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Content Index
Willpower: The Drive Behind Success
Part One: Desire-Willpower's Energy Generator
2.1 Introduction – Willpower, The Mysterious Force
Have you ever wondered what willpower is, or tried to describe willpower? Doesn't it seem elusive. For instance, if I wanted to feel happy right now it's quite easy. All I have to do is to remember a happy moment in life, concentrate on it and I will feel the happiness from the memory. The same applies just about any emotion such as excitement, gratitude, grandeur, exhilaration, sorrow, enchantment, anger and so forth. Even conditions of being such as peacefulness, kindness, humbleness, confusion can be conjured. However willpower does not share this same quality with the emotions or conditions of being. If we rule out willpower as an emotion or condition of being, then there is the possibility of describing it as a faculty of the mind like how the intellect is a faculty of the mind. Willpower as a faculty of the mind is probably the best way to describe it.
A faculty of the mind is akin to a tool of the mind that we can use. Using the intellect as an example, we generally learn very naturally how to use this tool as part of thinking and reasoning. On the other hand stimulating and using willpower seems to be a skill that is far more mysterious than the ease with which we can use the intellect. One thing for sure is that willpower exists and as far as all the languages I know, they all have a word for willpower. My computer's English dictionary explains willpower as follows:
Will: The faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.
Willpower: Control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses.
In this and the following two seminars we are going to dissect willpower so we have a clear picture of what this complex force within us is. The goal of this part of the Yogic Self-Development seminar is to help unravel the mystery of willpower so that this understanding will help us isolate and deliberately stimulate this potent force within us.
2.1.1 Not Giving Up
Another way to explore willpower is to study the lives of accomplished people. My guru, someone whom I admire highly as an accomplished person shared a common characteristic that I gathered from reading the biographies of other accomplished people–Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharishi, The Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others–that is that they never give up the pursuit of their goal until they see its fruition. Certainly they all had mastered the use of willpower to achieve their successes. Not giving up is indeed a quality of willpower. It is a condition we can feel within ourself when willpower is in force in our life. However not-giving-up is not willpower itself. We cannot conjure willpower so easily in our life by just intellectually or emotionally deciding not to give up in a pursuit. Instead when willpower is in effect we feel a deep power of unwavering commitment to our goals which exudes such confidence that it seems so natural and effortless, where not-giving-up is not a decision but a condition of being. My guru called this tremendous power within the indomitable will.
They all certainly used willpower to achieve their ends. When I compare their lives, I find that one characteristic that they share that stands out above all else (this is when I specifically look at how they achieved their success). This is that they are all tenacious in upholding their principles and do not give up in the face of setbacks (aka failures) and adversities. A force within them we know as willpower goads them on until even if against all odds they achieve success.
With this terse understanding of willpower let us now explore this powerful force deeper by dissecting it into its component parts.
2.1.2 The 3 Ds
The reason why willpower is so seemingly elusive is because it is a not a 'one thing', as the word might suggest. For instance the feeling of happiness is a 'one thing'; the intellect is a 'one thing'. Willpower however, is made up of three processes of the mind. These processes are desire, determination and discipline. In short I call them the '3Ds'. The 3Ds are neither emotion, states of being nor faculties of the mind. These processes of the mind are the precursors (or the cause) of actions or activity in the mind that are all necessary for the creation and implementation of a plan. The actions that the 3Ds stimulate in our mind are as follows:
Desire gives rise to inspiration. Inspiration is the main source of energy for any endeavour.
Determination gives rise to subconscious concentration. It uses the energy from inspiration to create pathways and methods toward a goal.
Discipline is the chief element in the execution and ultimate success of any plan. Discipline gives rise to consistency which maintains the pulse of effort which eventually brings goals to fruition.
2.2 The 3 D Conglomorate of Willpower–Overview
Desire, determination and discipline make up a partnership (a conglomerate) that collectively gives rise to willpower. An unique aspect of willpower is that we only feel it when we are working on a goal. Otherwise we cannot conjure willpower in imagination like we do with other emotions, states or faculties of the mind. Even if we remembered the feeling of willpower when we were utilizing it for a past project, we cannot transfer it to another project vicariously, like we can with emotions. For instance remembering a happy memory can easily brighten up a situation. Unlike emotions willpower from one project is not transferable to another project. It is totally subjective to the project at hand.
