Greetings, I bring you blessings, my dearest friends, blessed is this hour.
Tonight we shall discuss the question of will power. It is said that with the proper application of will power, practically anything can be achieved. Yet, you all know and have had the experience of wishing for something very strongly, but not achieving it. This is due not only to unconscious contrary will-currents that divide your will, but also to something that is vastly overlooked. It is the fact that two different kinds of will exist: the inner will and the outer will. This is very important for you to understand.
Let us see what the difference is and how to distinguish between the two. You will again be able to confirm the truth of my words if you examine your feelings and reactions in the proper light. Each one of you has surely experienced both kinds of will power, but without the awareness that there is a definite distinction and difference between the two. Knowing this difference will open further doors for understanding yourself, others, and the laws of the universe.
The outer will is tense, impatient, and cramped. The inner will is calm, relaxed, and unhurried. The outer will is anxious and doubtful. The inner will is certain, knowing neither anxiety nor doubt.
Impatience arises out of doubt as to the desired result. Upon examination we find that impatience cannot exist where there is certainty. Because of uncertainty, or doubt as to the results, one cannot afford to wait with calmness. Hence, impatience, doubt, and anxiety are closely linked. Since the inner will knows no doubt, it can bide its time and will ultimately prevail.
To succeed the outer will must be sustained, at least to some extent, by the inner will. In the measure that the inner will functions, to that extent will success be achieved. If the inner will power is small in relation to the outer will (with all its conflicting currents), the desired result will fail to materialize.
The inner will comes from the solar plexus. The outer will comes partly from the intellect, and partly from superficial soul regions. The outer will is often motivated by immature feelings, reactions, and reasonings. The inner will comes entirely from your higher self.
Let us now consider why the inner will is kept from functioning. The obstacles are caused by the various layers of error, deviation from truth, and illusions that are prevalent in the manifest world. In short, the inner will is obstructed by the images, wrong conclusions, and misconceptions that you carry within you, in your conscious and unconscious mind. These always make you uncertain and divided within, because deep inside you know that something is wrong. Although you might feel it but vaguely, you know there is something not in accord with truth; it will not clear unless you do the work of self-search and self-finding. This vague feeling of something wrong makes you altogether uncertain as to your desires and the fulfillment of your wishes. Even if your desires are quite legitimate and healthy, you are still uncertain about them. This is not only because part of your motivation for the desired result may be immature and truly selfish, and hence overshadow your good and healthy motives, but also because your unconscious deviations and misconceptions, apart from the desire itself, suffice to cover the inner will, so that it cannot function. Let us suppose that you have a desire which is relatively little or not at all disturbed by unhealthy motives. Yet your inner will is kept from functioning fully due to your existent images, which may have no direct bearing on the particular wish. In short, the healthier your psyche, the better can your inner will function. The unhealthy psyche is always confused, uncertain, not only about others and about the world, but mostly and foremost about itself. Confusion creates doubt; doubt creates impatience; impatience creates anxiety and tension. In addition to this chain reaction, we have other currents to consider as well. If doubt exists about a desire, it is accompanied by a feeling of guilt. Yet the desire may be doubly strong, due in part to the healthy and strong motive and partly to the unhealthy motive. The latter always creates compulsion. Thus, guilt and compulsion -- two contrary directions -- further afflict the inner will.
You may desire a certain result with all your might, but due to the conditions indicated, your inner will cannot penetrate. What you outwardly wish is at the same time inwardly questioned by yourself. You not only doubt that you can gain what you wish, but you also doubt the rightfulness, the justification of it. Your vague, unconscious feeling as to your possible selfishness (due to immaturity) makes you doubt that you deserve the advantageous result. Needless to say, these doubts are the gravest hindrance to your inner will power.
The more the inner will is hindered, the more you try to make up for it by strengthening your outer will. But the strength of the outer will is always unhealthy. It is a poor substitute. It is full of tension, anxiety, and impatience. Since it cannot function, it brings frustration, and with that a renewed doubt in yourself. Feelings of inadequacy and inferiority are thus perpetuated and strengthened.
