Thoughts for Aspirants, compiled of Notes and Writings of N. Sri Ram, The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras, India, 1957
Thoughts for aspirants
N. Sri Ram
With the sword of my will, I carve for myself a throne in the realm of the Spirit, which I shall ascend.
Contents
[ in the original booklet there are 15 more chapters. There is also a second volume. So, if you find this book somewhere, buy it! - well worth your cash. The esteem people have for it can be seen from the fact that new E.S. (Esoteric Section) members often receive it as a gift on the day they enter the E.S. ]
II
Will
- There is nothing in the whole of Nature except the Will of the Divine. It is the Will of the one Centre of every circle of life.
- We have yet to discover the true incentive, the inner Will which will have an over-mastering effect upon our lives, and yet be present in every circumstance and incident.
- Will is not the focussing of diverse energies at a superficial point, but the focussing of yourself at your centre. Since that centre has no space or location, its consciousness can act at any point.
- What we call "willing" is often but an inflation of ourselves, attended by a hardening.
- Will is self-motion from a state of self-transcendence to a state of self-immanence.
- Desire is but will inverted. It is a pull of matter, instead of the free movement of the Spirit.
- Action and understanding are unified in the Will. An act of will that does not carry within itself understanding is no true will at all.
- It is difficult for us to know the nature of free Will, because in its absoluteness it resides only in that transcendent abstraction, which is the centre and origin of everything.
- In the Spiritual Will there is no coercion of an unwilling self, for the Will is one and moves as a whole.
- Will is that link which connects no dimension with all dimensions; it is determined by no end from without, but follows and end from within.
- What we call luck is still a large element in our lives. A day must come when the determination of our will shall wholly prevail.
- True self-determination takes its rise from a dimensionless point. It is not to be confused with any personal re-action. To arise and take place, it needs a heart and mind emptied of all predilections and prejudices.
- What keeps us playing our parts and going round and round the three lower worlds is not a Divine dictate, but ourselves, our own will-to-live, which comes from within ourselves.
- What is termed the will of the Spirit is a force which carries the Truth which is within, through an appropriate movement, into its proper form.
- The will is a product of integrity, not a child of contradictions.
- To will spiritually, originally and fundamentally; ever to give that will vibrant, creative and multiplying expression; let that be our constant aim.
- Time is an unrolling of consciousness in a continuous reel. What shall that reel exhibit? It is the way the will turns which determines the character of the exhibit.
- Self-initiative is will in the true sense.
- When all is surrendered to the Supreme, the individual has dissolved the false will of egoism and separateness and acts with the one true Will, the invisible Will in all things.
- It is only on the planes of seperation that will is met with resistance, for the will of the Atman is irresistible, because of the perfect identity between him who wills and the willed.
- Man has the faculty of planned, conscious and collective action, and therefore the process by which Nature moves her stream of change and unfoldment is quickened for him, and for all other things within the sphere of his influence, his power and intelligence.
- The true will never strains; it is born in silence. It includes both thought and feeling. It is immovable by anything external to itself. When I have no will of my own, I can act with the strongest will in the world. When I know that the one Will is in all, all conflict is abolished.
- The will must move on a path of its own, self-isolated. Obstacles may check action, but they cannot check the will behind the possible action.
- We must bring the body, emotions and mind into the state of a completely obedient and flexible instrument of the Spiritual Will, in which there is only emotion, no obstinacy, no insistence.
- The will is an exiled King, whose kingdom is ruled by a pretender.
- The will of God is in all things. But the self-will of man obscures it, as a plate might obscure the distant sun, while man and God are apart.
- Man has in him the power of determination, of intelligent choice, of the will to do a thing, and then of doing it.
- Will is not obstinacy, not autocracy, but self-direction.
- Each one of us must arouse that hidden Will in himself which will endure to the end.
- You have to become the medium for your own pure, native, loftiest Self - excluding every other infiltration - the sheath of your own Self, instead of a self-willing organization.
- To will the perfect end is also to will the means, for perfection starts from now. In the one true Will, end and means are unified.
- We must will to dare all and challenge everything, be bursting with initiative, yet remain within the bounds of an eternal harmony and synthesis.
- Let your courage mount with difficulties. There would be no will if there were no resistance.
- Determine to solve all problems created by the play of opposites and overcome all difficulties; will to attempt any precipice or fall into any abyss, in the unshaken conviction that while every vesture of manifestation may be splintered into its atoms, the invincible, eternal You will remain and arise.
- When once the true Will is awakened, it can never again by put to sleep. When once the connection is formed between the apex of a man's true nature and its foundation in the realm of matter, that connection cannot, ordinarily, cease to exist. It is by the power of the Atman, the Godhead within, that he achieves what would otherwise be a seeming miracle.