INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PAPER ON WILL

To-night I wish to talk to you about Will and what Will means. In order to talk about Will rightly it is necessary to talk first about influences coming down the Ray of Creation. You have heard already that one of the objects of this Work is to put us under new influences by means of certain work on ourselves, certain efforts. If there were no new influences to connect with there would be no point in this Work. As you know, the Ray of Creation shews different influences which come down from the top of the Ray. Let us study these influences for a moment. (I have often given people the task of drawing these influences in the form of a diagram.) As you know, the Will of the Absolute does not reach the earth. The Will of the Absolute in passing down the Ray of Creation reaches us indirectly through an increasing number of mechanical laws or forces, which is one reason why it is said in the Lord's Prayer: "May Thy Will be done on Earth." This means simply that the Word of God is not done on Earth. However, the object of all real esotericism is to connect Man with the Will of God and to break him from his own self-will. If one does this Work from a good spirit, if one tries to work on oneself as regards non-identifying, non-internal considering, etc., if one tries to remember oneself in the sense of the Work, knowing from its diagrams that there is something higher that one can touch, then it is possible to speak of what Will means. Will consists in feeling finer influences and finer influences reaching us from a higher level as forces coming down the Ray of Creation. If you feel your self-love and selfinterests you will not feel the presence of any other kind of influences. You will perhaps see that this paper tonight about Will is connected with the two previous papers, one of which is about new meaning and one about self-love. From self-love, of course, we only have self-will with all its interesting forms of imagination. We dream, for example, of having power, of everyone being our slaves, for instance, and so on. This kind of cruelty cannot possibly give any relationship to higher influences coming down the Ray of Creation. As you know, in this Fourth Way people must be in life and must begin to know what life is like by experience. A person in this Work who has not been through the influences and experience that life offers on this Earth is not necessarily ready for it. Here a double thing comes in. On the one side there is feeling that there is something else-that is, if a person has Magnetic Centre. On the other side there is a feeling of lack of life-experience. That is why it is so difficult in this Work to see whether a person should be more in life or more in the Work. I think that most of us by now understand this. But the point is that, unless we put ourselves under the influences that we know, and learn from these influences, we cannot get to new influences. Unless you have been to the primary school you cannot possibly enter the secondary school. The idea of the Work is to be able to connect with new influences, and the Ray of Creation shews how these influences exist. These different levels of forces, these different levels of influences, are like further schools of meaning and thought and feeling and ultimately of action. When the Workinfluences begin to act on you you will find what was full of meaning becomes either

more full of meaning or less full. The highest school that we can belong to on this Earth is the Solar School, the school that sounds the note Sol. The intermediary school is the Planetary School, the note that sounds in the Side Octave the note Si. The school on Earth tells of the Side Octave from the Sun and sounds the three notes La, Sol, Fa: that means that we are all on this Earth meeting one another in the schools La, Sol or Fa. Unless there were this Side Octave there would be no chance of development of any kind-by "development" we all imagine something that is quite impossible, quite contrary to what development means. Look at what the Work teaches about negative emotions, non identifying and False Personality: going against these influences means rising in the Ray of Creation. All esotericism teaches that in order to go up you have to go down, and no one understands what this means: to get more you must go down and to get less you go in the same way as you always go-your Being transmits your life. If you have nothing that at present satisfies you completely, it is because of the state of your Being, and you will never get what you want as long as your Being is tuned in to that wave-length. You have to change yourself to get new influences, and changing yourself is always "getting rid of yourself''. If you want to have Will you must always have Will about, as it were, what you are not, not from what you are. If you try to increase yourself as you are you will only become worse than you are at present. The development of Real Will consists of feeling new influences.

COMMENTARY ON WILL
I Let us speak tonight of what the Work teaches about Will. It says that such will as we have is the resultant of all our desires, and also that each 'I' has its own will. In order to keep one's aim Will is required. Let us suppose a person makes a small aim such as not to walk in a hurry or something of that order. For a short time he manages to keep his aim. But next moment he hurries as before and for weeks forgets what he decided. Or say, a person makes a small aim to keep a pleasant expression on his or her face and does so for a time. Then dinner is served and the face assumes its ordinary expressions. How can we increase Will? Let us take the example of a person who makes a bigger aim than those mentioned. He or she wishes not to identify with a particular recurring negative emotion. One way is to think about what external considering means here and then to try to practise it in reference to the source of the negative state. The selflove, however, does not wish to externally consider. It does not bother about people in far worse situations than we are in ourselves and so feels a right to be negative when it chooses. Nothing is easier than to bear the misfortunes of others. One of the vows in the original Buddhist Schools was to have compassion for all others. But it is curious to reflect on the connection between external considering and increase of Will. I mean, it is curious to begin to see on what Real Will depends, for obviously Real Will is not self-will. One may imagine Will means having one's own way. Yet this is not the case. But I will not speak more on this aspect of the

