Will involves intention, decision, and action. It's our power to reach goals, to express our self, and to manifest. It's about making effort and having the power and determination to reach the goal. Spiritual will is all of the above, but it's about working towards spiritual goals, spiritual expressions and manifestations. And what makes an effort or a goal 'spiritual' is the Love, Wisdom, and Goodness in it. In other words, spiritual will always has Love, Wisdom, and Goodness in it,or at least an intention to manifest these Qualities.
Spiritual will is distinguishable from ordinary will, in that it has the attributes of inclusive love and holistic intelligence, and it is an inspiration coming from within (not a command from outside external authority). It is when our human will is spiritualized and aligned with the Divine Will. So, when our own will is inspired by the Divine Will, or aligned with it, this then can be understood as our own spiritual will. Spiritual will has a great power, a greater power than ordinary will, because our spiritual will has the inspiration and power of Divine Will. Our spiritual will is the Divine Will expressing within us. Spiritual will is the power, the inspiration and the direction we are given from the Divine Will.
The Divine Will is not forcefully imposing nor deterministic; we have to intentionally and freely come to the Divine Will, align with it, and become part of it. Divine Will is not absolutely determining everything, but it does have Purpose and Direction. Therefore, if our decisions and actions are aligned with divine purposes and directions, then we are aligned with Divine Will. Spiritual will is aligned with Divine Will, or at least its intention is dedicated to this.
When the Divine Power of Will is flowing through us, our being and actions are transformed and become aligned with the Divine Will. Our love and compassion is increased. Our forgiveness and tolerance is increased. Our thinking becomes more holistic and considerate of others and the whole of life. And our will is transformed from being self-centered. We can also understand the Divine Will by understanding what is loving and what is intelligent – because the Divine Will is both loving and intelligent. It is always both. Divine Will always has a purpose and goal of increasing love and increasing the comprehensive intelligence in humanity.
Three fundamental principles of Divine Will are Light, Love, and Beauty. We manifest Light by expressing spiritual awakening, intuition and intelligence. We manifest Love by expressing compassion, caring, and inclusiveness. We manifest Beauty by expressing spiritual qualities, based on harmony, goodness, and excellence.
Spiritual will emerges from our inner spiritual core, our soul, which is a reflection of God, the Divine. Spiritual will is our inner-motivated urge to give and to serve life, and to fulfill higher universal purposes. Our human will is at first self-centered and self-oriented, and usually socially conditioned. But spiritual will springs from a spiritual consciousness and love, which is an inclusive consciousness and caring love. Spiritual will also involves self-sacrifice, or at least some degree of sacrificing lesser wishes, all for greater purposes, greater needs and greater good.
Spiritual will is our actualized power to work on being and doing Good, the greater good. Our spiritual will works towards the Good, the Right, and the True. Being good and doing good, though, does not have to conform to any particular set of beliefs of what this is. The will to be good and to do good is according to our own sincere understanding of what this is, rather than being confined to any particular standards set by our parents, religions, or culture. Thus, each person will have to realize, on their own, what it is to be Good, Right, and True.
Likewise, each person will have to realize, on their own, what is God's Will, the Divine Will; rather than merely just follow a teaching, without any self-inquiry and self-reflection. One key to understanding God's Will is that it is Good-Will; that is, God's Will is towards the Good. Therefore, we can know God's Will through our own good-will. This is how we can know and enter into God's Will. Enter into the sincere experience of your own Good-will. This is God's Will. Our own will-to-good is a true flame and reflection of the God's Will. This is how God's Will is known through us.
Humanity is in need of more spiritual will, more goodwill, rather than egotistic selfish will or fanatical group-will. So, one of the important goals of the world-service meditator is to invoke the highest Spiritual Will and mediate this into the world. This can be done in several ways. The meditator can visualize Spiritual Will entering into humanity, then affirm this to be. Or, the meditator can become a channel for Spiritual Will to enter into humanity. Or, the meditator can bring Spiritual Will into humanity through one's own spiritual will.
When we radiate and resonate our own spiritual will, our own will-towards-good, for the benefit of all humanity, then this increases the spiritual will of humanity. There are already many people with true spiritual will – many people who hold a vision of unity, love, and harmony, and who have the will to help in this. These people have a group-power, whether they know it or not. But nonetheless, this group of spiritual good-will people needs to increase in numbers and in power, in order for world transformation to take place.
One of the ways we can serve the spiritual evolution of our world is to radiate goodwill to all humanity and all of natural life. Goodwill is a spiritual energy which comes from our heart. Goodwill is an energy of our love. It is the will of our love; it is our loving will. In the attitude and radiance of goodwill, we not only wish good for everyone, but we also intend good towards everyone. For goodwill is our good intention towards others, or for all of life. So, the giving of goodwill is very similar to the giving of love. Though more specifically, goodwill is our good intention, our wish, hope and will that goodness be upon others.
Essentially, our goodwill is also our spiritual will; because spiritual will is, by definition, a good will. Spiritual will is a will that is always towards the good, always towards the right or the best. It's intention and effort is always towards what is most good, most right, or most best.
But what is most good, most right, or most best? Or, how can one know what is most good, most right, or most best?
First of all, we can use reasoning, because there are essential reasons for believing that a particular idea, vision, or aim is spiritually good. Foremost, the action or activity has to have love and intelligence in it. Something cannot be spiritually good, if it doesn't have at least love and intelligence. Also, that which is spiritually good tends to nourish and increase understanding, cooperation, peace, harmony and beauty, in our self and in the world. So if something does not increase at least one of these good effects, then its goodness is dubious.
