Deceiving the Unwillingness monster – Part One

This topic of willingness is one that we try to emphasize in our own spiritual training, right from the moment that we come into the path. If most of us did a little bit of introspection at the beginning, what we probably noticed is that there’s a ton of resistance that comes up.

Just something simple like meditating five minutes a day when we first learn to meditate, it is very difficult, “oh my goodness, how am I going to do that?” And then slowly we start to learn to cooperate with what the Guru is asking of us. And at that point, this concept of the unwillingness monster comes very handy, because we need to learn to cooperate with the Divine flow that’s guiding our lives.

Yogananda ji says, “If you shut me out, how can I come in?” The more we block with our resistances, with our likes and dislikes, we feel that flow of grace, that flow of blessing also being blocked. So paying attention to this within ourselves can be a very useful tool to keep moving forward spiritually.

Swamiji also says, “unwillingness is a satanic pull.” It has a satanic effect on the consciousness. Master actually has a lot of fun with this topic. It’s good to bring in humor, to laugh at ourselves sometimes and see some of these follies so you don’t take yourself too seriously. But you learn to keep working with that energy.

There’s a lovely story where Master wanted to put stained glass windows in the church that he was building. He asked Divine mother and she showed him in meditation where to find those stained-glass windows. This was in America. He went to that shop and the shopkeeper’s assistant was there. I love Master’s use of language. He asked him for the stained-glass windows and Master said, “the guy replied, ‘“Boss say no,” his body stooped with lifelong unwillingness. “Muss be no.”‘ Master had to offer him some money so he would just go and check. And sure enough – there were the stained-glass windows.

There’s a lot in this story for us to check ourselves – the “body stooped with unwillingness”. Let’s say some opportunities come to us: “is my body stooping?” Or do I need to sit straight, take a deep breath and say “Yes, Master.” Train ourselves to do that even though it seems like just something simple.

For example, the Superconscious Living Exercises. Swamiji said, if you can’t get out of bed, jump out of bed and start doing the exercises. Wake up with that burst of energy! They seem like little things we would teach children but in fact that’s a great way to work with ourselves, and how Master worked with this person.

I was thinking about another aspect of this story. It comes in with our Education For Life principles that Swamiji outlined for children. But also for all of us adult children who can really benefit from this; which is to work with the energy of the child. Sometimes a child is of “heavy consciousness” so what’s the next thing you can give them?

In this case, Master’s offering of money had to be the way that that shop assistant had to move out of himself. It became a motivation but sometimes it may not work for us if our energy is light. So maybe the Superconscious Living exercises would be effective, by using those principles of energy and working with ourselves in a way which can really help us turn around the blocked energy within us and just enjoy that flow.

Nayaswami Nitai who’s done all the work in building “Education For Life” has a lovely book about all of his experiences in the classroom while working with children. On the topic of unwillingness, he has a couple of things to say.

Once in the classroom, he went in and saw that there was a bit of unwillingness going on; this low energy and stuck energy. His first instinct was to behave how all of us were brought up probably in our schooling. You get scolded and punished if you’re not going to do this or you stand in the corner. He tried that approach but immediately felt that it wasn’t helpful in that scenario.

What he realized then was you need to find ways to change the energy of the child rather than trying to force them in a certain way. And from that give a series of things like the Awake and Ready exercises or giving the children an opportunity to try and see how is it when you do something nice versus when you do the opposite. For example, how do you feel when you share with each other versus when you don’t.

There was one teacher he writes about who walked into the classroom and immediately he felt this unwillingness energy in the class; a kind of lethargy. This teacher, not wanting to deal with unwillingness that day, came up with an idea and said “okay, so today’s class is going to start with a game of… Catch Me If You Can!”

And the teacher just ran and the students got shocked out of their lethargy and they ran after him. And the whole energy had changed in the children. These are little ways which are so brilliant in our Education For Life system.

Swami Kriyananda talks about unwillingness and he also brings in a lot of humor. He says we all may know people who are so stooped with that unwillingness that even to get up and answer the doorbell seems like a lot.

He says because of unwillingness, even the simplest of little duties  seem like enormous giant mountains of task. Then what to say of higher and bigger things like working with our own Karma, working with our spine, meditating and sitting straight. All of these take a certain willingness and cooperation from us. So watch those unwillingness monsters in ourselves and just pay attention to them.

Some qualities of unwillingness like procrastination, blocked energy, unresponsiveness, dragging one’s feet, resistance, lethargy, sluggishness can be released by using the Flower Essences.

Swamiji shared some of the positive ones like energy, enthusiasm and Say Yes To Life. All of these come with willingness and also living fully in the moment.

We played football once and this devotee in particular is the example of willingness – very full of enthusiasm and joy. We were running on the football field and I said to him “Get the ball. Get the ball!” This devotee was running after the ball but the ball went too fast for him – and he shouted out, “the mind is willing but the body is not cooperating!”

It was just a perfect moment of willingness. Even in that to try to express willingness: “I’m going to try, Master.” Let’s make sure we have that spirit with us all the time because it will take us very far on the spiritual path. Swamiji says do everything with a sense of privilege, with a sense of joy. That’s the spirit of willingness.