{"id":384,"date":"2010-07-25T14:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T14:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/07\/true-will\/"},"modified":"2010-07-25T14:39:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T14:39:00","slug":"true-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/07\/true-will.html","title":{"rendered":"True Will"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I mentioned a week or so ago that I\u2019ve been listening to Thorn Coyle<\/a>\u2019s Elemental Castings<\/em><\/a>. In one of them I came across a discussion of true will in its spiritual sense. Coyle, working out of the Feri tradition<\/a>, described true will as \u201cyour big magic\u201d and as \u201cthe work of this god.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

I like that definition, and I think it\u2019s better than what I wrote about \u201cso mote it be<\/a>\u201d last year. I still think we all have a tendency to confuse the \u201cwill of God\/dess\u201d with \u201cwhat I want here and now,\u201d and at some point I still think we have to stand up and say \u201cthis is what I want and this is how I will live\u201d \u2013 we need to accept responsibility for the direction of our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I think what I wrote last November was incomplete. The danger of \u201cso mote it be\u201d is that if we\u2019re not careful, we can lock ourselves onto a path that is ultimately not in our best interests. True will is not about what we think we want at this particular moment: something that can be heavily influenced by short-term circumstances and manipulated by advertising and peer pressure. And it\u2019s not about the intellect overpowering the body and the spirit, what we frequently hear called \u201cwill power.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

True will is about why we\u2019re ultimately here \u2013 our primary mission in this life. If something serves that mission \u2013 if it advances us toward the goals we set for ourselves before this incarnation or that have been revealed to us or that have become evident to us \u2013 then it supports our true will. And if it doesn\u2019t, then why are we doing it?<\/span><\/p>\n

Rather than using magic to bring us the things that strike our fancy, we can use magic to align our conscious will with our unconscious will<\/a> and with the will of the Divine. What is the will of the Divine? For a working definition I like the one proposed by Huston Smith<\/a>: \u201calways toward the best that we can conceive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When those three elements of will are aligned then everything is pulling together, instead of part of us pulling North and another part pulling East and a third part pulling South. We stop working against ourselves and we become powerful.<\/span><\/p>\n

And we accomplish the work we were put here to do.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mentioned a week or so ago that I\u2019ve been listening to Thorn Coyle\u2019s Elemental Castings. In one of them I came across a discussion of true will in its spiritual sense. Coyle, working out of the Feri tradition, described true will as \u201cyour big magic\u201d and as \u201cthe work of this god.\u201d I like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTrue Will<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I mentioned a week or so ago that I\u2019ve been listening to Thorn Coyle\u2019s Elemental Castings. 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