The outer will can be composed of healthy motives, too. Unhealthy motives, such as self-importance, pride, vanity, and arrogance can exist only in the outer but never in the inner will. The inner will is pure, healthy, and without doubt. It flows quietly. It knows. The outer will does not flow. It pushes and pulls in all directions. Seen from our vantage point, it is a harsh, uneven current, like a lightning flash, at times very strong, at other times weak. It is angular, often pointed, undulating in direction and frequency. In contrast, the inner will maintains a slow and even flow, always rounded.
This shows once again the need for you to heal your soul of all unhealthy attitudes and reactions. It is important for your happiness. It is true that you can move a mountain with your will power if it is strong enough, but that will has to come from within; and that presupposes the existence of a healthy soul. Provided you investigate where your will comes from, you will be able to understand yourself better. If and when you discover that it comes from the outer person, you can then ask yourself why this is, what motives and uncertainties exist in you that block your inner will. It will prove most useful for you, once again, to make a list of your desires. Then listen deep into yourself and, by being very finely attuned to how your will power "feels," try to determine which will is operating. If it is the outer will, you will have a slight feeling of doubt, scruples, a certain guilt, and a question, perhaps, as to whether or not you are entitled to it. Or else, your outer will is so impatient, so urgent, so tense that you are all tied up into knots when you think of this particular desire. Behind the urgency you are bound to find the same uncertainty and doubt that may be more obvious in other instances. Only, this time your doubt is covered up by the compulsion and the urgency that appear on the surface. In either case, you will be well advised to look into the unhealthy motives which may exist side by side with the healthy ones. As you well know, the latter always serve as rationalizations for the former. The realization that you cannot get what you desire unless you free yourself of the unhealthy and erroneous motives may give you a renewed incentive for doing this work.
If you discover the instance when your inner will does function, you will see how very different you feel. You feel absolutely no qualm; you feel a very calm serenity in your wish. You also feel the certainty that your wish will come true. It may take time, but you will not be impatient, nor will you be resigned. You will be at one with yourself. In the inner will there is a pure strength, a strength that does not make you tense. This work is very important for you, my dear friends. This is the only way you can eliminate the outer levels of will that hinder the inner will. Even if both will-currents pursue the same goal, even if outer and inner will desire the same thing, the mere fact that the outer will functions at all in its tense impatience prohibits the inner will from unfolding, from floating, from affecting the cosmic forces.
As I already said, your personal images and misconceptions often hinder the inner will. But so do certain mass images that you have created because of your personal inner conflicts. I would now like to discuss one of these mass images or mass misconceptions. This is a very widespread one, affecting practically everybody to some degree. It is also a very strong factor that prohibits the inner will from functioning. This is the concept of selfishness and unselfishness. There is such a distortion in most people as to what is selfish and what is not selfish.
It is very frequently thought -- and if not consciously thought at least unconsciously felt -- that whatever brings you happiness must be damaging to another person. Hence, it is inevitable that your conscience bothers you every time you are happy, whether you were actually selfish or not. This quilt is bound to afflict your inner will for happiness. It is your unconscious concept that if you enjoy something, if you get something that brings you pleasure and happiness, it is automatically at the cost of another person. Since you were taught that it is wrong to be selfish, then you must suppress your "selfish" desire. Thus you fail to distinguish whether your desires are actually selfish or not, and you indiscriminately suppress all desires. In the belief that all desires for happiness are selfish, you do not dare to desire at all. In the process of suppression, unable to distinguish one from the other, you lump together the really selfish with the really healthy desires which have nothing whatsoever to do with selfishness. Thus, you have no way of sorting them out, of clearly seeing them, and coming to terms with them. Only then would you be in a position to freely decide for some desires and against some others. In short: desires aim for happiness, happiness is selfish (in your unconscious concept), therefore all desires are suppressed; however, they continue to exist underground. The really selfish desires in your subconscious mind give you an equal feeling of guilt as do the rightful desires. Both continue to claim and clamor, although often without your awareness. On top of all this, the prohibition you inflict upon them makes you resentful. You resent the world for not allowing you to be happy, while in reality it is your wrong conclusion which is the cause for your unhappiness. By suppressing all desires and impulses, the childish and therefore actually selfish ones cannot mature and refine themselves. They can mature only if they are faced and dealt with in awareness. At the same time, your legitimate and healthy desires and impulses, not selfish in the least, cannot find fulfillment.
