Spiritual concepts
Will
It may be helpful to have the Model of the Mind open whilst you read this definition.
The Will is a part of our Conscious self. The Will makes the final decision on the course of action to take – the next activity. But it does not do so based on Reason alone. It uses additional input including
- the Emotions at the time [known from our Perceptions]
- all the messages from our Nervous system, Autonomic system and 5 senses [known from Perceptions]
- the Objectives the person has - the Desires and Obligations
- our Personality [the ego]
- the Threats and Opportunities [known from our Perceptions]
- Memories extracted from Memory
- The Will also gets input indirectly [via the Perceptions] from the Composer.
We see a demonstration of the effects of the different priorities that the Will places on these inputs in people’s Character.
From the decision of the will, two things may happen:
- Either an activity is triggered, so we run, we jump, we think, we learn, we do something
- Or because we can’t do that thing now we store it away and it then becomes an Obligation or an unfulfilled Desire. Both of these are Objectives, thus what we can see is that the will creates objectives – the ‘to do list’.
So we have a ‘control cycle’ with objectives being input [what we still need or want to do] and objectives being output [what we still haven’t done that we want or need to do]
So when does an activity become an objective and when doesn’t it?
One very important , but not the only, personal driver to objective setting is whether the end result would give us pleasure or pain. We may plan to do something to avoid pain or suffering or plan to do something to achieve happiness – pleasure. Our pleasure [happiness] and our pain [suffering] help to determine our objectives.
But I can also think of any number of examples where the motivation is not personal but much wider. In fact, it would seem that the pleasure motive is still there, but it is obtained by seeing an objective achieved which affects far more people or creatures than ourselves. In other words we have set objectives for the wider benefit of humanity and the world about us.
For some background added interest on features of the Will see
Observations
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- Albertus Magnus – On union with God - The nature of ecstasy and union
- Aristotle - De Anima - Perceptions and the soul
- Aristotle - History of Animals - Tree of Life
- Aristotle - On Sleep and Wakefulness - Dreams
- Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana - The evolving ego
- Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana - The Personality
- Balzac, Honoré de - Louis Lambert - 02 Will
- Balzac, Honoré de - Louis Lambert - 06 Spacetime
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - Memory and Perception
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - The cyclical nature of Perceptions
- Bergson, Henri - Time and Free Will - Will
- Beuys, Joseph - Honey Pump 03
- Beuys, Joseph - Honey Pump 05
- Bhagavad Gita - Strung like pearls on a thread
- Blake, William - He sunk down into the sea a pale white corse
- Blake, William - Love seeketh not itself to please
- Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad
- Brooke, Rupert - Lost into God
- Bruno, Giordano – Cause, principle and unity - 02 The Second Dialogue
- Chesterton, G K - Orthodoxy - What drives change
- Chuang Tzu - from The Inner Law
- Damasio, Professor Antonio - Reason and emotion
- Damasio, Professor Antonio - Will and Command
- Descartes, Rene - I think therefore I am
- Descartes, Rene - Modes of willing are all caused by some movement of the spirit
- Descartes, Rene - On desires and the ego
- Dr Crichton - The Lady who was nearly buried alive
- Dr J C Barker - Sudden death, asthma and the need for the will to live
- Dr Jean Piaget - The Language and Thought of the Child - Will
- Eleanor C Merry - The Flaming Door - Comments on the Pistis Sophia
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Intellect - On inspiration
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Over-soul - And the Will
- Frost, Robert - We disparage reason
- Gnostic Gospels - Philip - The dark powers imagine
- Herbert, George - Heaven
- Hinton, Charles - The Fourth Dimension – Consciousness, the Higher spirit and Destiny
- Hume, David - Decision making and what influences the Will
- James, William - The Varieties of Religious Experience - Emotion and decision making
- James, William - The Varieties of Religious Experience - Willing vs wishing
- Kant, Immanuel - Critique of Pure Reason - How to use the knowledge gained?
- Kant, Immanuel - Quotes - What is Life?
- Katha Upanishad
- Krishnamurti - The Network of Thought - Fear, the pursuit of pleasure, and the burden of greed and pain
- Leibniz - The Monadology - 02
- Letting go - and the power of the Will to decide the time of death
- Master Naong - Song of the Pure Land
- Meister Eckhart - Selected writings - Question all beliefs
- Meister Eckhart - Selected writings - The ego is bound up with fasting, holding vigil and ascetic practises
- Meister Eckhart - Selected writings - The wayless Way, where the Sons of God lose themselves
- Michaux, Henri - Plume
- Myōe – Truly (such a thing as] one's own body does not [really] exist
- Neumann, John von - The design for a computer
- Newton, Sir Isaac - The Pipes of Pan - Laws of motion
- Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morals - The ripest fruit is the sovereign individual
- Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra - Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion?
- Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra - As yet humanity hath not a goal
- Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra - Unspoken and unrealised hath my highest hope remained
- Nightingale, Florence - The meeting with Madre Santa Colomba
- Plotinus - Eighth Tractate - On emotion and will
- Plotinus - The Enneads - A powerful frame, a healthy constitution
- Pordage, John - On God
- Pordage, John - The Deity is not solitary or unattended
- Pordage, John - The simplified spirits
- Proust, Marcel - In Search of Lost Time Volume II - Decisions
- Reid, Gall, Mill, Bain and Hack-Tuke – On the nature of the Will
- Rumi - Divani Shamsi Tabriz - Twere better that the spirit
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - Losing yourself in perceptions
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - Minding your own business
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - On motives
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - Reducing desires
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - Taking pleasure in the beautiful
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - The Innocence of plants
- Spinoza, Baruch - Ethics - On the nature of God
- Spinoza, Baruch - Ethics - Will and free will
- Steiner, Rudolf - Nature spirits - The misuse of power
- Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Infinite - Objectives of creation
- Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Infinite - Where is the intellect?
- Tennyson, Alfred Lord - Will - O well for him whose will is strong
- The Cloud of unknowing
- The Cloud of unknowing
- The Sutra of Hui-Neng - Cities and castles
- Tholey, Paul and LaBerge, Stephen - Perspectives of the Dream Figures
- Thomas Otway - Capture 1709
- Thousands of Golden Important Prescriptions for Emergency; Scroll no 27, Temperament cultivation
- Tyrrell, G N M - The Personality of Man – Functions, the subconscious and the autonomic system
- Watson, Lyall - Desert Locusts
- William Seabrook - Nago-ba metaphysics and the nature of the universe
- Yeats, Georgie - A Vision - 2 Meditation
- Yeats, Georgie - A Vision - On masks
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book I - Sutras 01 to 51
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book III - Sutras 01 to 55
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book IV - 02. The Atman