My guru who as an advocated of cultivating willpower used to say,
"The more will you use, the more you have to use."
He explained that willpower is like a muscle in the mind. It has to be in constant use, and like any muscle the more you use it, the stronger it gets in ability and stamina.
70% of my training with my guru consisted of developing willpower. This is because willpower plays a significant role in the spiritual evolution of the soul. My guru's main method of helping us monks in developing our willpower is to put us in situations where we were most unaccustomed, totally out of our comfort zone and make us do projects that were totally out of our realm of interest or ability. He will then demand results in a timely fashion. We had to dig deep within ourselves to overcome a host of uncertainties and worries and learn to cultivate willpower where there seemed to be none to go around. It is through this training that I discovered that developing willpower had to do with cultivating its parts and not the whole. That is, if I cultivated desire, determination and discipline separately–Presto! Willpower appears. Since the cultivating willpower lies in its parts, this seminar the the next two will be dedicated to each of the 3Ds. We start with the first D, which is desire.
2.3 Desire: Willpower's Power Generator
2.3.1 About Yoga and Desire
Desire is the is the source of all animation in life. Life itself in its purest state is a calm yet potent form of spiritual energy that issues forth directly from God. As my guru often quipped, God is the Life of our life. If we were to tap into our life energy, we will be in a state of complete calm and equanimity. In this state there would be no compulsion to do anything. However God also created desire and wrought it into the nature of our being. Desire creates the urge in our awareness to want to explore this amazing mosaic of worlds that God has created for us. We want to try new things, get this and that; and do this and that.
This seemingly opposite nature of Divine calmness and the urgings of desire can cause the perspective that desire as a whole is anti-spiritual. However enlightened yogis know that the goal of life is not to achieve a desire-less state, instead it is to reach the purest state of God Consciousness within us. To reach this goal yogi's harness the potent force of desire, in fact spiritual evolution starts with the soul's desire for realizing its inherent unity with God.
The spiritual perspective of desire is important to qualify because of the generally anti-spiritual view of desire that is commonly held. Enlightened yoga guru's understand the power of desire and espouse the concept of right desire and wasteful desires. This is a whole topic in itself and will be discussed more in detail in at a later seminar in this series. Suffice to say for now that cultivating desire is an essential element in accomplishing or achieving success in any of our endeavours be they spiritual or worldly pursuits.
2.3.2 Inspiration, The Energy of Desire
Desire is a process of the mind. It comes into action as inspiration. Inspiration is a form of potent energy which manifests as powerful feelings and visions of future manifestation of the fruition of the desire. In its role as the key element of willpower in the conglomerate of the 3Ds (Desire, Determination and Discipline), it is the main generator of energy. Desire releases a cache of spiritual energy from within ourselves that we first experience as the feeling of inspiration.
To get a little spiritually technical this energy is released into our intellect and emotional faculties from the fourth chakra or the anahatha chakra which is located around the area of our heart. The energy from this chakra is pure and spiritual. It really doesn't matter what the nature of the desire is, even the energy for negative desires comes from this source. This why we say that God is ever giving. He provides us with all the energy we need for whatever reason and leaves it up how we wisely or unwisely use it. (God also created that disclaimer called karma, which will teach us a lesson or two if we choose to go negative with our desires!)
I emphasize again that the base energy of willpower is spiritual and not physical. In fact there is very little energy that is contributed by physical sustenance in the generation of willpower. If anything food, water and air's role in willpower is just to keep the physical functions of the body and mind fit and healthy. This means eating more food does not contribute to willpower's potency. It also means that practicing spiritual disciplines in life does contribute to willpower. These practices enhance our spiritual consciousness therefore allowing more energy to be released by desire into the anahatha chakra. Thus routine spiritual practices, such as prayers, doing hatha yoga or meditation contributes to the generation and maintenance of strong willpower.