Also to help us, our spiritual intuition knows what is good, right, and best. With spiritual intuition we are able to see clearly what is good, right or best. Anyone can do this, but to open one's spiritual intuition requires meditation and practice. One of the keys in this is to listen with the heart, because our sincere heart reveals a deeper understanding of what is true and good. Another key is having sincere goodwill – a sincere will to be good and true, to the best of our abilities; because by being in the attitude and intention of goodwill, we become more aligned the higher Divine Will and are able to more intuitively see what is good, right, and best. So, by using our spiritual intuition, along with good reasons, and along with our wisdom of experience; we can understand better what is good, right, and best.
Spiritual will is a will with a greater purpose – a will that works towards, or moves towards, greater purposes and greater values. Spiritual will is the motivation and power in us to work towards Greater Purposes – to move in the direction of Greater Values.
In order to serve and participate in the Divine Purpose, we need to have and manifest our power of will, which is our power of decision and doing. We have to be doers – doers for Good and Truth, for Divine Purpose and for God. We need to work towards the greatest Good and the highest Vision that we can see – the highest and greatest that has been revealed to us. That which is revealed to us, as a vision of the highest Good and greatest Love, is what we need to work on and to what we need to put forth our power of will.
Our spiritual will is to serve Greater Purposes. Greater Purposes will always and necessarily involve greater love, greater intelligence, and greater beauty. If any of these are missing, then something is missing in one's idea of a greater purpose. For every greater purpose will always be more inclusively loving, more integrally intelligent, and more harmoniously beautiful. It's all to do with the greater vision of what is ideally possible, and what feels to be Right and Good – though from a larger and inclusive View, and not merely from just one particular cultural or religious view.
Spiritual will is accompanied by spiritual vision – seeing what is ultimately Good, Right, True, and Beautiful. Spiritual vision can see what is best, what needs to be, and what should be. It also sees higher goals worthy to work towards or make efforts towards. It is our spiritual will to manifest the greatest vision as revealed to us. Spiritual will is our will towards the Good, the Truth, and what's Right, and towards our vision of Harmony and Beauty. We receive vision (from the Divine Vision) of what is meant to be, what is intended (from the Divine Will) to be, of what is for the highest and greatest Good, of what is most Loving and most Intelligent.
Then correlating with this spiritual vision is the needed will to work on it (which is our spiritual will). The vision becomes an aim to will-towards. Thus, spiritual will is aligned with a greater Purpose and greater Vision – as best we see it, or as much as been revealed to us.
Ask for spiritual will, spiritual inspiration, and spiritual vision.
Ask to serve the Divine Purposes.
But besides asking, we also have to put in the necessary effort, work, and energy, which is the power of our will.
There are many Great Purposes, all part of the overall Divine Purpose. Here are some of the greater Divine Purposes in life. All are worthy values for us to work towards, to progress towards – both in our self and in the world. Spiritual will puts energy and effort into these greater values.
These can either be understood as values or purposes, because values and purposes mean basically the same. When we learn the greater values in life, we learn the greater purposes in life. So to know the greater values of life is to know the greater purposes of life. And to know one's values is to know one's purposes. Values and purposes are what guide our life and decisions.
The overall Purpose in life is to progress towards Greater Values. To progress is to discover, learn, work towards, actualize and achieve. Improvement is another meaning for progress. So, improvement is another way we can understand what the greater Purpose is. Ask what would be some good improvements for oneself, or for the world. If we can see the need for improvements, in oneself or in the world, then we are seeing possibilities of progress. Perhaps the world needs more love, or more intelligence, or both? These are qualities to improve on, or to progress forward in. To see the need for this, and the need for making such improvements, is to realize these as important values to work towards – and important purposes in life.
A purposeful life realizes what has greater value. A purposeful will makes efforts to move away from lesser values and towards greater values. This is the direction of our spiritual will – towards greater values. And this gives us an understanding of God's Will – it is towards what's better. God's Will is for us to discover the better, to manifest the better, and to be the better. So we are aligned with Divine Will and Divine Purpose when we are moving towards the better ...improving our own self and the world. Of course though, each can only do their best in knowing what is better, yet we can be helped by listening to the Divine through our heart.
A purposeless life has no reason or goal to work towards; but a purposeful life has values and aims to progress towards. If one has no values, or if one makes no distinction between greater and lesser values, (all things thought to be equally the same), then there is nothing to work towards. Consider for example, the purpose of love. If one values love, and sees this as an important essential value in one's life and in the world, then love would be a significant purpose in one's life. So for example, one's purpose could just be love, or perhaps it is one of our top purposes. One's decisions and actions might then be for the 'purpose of love'. This is basically the same with any great purpose. One's actions can be for the purpose of health, healing, harmony, peace, learning, etc. Thus, having purposes helps to guide our lives, which is how the Divine Will works – by giving us an understanding of what we most value, which can then be realized as our essential purposes. Our highest values (what we value most greatly) are given. They are either given by outer society or given from our inner soul. And if given from within, then these are the values given to us by God and are the values of Divine Purpose.
A purposeful life values improvements and progression. The progression is away from an impoverished life and towards a more fulfilling life. A purposeful life moves towards what's better. It moves from the lesser to the better. This is the Divine Purpose (and the Divine Will) – for the world and each self in it to progress and improve towards the better.
A life with Purpose is leading towards something or intending towards something greater. In other words, in a purposeful life (a life with purpose) there are valued goals to work towards and achieve. A purposeful life has vision about what is good to do, or about what is better. This is what distinguishes a 'life with purpose' from a 'life without any purpose'.
Here below are some of the directions that our spiritual
will seeks to progress towards and improve in, for our self
and in the world. These are some of the greater Purposes in life –
to work towards. As well, these are some of the purposes and the
directions of Divine Will – which inspires us towards
these purposes and helps us gradually achieve these purposes
and goals.
Spiritual will puts decision and effort into these purposes –