Willpower emerges only after we have laid out a plan of action through determination and have initiated some form of subconscious concentration. In a sense we only tangibly feel that drive towards achieving our goals that we know as willpower when we have clarity in our mind of how and when we are going to achieve our goals. Willpower evolves from inspiration and determination as a new kind of energy that is neither inspiration nor determination. Lets explore this fact deeper as it is important to understand the difference between the feeling of inspiration, determination and willpower.

Inspiration is a very buoyant and profound energy. It is a very enjoyable form of spiritual energy. It allows us to see possibilities of a future that is usually an improvement from our current circumstance. Through this feeling we can conjure up a vision of the future that we can work towards. Inspiration makes us feel exhilarated, though it is not a very practical state of mind to be in when we are actually working towards our goals. When we are working towards our goals what we need above all is concentration instead of the expanded consciousness of inspiration.

Determination, in a sense, brings down to earth the energy of inspiration. However in the planning stage of determination, the energy that will eventually become willpower is still in a profound state. This is why planning, even if tedious, still has a measure of exhilaration, though not to the extent of during initial inspiration. When planning is over, determination moves to the next stage which is subconscious concentration. At this point we are nurturing the final evolution of energy into willpower. During subconsicous concentration, we do not stimulate much if any, spontaneous emotional feelings as during inspiration and planning. Instead we are actively using the energy released by inspiration for the particular project to concentrate the mind. Concentration is an effort which requires mental energy and the best way to invest the energy released from inspiration is to use it for subconscious concentration. Willpower finally emerges from the depths of our subconsious mind as a result of our subconscious concentration effort. (Subconscious concentration is the subject of the first seminar in this series. Click here to read this seminar's content.)

At this point with all the necessary elements in place, which are the plan and a subcouscious concentration routine willpower arises automatically. We do not, actually we cannot, need to force willpower to emerge, it arises as that feeling that is the anti-thesis of lethargy, procrastination and laziness. It keeps one undeterred by setbacks or challenges, it relishes effort and it is able to draw from the spiritual intelligence of ones soul to come up with creative solutions and ingenuity. In a sense when willpower arises for a particular project, it will most definitely materialize unless one unravels the original processes of desire and determination deliberately which is not an easy task. This means if one decides not to want the goal anymore or decide not to follow the plan as set, willpower will vanish as mysteriously as it emerged.

Amongst the 3D's (Desire, Determination and Discipline), discipline is the most simple element. Essentially it is following through on a plan. In fact, discipline does not play any role in either the cause (the role of desire) or stimulation (the role of determination) of willpower. Discipline, interestingly enough, is used to reign in willpower. However for any project to be successful, discipline is as important as the other 'Ds'. Disciplines main role is managing the powerful force of willpower. Before we get into the important subject of managing willpower, it is important that I share the spiritual understanding of discipline.

In my training with my guru in his monastery, he had never made discipline a subject to learn. As far as he was concerned discipline should be most natural or effortless to follow. If someone found discipline difficult then the problem did not lie in the fact the the disciple was not disciplined, rather it showed that he either did not understand the reason for it, or his goals were not inline with the goals that the discipline was designed to eventually achieve.

This perspective comes from the understanding of the workings of willpower. As we have explored in seminars past, willpower is the natural consequence of inspiration and subconscious concentration. This means when it comes to the implementation of a project, the drive (or willpower) to follow the plan should be natural. Therefore the discipline to follow through on the plan of time management should be effortless. Discipline is not required to stimulate willpower, it only paces willpower.

If discipline requires effort and seems to be hard to follow, either the person doesn't really desire the goal, or the planning is flawed somewhere, or there is no effort to concentrate the subconscious. From the spiritual perspective discipline should not be forced, nor does it need to be cultivated. What needs to be cultivated is desire and subconscious concentration. If these elements are cultivated there is no question of following a discipline, it will be so natural that it is second nature. If they are neither in place nor cultivated, discipline will be like fighting against nature.

Unfortunately the common understanding of discipline is that it needs to be enforced. For instance, 'to be disciplined' means to be punished. A disciplinarian is a tough persons who wields punishment. The general understanding of discipline, tends to be shallow and often when the problem with a person is discipline, the symptom is treated rather than the cause, which often ends up to be counter productive.

