Self-Development and the Way to Power | Page 8

that time arrives he generously extends it to eight o'clock. The hour, of
course, is unimportant. But whatever may have been the hour that was
previously determined upon the keeping of that determination is of the
greatest importance and the failure to put the resolution into effect is
evidence of the possession of a weak will.
Now all this proves that such persons have very little real will power,
for they permit the desire for trifling bodily comfort to set their plans
aside. Such persons are still slaves to the physical body and weakly
permit it to upset carefully outlined programs. They are not yet ready
for good work in occult development, where real success can come
only to those who have steadfast strength of purpose.

People who fail to assert the will and bring the body into complete
subjection probably little realize what a price they pay for a trifling
physical pleasure; for until we voluntarily take the right course we have
not escaped the evolutionary necessity of compulsion and may
reasonably expect sooner or later to be thrown into an environment that
will apply the stimulus we still need to arouse the will. It may be
unpleasant while it is occurring, but what better fortune could befall an
indolent man than to find himself in circumstances where his poverty
or other necessity compels him to subordinate bodily comfort to the
reign of the will? Nature provides the lessons we require. We may
wisely co-operate with her and thus escape the sting. But so long as we
need the lesson we may be quite sure that it awaits us.
All the business activities of the world are developing the will. Through
them will and desire work together in evolving latent powers. Desire
arouses will power. A man desires wealth and the desire plunges him
into business activities and stimulates the will by which he overcomes
all the difficulties that lie in his way. Ardent desire for an education
arouses the will of the student and the awakened will triumphs over
poverty and all other barriers between him and the coveted diploma. If
a man stands at a lower point in evolution where he has not the
ambition for intellectual culture nor for fame nor for wealth, but only
the desire for shelter and food, still that primitive desire forces him into
action; and while his will power will be evolved only in proportion to
the strength of the desire that prompts him, it must nevertheless grow.
Instead of rising at a certain hour because the will decrees it he may
rise only because he knows his livelihood depends upon it. But he is
learning the same lesson--the overcoming of the inertia of the physical
body--albeit it is compulsory instead of voluntary. But all this is
unconscious evolution. It is the long, slow, painful process. It is the
only way possible for those who are not wise enough to co-operate with
nature in her evolutionary work and thus rise above the necessity of
compulsion.
How, then, may we develop the will when it is so weak that we are still
the slaves of nature instead of the masters of destiny? Will power, like
any other faculty, may be cultivated and made strong. To do this one

may plan in advance what he will do under certain circumstances and
then carry out the program without evasion or hesitation when the time
arrives. His forethought will enable him to do this if he does not
undertake things too difficult at first. Let him resolve to do at a certain
hour some small thing which, in the ordinary course of his duties, he
sees is necessary but unpleasant; and then firmly resolve in advance
that exactly at the appointed time he will do it. Thus fortified before the
trial comes he will probably go successfully through with it. After once
deciding upon the time there should be no postponement and not an
instant's delay when the moment arrives.
One of the things we have to learn is to overcome the inertia of the
physical body and many people are not really awake on the physical
plane because they have not done so. To a certain extent they are
"dead" within the physical body for it is a condition much nearer death
than that supposed death of one who no longer has the physical body.
The inert mass of physical matter in which such people are functioning
leaves them only half alive until they have aroused themselves from its
domination. They remind one of the lines:
"Life is a mystery, death is a doubt, And some folks are dead While
they're walking about!"
This inertia of the physical body that so often renders people nearly
useless is very largely a matter of habit and can be