The Consecrated Will
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Self-realization, or self-transcendance, can be defined as: “the full development, coordination, and completion of the personality.” The magus Aleister Crowley called this process “the discovery of the True Will.” We do not refer here to the will in the Victorian sense of self-denial. The consecrated will directs, it does not restrict. Ideally, the will organizes and coordinates all the powers of the personality. According to Roberto Assagioli, author of The Act Of Will (1979), the personality can be divided into seven psychological functions. These are: 1. Sensations, received through the five senses; 2. Emotions, or feelings; 3. Impulses, or desires; 4. Imagination, also called visualization; 6. Intuition, which leads to second sight; and 7. Will, the master function of the psyche. Assagioli calls the process by which the will organizes and directs the other six functions of the psyche, “psychosynthesis.” Essentially, the concepts of self-realization, discovery of the True Will, and pschosynthesis, all refer to the same thing. In order for the self to become realized, two things must occur. First, the will must be created and developed. Second, a purpose must be found or made for this will, and the will dedicated to this purpose. Once will has been wedded to purpose, it can be called “the consecrated will.”
Development of the will has been metaphorically referred to as “learning to swim.” The oft-repeated admonition “sink or swim” also refers to the absence or presence of the will in a human being. Those without wills “sink,” or in other words they fail to fulfil their purpose for being here on earth, succumb to the weight of circumstance, and achieve nothing worthwhile. On the other hand, those who can “swim” make their own way in the world, are masters of their own destinies, and can accomplish the things they set out to do. For the willing individual, predictions and prophecies represent opportunities rather than obstacles. If death has been written into your stars, you might as well die with your boots on. The willing person cannot be beaten by circumstances or turned aside from a deliberately chosen purpose by prognostications of doom. As Aleister Crowley wrote in The Book Of The Law (1904), “Thou hast no right but to do thy will.” Thus, once the will has been developed and consecrated to a higher purpose, nothing can prevent your eventual realization and achievement of that purpose. The attitude to be cultivated in the creation of the will is that of the warrior. A warrior is the master of his own destiny. A slave serves the purposes of others. This constitutes the crucial difference between swimmers and sinkers. Slaves can be easily dispensed with by their masters. There will always be more slaves to replace those who become injured, or weak, or too demanding. The warrior needs no master, and can only be replaced by another warrior consecrated to the same purpose. Such replacement only becomes necessary at the time of a warrior’s death. The concept of the warrior is identical to that of the hero mentioned earlier in this course. The shaman is also a warrior in the realms of consciousness. Note that warrirors and heroes need not commit acts of violence against other human beings. The apocalyptic war of Armageddon takes place symbolically, between the forces of the superconscious and the unconscious. Though symbolic battles may have their physical counterparts, these worldly conflicts may be fought with words and deeds rather than with swords and bullets. Napoleon feared newspapers more than armies, and thus illustrated that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. The spiritual warrior fights with symbolic weapons for real freedom from the tyranny of circumstance.
How can the will be created and developed? The Act Of Will (1979) by Roberto Assagioli contains a complete and comprehensive study on the development and training of the will, and serious students should consider this work required reading for the present course. To create or awaken the will in yourself, you must first realize that the will exists and that you are not a mere leaf in the wind, at the mercy of events in the outer world. In fact, each of us can be master of our own fate and the maker of our own destiny. Next, you must realize that you have a will, a specific purpose to which you are fitted and for which you have been incarnated into this world. Finally, you must identify yourself with that will and purpose so that you effectively become that will.
The discovery of the will thus coincides with the awakening of self-consciousness, the realization of who you really are. This process has also been called the discovery of the “I” or self-realization. To make this identification with the will complete and clear, a conscious effort must be made to disidentify from the contents of the personality and identify with the self directly. Thus, realize that you are not your sensations, emotions, or thoughts, but rather the self that perceives all of these things. Self awareness follows from this realization, and this provides a basis for movement into higher states of consciousness as well as exploration of the subconscious and unconscious realms of the mind. The Act Of Will (1979) has the following advice for the preliminary training of the will: “To ensure success in training the will generally, a proper preparation is needed for arousing the initial urge and impetus; this preparation should produce a lively, fervid, and intense desire to develop the will, leading to the firm decision to do all that is necessary for attaining that end.”
Many techniques exist for training the will. In fact, any activity can serve to train and strengthen the will so long as it is done consciously rather than out of habit or under compulsion. Physical exercises such as labor, gymnastics, martial arts, and sports help to strengthen the will. Performance of daily tasks with calm rapidity, style, rhythm, and a sporting sense of competitiveness develops the skillful aspect of the will and makes the day pass more pleasantly. Concentration and meditation exercises such as mantras, pranayama, and yoga focus and clarify the self-conscious aspect of the will. Finally, creative activities such as crafts, art, and music make the exercise of the will joyous and teach how to combine willing with love and devotion. Affirmations such as “I am a living, loving, willing self” can also be used in combination with these activities.
Once the will has been created and developed through disciplined action, a higher purpose must be found for that will. Ideally, this purpose would coincide with a passion such as music, painting, or scientific discovery. However, any higher activity will serve so long as you can dedicate yourself to it wholeheartedly and “play the game” as if your very life depended on it. How do you choose a purpose worthy of all the strength and precision of will that you can develop and possess? At first it might be useful to read the biographies of outstanding individuals who possessed great willpower in order to inspire and awaken a similar passion in yourself. The next step involves an analysis of life and the different games that can be played within it. Apocalypse Now (1988) lists three greater games, four lesser games, and one master game. The greater games are Religion, Science, and Art. The lesser games consist of Homemaking, Fortune, Fame, and Power. The master game can be called Initiation, the search for Wisdom, Enlightenment or Illumination.
Once you have reflected on life’s possibilities, you may begin to remember or conceive of a dream that you would like to make real in your life, an achievement that will be valuable both to you and the world. Remember to choose a purpose that coincides with the common good of humankind and the world. Selfishness and self-centredness are obstacles to the realization of a good will, and in order for a purpose to be truly satisfying it must be motivated by love. As Roberto Assagioli affirms in The Act Of Will (1979), “There are two great laws which operate in the physical and in the psychological worlds: the Law of action and reaction, and the Law of rhythm and equilibrium. Through their operation, those who cause harm attract harm upon themselves; those who are violent and merciless ultimately evoke the violence and cruelty of others against themselves.” Thus, it behooves us to choose a purpose that coincides with the common good.
Some students may find it difficult to decide upon a higher purpose to which to dedicate their lives and wills. Do not be discouraged by this. The next stages of this course, the development of vision and intuition, will make this higher purpose more apparent. The development of the will necessarily precedes the election of a higher calling, and provides the necessary force required for the activation of the visionary and intuitive powers. In order to realize your own True Will, you might find it helpful to meditate upon the following quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self Reliance” (quoted in The Act Of Will (1979)): “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”
Establishing a consecrated will is the first step to attaining self realization and self transcendence. Practicing daily affirmations cultivates the true will of the spiritual warrior. The prediction 2012 of the 2012 prophecy by modern prophets of Mayan astrology of the Mayan calendar 2012 may give us a higher purpose to develop the psychosynthesis of a consecrated will. For the Mayan prediction of Mayan prophecy 2012 and an act of will read The Book Of Law by Aleister Crowley. Modern prophets such as Nostradamus and others are all relevant to Mayan astrology and Armageddon.