Thus it is important to remember that in its role as an element of willpower, discipline's role is managing this potent force. It is not about fighting against our nature to follow a required routine. Thus this seminar is not going to discuss cultivating discipline since from the spiritual perspective such a concept does not exist.

Willpower is a crucial element in any of life's undertakings, whether it is for short term or long term goals, spiritual or materialistic. It is logical to surmise that the more willpower we have the better. However willpower is a potent energy, and when we are working towards a goal there is the possibility of being consumed by effort to the point that we can neglect other areas of life. In this concern discipline limits willpower by time. (We will call this The Time Limit)

When we master the ability of stimulating willpower as and when we need it we must also be careful of not taking too much on. Willpower is limitless, it is not inhibited by our personal capabilities, the more we want, the more we have to use. However being human, we do have biological and ablilty limitations, this of course varies from one person to another. From this point of view discipline will limit willpower by personal resources. (This is The Resource Limit)

These are limitations on willpower which we will look in detail as the seminar progresses. Apart from these, effort for a project also needs brakes (or time-outs) every so often, especially when working with long term goals. This is part of project management, which involves planning and discipline to take into consideration changes that may occur in the course of an endeavour. If we did not have these brakes in effort willpower can lead us blindly on a rigidly planned path that may no longer be valid, thus wasting effort. (This is Project Management)

This is why discipline is the pace setter. This is possibly be different from what you might have expected from this seminar. Again, we are not concerned with cultivating discipline, the reason for which has been explained earlier. Nor are we concerned with generating or stimulating willpower, which was taken care of in the previous two seminars. (Click Here to read the first seminar on willpower. Click Here to read the second seminar on willpower.)

Instead, discipline in the context of willpower is about managing life itself. Again we come back to the spiritual concept of balance in life. While we are working on heartfelt goals, we want to be sure all the other areas of our life are neither neglected nor do they digress because all our time and resource has been diverted into one goal. If we neglect this balance, from a spiritual point of view our efforts would be equal to taking one step forward and a few steps back. Thus managing willpower is about being careful and responsible with this potent energy-willpower-within us.

The time and resource limits are about the same. The time limit is based on the fact that there are only 24 hours a day, and within this time limit we need to incorporate life's chores that cannot be ignored such as eating and sleeping. This limit also dictates that we must spend time in all areas of life such as recreation and time with loved ones to maintain balance in life.

The resource limit is more flexible in that it has to do with our ability. The time it takes to accomplish a task is based on our abilities. For instance if a task demands that we remain concentrated for a certain amount of time a day to keep to our plan, than our ability to remain concentrated, which differs from one person to another, will be a limit. This limit can of course be improved, though that will require training.

It is very important to consider these limits carefully when planning a project. Otherwise over-ambition will be a stumbling block. Honesty in assessing oneself and others within a group (in a group project) in determining their skill set or ability is required for this. In this way time can also be incorporated within a project to acquire skills or improve personal resource based skills. Some examples of resource limits that can be improved are concentration, memory, language, communication and pratical skills.

There are resource limits however that cannot or should not be tempered with. These are mainly biological limits. For instance one of the most common example of trying to tamper with biological limits is reducing sleep to gain more time. Have you ever sacrificed sleep to study or do work late into the night despite having had a full day of activity? At times, due to circumstances, these situations are unavoidable and to an extent our body can cope with it. However if we make a habit of this and do it day in and day out, holding on to the perspective that we will do what we must do despite the cost to ourselves, certainly if we have willpower we can push very hard, to the point that we can even manage sleep deprivation, but then we will hit the resource limit. We will reach the point where the mind may be willing, but the body is not. At this point we will usually fall ill, which if seen from an overview may be more detrimental to an undertaking in the long run. This is what it means by taking one step forward, but unfortunately because of mismanagement of the time or resource limits we end up taking few steps back, erasing much of the hard work we had already put in.

