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Will

EverChanging

Well-Known Member
How do you understand the concept of Will (with a capital W) if you indeed work with that concept?

I am influenced by Thelema and have come across other Thelemites online that have my understanding of Will, though I am not at all sure my understanding is what Crowley or most Thelemites have in mind.

Speaking of will with a small "w," I do not believe in free will, the ability to act unconstrained by external forces. All influences in the universe converge in an interconnected manner to form what I am and my Will. If I merely wish to talk about a desire of mine in a conventional sense that is what I call will. (On a related matter, when I merely wish to speak ritually of myself as an individual I use the term "soul," but when I want to speak of myself as interconnected to the whole, such that I am an extension of the whole and the whole is an extension of myself, I use the word "Spirit.") When I am speaking of my Will as it relates to everything else, as it arises from the laws of physics, biochemistry, and electricity, that is what I call my Will.

They really are the same thing, but the emphasis is different. I cannot but do what I Will. But if I want to do my Will with awareness that I am within the flow of that Will, then I have to get myself out of the way. I do this through observation. When I am paying attention, and perhaps all of the time of late, I have the sense that my actions and behavior are merely arising -- like thoughts.

What is your understanding of Will? What do you do in order to accomplish it?
 

crossfire

LHP Mercuræn Feminist Heretic ☿
Premium Member
Within my own paradigm, Will is the ability to change your (unmindful) habits you determine to be unskillful to something you determine to be skillful--thus changing yourself when you are not only mindful, but also when you are unmindful.
 

EverChanging

Well-Known Member
Within my own paradigm, Will is the ability to change your (unmindful) habits you determine to be unskillful to something you determine to be skillful--thus changing yourself when you are not only mindful, but also when you are unmindful.

What types of behavior have you determined are unskillful?
 

1137

Here until I storm off again
Premium Member
Will specifically refers to free will which arises from our unnatural consciosness. There's also the mindless "will" of nature/the All, which people can allow themselves to be swept away in (the main goal of most RHP religions). Imo, if you don't believe in free will you don't believe in Will at all. There's either your Will and Will of another/others, or no will at all. Though also imo it takes a great deal of unnecessary effort to reject free will, as all evidence suggests we have it.
 

EverChanging

Well-Known Member
Will specifically refers to free will which arises from our unnatural consciosness. There's also the mindless "will" of nature/the All, which people can allow themselves to be swept away in (the main goal of most RHP religions). Imo, if you don't believe in free will you don't believe in Will at all. There's either your Will and Will of another/others, or no will at all. Though also imo it takes a great deal of unnecessary effort to reject free will, as all evidence suggests we have it.

How are you defining free will?
 

EverChanging

Well-Known Member
How do you understand the concept of Will (with a capital W) if you indeed work with that concept?

I am influenced by Thelema and have come across other Thelemites online that have my understanding of Will, though I am not at all sure my understanding is what Crowley or most Thelemites have in mind.

Speaking of will with a small "w," I do not believe in free will, the ability to act unconstrained by external forces. All influences in the universe converge in an interconnected manner to form what I am and my Will. If I merely wish to talk about a desire of mine in a conventional sense that is what I call will. (On a related matter, when I merely wish to speak ritually of myself as an individual I use the term "soul," but when I want to speak of myself as interconnected to the whole, such that I am an extension of the whole and the whole is an extension of myself, I use the word "Spirit.") When I am speaking of my Will as it relates to everything else, as it arises from the laws of physics, biochemistry, and electricity, that is what I call my Will.

They really are the same thing, but the emphasis is different. I cannot but do what I Will. But if I want to do my Will with awareness that I am within the flow of that Will, then I have to get myself out of the way. I do this through observation. When I am paying attention, and perhaps all of the time of late, I have the sense that my actions and behavior are merely arising -- like thoughts.

What is your understanding of Will? What do you do in order to accomplish it?

My definition of Will has changed somewhat. I think of it now in terms of judgment. I make judgments among alternatives and from there arise choices.

My Will may be poorly or skillfully formed. My goal is to inform my judgments skillfully. But even when they are not Love's Will (the interactions of the unity of the All) is still my Will.