development ofWill, because the Work itself will shew you where the connection lies. It is useless to hear and not to experience, to be told and not to practise. In fact, being told prevents experience. If a man is told something about himself that he is not within miles of yet experiencing for himself, it only hinders him. He says: "I am told I am negative" or "I am told I am greedy." The Work acts on Being according to our understanding of it--our level. Nothing can take the place of understanding. Being told is not the same as seeing. We are told all day long by kind friends. Now when people agree with us we feel reinforced in our ordinary will, and vice versa. If we decide to do something and people approve or praise us, we feel as if we had more force, but if they disagree, we feel deprived of energy. Here lies a turningpoint. Of course, all sorts of complicated personal reactions take place under such circumstances. But we very rarely make aims or decisions that do not depend to some extent on the support of someone or other or possibly the public, or the press, and so on. This is aim made in public. A decision, an aim, made in solitariness seems unreal, thin, without colour, uninteresting. This means that we do things usually with some admixture of "being seen of men". We do not do our alms in secret. In making an aim and in thinking about Real Will and its quality and taste it is always worth while reading the 6th chapter of Matthew in its opening verses. Here are some very deep formulations about wrong aim and will. Will made from False Personality, however, is interesting to study. It fails, of course, but that does not mean it is necessarily wholly wrong. But it has no soil, no depth. As an aim descends in depth it changes. It becomes more essential. It becomes an aim without words-a wordless thing-a directio11 one seeks to go in, rather than a phrase. Yet it must start with some kind of phrase, some sort of word-command, some formulation. On one occasion I had a conversation with Mr. 0. about Will in the Work-sense. I said that it was possible to see how from one moment to another what we call our Will changes and this was due to the separate wills of different 'l's so that whatever we did finally was the resultant of the desires of all these different 'l's. "Yes," he .said, "But people must see this first. People do not realize it. They feel they have Will." I asked him: "Is it possible to describe what Real Will is like?" He said: "It is like suddenly seeing the solution to a mathematical problem." This reply eventually gave me insight into some things that I had not understood. Usually we associate the concept of Will with a set jaw, a dogged resolve, etc. This is a negative view ofWill. The idea that Real Willi~ something positive is eventually of great value in personal work. Ordinarily we think of Will as something negative because we conceive it only as being exerted against something. We say often, for example, that we will resist this or we will not do that. We tend to associate Will with resistance to something, like brakes to stop something. This is a negative idea of Will and it has its place. But you will see that Mr. 0. refers to a different idea of Will. It is something that finds right solutions. It unites separate things, it arranges in right order, and so creates something new. It contains the idea of new possibilities. It is not mere denial, mere negation, mere stopping of everything, but the reaching to a new combination, or a new attainment. It has to do with the certainty that a solution is possible, and with a certain kind of active patience towards the at-present unsolved situation, where one does not as yet see the next connection. I say a certain kind of active patience because it has nothing to do with resignation. Very often Mr. 0. used to say to us in

our difficulties: "The Work will find a way." This is the patience required. Often enough we feel confused, especially after a shock. It seems that everything is scattered, in little bits, without relation, particularly when we have been asleep for a long time and working only in imagination. Now if we lose our orientation to the Work, things can indeed break up. What does Will mean in such a case? A mathematician who has culled a lot of facts and cannot see how they are connected to get as certain a solution as possible is in the same situation. Suppose, however, he is actively patient. G. once said that "patience is the Mother of Will". There is some solution. There is some possibility. The confidence of a mathematician is based on his feeling that relations between physical things are expressible in terms of mathematical formulae and that some sort of solution for a mass of scattered observations can be found eventually. It is the same with the Work. It has meaning, or rather, out of every situation it is possible to get meaning. Things apparently diverse can be brought into some unity of meaning. It is like asking and waiting. Now change of meaning must mean change from former ruling meaning. So we can connect the positive idea of Will with the attaining of new meaning and not merely with negation and deprivation. When a mathematician suddenly sees a solution he sees new meaning. It was to this that Mr. 0. compared Will. When we begin to realize that Will is delight rather than privation we begin to realize what aim might mean-as something worth attaining. First we all have to make aim that is negative. We understand no aim otherwise at first. It has often been said in the teaching of the Work that negative things breed only negative things. We are very fond of this negative garden and collect and re-sow its seeds and bulbs with care. Its atmosphere is bad and we catch a lot of illness while walking about in it. The centre of gravity of the Will is in the Emotional Centre-this centre that it is the object of the Work to awaken and which works so badly in us as we are at present. Let us put up the Three-Storey House of Man once more and write in each storey the function chiefly connected with it: Intellectual Consciousro.::s< Emotional Will lnstinctMoving Attention We have been speaking recently on new meaning and new emotions. Will is connected mainly with the Emotional Centre. It is from the development of this centre that Will begins. To return to what I said earlier, our ordinary concept ofWill is a set jaw, a stern resolve, and so on. Actually, it is a new emotion, a new insight, very

