Your wish is my command
Willpower, willfulness, willingly, the willies, the last will and trust– the word “will” is full of character, both dark and light, but always strong. It is rooted in Latin, also Old English and Old Germanic meaning “to wish” and Slavonic “to command.” Will rises from the emotional body tempered with intellect, clarity, focus and direction. It contains purpose and fire, both drivers of directional energy. This force resides in the navel chakra, the powerful seat of our will.
Will can be expressed as both personal and Divine. Of the two, personal, or egoic strivings are temporal, limited and relatively weak. Personal will is sticking to a new routine, one prepared and organized in the mind likely for your perceived good, without the consent of the emotional body, or without it feeling good. Judge Thomas Troward (1847-1916), founding philosopher of Mental Science, put it thus, that once the compelling force is exhausted (the personal willpower) then the condition will return again to its proper affinity. Personal willpower has no permanency because it has no “germ of vitality in itself;” rather, it is being forced from the outside.
Most of us have heard people tell stories of the book that wrote itself, or the song that was written in an hour, the face that appeared in the painting on its own. Sometimes, we are driven by a Will that seems to come through us. Work feels like it is being done without doing it. This is the work of Divine Will.
Divine will is most powerfully expressed as our very existence. It propels us into the physical universe from the unmanifest. It is responsible for the densification of matter. It breaths us and pumps our blood. Thomas Troward has an entire chapter on Will in The Edinburgh and Dore Lectures on Mental Science. He writes that will is the directional force for creation. Creation, itself begins in the imagination. Will is not creative, but only works to transform energy from one form to another.
“Its [will’s] function is to keep the imagination centred in the right direction…First the whole train of causation is started by some emotion which gives rise to a desire; next the judgment determines whether we shall externalize this desire or not; then the desire having been approved by the judgement, the will comes forward and directs the imagination to form the necessary spiritual prototype; and the imagination thus centred on a particular object, creates the spiritual nucleus, which in its turn acts as a centre round which the forces of attraction begin to work, and continue to operate until, by the law of growth, the concrete result becomes perceptible to our external senses.”
Will, being both a wish and a command, is the mighty Genie in service to the imagination. It is Will that is the directional force that gives birth to form and all of creation. It is also will that holds us and everything we perceive in form. The very act of coming into form, is by itself miraculous.
Your wish is my command.
Beginning with the Drake equation in 1961, scientists have spent a long, long time trying to calculate the probability of life (abiogenesis). Probability estimates range from impossibly, infinitesimally small, 1 chance in 10 to the power of 390, to unlikely, a quantity of 1 chance in 10 to the power of 40, but clearly possible because our very existence is evidence. Currently, there are conservatively estimated to be about 5.3 trillion planets in the Universe that could support life or up to 700 quintillion (Discover magazine).
Scharf and Cronin’s new OoL frequency equation (2016), although not describing a specific probability value, does outline an extreme level of complexity in the formation of life.
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| The average number of origin-of-life events for a given planet = (number of building blocks on planet) × 1/(average [mean] number of building blocks needed per “organism”) × (availability of building blocks during time t) × (probability of assembly in a given time) × time. (Image credit: Caleb Scharf and Lee Cronin) |
The OoL (Origin of Life) equation does not include the variable for Divine Will, the directional force of creation. Will is the life giver, the miracle maker and the Genie.
The Will to direct thought into form is powerful indeed. The evidence of this form, our human birth, is the successful accomplishment, the attainment and completion. We need not do or be anything other than being born. It, alone is enough. We are enough, as we are, having already accomplished this massive act. The rest is just a play, the result of Divine will and desire of the One Mind to experience itself.
Activity 1: Tell a story of great will
The Mountains of Tibet
The Six Swans
For the older child and adult, I truly treasure the story of the Six Swans by the Brothers Grimm. Find written and by friendly audio telling on Storynory.com. The original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition is also available free on Audible right now from Princeton University Press.
This powerful tale has been working on me for years, and with each re-telling and it slowly unfolds new meaning. It is one of those stories that has left me in states of blissful realization followed by deep contemplation. It is a story of incredible Will. A younger sister chooses the mighty task to knit shirts of nettles for her brothers who have been turned into swans. She must do this to make them human again. She was not responsible for their fate, but by her birth and for great love, she is driven to take responsibility to save them. Further, she cannot speak until all the shirts have been made and must complete her task without speaking in 7 years. In that time, she marries a king and her own children are stolen and she is accused of eating them by her evil mother-in-law. Finally, she is burned at the stake for her crimes. She does not die in the fire, but finishes knitting all but the last sleeve of the last shirt, and transforms her brothers who rescue her from the flames. The last brother is left with the wing of a swan because he had no shirt sleeve. This story tells the great Divine Will it takes to be born into human form, as much will, focused by love alone, as the sister to give back human form to her brothers.
