by Rev. Jim Fuller
Among the “12 Powers” that Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore describes in his book of the same title is the power of will. Fillmore calls it the executive power of the mind. His chapter on will opens with the quote “The will is the man.” While we may think of willfulness as something that needs to be put aside or overcome as we move along our spiritual path Fillmore might disagree. Can we be willful and still make spiritual progress or is complete surrender needed? As it turns out this is not really an either or question. Yes we do need to surrender to Higher Mind and be open to inspired ideas arising from God Mind. And yes we do need to utilize our power of will to help us focus our attention on Higher Mind and to bring the inspired ideas we receive into manifestation.
At the most human level having a strong dependable will to help us do what is healthful and helpful can be a very good thing. Recently a friend commented that some days he had to make himself get up and go do what he needed to do. We have all had those days. There are days when I must engage full will-power to do my morning stretches, take an exercise walk or find time for a bike ride. And just like exercising my muscles each time I exercise my will for these simple but helpful things it grows a bit stronger. Years ago I had to develop enough strength of will to be able to sit and meditate. Many mornings I simply didn’t want to or I would tell myself I didn’t have the time. After years of willing myself to get up in time to meditate and then to actually sit down and do it, my will to meditate is now quite strong. My will to exercise is not quite as strong but is improving as I exercise it more.
Our power of will is our innate ability to direct our attention, intention and energy toward a desired objective. At the level of the body we can use will-power to get ourselves to exercise, eat better foods or do other positive and healthful things. At the level of the mind we can use will-power to turn our thoughts away from criticism, fear or anger and redirect them toward appreciation, compassion and connection. We can use positive affirmations to help us connect with positive mental energy to strengthen our will. An example might be: I am compassionate and connected; I appreciate each person and each part of life. We can also use will-power to direct our thoughts and lives God-ward, to strengthen our commitment to Spirit. Through the power of our will we can direct our lives as we intellectually choose… or as we are spiritually inspired and led.
Charles Fillmore’s goal for working with our 12 Powers was to activate each and have them all working together for the evolution of mind and consciousness. Each power has unique gifts to offer to the unified whole of our being. Fillmore saw a close link between the power of will, or will-power as I am calling it, and our powers of imagination and understanding. Imagination for him was our ability to imagine or image ideas from God Mind with our mind. We might think of our power of imagination as an inner antenna that allows us to pick up God-thoughts and translate them into images or ideas which we can then begin working with. In this antenna analogy our power of will is like the radio or television tuner that allows us to tune in a single channel or idea. Once the mind is directed toward and connected with an inspired image or idea it will naturally begin to bring that idea into manifestation.
The same is true with the other power that Fillmore saw as closely related to will, our power of understanding. Once the mind has perceived an inspired image or idea and we begin using our power of will to direct our attention and energy toward that idea, greater spiritual understanding and clarity about the idea and related ideas will begin to arise. The focus here is not on understanding intellectually but understanding things from a spiritual or divine perspective. Again, this spiritual understanding will naturally arise as we use our power of will to direct attention toward higher or inspired ideas and images we find in our minds.
We each already have the power of will. It is built into our mind and being. How we choose to think about this power and how we use it is totally up to us. We can deny that we have any will-power at all which may make it seem to be missing for us. We might acknowledge it and then put it into the service of our human thinking, using it to achieve personal goals. While this is a somewhat limited use of our divine will-power it is where most people begin. We can also use our power of will to accomplish things that we or others think are for the good of humanity; perhaps some of these actually will be. The potential pitfall of these choices is that we, from our limited human thinking, are directing our spiritually powerful minds and that can sometimes lead to problems. The highest use of will-power of which I am aware is to use it to direct our attention toward Higher Mind or God Mind and to keep our mental energies focused on the ideas that arise from that Source. This will take some practice and persistence (another good use of will) but keeping the mind directed toward spiritual goals and higher truth seems to be what our power of will is truly intended for.