Monday 27 March 2017

How is our will related to our purpose? (William Arkle)

The consciousness of our real self is largely beyond the understanding of our more familiar 'personality self'. 

At its most fundamental level, the real will is divine; and at this level the purpose of the real will mixes perfectly with the purposes of other divine beings. 

The real will is the manifesting of this already-harmonised divine purpose throughout the lower levels of creation, and eventually right down to the physical level. 

Thus our real self witnesses itself as it becomes more fully mature and at the same time helps to perfect the purposes of others. The real self has this power in it as a part of our divine heritage. 

All nature responds to the proper command of the real will of the real self. But the will does not command 'willfully' - it achieves command by being more fully what it is. Thus the 'sound' of the quality of its individual being mingles more loudly with the creative sound of God. 

What we usually call 'will' is actually more like 'desire power' and 'idea power', through which our lower self focuses on things it feels it wants or needs. 

But what we feel as a need in the deepest sense is not something we can 'make a decision about', we just pretend that it is a decision. Our real will has already-decided, and is something we can only be either true-to, or untrue-to: the real will is not something we are in a position to use.

Edited - for clarity, punctuation, emphasis and language - from the Summary of chapter sixteen - The Will; from A Geography of Consciousness, by William Arkle, 1974.

Notes:

1. The true individual nature of each person is divine - that is, it belongs to the nature and function of the absolute - as a consequence of all men and women being God's children.

2. Therefore, we are, each of us, directly in touch with the power and purpose of the absolute, with the divine nature - at least potentially; simply because some of the divine nature is within us.

3. However, although the divine is active within us; we are initially (personally and culturally - in childhood and in early tribal societies) unconscious of the divine within ourselves. It affects us - but we are not aware of the fact.

4. As human consciousness evolves towards higher (ie. including more self-aware) levels - we get to a 'dead centre' of total self-consciousness cut off fro awareness of the divine. This state has been called the 'dead centre' of consciousness, or the consciousness soul - it is the adolescence of human personal and cultural evolution - a necessary transition phase. This position must be moved-through before we can become actively aware of the divine within us; that is the actual experience of the divine within us (not merely the abstract fact of their being a divine element in us). 

5. But, even before we are actively aware of the divine within-us; it may be at work in an unconscious way - expressing itself (or at least trying to express itself) as may be evident implicitly. For example, our behaviours may be shaped against our conscious will - our superficial and intellectually- or socially-moulded plans and schemes may be self-sabotaged; or synchronicities may channel us in certain directions.

6. The real self - that is, the divine self, is attuned-with the divine level of action. Each person is, in this way, an essential part of the divine plan of creation. However, to participate; he or she must freely opt-in to this plan, on the basis of love and awareness of the divine plan (made possible by the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ).

7. At the highest and deepest level our Life is a destiny - and indeed an unique destiny - yet that destiny is a gift, and as-such it may be declined.

8. At the deepest and highest level the true 'will'  of our true self is not chosen by us - because only at this divine level - in which the wills of many beings are harmonised.

9. Thus, because of this high-level harmonisation; the will of any one individual cannot 'sabotage' the divine plan of creation by any act or will at a lower level of consciousness. Each individual can either join in the work of creation, bringing his or her unique nature to the open-ended task; or he or she may decline to participate - leaving a gap in the original divine plan, and causing a change in the unfolding of creation.

10. The divine plan cannot be sabotaged in its character and aim (the specific plan is optional, non-mandatory, freely chosen); but it can be changed in its specifics (the plan is not a blueprint but evolutionary, pluralist, endlessly creative).