quiet and without violence. To have, speaking in a relative way, a new Will in any familiar situation is to have a new emotion entering this familiar situation. I mean that it is one way in which one can begin to think of Will. It has many sides. Again, as was said, it is a unity of things rather than a splitting-up, a synthesis rather than an analysis. The next idea about Real Will, already touched on, is that it is infinitely flexible. If you live on the causal plane of life, the level of cause in the past and effect in the future, you will have that kind of will derived from the past. Why? Because in Time a cause always seems to be in the past. Yet causes can be in the future. This is an odd and strange idea. Everything you build up in yourself by work becomes a transforming cause in the future . To live mechanically on the level of cause and effect is one thing that we have to notice to know about. Here nothing can happen save that the past gives rise to a mechanical effect in the future. One must know a great deal about this aspect of life-this possible viewpoint. If there were no Mercy of God it would work out as inevitable. Yet even Science, which was based on the study of cause and effect, has reached that point at which it says that things are not determined, but casual. (Casual is not causal). To regard one's life as nothing but causal is not to grasp the idea that everyone can come into new casual influences, by Self-Remembering. Otherwise, there would be only "Truth" and no "Mercy". This idea is expressed in religious literature as "forgiveness of sins". But if you feel there is nothing else than literal cause and effect, it is really impossible to transform life. All transformation depends on the idea that you can be under one set or another set of influences. And the Ray of Creation teaches that there are many orders of influences. Now Will is a question of new emotions, new thoughts, new feelings, and its quality depends on transmitting them, hearing them. On one scale of influences things look like this-by the cause and effect of that level of influences. But it is possible to see everything in a new light. Then the whole series of cause and effect in your life takes on a new meaning. But if you believe that life is just as you see it, then new orientation does not visit you. That is one of the central teachings in the Gospels, in the fragments of Christ's teaching. Is there not a great deal said about the forgiveness of sins, the forgiveness of your neighbour and so on? And why? One has to see that on one plane, one level ofliving, there can be only mechanical cause and effect-the level of cause and effect belonging to it. But the Gospels and this Work teach that-if you do this Work-there is a totally different line of cause and effect, and a transforming force enters your existence. I will continue later to speak of what Will in the Work-sense means. You will realize that it is a very great subject. But it depends on getting under influences higher than oneself. Will is not self-will. Read the Gospels and read what Christ says in his temptation. Whose Will was he following? To will the Work is an easy phrase. To see what it means is another question. I remember once that Mr. 0. said that before you can have Will in a real sense you must feel your own nothingnessthat is, the nothingness of your own personal and vanity-aims. He was asked: "How can you feel your own nothingness?" He said: "Apart from many other things, there is one way: "Like whatyou dislike." Is it not strange that Real Will depends on going in a direction that has nothing to do with one's own wishes?

COMMENTARY ON WILL

II Let us continue the commentaries on what Vill is from the York point of view. It is necessary to recapitulate a little. We have at present, the Work teaches, only the diverse wills of many different 'l's. We have no real, no permanent and steady Will. First of all, each 'I' uses us at the moment and so each 'I' speaks through the telephone-that is, through our mouth-and says all sorts of things and calls itself 'I'. If there is any doubt, any hesitation, what speaks is the resultant of the several wills of these different 'l's. This resultant decides. It is called Will but it is not Real Will. It is a compromise between many different voices, like a Parliament (which means a Speaking-House). The final vote is the resultant of many different parties. It is the resultant of many different wills and desires. This is the state of what we call our will. It is the resultant of many wills, many different desires. But Real Will cannot be a resultant, for Will in a real sense is Master and is above the desires of life and all life-'I's. On one occasion G. was speaking of aim. He asked people round him what was their aim. People said different things-such as that they wished always to be happy or to do good to others and so on. Someone said: "I wish for self-mastery." G. said at once that this was a real aim. "This", he said in so many words, "is something the Work is about. This I can teach you if you are willing to go through all the difficulties that must be overcome to attain it. Real Will is possible because it exists in Man. It is Master. But Man is cut off from it." Master -Real '1'-Real Will I Steward I Deputy-Steward I The many 'l's of Personality Now you have heard that Master will not come until the Horse, Carriage and Driver are in a proper state and relation. The Driver must emerge from the inn and eventually get on the box. This is the first step. Let us think once more of this first step. The Vvork teaches that it is impossible for the Master-that is, Real '1'-to come unless certain conditions are fulfilled. The first condition is that the Driver, wasting his money in the public-house-that is, in dreams and illusions and pictures of himself, and especially in imagining he is master of him- self-wakes up and begins to see what he (or she) is really like. This shock requires a special force. I mean, people can even enter this 'Vork and yet remain for years in the public-house dreaming and pretending they are working. They merely add this Work, like an extra cockade, to their dreams of themselves. However, no one can use the Vork in that way for long. In the full swell of Personality, one may imagine one can strut about with an extra adornment or use the Work in some other way. The