There is ultimately no duality between them, and although I may Will to strive for skillful judgments as measured by personal goals in the end game these are ultimately subjective judgments, not prescriptive ones.

I'm still interested to hear what free will is supposed to be as it is a nebulous term denoting anything from compatibilism to a nonsensical incoherent concept.

I don't see a duality between the interactions of the universe driving me onward and freedom. Freedom as I am using the term is to embrace my nature, to let it unfold without guilt and shame even as I strive to more skillfully attain my goals.

That same nature is to the universe like a wave is to the ocean. There is no particularity without a context in which it exists. To embrace my nature and individuality is to embrace everything that upholds and creates it. The All and the Particular are "not two." Good and evil are "not two." Determinism and the freedom to unfold are "not two."

I am still getting a grasp of what the Left hand path is and where I fall. But the ideas of libertarian free will, various forms of duality, and a sort of supernatural individuality divorced from a context, existing in a vacuum as it were, are all nonsensical absurd concepts as far as I am concerned. And I tend to think some on the Left Hand path would agree insofar as the path embraces atheists, agnostics, and naturalists.

As for my own inclinations I am agnostic as to certain god definitions and pantheistic as regards my own approach to the divine. I do have a place for numinous experiences with gods but tend to have a psychological interpretation of these matters.
 

crossfire

LHP Mercuræn Feminist Heretic ☿
Premium Member
Our volitional actions inform our habits. Your habits are what takes over when you are unmindful. Being that our willful acts inform our unconscious programming (habits,) than we do indeed have a hand in the writing of and the changing of our unconscious programming (karma.)

I'd say you are on the right track in putting an emphasis on skillfulness. Skillful habits will take you through your unmindful moments skillfully.
 

EverChanging

Well-Known Member
Our volitional actions inform our habits. Your habits are what takes over when you are unmindful. Being that our willful acts inform our unconscious programming (habits,) than we do indeed have a hand in the writing of and the changing of our unconscious programming (karma.)

I'd say you are on the right track in putting an emphasis on skillfulness. Skillful habits will take you through your unmindful moments skillfully.

I agree with all this. Determinism is not the same as fatalism. If I will to I can reprogram old habits.
 

crossfire

LHP Mercuræn Feminist Heretic ☿
Premium Member
I agree with all this. Determinism is not the same as fatalism. If I will to I can reprogram old habits.
'Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.'
~Carl Jung
 

FooYang

Active Member
How do you understand the concept of Will (with a capital W) if you indeed work with that concept?

I am influenced by Thelema and have come across other Thelemites online that have my understanding of Will, though I am not at all sure my understanding is what Crowley or most Thelemites have in mind.

Speaking of will with a small "w," I do not believe in free will, the ability to act unconstrained by external forces. All influences in the universe converge in an interconnected manner to form what I am and my Will. If I merely wish to talk about a desire of mine in a conventional sense that is what I call will. (On a related matter, when I merely wish to speak ritually of myself as an individual I use the term "soul," but when I want to speak of myself as interconnected to the whole, such that I am an extension of the whole and the whole is an extension of myself, I use the word "Spirit.") When I am speaking of my Will as it relates to everything else, as it arises from the laws of physics, biochemistry, and electricity, that is what I call my Will.

They really are the same thing, but the emphasis is different. I cannot but do what I Will. But if I want to do my Will with awareness that I am within the flow of that Will, then I have to get myself out of the way. I do this through observation. When I am paying attention, and perhaps all of the time of late, I have the sense that my actions and behavior are merely arising -- like thoughts.

What is your understanding of Will? What do you do in order to accomplish it?

Thelema has it's own DIR.....

When it comes to Thelema, the concept of "Will" is more applicable to Tao. From there, the four words "Do What Thou Wilt" is like a 'New Aeon' tetragrammaton, replacing Yod He Waw He, as a new name for God aka the Absolute.
The whole axiom is incredibly special but I'll save that for a post over in the Thelema DIR o_O


A LHP interpretation of "Will" (outside of Thelema) would be more like a personal agency for self-actualization, breaking the mold so to speak. Somewhat that.
 
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