2.3.3 Cultivating Desire
There are no specific yogic practices that is defined to enhance the faculty of desire, because desire, in general, does not need to be cultivated. It occurs naturally for one reason or another. When we are interested in something or want to get something the inspiration to seek out the information or to get the object of desire is what urges us on. While we don't need to cultivate desire, there are aspects of desire that we can enhance. These are the quality of the desire, the energy released for a desire and stimulation of desire where there is none.
2.3.4 The Quality of Desires
The quality of desire refers to the content of the desire. Is this desire positive and beneficial to you and your community? Does achieving this desire conform to accepted standards of ethics in your community? To put is very simply, is the desire good or bad. Willpower itself is a nuetral force. It does not discriminate on the quality of desire.
It is of course important for our future and that of our family and community to rein in negative desires, where even if we have them, we do not act on them. Unleashing the potentcy of willpower into these desires will take us on a path of collision with bad karmas that will in due course unravel our efforts and bear fruits of painful experiences.
There is no special technique to weed out bad desires. Our common sense and conscience are the best tools for this. Maintaining spiritual practices and faith in God or a compassionate cause in life will help us make the right decisions on which desires to pursue and which to ignore.
2.3.5 Enhancing The Pure Power of Desire
Earlier I stated that the energy of desire that transforms to inspiration comes from the spiritual base of the heart chakra. If ever there is a need to tap directly into the source of the energy that sustains desire there is a meditation technique that my guru taught that will be useful. This energy is a spiritual one and is constantly flowing in us through the spinal column. My guru simply called it 'the power of the spine'. In yoga it is called the sushumna. This practice is especially useful if for some reason you feel lack of inspiration. Some of the reasons one may be in such a situation includes illness or recovering from an illness, when facing challenges during a project so you have positive energy to rise to the challenge and to bring oneself out of dejection as a way to deal with failure and reignite desire. Whenever any of his devotees become dejected or disappointed by setbacks one of his often heard advise was to "lean on your spine" and "feel the power of your spine."
This meditation technique is about identifying and feeling this 'power of the spine', the sushumna which courses as a current of shakti from the base of the spine to the crown of the head and back downwards. This shakti connects all the chakras which are located within our spiritual spiritual spine and head, energizing and enlivening the chakras and their functions. Below are the steps of this meditation:
1. Prepare yourself for the meditation by having a bath so you feel fresh and enlivened. You may also do other spiritual practices such as prayers or hatha yoga to set yourself in the righ frame of mind. (This practice can also be incorporated into the subconscious concentration technique used in Seminar One. Do this meditation technique right after the pranayama and before doing the affirmations.)
2. You will need to sit up with the spine erect to do this meditation effectively. You may sit cross-legged on the floor. If this is not possible you can sit on a chair with a flat back. If sitting on a chair, use a pillow to prop the lower back between your back and the chair. You should not be leaning on the back support of the chair.
3. Once seated comfortably, take a few slow and relaxed breaths and concentrate on your breathing. Do not allow awareness to drift to the past or future, keep it focused within the moment. You may use music or other meditation aids to help maintain focus. You may do this meditation with your eyes closed or open, it is up to you.
5. As you are doing the nadi suddhi pranayama, concentrate on the length of your spine. Visualize a tube running this length from the base of your spine to the crown of your head. In this tube a bright yellow coloured ray of energy courses.
6. While doing the nadi suddhi pranayama, as you breathe in, visualize this energy moving from the base of your spine to the crown of your head. As you breathe out, visualize it moving from the crown to the base of the spine.
7. Do this for about three minutes, and with practice you will be able to feel the scintillating sushumna shakti coursing through the spine. Your mind will feel bright and body will be filled with zest for life.
8. After doing the nadi suddhi, go back to the relaxed normal breathing you started with initially and enjoy the feeling of the sushumna.
With practice feeling the power of the spine will be second nature to you. You will not even need to be in meditation, just think of the spine and you will feel the sushumna. This ability will come in handy if ever you need to stimulate your body and mind and also to clear confusion in the mind.
