Paramhansa Yogananda

If God and heaven were imposed on us, then we would be their slaves. But the Lord has given us free choice by which we can accept good or cast it out, accept evil or cast it out. The power that God has given you by which you can make this choice are wisdom and will. Find out whether you have control over your will or not. Don’t let your will be devitalized by bad habits.

After physiological will comes habit-bound will. Your will automatically enter this second phase unless it is guided by wisdom. Sometimes a good man’s child is lacking in truthfulness and good habits. Certainly the child has had every opportunity to learn to be good; yet the moment he becomes old enough to start using his own will, he gets into all kinds of mischief. Why? Usually in such chases the child’s nature from past lives is karmically inclined toward wrong thinking and habits. Through his family training in this life he learns to perform good actions; but they are only superimposed on his real nature. Because his will is controlled only by mechanical good habits, rather than by soul wisdom and true understanding, he readily succumbs to temptations when he is free of the good influence of the family.

If you ask thieves and habitual drinkers if they like their way of life, the usually say “No.” They thought when they started their wrong actions that they would be happy. They never realized that the effects would be hurtful to them. For this reason I deeply feel for people who have done wrong. I cry for them. “But for the grace of God, there go I.” Evil is a sort of opiate. That is why we should have places where people who have gone wrong can learn how to live and who to think. Jail is not a suitable place of reform. Such persons need to mix with superior men who can help them.

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All around you are thieves of circumstance, trying to steal your vitality of will; but no one can take away your will but yourself. The child wants his own way. When he grows up, unless his will has been curbed and guided by wisdom, he finds that he is a slave to desires. Are you not doing things today that you know you ought not to do, and which you know will bring you unhappiness later on? Overstimulation of the senses devitalizes the will, so do not create an unnatural craving for anything. Suppose you like a certain food very much. Your will power should be such that you can do without it henceforth.

It is impossible to say what you really like and don’t like, because your inclinations are always changing. If you analyze yourself you will see that in the matter of likes and dislikes we are all crazy. We don’t know why we like certain things and don’t like others. What you like through the influence of your wisdom, and what you like as a result of your physiological habits, are two different things. I can make myself like something, the next minute I can make myself repelled by it.

To be guided by wisdom is to be king of the world. The wise man tries first to determine if he is right; then he acts. But if he makes a decision and then finds out he was wrong, he immediately acknowledges his mistake. Never use your will power to be stubborn. You can talk with some people for an hour, and they seemingly agree with you, and then they turn around and say just the opposite. They don’t want to give up their own way. That is not will power, but slavery to the ego. You can see such slaves all around you. They think they are free, but their will is chained; they perform actions mechanically, bided by good or by evil habits. But when you can say, “I stay away from evil because evil works against my happiness,” or “I am good, not because I am forced to be, but because good leads to my own happiness”-that is wisdom. Such was my guru’s training. One thing we should always remember. If will is guided by wisdom, it will produce something constructive in our life.

When Jesus said to the Heavenly Father, “Thy will be done,”* it was not because he lacked will power, but because he wanted his will to be guided by God’s. [Matthew 26:42] When the Divine Will intimated, “Give up the body,” Jesus had to use a great deal of will power to conquest the weakness of the flesh. Human will has become divine will, completely attuned to Spirit, when even though it is necessary to give up the body, one is able to do so willingly, as Christ did. A body-bound slave would have said, “They are trying to crucify me, I must try to save myself.” If Jesus had done that, he would not have been the Christ who lives in our hearts today.