The Sanskrit word for swan is hansa, and the swan is the vehicle for the Goddess Saraswati. According to Vedic scripture, one who has attained great spiritual knowledge is called Paramahansa, or the Supreme Swan. Paramahansa Yogananda, for example, attained this title (Yogananda means Union with Bliss). In Hinduism, a Swan represents a saint that while being in the world is not attached to it. It also denotes the ability to travel between spiritual worlds. It has always been the character of that last brother, the one with the one swan wing, that has most fascinated me. Perhaps he represents the one that straddles the earthly and the spiritual.
Activity 2: Embrace Earthworm Superpower
Now that I’ve fully deconstructed will, perhaps we can appreciate will for the superpower that it truly is. In this activity, I invite you to embrace will in your child whenever you see it arise. Instead of resistance, which for many of us is our default, notice it as a strength that serves- willfulness as power. We can call this will in our child or ourselves their EARTHWORM POWER.
One of the best agents of Will, among natures greatest transformers of energy are the earthworms. Most of earth’s soil passes through the guts of earthworms. They are able to transform and completely turn the top 6 inches of soil within a period of 10 years. That is about 20 – 40 tons of soil per acre per year. Their Will work increases soil porosity, filtration, and increase nutrients and nutrient availability for Earth’s primary producers, the plants.
Watching and caring for earthworms as they work their wonders is great activity for any age. In this activity I invite you to create a worm bin for your home. Kids love worms as “pets” and your plants will love them too.
To create an outdoor worm bin:
- Find or make a sturdy wooden box.
- Drill a few worm-sized holes in the bottom.
- Start by layering in dry materials like leaves and ripped up newspaper and recycling. Fill 1/3 of the box.
- In the next layer add yard soil. Fill another 1/3 of the box, so together with the dry materials 2/3rds of the box is filled.
- Add kitchen scraps, or food waste that would normally go into the compost. Here you will want to divide your bin into quadrants, so that your worms are just working in 1/4 of the bin at a time. This way, when they finish a quadrant, you can harvest that section and your worms will naturally move to begin working on another area. (You can also divide your bin into halves, moving the worms between the two halves, one the working half and one for resting/harvesting)
- Add worms. You can dig worms and transport them from your yard, order them online, or they are sometimes carried at your local garden store.
- Cover the box with a wooden lid or board weighted with a brick to keep out curious and hungry critters.
- Continue to feed your worms kitchen scraps a few times a week in the first quadrant. After a month or so, or depending on your amount of feedings and size of box, begin adding kitchen scraps to a new quadrant of your box. A good way to remember which quadrant you are currently feeding in is to put your lid brick over the working quadrant.
- The first quadrant of soil and great quality worm castings can be harvested in 2-4 months. This can be judged by appearance. When you harvest your castings, make sure to put any worms back into the bin that get harvested. Then re-layer your empty quadrant.
- If you find that your worms leave your bin, that means they don’t like the environment. It may be too wet or too dry. Try to adjust the conditions to their liking.
You may also buy worm bin kits for indoors or outdoors. My local waste management district even offers free programs in worm composting with free worms to take home if you join.
Activity 3: Run a Race
A great way to enact will is to create some healthy competition. Running especially activates the fire of the navel chakra. Humans are born to run, our bodies revel in it. Before transportation, messengers between villages were runners. Hermes and Iris, the Greek messengers of Olympus were always on foot. They didn’t even have animal mounts, although Hermes did have his winged shoes and Iris her rainbow slide. Scientists theorize that our bodies evolved by running and running sustained long distances. Powering 2 legs instead of 4 is a great energy saver, and also sweating instead of panting. African runners in the Kalahari routinely run down and exhaust their prey, not with speed, but with endurance. Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen speaks about the amazing lives of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico and the evolution of the human body adapted to running in this TED talk.
If you or your child is physically unable to run, take heart, this activity can be modified for any form of physical competition. The only catch is that it must involve movement, to activate our energy centers. Other ideas include:
- Fast walking
- Bike riding
- Swimming
- Distance throwing
- Wheelchair race
- More ideas on how you invoke your will through exercise? Put them in the comments
Don’t have a competitor? This activity works perfectly fine if you push your endurance on your own.