To enhance desire and bring back inspiration, get into the sushumna and simultaneously hold the goal you are working towards in your mind. Then direct the sushumna shakti into the goal through visualization. The visualization will continually become brighter from the light energy of the sushumna until it disappears into a bright white light. The next time you are working on your project or goal you will find that you have greater energy and more inspiration toward achieving your ends.
2.3.6 Stimulating Desire
At times we find ourselves in situations where we have to do tasks that we are not naturally inclined to, but have no choice. For instance, a person working in a job he or she is not interested in but have no choice at that time. While the ultimate solution is to find work that is more rewarding holistically, to make one's current situation pleasant, one solution is to use willpower through stimulating desire to get over feelings of frustration or lack of inspiration. The object of desire in such cases have to be carefully worked out so it is positive and not destructive.
The subconscious concentration technique of affirmations is the best way of creating desire. Using affirmations you can 'programme' the subconscious mind to be inspired where there used to be lethargy or frustration. When embedded deeply enough in the subconscious the affirmations will grow the desire for the subject of the affirmation and then inspiration will come naturally. Instructions on how to create and rules of recitation for affirmations can be found in the concentration seminar. Click here to go to the seminar and click on - 1.3.3 Pratyahara Affirmations - in the content index in the top of the page.
2.3.7 The Pitfalls of Desire
Desire generates a cache of energy we call inspiration that we can use to further our progress towards our intended goals. However, this cache of energy can easily fizzle out if we fall into the pitfalls of desire. The pitfalls of desire are infatuations and day dreaming.
If the energy arising from inspiration is not successfully transformed into determination one can easily dissipate or spend this energy into some other distractions that have nothing to do with ones original intentions. I label such distractions infatuations. You may have experienced this before. Lets look at a simple example.
I have a major exam to pass some months down the road. I desire to pass with flying colours therefore I am naturally inspired to achieve this. I can see in the future just how jubilant I and my family are when the result comes out that I have passed with straight A's. I am filled with a flush of inspired energy to work towards my goal. The next step should be either to draw up a plan of action or if I already have a plan, to put it to work. Instead mainly because of procrastination, I do something else. I divert this precious inspired energy by calling my friend and arrange to watch a movie that I intended to watch later, now. The result of this is that I have not only wasted time but also the precious cache of energy that was initially generated by my inspiration with fulfilling an infatuation. Infatuations are about short term fulfillment. It is not wrong to fulfill some of them, but they must be reigned in with wisdom and not be used as distraction that disrupt our longer and greater plans of life.
Day dreaming, the other pitfall is also an easy way to waste the cache inspired energy that desire generates. Day dreaming is taking our future visions too far, indulging in all sorts of 'sub-dreams' that arise from our initial vision of the future. Lets look at the same example above and turn it into falling into the pit of day dreaming.
So I see myself passing and sharing the jubilation with my family. It is a potent vision, concise and to the point. Now instead of using the accompanying flush of energy to do work, I continue that vision into a whole drama. I see myself receiving a schlarship, I am giving a speech to inspire my juniors and advise them on my techniques, the drama goes on to another exam that I will most definitely pass all the way to becoming the owner of great company that rakes in millions a month, and how I use that money to do a lot of charity and even start to change the world......and so the day dream can continue. Unfortunately after the day dream, we will lose the inspiration. This is because the glorious end of the day dream seems either to far away or too big to accomplish and that the task at hand that we are supposed to do seems too small or too inconsequential to the 'greatest picture possible.'
Day dreaming is an easier pitfall to fall into compared to infatuations as it happens entirely in our mind without lifting a finger. It is a pit fall we must strive hard to avoid as it can fizzle out inspiration into hopelessness. Thus we must guard against this waste of resource and time. If you catch yourself day dreaming, realize that you are wasting away your life and get back to action.
2.4 From Desire to Determination
Essentially willpower is a type of energy mangament. Lets reanalyze the the word willpower literally. It is will + power. Will is intention and power is energy. Intention and energy coming together, to put it very basically, creates willpower.