You are all weighed down by the unconscious conclusion that something is selfish merely because it makes you happy. This is very tragic, my friends. It is a needless cost you pay in happiness and joy. You do not dare to wish for your happiness simply because you fail to discriminate between actual and imagined selfishness. Every time a rightful and healthy impulse for self-expression manifests, you feel and think of it in the same way as you treat and consider your really immature and crude selfishness.
The question now is how to treat the real selfishness that exists in the immature part of every human being. It is usually dealt with by suppressing the selfishness and superimposing a compulsive unselfishness that is not really felt. Needless to say this is the wrong way to go about it. Out of this stems the unconscious concept that it would actually be very pleasant to be allowed to be selfish. This notion gets a foothold within you and you unconsciously believe that being selfish would bring you happiness, but, alas, you are not allowed to. You wrongly think that should you give in to what you believe is selfishness, you will not be loved, or approved of. Since love and approval are necessary for you, you would rather forsake "happiness." The inner conflict can be stated thus: "If I could be selfish, I could do anything I want. That would mean happiness. On the other hand, I cannot be happy if I am not loved and approved of. Therefore, I must become unhappy in order to be happy." This sounds completely illogical, but the immature subconscious is just so illogical and contradictory.
You can now see what utter confusion exists in man's soul. I am sure that you will not have too much trouble confirming similar feelings in yourself. I venture to say that this conflict exists to some extent in all human beings, without exception. With some it may be less, but it is there nevertheless. The existence of this wrong conclusion accounts for the hopelessness you so often feel. This utter hopelessness finds outlet in occasional moods for which you sometimes find outer reasons and rationalizations. This very conflict is the underlying reality of that hopelessness. Were this misconception true, then happiness would indeed be an impossibility. You would be justified in being hopeless if you cannot be happy without being loved and if you cannot be loved if you are happy (happiness being selfish according to this erroneous concept). There is unhappiness either way. You may fluctuate between these two alternatives, but either way you turn, you find yourself unhappy and frustrated. You often rebel inwardly and you try to force the world and people around you to break this "law," or what seems to be a law.
Your conviction regarding this insoluble situation causes you to go about it in the wrong way. The irony is that you try to break it by sometimes actually living out your most childish and selfish impulses rather than your legitimate healthy ones. This must offend others and provoke them to react negatively towards you. And this, in turn, convinces you anew that your predicament is indeed hopeless. Since your rebellion is of an unconscious nature, it does not occur to you to choose the really healthy impulses. In this unconscious process, you choose the most drastic examples for your "experiment." These drastic examples are the selfish impulses. Only by a growing awareness and conscious discrimination and selection can you be in the position to make the proper choice, and thereby receive the proof that your conclusion is wrong. It becomes self-evident that this conflict frustrates your inner will and the deserved success of your desire.
The idea that selfishness, if allowed, would be a happier state may be only in the unconscious mind, while at the same time you consciously know all the right answers. In these cases, a questioning in the proper way will finally bring you close to the inner contradiction and your block in this respect. By going deeply enough, your answers will be more and more built up and less and less convincing, even to yourself. When this happens, you will approach the afflicted area. But some of you, if you but take the trouble to think about it for a while, may even become consciously convinced of your wrong conclusion.
Whether this misconception exists in your conscious or unconscious mind, how can you be free in the unselfish acts you are called upon to do day in and day out? Whether you always carry them out or not is not the point now, for either way you will be in conflict. Not doing the unselfish act makes you feel guilty, doing it seems to be a violation of your will and conviction. It cannot be a free act, independently chosen. Whenever you do something out of such compulsion, and not because you say "yes" to it, how can you be at one with yourself? You must be divided, you must be in conflict with yourself, you must lose your inner peace and this sense of rightness. How can you be happy either in doing something that makes you feel guilty, or in doing something that appears to be against your personal interests? Either alternative brings dissatisfaction as long as you live in that conviction.
Let us now examine why this concept is wrong. These words are addressed to that part of your personality in which you hold the misconception, on whatever level of consciousness it may be.