This is why it is important to make a good plan and use discipline to stick to it by making sure we do not go overboard with our effort. If we go overboard with effort and continually break the time and resource limit, we will eventually have to pay back, usually harshly, for the neglected parts of our life. Symptoms of these range from family tensions to falling ill. Chronic long term illness can also result from continually breaking these limits. Thus care must be taken when considering these limits and they must not be underestimated and taken seriously. Enough sleep, maintaining healthy eating habits, exercising, having recreation and time with loved ones are part of life resources that should not be broken as a rule. Though only rarely under unusual circumstances, if need be we can push close to these limits, but after that, time to recoup the resources must incorporated.

A lesser, though sustainable effort always proves more rewarding and less painful than occasional big bursts of intense effort. The 'slow and steady wins the race' moral of the rabbit and the tortoise story is a good example to this concept. Though I would add, slow and steady wins the race and can enjoy the winning more than the exhausted fast and intense.

Up to this point in this seminar on discipline what we have been exploring is more or less common sense. We have just been looking a little deeper into those concepts. Project management may sound like a rather cooperate topic, more for a board room meeting than a spiritual settings, but again here you will see the influence of my guru.

My guru used to say that if people behaved in their home like how they behaved in their workplace, that is, professionally following a code of ethics, there would be less family problems. He used to say in a workplace it is considered wrong and rude to shout at colleagues even if you are angry. There are consequences for such behaviour, sometimes resulting in job termination. However at home the same professional is free to do whatever they want to their loved ones, even be rude and shout.

This is my guru, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. He instilled in his disciples there there should be professionalism in all departments of life, not just in ones profession. He went to the extent of teaching us to plan for spiritual enlightenment. He even created a whole new language for meditation that aided in this planning. The language, called shum, allowed us to create systematic meditative goals to achieve, chart our progress and plan for the future.

Making a project out of life and spiritual goals might seem that it would make life rather rigid or regimental, but on the contrary it actually makes life more enjoyable, secure and interestingly enough more spontaneous and flexible. After all my guru also often said "life must be lived joyously". Everything he taught us revolved revolved around this central concept.

Gurudeva, my guru, would say all creative process starts with an impulse, then there is a pulse, which is a steady beat and finally you end up with the manifestation of creation. Before he became a spiritual guru, Gurudeva used to be a dancer. When he taught us dancing he would use this impulse, pulse, creation philosophy to teach us. To break our shyness of dancing, he would tell us that there was no right or wrong in dancing. All you have to do is to concentrate on the music, wait for the impulse to move, which was the desire to dance, but don't dance yet, he would instruct. Catch the pulse of the music, meaning get with its beat. Once the beat is steady in the mind, then move, he would instruct. He said if we followed this method, then our dance which is the creation (or manifestation) would be beautiful to behold as it was in harmony with the music.

My guru also applied this same principle to projects. He taught that all projects started with an impulse, that is the desire. From the impulse will result action to obtain the object of desire. There are two ways to go about action, one is confused and haphazard, that is without planning or forethought. The other is to create a pulse out of the impulse. This is to create a steady beat of action, set in time. This is called planning. With a beat in place, creation or final manifestation is guaranteed. Not only that, the process of creation will be beautiful to behold, just as dancing, it would be in harmony with the rest of our life. In Hindu Cosmoslogy this is also how the process Creation issues from God–Impulse, Pulse, Creation.

Impulse, pulse and creation is also related to the evolution of willpower. Impulse results in inspiration from desire. The the desires has to be set into a plan, this is where determination comes in. Then the plan has to be set in motion and to a constant beat according to the plan. This is where discipline comes in. Discipline maintains the beat, until we obtain our object of desire, which is the blossoming of creation.

The pulse of any project is the workhorse of willpower. As they say in the motoring world, where the tyre hits the rod. The pulse is the beat that that keeps an effort moving in unbroken continuity. This continuity is important as it keeps the project moving along everyday and fresh in the mind. Maintaining this beat until creation is reached is the duty of discipline. In Hinduism such a discipline of daily or regular effort is called sadhana. Sadhana is a term usually used to describe regular practice of some spiritual activity, though it can also mean any type of regular effort.