Vork, however, is rather ancient and well-versed, and no one can possibly deceive it. But to understand this, it is necessary io realize there is something higher than onesel This Work comes from what is higher. If a person has no inner relation to the Work and cannot see it, or sense or feel it, in himself or herself, as the beginning of Real Conscience-that is, Work Conscience-then, naturally enough, there may be a wrong contact. This is always dangerous if the force of the Work is withdrawn. Things may suddenly collapse, being founded on the sands of False Personality. I say this tonight because of the subject on which these commentaries are being made. Real Will-that .is, Master--comes from above,' not from life and its level of interests. If you have no above in you, in your thought and outlook, there is no chance of touching either Real Conscience or Real 'I'. That is, one merely fails in the real purpose of having been created on this Earth. One is no good-useless-so much chaff to be bu.rned, as the Gospels say. Let us examine once more the ideas taught by the Work on this question of Master, which is Real Will-that is, Real 'I'. You understand why G. was interested at once in the remark: "I wish to have selfmastery." Self-mastery, from the Work-teaching, means having Master in you, and this is only possible if Driver, Horse and Carriage have been put in some right condition. Then-as the Vork says-then the Driver, sitting on the box, with the reins in his hands, with the right harness and so on, may, on looking round, find the Master sitting in the carriage. But he must, so I once heard, start driving himself in the way he thinks best. He must start driving before he can expect any directions from the Master. Let us see where Master comes from-that is, Real 'I'which we all lack, and keep on inventing in so many unsatisfactory ways. If one really knew, if one really felt, if one really saw where to go-would it not be wonderful? Real 'I' comes downfrom above, as the diagram shews. That is why it was mentioned that if you have no idea of anything above yourself, you cannot reach your reality and meaning -that is, Real 'I'. You will always be an invented figure, now trying on this suit or dress and now trying on that one. Inside you will be uneasy. If you have a well-trained fayade, you will spend a lot of money painting it and re-stuccoing it and, so to speak, sailing out into life each day as fresh as possible and quite empty inside. This Work is not about that kind of thing. It is about finding where and what you are. It is about opening connections which have been lost. You can say, if you like, that it is about finding oneself, but not exactly in money or position or in successful affairs and so on. I wonder if some of you see what is meant? The inventions, the pseudo-yourselves, etc. are many. It takes a long time to get underneath them and separate from them. It is not really a "long time". Why? Because it is really not a question of time but a question of sincerity with oneself. One may profess the Work and talk very badly of it. Is this sincerity with oneself? This branch of the Work suffers severely from this kind of lip-service. It is just as well that I stress it at this moment because, as was said, if you touch this Work up to a point and are really insincere to it in yourself, it can become very dangerous. It may kill you, as G. once said. I must confess I am still astonished by the inner insincerity of people who profess this Work. Now what does inner sincerity mean in connection with reaching Real '!'-that is, Real Will? Can you see any connection yourself? Suppose you are not sincere with

