Inner Work

For the week of November 6, 2006

The Live Wire of Will

If you attempt to sit in silence, in deep silence, doing nothing, you may notice that instead you continually look for something to do. You would be happy to think or to purposely not think, to plan, daydream, or ruminate, to fidget or to sit rigidly, to react to an ache or to scratch an itch, to try to deepen the meditation or to get up. But if we do nothing, we see this live wire of will in us, eager to do something, anything to complete its circuit. When we actually can meditate on stillness, we let our will turn to its receptive side, just being open to what is, and complete itself in that openness.

The live wire of our will always finds ways to complete itself, to connect with something. Usually our will does this without intention, reacting by rote to every haphazard thought, emotion and sensory perception. Or this non-intentional will, operating on automatic, spins out a stream of thoughts and emotions, substituting that for a real life in presence.

Like electricity, our will has endless applications. Consciousness can create a channel for our will to follow, allowing us to act with intention. When the circuit completes itself in intentional presence, we are whole. Will flows through us in presence. In worship, we direct our will back toward its Source, completing the circuit in a different way. In sensing, the circuit of will completes itself by finding a ground in our body. In anything we do intentionally, whether inwardly or through our body, our will, our choosing is the central animating factor.

For this week, become aware of the live wire of your will and how you use it intentionally or let it use you unintentionally.

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