Sadhana is a key tradition in the practice of Hinduism. When one goes to a guru to help him or her with achieving spiritual goals, the guru will usually give a sadhana to perform. This sadhana can be anything from doing hatha yoga to japa yoga or meditation techniques. He will also advise on the beat of the sadhana, which is the regularity of the practice, whether daily, every three days, weekly, monthly, however he sees most suitable for the disciple. He will also advise on the time to spend during each practice session. If the disciple follows the instructions, it is more than likely that he or she will achieve his or her goals.

In our endeavour to build a temple in his ashram in Hawaii, my guru used to give us a morale boost by saying, "every brick laid in a temple made of bricks, brings the temple closer to completion." The temple project Gurudeva started was large in its scale and complexity. For instance, Gurudeva wanted the temple carved entirely in Indian and shipped to his ashram in the US and assembled there. He wanted a foundation that can be guaranteed to last at least 1,000 years. A guarantee construction engineers were generally apprehensive to give, most said that it was impossible to build. We, his monks, were doing all the work as far as working out the logistics, fund raising and working with all the necessary people to move things along. To see the temple into creation Gurudeva set very practical goals. He did not set time deadlines, but accomplishment deadlines. He set a beat by putting out a publication every month on the progress of the temple and everyday we met we did affirmations which included visions of the completed temple and how it would benefit the whole world once completed. This is how Gurudeva used the same concept of sadhana for all projects, whether to help his disicples in their spiritual progress or to move projects, such as building a temple. As the temple building effort progressed, we did find an engineer who could guarantee the foundation for 1,000 years and even after my guru's passing, the project still continues unabated following the original beat that my guru had set, and now stands almost finished.

The details of the regular effort contained in sadhana is worked out during the planning stage. When willpower is in place, doing the sadhana should be effortless. Instead, it will take more effort to stick to the time limit and not go over it. Even if we feel a flow and believe we can get lots more done in the same day if we gave ourselves more time in that particular day, it is better to stick to the discipline of keeping to the set time. There are a couple of reasons for this, firstly, continuity, is more important than getting as much done as possible in a day and secondly, we do not want to lose focus on all the other priorities of life.

In an effort regularity creates continuity. When there is continuity, efficiency is the result. To understand this lets look at what it is like not to have continuity. If an effort is erratic, meaning it doesn't follow the regularity that has been set as the pulse of the undertaking, the most important thing that is lost is the momentum of the effort. In most cases what this entails is loss of details from the previous round of effort. This is why if we stop doing something we used to do regularly, it is difficult to restart the effort or practice because you have to remember how the practice was started and where it was last left off.

I have come across this many times with regards to aspirants who used to do regular practice of meditation. At one point they were regular in their practice. Very enthusiastic and making tangible and good progress. Then after sometime they stopped the practice for one reason or another. After that they only talk about their previous profound experiences and always end with, I need to get back to my meditations. Unfortunately what they say is usually just words. This is because they had broken the continuity of their effort and whenever they think about restarting, it just seems like lot of effort. They have to start from scratch and they realize how much work they had put in, in the past. They easily get put off by the effort required.

This applies to any undertaking in life. When the continuity of effort is broken before the goal is reached, either the effort stops short of the goal, or it will take lots more effort to restart.

However if a pulse is maintained, even if the pulse is a small one, like once a week or 15 minutes a day, steady progress will be made and eventually the desired goal will be reached. When the goal is reached it will also seem as if it came very naturally, that we did not do much to achieve it, but if the effort over time is added, it will be obvious that we had leveled a metaphorical mountain rather painlessly. This is why practicality in a plan (proper assessment of our capabilities) and patience (tempering our desire with practicality) is very important when working towards our goal. (Click Here to read the previous seminar. In the content index click 3.3.1 Effective Planning which goes into the details of practicality and patience when planning.)

How this translates to effort is, if in our plan we set the beat of our effort to 30 minutes every two days, then we do all we can do in that 30 minutes. When the 30 minutes is up, we wrap up and move on to other activities. Even if we feel a flow and wish to spend more time, we should resist the urge and keep to the time, this is where the discipline comes in. Interestingly when we come back to the effort in the next session we will feel the same flow we felt from the previous round of effort because our subconscious remembers the continuity as it was set in the plan. This is how discipline sets the pace for willpower. Thus willpower maintains the effort and discipline to put the brakes at the right time according to the plan.

