Will power: it is not about winning

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Here is a beautiful definition by Ramana Maharishi on will power. We have been taught it wrong by our care-taker generation that was ahead of us --  our parents, our teachers, our leaders have made it out that will power is about succeeding always. Ramana says it is actually about trying, come what may. And also, it adds up to equipoise whatever the result.
 How elegant that definition is.. how sophisticated. The way we have been taught about will power -- it is aggressive, competitive and conflicting and leaves us dissatisfied at having tried, if we did not succeed. Our definition of will power is designed to makes us restive and unhappy!

Here is Ramana's definition:
"Your idea of will power is success insured. Will power should be understood to be the strength of mind which makes it capable  of meeting success or failure with equanimity. It is not synonymous with certain success. Why should one's attempts be always attended with success? Success develops arrogance and the man's spiritual progress is thus arrested. Failure on the other hand is beneficial, in as much as it opens the man's eyes to his limitations and prepares him to surrender himself. Self surrender is synonymous with eternal happiness. Therefore one should try to gain the equipoise of mind under all circumstances. That is will-power. Again success and failure are results of prarabhdha and not of will-power, "
 

Breaking it all down:Viyoga, the yoga of separation

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Initially, when u start meditating and doing yoga in a meditative fashion, you realise that there is a big divide between two things which you thought were one -- the mind and the body. Often, the mind is still and watching the body and its antics. They are two separate things. If the mind decides, usually it seems the body will meekly follow even in situations where the body could, otherwise, fail. You sense this during sickness... this divide and this calm watching of the mind which has distanced itself from the pain.

Mind and consciousness

Then, amazingly you realise the mind is itself not a complete thing as you imagined. It is separate from the consciousness. This you realise when you meditate: as the mind rumbles and tumbles about, something behind watching is aware that it has wandered off and gently prods it back. When you catch a difficult note while singing,  you realise if the consciousness is allowed to do its own thing then the note comes on its own without effort. However, if the mind is allowed to interfere, it starts labelling and sometimes call a high note (if you are beginner and don't know, as you would also in the spiritual field) a low one and make you sing in a manner to accomodate its mistake. But when the mind steps back and allows consciousness, it catches the note perfectly, without having had the need to label it either high or low. This is an amazing insight. This you can shift to life, and interpret any event as you like. And follow the consciousness and be upbeat wherever you are placed. And have that sense of doing things with no effort whatsoever:)

Consciosuness too! !!
The third stage is when you realise that this consciousness iteslf is not the complete thing you thought  it was. It shuffles between several personalities it has acquired, from who you are and colours you. If you negate it, then the other -- the one who you have been chasing - will shine through.  The consciousness has three textures to it -- an active (I have to do this, I must achieve that -- that sort of impulse); then the one which manipulates without label (when you choose something over other without thinking and assume the choice is good) -- the subconscious consciousness; and the third, which seems to be dead and drags you down in no-thought but which is not the dynamic no-thought of a truly realised soul(most of us shuffle in this dark dungeon, but happily:). As you learn slowly to negate any or all three of these levels of consciousness you enter another space. This is the difficult bit: the consciousness is like the double helix -- that and not quite that, with a river of endless messages which keep  drawing you back to a sense of  theI, and which you must finally renounce. This is a sadhana too. And I believe the most exciting one:)

This is where something comes through.. and you realise that you cannot keep on nourishing something you wish to jettison.. an amazing sense of freedom comes with that. But it can be ephemeral and make no sense in the context of the world where we live. But luckily, if you read Indian philosophy you know this is where the excitement is, all the action -- in renouncing something so subtle and so beloved that it is the greatest challenge we can face:) Renouncing the sense of the I... mmm .. an exciting place, and the greatest and only yoga!

No struggle

At a particular point in the sadhana, the struggle will cease automatically. As long as the sense of struggle lasts, there will be deep depression because of the sense of longing, mumukshutva. This is natural, though a terrible state. But it seems to have afflicted all saints. At a particular point, when the answers to how you may address this torture of the jiva mistaking itself for atman stops confusing you, you feel on a high. But this is a peculiar thing, that it has nothing to do with you. It comes on its own. You are doing all those foolish things you did before. You continue to struggle being a human. Yet, somewhere the questions have been answered. There are no doubts. You have made the choice. Even earlier, you may have made the choice. But the strange thing that is Maya drags you back, and you are not even aware. Now, as she drags you back and you feel her subtle tentacles, yet you float above that miasma she creates, unaffected by her grip. This is a a terrific high. She is there. You do feel her. Yet, you know that she, grinning at you, will pass.  She too knows she has no hold on you any more. It is now some sort of a playful thing, as you live on. She stops frightening you, with the living.  But that sort of takes a long, long while. Till then, even those people who see all sorts of things in their meditation, and are calm, are sattvic, are great beings, yet, they have not felt this losing of grip of maya.  They are still far off from this peculiar release -- of  being aware of maya and yet unaffected by her. That bypasses them, for some reason.  Somewhere, perhaps, it happens when you drop of the sense of self altogether. Make difficult choices that will not work for the ego any more. This is where the transition takes place, without you actually having worked too hard. The only thing you do here is to chose right.  See the things twined, but select that which seems not there at all. Select something that will not work for you in this world... and then, things unravel. 
Such a high, as never before. You are almost realised:)

Jettisoning the self

Something waited to fall.
A tear drop swelling in readiness to fall.
But subsided from where it rose.
Something did fall off.
I felt it drop.
A scab of a self, among many.
The wound had healed.
Nothing remained.
Traceless, not even a scar.
Somethings are better dropped.