Positive Thinking 15 – Understanding willpower 2 – Potential and actual

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Transcript

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Hare Krishna, welcome back to our discussion, on positive thinking, we are discussing, about the factors that shape, human behavior, and we discussed three deterministic theories, my genes, determine me, my upbringing determines me, or my social circle determines me, and we discussed how these are shapers, these are not determiners, they influence, they shape our behavior, but they are not going to determine it, there are beyond these three factors, there is something more, and there are two things more, which we will discuss in today’s talk, so we are discussing all this, because if we are to think positive, do we have within us, the willpower, the capacity to change our thinking, is our thinking unchangeable or changeable, so do we have willpower, how do we boost our willpower, that is the subject that we are discussing, so the fourth factor, that determines our, our behavior, is our free will, now all of us are conscious beings, and conscious beings means, that we have the capacity to direct our consciousness, and accordingly direct our action, so for example, you have the choice, whether to watch this video, or to do something else, and each of us, we have choices, and we make choices, now we may be unconscious choosers, or conscious choosers, that means, we may not even think what we are doing, and we may do something, so for example, if somebody puts food in front of us, we might just put our hand ahead, and eat the food, then we may not even think, should I eat it or not eat it, is this going to make me obese, is this going to increase my blood pressure, or whatever, or we may think, so the point is that, just because we are choosing unconsciously, does not mean that there is no choice involved, there is choice, but it is happening reflexively, we always have the capacity to choose, and our capacity to choose, is universally recognized, in all fields of practical living, so if a student gives a wrong answer, in an exam, despite having been taught by the teacher, the right answer, and despite having been given the right answer, in a preliminary exam, the teacher will ask, why did you give that answer, that means, if the child did not have free will, then the teacher would not ask, why did you do that, and a criminal commits a crime, somebody robs someone, somebody kills someone, now the law punishes such a person, why would the law punish such a person, if that person did not have free will, that means you have free will, you have to use your free will to act responsibly, one part of acting responsibly, is that you can’t rob others, you can’t kill others, so the whole idea of legal culpability, is based on an implicit understanding, that we all have free will, and we are responsible, for the way we use our free will, similarly, even within scripture, even within the religious traditions of the world, there are do’s and don’ts, there are prescriptions and proscriptions, and these, the very presence of such injunctions, do’s and don’ts, imply that we have the capacity to choose, so if we were just programmed without any free will, and then scripture is telling us, do this and don’t do this, that would become meaningless, so we have our free will, now is free will the same as will power, not exactly, free will is our capacity, the capacity that we have to make choices, that always exists, but will power is the capacity to implement our choices, to implement our choices means, that we need to translate, the capacity from potential to kinetic, from the potential to the actual, so for example, every child has the capacity to walk, but then if the child forever stays on the bed, the child will not learn to walk, so the child has to roll and stand up, and then the child is helped by the mother, by the father, by the relatives who help the child to walk, and the child falls and then rises again, and falls and rises again, and gradually the child learns to walk, so from the potential to the actual, there is a change that happens, and that change requires will power to proceed, to continue on despite reversals, now beyond that, if we consider that there is not just will power involved over here, that so we have the capacity to choose, and will power means, we choose according to a particular plan, according to certain higher purposes, certain principles, so that we can achieve certain goals in our life, so without understanding the fundamental presence of free will, there is no meaning to any discretion on will power, we do have free will, and by our free will, we can not just choose our actions in particular situations, but we can change our patterns of behavior, so this relates especially to the previous shapers of our behavior, our genes, our upbringing, our social circle, these do definitely push us to act in particular ways, but we can counter push, we are not helpless puppets of these shapers, we are not slaves of our genes, we are not slaves of our upbringing, we are not slaves of our association, they may push us to act in a particular way, and we can counter push, and this counter pushing capacity comes when we use our free will properly, so just as our muscles grow stronger when we use them, and they atrophy when we don’t use them, similarly our free will, it translates into strong will power when we use it repeatedly, diligently for acting according to certain principles, and when we don’t do that, then that free will decays, then our will power decays and it atrophies, so it is not that we don’t have will power, it is just that we may not have used it till now, and that’s why we feel that we have weak will power, but we can all understand muscles can be developed by exercise, similarly by exercising our will power for a purposeful cause, we can increase our will power, and the fifth factor is God’s grace, and God’s grace is the ultimate factor, which God is omnipotent and His grace is omnipotent, so when we harmonize our will with God’s will, then we get access to His supreme power, and that is actually life’s greatest empowerment, so devotion is the process by which we harmonize human will with divine will, we will discuss this more in the next talk, but suffice it to say that when we bring God’s grace into the picture, everything else changes, so what happens is these past forces are influencing us, but God’s grace can empower us to counter their influences, and completely change us from within, within the various religious traditions, there are stories of almost miraculous character transformation of people, and this happens when God’s grace gets infused into a person’s heart, so spirituality adds these two dimensions, that our will power comes from our spiritual essence, and God’s grace comes from the supreme spiritual being, and when we bring these two factors into the discussion, we understand that we do all have the capacity to change our life, change our thinking and thus change our destiny. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.