First, not everything that makes you happy is automatically selfish and damaging to another merely because it makes you happy. Quite the contrary: as a happy person, you are better able to bring happiness and joy to others. You have the same right for consideration of yourself that another person has. Only as a free, strong, and happy person can you have fulfillment in life and be constructive in your environment. In order to accomplish this, you have to give yourself consideration, you have to respect your own rights; and these will really not conflict with the interests and rights of others. Sometimes it may appear that way. The only way to determine this is by absolute self-honesty. There are no fixed rules: your reactions may be right or wrong regardless of whether they seem to be against the interests of another person.
However, it is essential to become completely aware of all your wishes, impulses, and motives. Only in that way can you discriminate and judge which ones are selfish and which ones are not.
As to actual selfishness, that seems to be so desirable and advantageous (consciously or unconsciously), I have this to say: in reality selfishness cannot offer any advantage to you, even if it seems advantageous at the moment. The more you expand your consciousness, the more this will become clear. You may still have difficulty in understanding this truth and you can only strive towards this fuller vision of truth as a goal. But this outlook cannot become part of you as long as you try to force it upon yourself, as long as you act in the right way because you think you must, as long as the decision is not wholly your own and therefore free. In the meantime, all you can and should do is to be honest with yourself. When it still seems to you that the selfish act would be more desirable, you can contemplate on it in the following way: if you pick an isolated event only considering its immediate causes and effects, it will seem different than when you examine the same event in its larger context. In other words, a particular incident may actually seem to confirm the view that selfishness is advantageous. But if you follow through the chain reactions, you are bound to gain a different perspective. This different view will give you the desire and the free will to decide for the unselfish act, rather than be driven to it because you must. This in itself will make a tremendous difference. It will automatically open a new vista, showing you that selfishness is not advantageous, either in the immediate instance or in the long run.
Your limited view is divorced from reality. As long as you see only the first effects of the act, you do not possess a view of the whole picture. You only see a segment of it. A segment cannot convey the whole. Let us say you are being shown a little stone of a big house. You can pronounce certain facts by looking at the stone. You can tell the quality and material of the stone, as well as its color. But you cannot see the house in its entirety merely by having seen that little stone. You can evaluate neither its beauty, its style, its architecture, nor what the house is like inside, Inevitably, a segment gives you only a limited view of the whole. It is the same with the inner and outer actions, attitudes, and reactions of the human being. By considering only the immediate effect of an action, you continue to live in duality. You need to extend your view so that you are in a position to have a truer vision. This does not mean that you have to accept something by faith; nor does it mean that by being good your life in the hereafter will be a good one. The effect of a right action can be seen right here and now, while you are still on this earth plane.
When you think -- or feel -- that selfishness would be to your advantage, you leave out the obvious. You fail to connect cause and effect. This is why your view is so blurred. You do not need supernatural vision, or metaphysical knowledge in order to tie up the obvious. You need only to think, reach a little further, and make contact with what is right in front of your eyes.
Let us suppose you have made a choice between a selfish and an unselfish act. The unselfish act does not seem to bring you benefit, at least not directly. However, if you are objectively convinced that it is beneficial as such, be it for the world at large, for a small group, or just for one person, then it is bound to benefit you too in some way. Perhaps not always immediately, but often much sooner than you think. This conviction will grow in you. It will become a fact, but only if your decision for the unselfish act is free, and not compulsive; if you are in wholehearted agreement with yourself that the action you are undertaking is right. Decide for it only if you are convinced it is right, and not because you want to receive a reward, in the form of affection, love, or approval from others; or in the belief that God will reward you for having been a good child. In other words, your action must be a self-chosen one for its own sake (no matter who seems to benefit from it immediately), rather than for something else you wish to gain from it. When you act in this way, you will be at one with yourself. This will widen your horizon and it will raise your consciousness to a higher degree of maturity. Then you will see the truth: that selfishness is not advantageous and is definitely not in your best interest. Or, to put it differently, that unselfishness is healthily "selfish," that it is in your own interest.