Activity 4: Invoke Agni, God of Fire
Agni is the Hindu god of fire. He comes in many forms: as fire (wild, sacrificial or domestic), lightening, comets, funeral pyres, digestive fire and emotional fire. He is the great purifier. The Vedas have more hymns to Agni than any other deity. His hair is fire and he rides a goat.
Chant together or play this mantra in the background during times of struggle.
Agni Gayatri Mantra / अग्नि गायत्री मंत्र
Activity 5: Visualize Agni
I use Agni to burn away false beliefs and limitations. This is a powerful visualization for children too, especially those experiencing hardship and pain.
- Close your eyes.
- Imagine a fire set before you
- Carefully and gently bundle up your pain body, just one at at time. These can take many forms: a memory, a thought, hurtful words, physical sickness, and so on. For example, a pain body may sound like, “No one likes me,” or “I am stupid” or “I am ugly.”
- Place your pain body into the fire and watch it burn. Know that it has been purified and no longer can hurt you
- Keep offering sacrifices to the fire until you feel released from the limitations that block Divine Will, or the good of the Universe to flow through you.
Activity 6: Question Pain
This activity is inspired by Byron Katie and self-inquiry. Another supportive way to look at a pain body after purifying it in the fires of Agni is to question it using the 4 questions:
- Is it true? (i.e. is this thought true?)
- Can you absolutely know that it’s true? (i.e. can I absolutely know this thought is true?)
- How do you react when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without that thought?
The first three questions are transformers and the last allows Will to flow. Sometimes I cheat and just ask the last question for immediate release.
I am enough.
Said continuously to the inner child, this validates that our existence as we are in this and every moment is enough.
Byron Katie has published two great children’s books that I recommend: Tiger-Tiger, Is It True?: Four Questions to Make You Smile Again and The Four Questions: For Henny Penny and Anybody with Stressful Thoughts
Activity 7: Unleash the Genie
It will be apparent by now that the Creative Medium of Spirit is the great Mental Law of the Universe. It is the Law obeying the Will of the Spirit. It is the Universal Law of Mind. All law is Mind in action.
If you’ve heard of the Law of Attraction, then you probably understand the Law of Growth (Thomas Troward) and the Law of Mind (Ernest Holmes). Deepak Chopra in his book, The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents likens it to planting a seed. See my post on Creativity to learn about the activity Planting a Seed inspired by his book.
Every time you make a wish or want you plant a seed
Invoke the Genie
The key feature of all of these, which essentially are saying the same thing, is that you make a wish and do nothing. Imagination alone is creative. This thought, or more powerfully, the spoken word, invokes Divine Will, the Universal Genie. In this activity, visualize this Great Genie, this splendid, magnificent, Supreme Genie. Invoke this Genie and command it with your wish. Guess what? You aren’t limited to 3. Its okay if the only one you can imagine is the genie from Aladdin.
Activity 7: Let the Genie flow through
While we may have heard of or read books by people, like Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God, for example, that have had the experience of doing something without being the one doing it, many of us have not had that experience, or, rather, have not been aware of having that experience. What is this experience? It is the flow of Divine Will.
A quick way to know this flow, without waiting around for a book to be written, is through seva. Seva means selfless service. Seva can be performed by anyone, including children. Seva is a holy act. It can come in many forms. You will know it is seva, because you will feel yourself doing it with a Will that is not your own. You will feel it more strongly if your body is involved in the act, as opposed to a few clicks on your computer to donate money for someone else to do it. Here are just a few ways to perform seva:
- clean up trash from nature
- clean your house, or someone else’s, or your place of worship
- cook for someone and deliver a meal
- bring someone groceries
- donate food to those in need
- More ideas or want to share your experiences with seva? Put them in the comments
Activity 8: Affirmative Prayer for Divine Will for kids
Activity 9: Singalong to Use Me
I play this before each class I teach. I share with you my favorite a cappella versions.
Dedications
Deep gratitude and thanks to my teachers whose teachings wove their way into my lesson this week, Dr. Bill Little, Rev. David Hayward and Pete Sibley.
Image credits
Sponsors
Thank you to my sponsors for supporting this week’s lessons.
Please contact me if you’d like to sponsor a post for Science of Mind child info *at* SOM-child.com. Find a the list of upcoming topics at The Center for Spiritual Awakening children’s program.
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