yourself and are always pretending and imitating sincerity and have none in yourself. Can you possibly reach anything? Suppose you take the 'V ork as a temporary convenience. Can it lead anywhere? Of course not. Yes, but why? Have you reflected on this yet? Have you seen for yourselves that you can get nowhere in this work save through inner observation and inner sincerity? It is strange that this has to be said. It is still strange to me, after many years, that people think they can belong to this Work without working, or think that they can belong to the Work by pretending to work, which is worse. I still cannot quite take it in, and certainly I do not understand people of that sort and cannot grasp what they mean. However, this is a useless thing to speak of. Either it is so, or it is not so. A certain purity of feeling is necessary and if it is not there, then it is not, and if it is, then it is. Otherwise everything becomes argument. One sees, or one does not see. One feels, or one does not feel. One understands something, or one does not understand anything. Something is planted, or it is not planted. Something grows, or it does not grow. There is no argument possible. It either is, or it is not. It is either worth while, or it is not worth while. One either wants it, or does not want it. One either values it, or does not value it. There is no argument. Persuasion is useless. A persuaded person is worse than useless, to himself or to herself or to the Work. It is possible to "buy" a person for a time, but not necessarily a good thing. One cannot ransom another, if there is no Magnetic Centre; if there is not, then there is no Magnetic Centre. If it is all really nonsense to the person inwardly, it is all nonsense, and it is no good-and actually evil-to pretend it is not nonsense, when your inner side sincerely thinks it is. That is the situation. I mean, as has been said from the beginning of this teaching, that inner sincerity towards it is the only thing that counts, no matter how you fail, however badly you do. To pretend, to imagine you can act as if you believed, is of all dangerous things the worst. The Work says that to pretend is the worst thing possible to do, the most deadly thing in its ultimate effects. Pretending is lying. Lying in this sense destroys Essence. Essence can only grow through truth, through what is sincere. If essence is destroyed everything is destroyed except nervous excitement. The Driver must awaken before the Master-that is, Real Willis felt as a guiding force. This Work is a guide. The phantasies of oneself, the pictures, the ideas, the valuations, the various senses of superiority and all the stuffing we stuff ourselves up with, all must begin to weaken under this guidance. By what means? By uncritical and remembered self-observation. Something then awakens and emerges. It eventually climbs on the box. A tiny thing. Yes, a very tiny thing, a very little man, a very small woman. But it emerges from the uproar of the public-house-that is, life and one's ideas of life and of oneself in life-and this tiny thing begins to move in the direction of the box and tries to sit on it. No doubt it cannot for long, but it really wishes to. This is the point. If it really wishes to, then this tiny thing, this grain of mustard-seed, can attract a trace of Real '1'. Now Real '1', as said, comes downfrom above, but only when there is something to come down to. Let us speak of Real Will again in connection with the feeling that there is something above, something higher than oneself-something beyond the level of one's inordinate and usually undetected self-love, self-will, self-liking, self-admiration, and self-exertions, beyond one's vanity and self-prejudices, beyond one's selfishness, beyond one's self. All Work leads in this direction. All esoteric teaching leads in this strange direction. It is called a desert.

What does it mean-this direction, this journey through oneself and all the false 'I's in oneself? After a time in this Work it is necessary to look every day at the whole matter of the Work and at what it is saying. For such a long time we lie prone on the ground beneath Jacob's Ladder. What does it mean to get up? It is to get out of the public-house. Jacob lies asleep at the bottom of the ladder. Yes, but what does it mean to get up? There is a very curious series of inner mental actions that lead us to get up. Have you ever had real private thoughts-thoughts that have nothing to do with outside matters, with passing examinations, with putting up your daily show? Have you ever really thought-quite deep down-thought what it is all about and who you are and so on? It is here, at this level, that the Work begins and that Real Will begins. It is very difficult to describe. Such thoughts are not about duty or about other people or about keeping up your idea of yourself or power or money or anything like that. This kind of thought is very strange. One of the remarkable things about this indefinable kind of thought is that it easily understands the ideas of the .York. It seems, in fact, to be the Work itself. When you get away from yourself, you can reach this level of thought. But, of course, for the time being, you do not really exist. You are nothing. It is not strange that here, at this level, you can find and see what Real Will might mean-and that you can realize that ordinary will, as it is called, is by comparison a lie and simply nonsense. In this state of thought and inner perception you can even detect what it is you really need to do-which is always surprising, always something you could never have thought of yourself. And you then can know for certain that it is not self-will. But if there is no sense of the Work, no affirmation of anything higher, no belief in influences coming down from the Ray of Creation-well, how can you expect to get even one single taste of what Real Will is? How, if you deny an unknown, can you ever expect to feel what you have as yet never known? Do you not know everything already? One is a small opera, a short play, always repeating. There are other larger operas, other longer plays. Yes, but who really feels this and acts on it? Who really feels deeply that he or she does not know? Who realizes his or her ignorance? One knows surely? Is that not so with every one of you here? Well, then, there is no room for anything else to enter in. One knows-already. One knows-everything. How do you think and move? Do you know? Just 1ook and observe yourselves. You all act and think and judge as if you know already. The more you know, the less you know. Is this right? Of course-but have you seen both sides like that? When you feel you do not know, you feel deprived of Personality. That is why we have to learn what it means not to be negative in the face of a possible new stage of understanding. You will never get to a new level if you are going to feel negative when your present level is attacked and diminished in self-importance. Will, in the Work-sense, comes from a level above the level one is at, and so is above all self-will and self-importance. Will is a higher influence acting on you and responded to by you if you can sense it. But how, if you are sure you know already, can you give room for anything new? It is our knowing like that that stops the first entry of new Will. Change knowing and you may feel something entering that is new and often strange-provided you do not get negative. That is letting go. People often say that they do not know, and that they are ignorant. But do you think they mean it? Do you really think you do not know? Don't you see that all your judgements and inner ways of taking your problems in life are

