“Will power can only be developed when you fully understand the importance of it and what is at stake. A person will not use his dormant will power when he does not know how important it is to have it. Everybody can observe the following: when a person is in a grave danger, all of a sudden he will display a tremendous will power and strength way beyond him ordinarily because he then realizes his life is at stake. He has to have it, otherwise he is lost. Yet in things which do not seem important or actually are not important, this very same person will not have any will power whatever. So it is first a question of understanding and of discrimination. To discriminate clearly and concisely, to formulate the ideas precisely, is the first step to take. When you will know what stands on one side and what on the other, what is the issue, you will be able to make a wholehearted decision through and through, and this is the next step to develop your will power. Everyone has will power. Will power is nothing else than a force, a strength that is used by many in the wrong direction. When the strength evaporates in wrong channels, not enough remains that will power may be generated for what really counts. How much strength is lost by fears, by resentment, by hatred! For each personal fault takes up a certain amount of strength. Each fault is a chain that binds you and against which you subconsciously strain. Consciously you may also strain against other things, which also takes strength from you, for strain is a negative force. But subconsciously every individual strains against his or her own faults and imperfections. This is the wrong way to get rid of one’s faults. So, to come back, the first step always is to ask yourself, “What do I want to have will power for?

” When you ask yourself this question clearly, you can give yourself an equally clear answer. When the answer is that you somehow wanted will power for something that is not worthwhile without consciously having realized this before, then it is only advisable that you do not use your strength and will power in that direction. So many people, firmly convinced that they have no will power, use valuable strength unconsciously all the time for the most destructive uses, and then they lack the necessary strength for the one and all important reason: namely, their self-development and purification, the going on the path of perfection! Whoever does that, will sooner or later solve all his problems and conflicts, which have arisen only out of the inner conflicts. In that path lies the key to everything else a person needs and wants to accomplish that is good to be accomplished. Once you have understood what the reason of this life is, you will be able to make the best of this present incarnation. Only when he understands the issues at stake will a person pull himself together, so to speak, and get organized inside. Will power is also a question of inner organization, planning wisely, planning in a way that you do not take upon yourself more than you can follow through, and yet planning enough that is necessary for your development. Will power is also a question of making the right inner decisions and sticking to them; living, at least in this respect to begin with, in some sort of inner order; discriminating and weighing. Once a person understands that everything else in life, the inner as well as the outer problems, is only the result of this spiritual neglect, the right decision will be taken whereby the necessary strength will be released. This may entail the relinquishing of other efforts, also inner effort, which are much more important than outer ones, which will enable you to put your whole concentration and efforts into these channels. So I would say, basically it is a question of understanding. Now, it is very often that a person’s lower self does not want you to understand what it is all about. It constantly furnishes excuses, “reasons,” pretexts, why one cannot do what is so important. These are rationalizations, and the surface mind accepts them because it is the line of least resistance. So you have, first of all, to go to battle against your own lower self; and this lower self, this foreign substance, this undivine substance is always at war with your divine substance. And only your surface mind with your free directive will can determine which self you want to follow; only by becoming aware of these inner selves can you settle this fight. So it is also a question of knowing what is really going on within you. And once this is understood, the courage can be summoned to face your own lower self and to go to battle against it instead of always giving in to it. ” (PL #20)