Stolen Fire: The Principle of Will
“Will in itself is unconscious and is merely a blind, irresistible impulse — so it still manifests in the inorganic and in the vegetative nature of its laws, as well as in the vegetative part of our own life. But through the world of representation that has arisen for its service it gains knowledge of its willing; it recognizes what the object of that willing is: it turns out to be nothing other than this world, life, just as it is.”
Schopenhauer
Living on the threshold between the world of boundless unity and the world of extreme differentiation, any individual mind preserves its integrity, not dissolving into either abyss, only to the extent that it possesses the balancing principle of will — the capacity to differentiate a homogeneous field of feeling and to synthesize a differentiated intelligence.
Each of the Principles of the Psychocosm — Intelligence and Desire — becomes a living agent only in harmonious conjunction with the other; taken separately, it remains merely an abstract system of possibilities. And this conjunction is brought about precisely by the unfolding third principle — will.
Any conjunction of the poles of a biner necessarily requires the existence of a third active principle, for if they were to merge directly they would mutually extinguish the potential differences and in the end yield zero.
The development of the individual mind in a given life unfolds according to the scheme of the dynamic quaternary: the principle of will affirms the existence of the biner intelligence and feelings and the concrete individual volitional center; the will of the latter then directly participates in the actualization of the mind’s potencies, doing so only through the channels of intelligence and feelings.
The principle of will differs from the principles of intelligence and feelings in its primacy and concreteness. Will is not merely a category of mind but its fundamental, primordial property and manifestation. Although the activity of spirit may be tinged with various hues, in its primordial nature it is will; herein lies the primacy and concreteness of this principle.
At the same time the will begins the process of the actual unfolding of the potencies of the Monad, and brings it to completion, and it is precisely in its transition from one state to another that the entire essence of that actualization resides.
The third principle of the Psychocosm is the triumphant rhythm of victorious struggle. Across time and space it saturates every, even the smallest particle of the mind with an unremitting striving to unfold its individuality and at the same time to imbue it with a sense of transmundane and universal unity. It implants in it the desire not to be content with the gifts of only Apollo or Dionysus, but to eternally crave their mutual completion in permeating unity. Everywhere it awakens the knowledge of the opposite and draws one to overcome ever new kinds of biners of being.
But in the very accomplishment of struggle the inner meaning of the principle of will is revealed — the principle of overcoming dualities — together with its transmundane purpose and its highest justification. Every indeterminate duality is a source of suffering, and every neutralization of a biner is the transfiguration of suffering into a source of creative energy, the transformation of a mutually neutralizing and mutually paralyzing system of opposites into a driving potential difference. Ever calling to struggle, the principle of will draws toward the overcoming of the world’s suffering.
Will is the source and driving force of life; it is at once the immediate unfolding of the potencies of being and the unifying principle of mind. Will is the creative manifestation of substance, primarily calling the cosmos into being and concretely performing the cosmic process. The category of will unfolds in the mind of each particular being insofar as it realizes in itself this drive to self‑awareness in creation. Only through this active‑creative manifestation do both its own existence as a subjective volitional center and the realization of its creative impulses within the subject‑object relations of mind and its potencies become possible.
It is clear that in this form the principle of will completely and actively contradicts the role of a victim that the Supreme Predator assigns to any of the embodied beings. Hence the world so hinders the development of will, yet the will of the Magus who overcomes this resistance of the “natural course of things” becomes all the stronger.
The revelation of distinctiveness and the growing strength of will in a particular mind unfolds in parallel with its actualization of individuality within itself alongside the active discovery of its place in the all‑unity of the cosmos. It is precisely in the category of will that the process of unfolding individuality and creative conjunction with the world‑process in its broadest sense is accomplished. Accordingly, the stronger the will, the more pronounced the individuality, and conversely — the development of individuality is accompanied by the strengthening of will.
Hello! Can self-discipline be considered a way to develop willpower? Or is willpower developed in a different way?
“Of course, unless self-discipline is self-denial.”
Once a student came to the Mage, asking to be taught Magic. The teacher hesitated for a long time before agreeing to take him in, but the student persisted.
Then the Mage took him to a pond where fish were swimming. He took a piece of bread and began to crumble it, throwing the crumbs into the pond. The fish eagerly gathered in a school and ate everything.
After this, the Mage turned to the supplicant and asked, “Are you ready to sacrifice yourself like that piece of bread?”
The essence of the Mages is to scatter themselves into tiny pieces, but at a certain moment, they come together again. Mages live separately to avoid exposing themselves and other Mages, but do they know about their parts? Is it not time to stop developing individuality and to gather their parts into a Single New Whole, only to scatter it again, or perhaps to create something new and more interesting than what has been lived? The Mage is not the final step, but merely the first.
The student did not understand him and left.
Your philosophers, scientists, and preachers have proposed a multitude of options, even to the point of denying will and the destruction of one’s own “self.” Now you see that they were all wrong. There is no justification for weakness. The essence of evolution lies in control, control over the mechanisms of the flesh. The goal of evolution is to become like the gods.
When a person is happy, life appears to them as something self-evidently good: if there is a struggle, it ends in victory. However, when one’s soul is weighed down by fatigue and failures, everything seems like a deception, a rigged roulette set up for loss. Moreover, both states seem, on the surface, to be objective and absolutely convincing.
However, the answer is now obvious. Hopelessness arises from a decrease in life energy. But if it is possible to stop this drain through the effort of concentration, then the internal pressure of consciousness can also be elevated with a similar effort. The only thing that is required is to eradicate the very habit of yielding to depletion.
From my observations in the reality where we all live, it seems to me that the ego constantly wants to resemble the gods by seeking an external path, which is why it continually loses at a game of roulette in which it is impossible to win at all, even though sometimes many manage to hit a decent jackpot.
The essence is that a devolution has been happening for a long time, if we consider a longer period than the commonly known one. Evolution is necessary at each stage of the development of certain qualities, both in biology and in subtle bodies. The consciousness that has not developed in an individual up to a certain point of assembly is “eaten away” to avoid cluttering a specific area of the development of collective consciousness.
Here is the translation to English:
“It is obvious that without the decline of life energy, most mortals cannot obtain anything. The bowl of life ‘good’ is systematically renewed. Moreover, the expression of will is manifested in the fact that a Mage should know when and to whom, and until what moment, to release the power.”
(Please note that the link provided appears to be a URL, and I cannot access or verify its content.)
I understood that the manifestation of will is to work on oneself… in other words, to express oneself… to make oneself a person, rather than to drift aimlessly along the current.
I had similar feelings while working with tarot. However, regarding the “feeling-mind,” they generated a creative impulse, while will stood alongside them, but in relation to creativity, it was secondary.
No matter how much you feed a mage, he will still look to the heavens…:)
To grasp, to absorb, to live,
To let this moment pass through yourself,
To root in every image,
To light life with a new spark…
Again enshrined in passion, I fly in a rush
Driven by dreams, I burst into the game
Filled to the brim, I wish to burn
I want to sing the world of light with verses
A sip of renewal, living keys
A moment of awakening, the flight of beauty
I do not know what to do, what to write about
But the desire beckons me, I want to continue
A poem longs to happen, desires, flies…
A heartfelt Sun nourishes the world with Life…
The poem knows that with Life, it will not be forgotten
By pouring into the poet, it intoxicates with Ecstasy.
The light has cleansed reason, giving a moment of purity
The Fire of Life-creating Dream does not extinguish
Dreams of experiencing Universal Love.
Which eternally lives in the poet’s blood.
On the dance of the lover let your gaze fall and see
How much he has known, The Lights of Her Kisses.