based on the idea that you do know? And so, as a consequence, from this mess of wrong acquired knowledge, we live and condemn and quarrel and kill and argue and speak. All that is your machine and have you noticed that most machines seem created for unhappiness? We are told to study our machines. Have you yet begun to separate from yourself, from your machine? How, if not, can you expect any taste of Real Will, of Master? Why, there is no room for him. You know already, don't you? You chatter away and criticize all day-as if you knew. You do not yet notice that you do not know-that you really have not yet the faintest idea and that you are talking nonsense and lying all day. No-but why? Because there is no self-noticing, no inner sincerity, no pain with oneself, about this thing to which one is bound as to a huge machine of turning wheels of thought and feeling. How then can Real Will visit one, when one is so identified with all this machinery and keeps on saying that it is 'I' and that it knows, and keeps on feeling one knows and keeps on acting as if one knew? Catch yourself at the moment of saying something. Is a dissolving of Personality necessary? Yes, certainly-a dissolving of False Personality and all its imaginatio'n and illusion. This the Work teaches. A realization of one's mechanicalness is necessary. This the Vork teaches. This is already a form of Self-Remembering. Will, Real Will, can find this level, the Third Level of Consciousness. Then one feels a new taste, something very extraordinary, something delicate, vitalizing, full of meaning-not something harsh and negative and denying-as we think Will is. How can we expect to reach such Will if we do not take hold of the Work and work? If we identify with everything in ourselves, if we think we are already conscious and have Real Will already, if we think we know and can do, if we believe we are one, if we live contentedly in negative emotions, if we always make accounts, if we ascribe to ourselves a hundred and one qualities that are purely imaginary, if we justify ourselves all day long, if we never observe ourselves, if we never remember ourselves-and so on and on-then what can we expect? Have you noticed what the Work is about and is always saying? Real will comes from above, from a higher level. What does higher mean? Where we see one thing at our level, at a higher level a millioa things exist. We imagine Will as inflexible but we have to conceive that Real Will is infinitely flexible and discerning and ultimately contains all things and so has direction towards fullness. This was called in the Gospels 1TA~pc.v11a-fullness of all meaning. However, I will try to explain it in this way. Real Will is full of new meaning. It is not the absence of things, the negation and denial of doing things. Its real nature does not consists in the words: "I will not". "I will understand more" is a better formulation. You know the sterility of people who always will not. They seem to die in themselves early owing to this negative idea of will that conducts no new meaning. Negative things can only conduct negative things. In connection with the idea that Real Will is increasingly fuller meaning and so is positive and not negative in quality, we can bring into the thought-associations of tonight another idea of the Work. The Work-ideas are to establish new associations and so new ways of seeing and feeling life. The idea that can be brought in here is that of inner octaves. Let us take two notes Do andRe. Between them a whole octave exists, namely,

Do---------Re do re mi fa sol la si do And again, between each of the notes of the small octave a whole octave exists. Now how is it possible to understand what is meant by this? What is meant is increasingly finer and finer perceptions, increasingly finer seeing of differences. Where one saw simply Do--Re, one now sees a whole octave of finer differences and so on. And this means seeing finer and finer meanings. We imagine we know ourselves, or others. This is, as it were, Do--Re on a coarse scale. But in order to develop these finer perceptions and so to lose the violence of Do--Re on a coarser scale, a willingness to accept the Work and its ideas is required as a starting-point. Then by this first real willing, the Work-that is, your own higher centres-can begin to teach you. So Real Will must first be made possible by accepting the way to it. If you do not will the Work, you begin wrongly. There are many meanings to every single thing. To see a thing only and always in one light is like seeing Do--Re on the coarse scale-as we do in terms of buffers and prejudices. A thing is either right or wrong. There is no real thought. But things are -more complicated than that. Differentiationthat is, seeing many differences where one saw none, or where one saw only opposites, is the beginning of the growth of Will. We can handle ourselves very roughly, as well as one another, by lack of inner perception. Mr. 0. once, when speaking of aim and Will, said that at first it is as if we looked across a valley at night, and saw a distant light which we wished to reach. And off we went, thinking it all quite simple. But between this distant light and ourselves lies the whole valley and many other smaller lights and many winding roads. When 'You think of what goodwill means, say, to the Work or to another person, you realize perhaps that it can easily be self-will. Realizing this, you begin to see that Real Will means great meaning and great understanding and great flexibility and a great amount of going against what you thought best. This requires that active patience that the Work demands and which becomes so easy to understand once you cease to have illusions about your self and your knowledge and your right judgments and all the rest of the lies that we try to live by. Patience of this sort is called in the Work the Mother of Will. Now let us try to gather together some of the things said in this paper. People are often fond of "doing things" as they say. This they call will. They like arranging things and so on-doing things "on purpose", as they say. This may certainly be right on that scale. But it so often happens that they miss what is being done for them or do not see what is lying to hand, before their very eyes. They go along one straight line and think it is manifesting Will. On a small scale it is, no doubt. But can you all see that it is possible to miss so much by sticking to one narrow line of self-will and mistaking it for Real Will. It is, of course, self-will-having your own way, being efficient, being first, and so on. But Real Will is different. It is, in taste, very gentle. When you reflect that external considering is realizing the existence of other people and seeing their difficulties, from the realization of your own, and acting accordingly (if you can), then you will understand why I said in the previous paper that Real Will and external considering are closely connected. To see another apart from whatyou want to see and do, is to take in new impressions. To take in new impressions is to have an