I said before that performing an unselfish act for a reward turns the act into a selfish one. However, if you commit the right act in the right and mature way, without ulterior motives and out of a free choice, there will nevertheless be a reward of a sort, namely the good feeling of being at one with yourself, the security that only self-respect can offer. To do something you wholeheartedly approve of gives you added self-respect that is a decided advantage manifesting in many, many ways. It will give you, among other things, the strength to overcome many a weakness for which you may despise yourself. It will reduce certain fears and anxieties, especially when dealing with other people. Your fear of others is always based on your feeling of weakness and inadequacy. By coming to terms with confusions, by making an independent decision for carrying out an unselfish act -- thus, by being at one with yourself -- you gain the self-respect which reduces the very feelings of inadequacy and self-contempt that make you weak and fearful towards others.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important it is to know whether the unselfish act is chosen because you truly want to or because you think you have to. As long as the conviction that makes you want to is lacking, you have to continue the work of self-search, of examining your motives and concepts in comparison with objective truth, until you arrive at the point of conviction. Then, and then only, will you be in a position to ask yourself whether or not you agree with, approve of, and condone the issue in question. Only then are you capable of making a free choice, one that is not driven by your own compulsions. This, in turn, will show you that unselfishness is not a yoke that you have to take on against your own inner conviction. Instead, you will see without a doubt that unselfishness is really "selfish" in a healthy sense, and that it is to your advantage, provided your motives are right, your decision free, and your reactions mature.
This will free you of the misconception that selfishness could make you happy if only you were allowed to indulge in it. Because of this misconception, the other misconception exists, namely that "happiness is selfish," and is therefore forbidden. Because of these wrong conclusions, your inner will cannot function, cannot float out of you. Each time the desire for happiness manifests, an inner voice prohibits it so that the inner will is broken. The desire may be "reborn" on an outer level, but, as I said before, the outer will cannot suffice in bringing you to any goal. It will only tear you apart; it will destroy your inner strength, serenity, and peace.
Try, all of you, to recognize your will: where it comes from, how it feels. If and when you find that the inner will is blocked, search wherein you doubt the rightfulness of your desire, and why you doubt it. At times this suspicion may be justified because your desire may actually be harmful to others and to yourself. At times, your desire may be justified, but an unconscious unhealthy motive may exist together with the healthy ones. At times, a wish may be wholly right and good, but your misconceptions -- the one about selfishness, as well as others -- may prohibit the inner will to function.
Tonight's subject is concerned with a problem that is very widespread and very crucial. We shall probably have to work on this subject with each one of you individually, to find out how if affects each one of you personally. The approach will have to vary with each person, but you can all prepare yourselves by thinking about it, by feeling how these words apply to you.
Are there any questions now, dealing with this subject?
QUESTION: Sometimes you do an unselfish act and you know that it isn't your true self acting, yet you want to do it in order to change. You don't want to have compulsions, but, at the same time, you get so tired, so exhausted, and you don't understand what's lacking....
ANSWER The very fact that you get tired and exhausted is a sign that you still commit the unselfish act against an inner conviction, and really out of compulsion. You want to be good and unselfish, but you still feel, deep inside, that the selfish act would be more to your advantage. Thus you force yourself, and this makes you tired. You cannot immediately lose your compulsion and reach the state in which you choose freely. This free choice can be made only after you realize that the unselfish act is to your advantage, while the selfish one is not. This misconception may be deeply buried and has to be conscious first. You cannot bypass this stage. If you try it, your unselfish action will remain compulsive and unfree. In other words, you first have to become completely aware of the fact that you do not want to do the unselfish act -- and why. You have to become aware of your rebellion in complying with unselfish acts in the past, as well as with the guilt of your selfish actions. This part of the work is essential, although perhaps a bit painful for a while. But it cannot be dispensed with. Only after this stage is thoroughly surmounted will you be in a position to discriminate, judge, and choose your own actions and attitudes. You will then be able to re-form your concepts.
