention having nothing personal you can relate to, I can provide examples of how will and faith manifest in my life.

When I was in high school, I felt the need for some new type of stimulus or source of meaning in my life. This was prior to my spiritual awakening. On a whim I decided that the new thing would be making music. Over my life I had developed what I would now interpret as a sense of music as a window into intelligent infinity. Now I begin to develop a powerful will to make music. I have faith that making music would be a path to finding meaning in my life. My successes strengthen this faith and my will to pursue this line of activity.

Eventually I become frustrated with music, as I discover that I do not have the necessary intuitive faculties to take it any further than I have already gone with it. I lose my faith in making music as a path to meaning, and so lose my will to make music.

The story repeats itself in a much more intense way with mysticism. I somehow stumble into the belief system that meditating, doing Yoga, studying the Qabalah, etc., will bring tremendous meaning to my life. I pursue these activities with singleminded intensity, subjecting myself to a great deal of stress and pain for the sake of these activities. I go against all of my natural impulses and everything society has told me to do or made it convenient for me to do, because of my will to do these things, and my faith that doing these things will bring me to where I want to be.

Eventually I lose my faith in mysticism. I am all the time questioning what I am doing, and seeing the various flaws with my approach. I conclude that I do not really know what I am doing, that the people who instructed me did not really know what they were talking about, and that I have to a certain extent been led on a wild goose chase. My faith is gone, and my will goes with it.

Now I would suggest that a principal flaw which can be seen in my seeking here is the attachment to external forms. I have all the time been mistaking tools for essences. It is definitely the case that self-expression through music is a tool for uncovering the heart of self, and that mysticism is a tool for uncovering the heart of self. But I would have been better off placing my faith in the heart itself, rather than in these tools. No tool has ever failed to let me down, but it would be a contradiction in terms for my own heart to let me down.

[Steppingfeet]

Great post filled with insight, nwthomas. : )

I grok your examples of the interplay of will and faith in your decision to pursue music in high school, then mysticism later on. In both cases, as you surmised, your faith was placed in a particular outcome.

That is certainly a valid expression of faith. Probably most of the action we undertake in this world rests on the faith that a certain action will achieve/can achieve the desired result. That is the faith which says, "This is possible", and is more strongly needed when "evidence" to the contrary (presented by self, others, or world) says otherwise.

But faith at its core (in my limited understanding) is, as you said, access to and experience of intelligent infinity. This manifests, as Q'uo often repeats, in an attitude which *knows* that, despite the surface appearances, all is well.

Another way to look at that attitude is in the negative, in terms of what it is not. Faith seems to be a negation, an absence of doubt and fear. In an environment wherein the seeker does not doubt the Self, nor fear the Self, there is no clinging to or avoiding of that which arises in the moment, no need for external support, no need for outer reference or identity enhancement. That seeker is in mid-air, resting on nothing but trust because he relies *not* upon the world for his identity.

Another repeated portion of the Confederation message is that this faith doesn't just "happen" to the self, but rather is a result of an act of will, of taking the proverbial "leap" into faith by acting as if one had faith. Ignoring all outer and inner signals to the contrary and *choosing* to be without fear, and without doubt.

And in the absence of doubt and fear, the will is neither constrained nor siphoned away but unconscious mechanisms/patterns within the self. The will is instead empowered to make changes in consciousness, to serve either other or self in a powerful (but, for the positive polarity, humble) manner.

So as you point out, there is reciprocal relationship between the two faculties. The entity choosing faith, and faith enabling the will.

A final thought about will. Ra connected the concept of the awareness of the inner light with will, saying something like will is derived in direct proportion to ones awareness of the inner light.

I interpret that to mean that, in becoming aware of the inner light - that light which transcends temporal circumstance and transitory identity - the entity reclaims its Will trapped in form and false identity, re-acquiring its true power to *choose*, until, as the mystical path goes, it rests in choiceless awareness.

Ra also speaks of how as the entity evolves/awareness grows/kundalini rises, the entity's catalyst becomes more and more generated by the self until ALL catalyst is generated by and for the Self, the conscious, fully aware being.

This entity, completely conscious of itself - having *become* the process of life, the naked, unqualifiable awareness from which all forms arise - exists in total faith, *knowing* that all is well because it has opened up to/integrated a reality which at once negates and embraces ALL outer forms, and all information and signal within the world.

At this point, no matter how convincingly the world presents a perspective, no matter the army of evidence marshaled to its cause and the throngs who subscribe to its tenets, the entity of faith *knows* there is no doubt, there is no fear, there is no disharmony, there is no loss, there is no limitation, there is no individual self -- all. is. well. That which moves, and that which is born and dies, is as the picture on a movie screen, the screen unaffected by the play upon its stationary and permanent surface. The entity of perfect faith has become this screen upon which life moves. It can watch the play without being attached to the movement and the various outcomes. It can afford to love universally and unconditionally because it sees ONLY self.

I should go meditate now. Because it would be nice to live this reality... consciously live it, that is. : )

Love/Light, Gary

[zenmaster]

I recommend reading "The Act of Will", by Roberto Assagioli. It's a deep subject, and that book is a great place to start, IMHO.

What is the will?