increase of meaning-actually, a new octave offorce. To solve a problem apart from self-will, apart from having your own way, to see a solution from a new intake of meaning-this is one of the ideas of Will in the Work. To repeat: "What," I asked Mr. 0. "is Real Will like?" He answered: "It is like seeing the solution to a difficult mathematical problem." That means, it is a force that draws things together into an enlargement of meaning. Recollect that in higher centres there are no opposites, no contradictions. Try to imagine what it would be like to feel the influences of higher centres-in which there are no opposites, no contradictions. Then think of the level of will that we think is Will-that is, self-will. Does it produce opposites on every side? The whole of the Work, the whole pondering and feeling of esoteric teaching, leads to Real Will-that is, Master. So you will perhaps see in a practical way that unless you will this Work from good-will nothing can happen in the attainment of Master. This is why I have emphasized so much the question of inner sincerity to the Work. This is why the Work-octave begins with evaluation of the ideas of the Work and why it starts from the level of Being of a man who has Magnetic Centre. This is the first sign of special Being. INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO COMMENTARY ON WILL (ill) Before the paper is read, I would like to remind you that ideas have a real existence. What are the most powerful forces acting, say, at present? Ideas-and the clash of ideas. Now the ideas of the Work are such that if you have something in you that can receive them, they begin to act on you. Modern psychology does not teach the difference between certain ideas, nor does it understand the reality of ideas. Ancient and mediaeval psychology, as Mr. Ouspensky said, understood better. But certain ideas require long preparation for right contact-including the idea of Master, or Real 'I', or Real Will. First, a definite te.tching, a de.1nite knowledge, is required and must be studied. Every idea is a delicate machine liable to act wrongly if it is wrongly handled, as, say, by False Personality. Unskilled handling of an idea may result in an explosion. Also wrong reasoning, formatory understanding, the literal, logical level, can destroy ideas or turn them into something dangerous. Some ideas can reach to the depth of the soul and leave a trace, even in early life. But a wrong trace may be left. The whole Work is to prepare people for the reception of higher and subtler influences-that is, ideas. Its knowledge must become your knowledge -that is, if you really want the Work. For a very long time, one has to study the Work, make efforts, think of and nourish it with the most genuine parts of oneself. Then one may become aware of being in contact internal!J with its ideas.

COMMENTARY ON WILL III

Every day it is necessary to think about identifying and what it is, and in what forms it is at work in oneself at this minute. It is not a word. It is a psychic activity, very wasteful, continually taking place, something that the Work says must be continually struggled with. We lose force by it. If we knew for certain that there was another and better world and had seen it, we would not be drowned so much by the events of this very imperfect one. If we knew we were in a strange and dangerous country, we would be careful how we acted. Would it not be wonderful to know for certain, like that? By our knowledge and certainty we would be protected from identifying in the way we do with everything and everyone. Intellectual 0 Consciousness Emotional 0 Will Instinct-Moving 0 Attention Since the Emotional Centre has in it the centre of gravity of Will {see diagram) we can realize that identifying is not likely to lead to any contact with Real Will or Master. We are told we really only know the emotional feeling of being identified wi!.h everything and everyone. The Emotional Centre is swamped with identifying. It is not that we identify merely with our negative emotions, but with all such emotions as we have. By this identifying, which sometimes takes the form of a continual sense of worry and anxiety, the right working of the Emotional Centre is prevented, force is continually lost, wrong inner chemistry is set up and wrong connections are made between centres. Whatever we identify with, we are under the power of. But if we had Real Will, if this Master the Work speaks of were sitting in the Carriage and the Driver heard his voice and obeyed him, we would no longer be under the power of what we identify with, but under another power, having nothing to do with being identified. I say, nothing to do with being identified, because when we are identified we are, so to speak, deaf. One cannot, for instance, hear the 'Vork when one is identified. To obey the Master would be to obey the Work. To obey the Work would be to have Will. The Work tells us not to identify-first, with ourselves. Suppose we try, after seeing a little what this command means. A small.part of oneself awakens to the influences of the Work. Of course, this is not yet Real 'I': thi~ is a few 'I's comparable to the stage called Deputy-Steward. Master -Real '1'-Real Will I Steward I Deputy-Steward i The many 'I's' of Personality Now suppose one begins to see more deeply what is meant by struggling against identifying with oneself and the reason for it. Then the matter is no longer a question of obeying something you heard from outside, some commandment, a truth entering by the external senses, but becomes something better understood from within. One begins to perceive the excellence of the Work. It makes an inside connection. Then one is under deeper influences of the V