Often, people undergoing analysis get to the stage where they find out that their legitimate desires and impulses were suppressed. Along with these legitimate desires, they also bring out the selfish ones which they now live out, thus going from one wrong extreme to another. In such cases, the person does not follow through. He remains stuck halfway. Besides, it is not necessary to act out selfish impulses. You have more than the two alternatives of either suppressing or acting out your selfishness. You can recognize and evaluate without giving vent to any selfish or damaging conduct. But recognize in all honesty you must, otherwise you cannot proceed. Incidentally, this is the reason why analysis is often accused of making people more selfish. If properly handled, this need not be the case. You do not have to now act out the wrong simply because in the past you have done the right actions out of the wrong motives. You can, if you wish, continue to do the right actions even while you are in the process of becoming aware that you you do not like to do it. This is a temporary state anyway, no matter what your outer action is going to be. It is a period of transition. For the time being, it is most important that you become aware of why you are doing an act and what you feel when you are doing it.
To summarize: At first, before the search, you are convinced that you do an unselfish act and you hate it without being aware of your hate for this act. The next stage is when you find out your hate and your rebellion for this act. You will further find that you probably blame other people who (so you wish to believe) force you into it. The next step will be that you reconsider why you are doing this act in reality, and what your real motives are. In most cases, you will see that you do so because you think it is expected of you, and you do not wish to offend people because you want their approval. Upon further investigation, you will realize that, these reasons notwithstanding, you would really much further do the selfish act. Upon asking yourself why, you will receive the answer through your own conviction that choosing the selfish act is more advantageous or more pleasant for you. At this point you have touched the misconception, that can be corrected only if and when you are entirely aware of it, in all its facets and degrees, and you are willing to replace it by the true concept. When you arrive at this point, you will have to recognize that the act in question was not only not unselfish because it was compulsive and unfree, but also because through it you wished approval: therefore the apparent unselfish act was really selfish. The selfishness was merely shifted.
Each one of you must go through this process I broadly outlined here, and apply it specifically to yourselves. You can then decide whether you wish to perpetuate this seemingly "unselfish" act or not. Your answer may vary, according to what the case may be. In the process of this work, you may discover that you have done things that are unjustified and unnecessary, and that people have taken advantage of you in a way that will ultimately prove damaging to themselves. But there may be other instances where the action as such may have been valid and reasonable, and you may choose to continue it, even though your motives may still be confused. In either case, the important thing is to recognize your feelings, motives, and reactions; your inner, and often unconscious, concepts; and, most important of all, to uncover your own self-deception.
Only by allowing your true emotions to come to the surface will you finally reach the point where your inner concept will change and your conviction will be in truth.
QUESTION: Although I have made the free choice myself, knowing all these wrong motives, while at the same time desiring to change, I still feel it is a little selfish. It is not so much for wanting approval or love, but perhaps that I want to try a new way.
ANSWER: Perhaps you do not want approval or love so much (although you may want it without being fully aware of it), but you may wish to do God's will, to be a spiritually advanced person. It does not matter what the motive is. Such a motive may also be superimposed. The moment you do feel that the selfishness is still there, in spite of the recognition of your negative motives, it means that you are not fully aware of all your feelings, unconscious conclusions, and thoughts. You may not yet be aware to what extent a part of you still believes that your original selfish desire would actually be more pleasant. Or, for that matter, you may not even be fully aware of what these desires are. Because of this misconception, the desires themselves are often suppressed and have to be brought out of hiding. You have to find this out: "What is it you really wish and why do you wish it?" Simple as this initial work may sound at first, and later may be, it is, for most of you, much more difficult in the beginning than you might think. When these first steps are accomplished, the work will become much easier. The trouble always is that before a certain point is reached in this work man does not really know what is going on within himself. He feels disturbed, but he cannot put his finger on the reason. You are often utterly unaware of what your desires really are and why. If and when you learn to become aware of this each time you feel disturbed and anxious, you will have made great progress on your path. You cannot go deeper and analyze these factors if you are not first aware of what it is you want. When you find out, you will often experience that the disturbance diminishes greatly by the mere fact that you now know what you want and what it is that really disturbs you, behind your rationalizations.
My dearest friends, may my words give you further material and food for your inner progress. They contain a very important seed for all of you. These words may open new vistas toward a new freedom. They contain one of the important keys to let your real self out of its imprisonment. Be blessed all of you, my dear ones, be in peace, be in God.
The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
April 29, 1960
Copyright 1960,1978 by Center for the Living Force, Inc.