Maintaining priorities in life is obvious. We do not want a singular effort in our life, even if the cause is positive and very noble, to consume all our other responsibilities in life. It is very easy to neglect our heatlh, loved ones and other important work when willpower is stimulated for a project. The drive can consume us if we do not apply discipline to it to follow the pulse or beat of the undertaking.

Life is more than just our achieving our desires. We return to the balance that is so crucial to spirituality. We need to juggle all our responsibilities of life without neglect. This way we can assure the an acceptable state of equanimity in life is maintained. This means we are not so engrossed in getting our desires as quickly as we can as if it is the end-all of all desires.

After we achieve one desire, invariably another will come in its place. Understanding that we will always be working towards a obtaining our desired goals; even after spiritual enlightenment, the enlightened have desires, though it is more for the welfare of others than personal gain; one must reign in the enthrallment of a particular desire and make the effort of working towards our goals part of the rest of our life, in harmony with life instead of making the achievement of the desire our life itself. Again to do this, discipline's role is to curtail effort to the measure of the pulse we set in planning.

Even with spiritual goals such as God Realization, the best method is as the Lord Buddha put it, the middle path. In my guru's ashram too, he instilled the middle path, or the path of moderation. He would only rarely allow his disciples to perform severe austerities. Instead he filled our day with practical down to earth projects to accomplish but kept the goal of spiritual enlightenment at the top by maintaining a regular daily group spiritual routine of worship and meditation. Daily, he impressed upon us that the purpose of life was God Realization, he even emphasized urgency in the effort, but urgency for him meant measured effort over a period of time. The urgency was to maintain the consistency in practice. He advised me about attaining the ultimate spiritual state fo Self-Realization in a perculiar way, since I was also the chef in the monastery. "Rice cooks faster in the pot if you put a lid over it. If you do not put a lid on the pot, the rice will take longer to cook and will also require more water". He was teling me about the fact that it was not as important how much time in a day I spent on meditating for Self-Realization. What was important was that when I meditated, even if only for a short time daily (between 15 to 30 minutes), that I was concentrated and regular with the practice. He told me that I would progress more and faster this way than if spent 2 hours sitting in meditation occasionally with a distracted mind for the 2 hours. This would amount to wasted effort and it will be very frustrating and eventually dissuading.

As I had mentioned earlier, one of my guru's central teachings is that life should be lived joyously. The best way to achieve this is by working for balance in life, where we maintain all areas of our life–physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual–daily. Even when we are working towards 'mighty goals' our attention to them should be measured and well spread over time. This is done by good planning and then working on the goal by following the pulse that we set.

However, just as we must be careful that 'mighty goals' (or the big goals, such as bringing up family, making all the money you could possibly want–by honest means of course, God Realization) do not drown our attention from all other areas of life, we must be as careful that the other areas of life do not drown the pulse of our effort towards our mighty goals.

To keep such a scenario from happening to our long term goals, it is good to have sub-goals planned into our effort. These are rejuvenating breaks in effort, entirely devoted to assessing our accomplishments thus far. These sub-goals can be set in the master plan after a measure of time, or when we hit a set accomplishment; for instance say we want to make $6000 a month through a business, a sub-goal can be accomplishing being a able to maintain $1000 a month. These breaks are important for these reasons:

1. They allow us to give ourselves a pat in the back for doing good work. This is not an ego building break, but it is just as important to acknowledge and be proud our personal achievements as we should of others. It inspires us when we reflect on our accomplishments and gives us a morale boost to maintain the effort, which is also rejuvenative for willpower.

2. This time of reflection allows us to sum up any lessons we have learned from our experiences thus far. These lessons are important to reflect upon, they can change the elements of our plans, making our future efforts more efficient, thus, we do not repeat mistakes of the past.