T ark-that is, higher in the Ray and so more internally perceived. The Ray is internal. This is the direction of Master and Steward. First, Steward: he is deeper insight. He is not external-a command. He understands for himself. He knows. His state is like that which I mentioned at the beginning. He knows there is a better level. He knows it is necessary to walk carefully. The stage called Deputy-Steward does not. For DeputySteward the Vvork still comes from outside, as something taught, something in notebooks, something you are told to do without seeing internally its excellence. If we believe there is nothing else-no higher state, no other meanings, no other levels, no other insights and understandings, no new ways of taking our lives, no other kind of people, no levels in the Universe save this Earth-how can we stop identifying with everything we see? How and why should we seek to draw the force of identifying into Self-Remembering? It has been said that to remember oneself one must have a sense of something superior to oneself. Self-Remembering is a lifting up of oneself to another set of influences. However, this is rarely understood, because people are interested only in life. Still, look at life and think about it for yourselves. The Work starts with the mind, not with the Will. It says certain things. These things refer to the mind at first-to thinking. Have you ever tried to look at life from the ideas of the Work? Everyone at their present age must have noticed that life is not what they expected. Yes-but have you begun to see life from the Work-ideas? The Work is not exactly encouraging about life and one's imagination of it and of oneself but it suggests another direction as possible. This is an important thing to begin to understand. If this Work were about being a greater and vainer success in life I do not see how it could be the Work, which is about coming under new influences-a new neutralizing force, different from the neutralizing force oflife. Shall we have talks on how to be more popular, how to attract more money, how to gain more power? I cannot see that the Work has this direction. Is the Work about that? Some understand the strange direction of the Work from the first, some gradually see it, and some never understand what on earth the whole thing is about but hang on from some insincere personal advantage. The idea of new influences and of coming in contact with them is the centre of the Work. If there were none, the Work would be about nothing. It would be mere nonsense. However, the Work is actually about something real, because higher influences exist and contact with them depends on inner change-not imitated change, not pretended change. This smells. But it is impossible to deceive the Work. When one eventually becomes sensitive to psychological bad smells, they are not a thing of which one particularly likes to become aware. In the function of Will a great deal depends on realizing oneself and seeing from what any momentary will comes. Say that you want to have Will, in some real senseand suppose you know nothing yet of yourself. It will be "own-will" or "self-will"some form of having your own way towards life or other people. You cannot possibly begin to have Real Will as long as it goes in this direction-having more power, more possessions, more this, more that. This is not the direction of Real Will. It cannot work in this direction for Real Will knows nothing of the external world. This is the secret. It comes from the upper triangle which is merely a point in the lower.

Real Will is from the upper part of the diagram of Master, Steward, Deputy-Steward and the many 'l's. It is about Master and Steward. It is about something else. It is not about smoking or sleeping or exercise, or even about another person, however dearly loved. Real Will is about the Work and not about things down here, things and people visible via the senses. So you see that when the ideas of the Work and all its significance, historically speaking, enter into a man and begin to touch his emotional understanding, he is more likely to begin to feel traces of Real 'I' than a person who takes the Work externally, as a thing to listen to and to try to do because one is told to. In the latter case there cannot be Real Will because Real Will lies deeply and not on the surface. When we think deeply, we move inwards-towards emotional and intellectual divisions of centres. Whenever we move inwards meaning increases. As said, it is moving upwards in the sense of the Ray. As you know, the density of vibrations increases in passing up the Ray. Where there was one, there are a million. Now Real Will cannot impinge on such crude meanings as we ordinarily live by nor can it be negative in the sense of merely not doing something. Where we saw one thing before, we begin, by self-observation, by inner sincerity, and by much thought, to see a hundred meanings. Again, where we thought we knew, we see that we did not. What is experience? Is it not realizing one does not know, not negatively, but because one sees so much more than formerly? This seems a loss. But it is not a loss. Internally one feels loosened. But nothing could be better. How else can anything new enter-and how indeed can Real 'I' enter when one is tightly shut up in one's own narrow ideas which so soon form a grave for so many?