How do we create being, and what is will?

P. D. Ouspensky said, Only when one is conscious does one have unity, will, and the ability to love.

In my own experience, working with the Fourth Way for half a lifetime, moments of will come from outside of our normal sense of self. They come even outside of our being (our collected moments of presence and consciousness in our lives). From a spiritual point of view, will is an act of God in our lives. Something higher tells us how to act, and we respond without knowing.

Surrendering the False for the Real

To have will in our lives, something false must be surrendered. This can be an illusion of control, the normal sense of being able to do and pride at being the doer, and a false sense of unity. The seeker experiences true humility upon realizing deeply her true condition. Without higher consciousness, we live the life of a lower self that lives most of its time in imagination, directed by wilfulness and the law of accident.

The lower self is willful – the higher Self is conscious will.

Whatever stands between you and your Self, let it go.

                                                                                               – Robert Burton

Perhaps an example of will entering my life happened to me some year ago. My 21-year-old son with schizophrenia took his life, because his life had become unbearable. The shock was deep and penetrating. An aim occupied several years of my life to intently focus on researching the disease and a cure for schizophrenia. I wrote a book, co-authored by the doctor who had developed a treatment that might represent a cure. I made a documentary film with interviews with the patients and family members who had been cured from the disease. There was no sense of ‘I‘ or ownership in these efforts. The result was the transformation of suffering of my son’s death. The aim was an act of God in my life.

Following a Higher Direction

By trusting and following higher will or direction, being is created. That is, a separate existence from the lower self is created that continues to live and develop into our true Selves. This is the aim of all Fourth Way teachings and practices: to evolve from a sleeping lower self being into a conscious Self having unity, will, and love.