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CHAPTER XX
THE WILL
The study of life to which we have consecrated the first part of this work has permitted us to perceive
the powerful reservoir of forces and energies hidden within us. It has shown us that therein all our future, in its
limitless development, is contained in permanent form. The causes of happiness are not found in determined
localities in space, but are in us - in the profound mysteries of the soul.
It is this which confirms that grand doctrine of Christ - 'The kingdom of heaven is within you.' The
same thought is explained in the Vedas in another form: 'You carry in yourself a sublime friend whom you do
not know.' A Persian sage said, 'You live among stores filled with riches, and you die with hunger at the door!'
All the great teachers are in accord in this subject. It is in the life interior, in the expanding of our
powers and faculties and virtues, that the source of our felicity lays. Look attentively into the depths of your
being - shut your mind to things external, and after having habituated your psychic senses to the obscurity in
the silence, you see the surging of unsuspected lights, you will hear fortifying and consoling voices. But there
are few men who know how to read in themselves, how to explore the retreats where sleep inestimable
treasures.
We waste our lives in banal things, on things trifling. We walk the road of existence without knowing
ourselves and the psychic wealth whose value would procure for us joys without number. There are in each
human soul two spheres of action and expression. One exterior to the other manifests the personality - the ME
with its passions, weaknesses, and its insufficiency. As long as that regulates our conduct, it is the inferior life,
sown with trials and troubles.
The other sphere interior, profound, immutable, is at the same time the seat of consciousness, the
source of spiritual life, and the temple of God in us. It is only when this center of action dominates the other -
when it's impulsions direct us, that our hidden powers are revealed, and that the spirit affirms itself in all its
brilliant beauty. It is at this moment we hold communion with 'the Father who dwells in us,' following the
words of Christ - the Father who is the source of all love, the principle of all great actions.
By one of these centers, we perpetuate ourselves in material worlds, where all is inferiority,
incertitude, and sorrow. By the other, we unite ourselves to celestial worlds, where all is peace, serenity, and
grandeur. It is only by the growing manifestation of the divine spirit in us that we can vanquish the selfish ME,
and associate ourselves freely with universal and everlasting work, and create for ourselves a perfect and
happy life.
By what means can we put in movement those interior powers, and direct them toward a high ideal?
By the will. The persistent, tenacious use of this master faculty enables us to control our natures, to dominate
material things, sickness and death.
It is by the will that we direct our thoughts toward a precise goal. With most people thoughts float
incessantly: their constant motion, their infinite variety, allows small chance for the higher influences. One
must know how to concentrate, how to become in accord with divine thought. Then, is produced the fertilizing
of the human soul by the divine spirit which envelops it, and renders it capable of realizing its true tasks, and
prepares it for the life in space, by enabling it to perceive in this world a reflection of its splendors. Superior
spirits see and hear our thoughts. Their own thoughts are penetrating harmonies, while our own are often
confused discords. Let us then learn to use the will, and by it to unite ourselves to all that is great, and to the
universal harmony whose vibrations surround space, wherein worlds are rocked.
* * *
Will is the greatest of all powers - in its action it is comparable to a magnet. The will to live, to
develop life in oneself, attracts new sources of vitality; it is the secret of the law of evolution. The will acting
on the etheric body with intensity accentuates its vibrations and prepares it for a higher degree of existence.
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