"Desire and Will are close relations. They even have the same surname, Prana. One consequence of this is very practical: every desire draws vitality away from the will. If that desire can be resisted, the power caught up in it begins to flow into our hands.
"Interestingly enough, when it comes to something we like, we have all the will we need. This is a terribly important clue. Someone says, 'Hey, come on, we're going skiing!' and that is enough. We will get out of bed at three in the morning, drive for hours, stand cheerfully in the snow waiting for the ski lift, and in general suffer all kinds of discomfort with a will of iron. Yet as small a challenge as a letter to Aunt Gertrude will find the will against us; it will actually push us away.
"In this sense, no one can plead that he or she lacks will. There is will in every desire. If the desire is self-centered or conditioned, our will is turned against us; we do what it commands. As Spinoza observed, in such a life there are no decisions, only desires. But when the will is in our hands, we control our destiny.
"The Bhagavad Gita sums it up concisely: 'The will is our only enemy; the will is our only friend.' In Western mysticism, this enemy will is called self-will: the fierce compulsion to please ourselves, get what we want, have our own way, even if it is at the expense of others. This is the immense power behind all selfish desires. In deep meditation we can see self-will flowing through personality like a powerful river, conditioning most of what we think, say, and do.
"Sometimes in spiritual circles you will find invectives against desire. I have even heard the Buddha misquoted as saying that desire is suffering. Not at all. Selfish desire is suffering — in fact, the source of all suffering. But desire itself is simply power, neither good nor bad. Without the tremendous power of desire, there can be no progress on the spiritual path; there can be no progress anywhere. The whole secret of spiritual transformation is turning selfish desire into selfless desire, transforming personal passions into the overwhelming desire to attain life's highest goal.
"In my earlier days, I must confess, I would have agreed with the rest of the world that it is not possible to defy a strong desire without suffering serious consequences. When the river of conditioning came down on me, I too believed that I had no choice except to let the current sweep me away. But as my meditation deepened, I began to suspect that there was a choice. Instead of turning my back, I could turn against the current and try to swim upstream.
"For a long time I did not succeed; the muscles of my will were not yet strong enough. But I went to work on strengthening my will, by resisting all sorts of little, self-centered desires. And gradually a wonderful thing happened. It was like recalling some old strokes I had once learned but long since forgotten — butterfly, breaststroke, Australian crawl. I said to myself with some amazement, 'Hey, I can do this! I'm not being swept back any more.' It gave me a whole new perspective. Instead of deprivation, going against desires became a challenge, a new sport. Just as there are people who like nothing more than to ride a turbulent, treacherous river downstream, I began to find a fierce joy in fighting my way against the stream of my conditioning, like a salmon returning to its source.
"This is not repression; it is transformation. When I approved of a desire, I still knew how to swim with the current and enjoy it. But when I disapproved, I had a choice. I no longer lived in the everyday world of stimulus and response; I lived in a world of freedom.
"In this sense, we can look on the will as a tremendous transformer. The tributaries of desire and self-will flow in; then out comes prana, to be utilized as you choose. If the will is unified from top to bottom, the moment anger rises you can transform it into compassion. The moment disloyalty arises, you can transform it into love. Every negative samskara can be transformed like this, which means that personality can be remade completely in the image of your highest ideal.
"Ruysbroeck, a Flemish mystic of the fourteenth century, wrote, 'The measure of your holiness is proportionate to the goodness of your will.' As he told some university students, 'You are as holy as you want to be.' And, I would add, as happy as we want to be, as loving, as wise. The choice is wholly ours."
