How to Utilize Will-Power Effectively

Most people have very little idea about how to utilize will-power effectively, because they don’t fully understand what will-power actually is and how it needs to be focused and concentrated. Essentially will-power is the function that concentrates the ‘signal’ while reducing the ‘noise’ in a transmission of energy. It is like the difference between a laser beam and a light bulb. Using this image, we find that most people fail to fully focus the energy they are putting out and thus, it is diffused and the energy is dispersed without a strong functional effect. When they put their full attention and concentrated force into the will, it becomes like the laser beam, capable of accomplishing things that the normal light bulb cannot do. Learning how to concentrate in this way involves regular practice, an actual exercise of will, until it becomes a palpable force capable of achieving its aim.

The Mother notes: “But one doesn’t know how to will it. In fact one doesn’t even want to. These are velleities: ‘Well, it is like this…. It would be good if it were like that… yes, it would be better if it were like that…yes, it would be preferable if it were like that.’ But this is not to will. And always there at the back, hidden somewhere in a corner of the brain, is something which is looking on and saying, ‘Oh, why should I want that? After all one can as well want the opposite.’ And to try, you see… Not like that, just wait… But one can always find a thousand excuses to do the opposite. And ah, just a tiny little wavering is enough… pfft… the thing swoops down and there it is. But if one wills, if one really knows that this is the thing, and truly wants this, and if one is oneself entirely concentrated in the will, I say that there is nothing in the world that can prevent one from doing it, from doing it or being obliged to do it. It depends on what it is.”

“One wants. Yes, one wants, like this (gestures). One wants: ‘Yes, yes, it would be better if it were like that. Yes, it i would be finer also, more elegant.’… But, eh, eh, after all one is a weak creature, isn’t that so? And then one can always put the blame upon something else: ‘It is the influence coming from outside, it is all kinds of circumstances.”

“The breath has passed, you see. You don’t know… something… a moment of unconsciousness… ‘Oh, I was not conscious.’ You are not conscious because you do not accept… And all this because one doesn’t know how to will.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pp. 49-50