3. It allows us to reevaluate our plans based on changes that may have occured in our plans. We may need to reset the pulse if necessary, either increasing or decreasing time and/or effort. If we blindly followed our original plans without being flexible and having the time to ponder and consider other aspects, we can lose the spiritual balance we are striving to maintain.

4. This break is a time of re-inspiring the ourselves of our goals. This time of inspiration keeps willpower charged with a peak of energy. It therefore maintains willpower.

These breaks can be in the form of a vacation, or just having a time-out from regular routines or any different type of activity that will allow for time of reflection or pondering. If this is a group effort, it will be good for the group to have an outing for the express purpose of celebrating a sub-achievement or having completed sustained effort over a period of time. It should also include a meeting where those who need to be praised are praised and the plan ahead reevaluated.

In the monastery we used to have these types of breaks about once every two months. We worked in monastic groups handling different departments of the monastery. I worked in the group called the Lambodara Kulam, where we took care of the needs of the temple, monks and pets in the monastery. We trained monks to do temple ceremony, cooked, took care of monks and amimals (we had a dairy) health, raised funds for the temple and ran the young monks education programme. Apart from these chores each of us in the group had various projects we were working directly with Gurudeva. Every two months we would go with Gurudeva to a beach side condominium for two nights, have a break from our regular day and talk about all the various projects and issues and reassess the plans ahead. Even now, I will occasionally take breaks after I hit a certain goal or sub-goal to reassess and reevaluate the direction ahead. Of course when the final destination is reached, the fruition of the goal, it is a natural time for a party!

When when we reach a state of harmony in life, which in yoga is described as a dharmic life, where our life is in tune with the laws of nature (such as karma) we feel wholesome. Gurudeva used to call this feeling, "the-nothing-is-happening" feeling. This is not a feeling of desperation, that would be "nothing is happening right", instead it is a state of mind in equilibrium. Where despite the effort that we are putting in our work, our mind is not stressed or holding tensions because of it. The mind is settled that everything is moving along according to a plan and we are doing what we are supposed to be doing.

Gurudeva used to explain this spiritual feeling of wholesomeness by using the analogy of comparing someone flying to a destination to someone walking. He would say, if you are crossing a jungle in an aeroplane and looked down at the scene below, the relative perception is the you are moving slowly, with little effort. But if you are on foot, having to cross the jungle, you would be working a lot harder but relative to the aeroplane making far less progress. In the plane you can hold on to the consciousness of nothing-is-happening, but on the ground something is definitely happening and it is a struggle. This is the difference between working with willpower and without willpower.

When the 3Ds are in place, willpower is stimulated and effort becomes easy and measured according to a well thought up road map. With the 3Ds not in place, even if willpower is stimulated, it may be haphazard without discipline, because other areas of life may be affected by our undertakings and the loss of balance will cause obstacles. Thus disciplines main role is to take the stress out of living, by making sure that all that needs to be done is done according to their specific timing.

This state of wholesomeness also comes about, because, no matter at what stage the project is in, even if it is at its initial stages, there is a satisfying feeling of completion each time we finish the effort for the day or the regularity as was set in the plan (every three days, weekly, monthly etc.). The sense that the project is moving along well because we observe the sadhana of effort gives us a sense of completion. It is a boost of energy that maintains the feeling of freedom from stress that gives rise to the nothing-is-happening feeling.

If we are feeling rushed, or stressed in life, we can use the formulae of the 3D's; Desire, Determination and Disciplne; to figure out what we are missing. If this formulae of the 3D's is applied to all undertakings in life, the result will be a spiritual life. The feeling of peace and harmony. This is living life joyously.

Having explored the intricacies of willpower we move next important element in life that is important for spirituality and what we can call a 'successful life'. This is love. Willpower and concentration by their nature are neutral to the positives and negatives of life. We could use both these powerful forces in the mind equally for creation as well as for destruction. They could be used equally for good as well as evil. It is love that checks these two forces from going to the negative or selfish end of the spectrum.

From a mystical point of view, love is just as intricate as concentration and willpower. This is more than the romantic notion of love. It is more of the spiritual aspect of love that involves forgiveness, acceptance and the ultimate pursuit in life, which is the realization of our innate oneness with the Divine.