Desire the first of the 3Ds is the essential source of energy for willpower–willpower's battery. However if left just at desire, we will go nowhere. We would feel inspired, flushed with energy and have a great mental picture of the accomplishment that is yet to come, but we are still at the starting line. Enter determination, the second D of the 3Ds. For willpower to arise desire must transform into determination. Determination and discipline are the work horses of willpower. It puts into motion the inspired energy from desire. Basically determination involves creating a viable plan, deliberately concentrating the mind and reigning in distractions. The result of determination is a good plan and confidence.
We will get into the intricacies of the determination aspect of willpower in the next seminar. Before we get into that, lets look more closely at the conglomerate partnership of the 3Ds.
2.5 The 3D Conglomorate's Partnership towards Success
The 3D composition to create willpower is an unique partnership. I call this partnership a conglomerate because while these three different aspects of willpower come together they do not mix to form a single entity. Desire, determination and discipline always maintain their separate roles as willpower comes into action. In fact for willpower to be strong enough to make things happen, desire, determination and discipline must continually play their designated roles. As these three elements work in harmony willpower can be felt as the feeling of confidence and brimming energy within oneself. Not one must be allowed to falter, otherwise, willpower will not be felt, nor will goals come into fruition. It will feel as if we are on an uphill climb.
The conglomerate among desire, determination and discipline is not an equal partnership. Each have different tasks in the generation of willpower. Also from the point of view of energy generation, time and effort they have different emphasis. Below is a breakdown of how all these factors relate to one another.
Energy To Fuel Willpower
From the point of view of energy generation the role of the partnership will look like this:
60% Desire, 30% Determination, 10% Discipline.
Time Required To Maintain the 3Ds
From the point of view of time required to maintain these three aspects of willpower ( not to be confused with time it takes to implement a plan–which is called effort ) the partnership will look like this:
20% Desire, 60% Determination, 20% Discipline.
Time and Energy Required To Maintain Effort
From the point of view of effort, which is the amount of time and energy it takes to get tasks done, the numbers head higher toward discipline as follows:
10% Desire, 20% Determination, 70% Discipline.
These numbers can come in very handy to help you with how to manage your resources before you start a project and also if you are analyzing why willpower seems lackluster despite the 3Ds being maintained.
In executing a plan, based on the numbers above, it is obvious that most of the energy needed for the project comes from desire, but desire requires the least amount of time and effort to be maintained. Thus time should not be wasted in desire as it can easily lose its energy through infatuations and day dreams. Instead the energy generated from desire should be channeled to discipline its biggest guzzler followed by determination. If energy is continually wasted in desire, a symptom of this is a nagging feeling in the back of the mind that the goals of the plan will not come into fruition.
If the symptom is lack of willpower while executing a plan, the problem lies in not spending enough time and energy in maintaing determination. Determination involves creating well thought out plans and doing spiritual disciplines such as meditation, affirmations, prayers etc. as well as maintaing the health of the body. Even if the desire is strong and we are putting in the necessary time and energy on the work we should do, we will find that the drive or the zest toward success is just not there. This is why determination takes the bulk of time when it comes to maintaining the 3Ds.
If there is lack of willpower to do the legwork required to accomplish ones goals this can be because the balance of energy has shifted away from discipline and is being squandered by either desire in its pitfalls or determination. Time and energy can be squandered in determination by creating indecisive plans and going overboard on spiritual or religious disciplines. In other words even if we spent a lot of time doing spiritual practices and praying to God ardently for the fruition of our goals, it would be wasted time and effort if we don't spend the necessary time and energy doing the legwork that needs to be done. The saying, God helps those who help themselves, lends very well to this scenario.
So as you can see for willpower to arise naturally within us the 3Ds of desire, determination and discipline need to play their appropriate roles. These roles are not equally balanced as in equal measure, but the appropriate amount so that when the three work in tandem the powerful force know as willpower is felt.
If you have any questions regarding this seminar, or wish to organize this seminar in your locality (for now this is confined to within Malaysia and Singapore), you can email me at:
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