You Will Not Have a Healthy Will Until You
Have Acquired the Capacity to Discern a Goal
Jean des Vignes Rouges
Will you be as wise as he is?
By disciplining your tendencies – each of which has its
own particular “hunger” – and by establishing a hierarchy
among them, you will harmonize your activities and will
define, on the map of the future, the path to be followed.
(JVR)
“Hunger makes the wolf get out of his woods”. And brings forth the will in the soul of man. This is perhaps the first observable origin of the will. As soon as a child is born, it performs sucking movements. While still in the egg, the young chick pecks at its shell and, barely out, pecks. The little bird opens its beak and waits for its mother to fill it.
One should not believe that all these “newborns” already have in their minds an image of the food they desire. No. They are simply hungry; this triggers the appropriate mechanisms that come into action following the method of trials and errors. This is why the child sucks a finger as well as a breast, the chick pecks the ground at random and the birdie opens its beak at the slightest touch.
Once the young organism has discovered by experience that kind of movement which brings milk, grain and mash into its stomach, it has acquired the notion of a goal; it knows what it wants; and, to the extent that it is efficient in the use of the method of trial and error, it knows how to want.
Unfortunately, many persons remain mostly at the newborn stage in the way they choose a goal. They wait until they are hungry, thirsty, cold, etc., and then they act at random, trying to get rid of their discomfort.
This inability to have a strong notion of their own goal results not only in an inability to foresee the future, but causes a dispersion of their energies.
Look at these people, restless, agitated, feverish with curiosity. They do not know what they want. Like the newborn, they suck anything, peck at random, open their beaks disproportionately, but do not know what can calm their hunger for food, pleasure, money, honor, knowledge. They make vain efforts in every direction, in a bubbling activity, wasting their energy and running towards many mirages. These fruitless attempts do not give them a concrete notion of their goal.
Tell yourself, and repeat it many times, that you will not have a healthy will until you have acquired the capacity to discern a goal, that is to say, to specify what will appease your congenital “hunger”. It is by maintaining in your mind the strong vision of the thing that will satisfy you most fully that you will unify your personality. By disciplining your tendencies – each of which has its own particular “hunger” – and by establishing a hierarchy among them, you will harmonize your activities and will define, on the map of the future, the path to be followed.
In the article on “Ideal” [1], I tell you how to establish the great goals that should dominate your existence and ennoble it. But in addition to your “high ideal”, give yourself more concrete goals, and above all, more immediate goals; they will be like milestones placed on the road to your Ideal.
The goal that is near has the advantage of encouraging the body to gather its energies and make the pursuit more ardent. You must also know how to choose concrete goals that are within your reach. Do not seek chimerical objects. But do not aim too low either. If there is a risk of making a mistake, it is better to bet on the goal that forces you to raise your head.
From a practical point of view, ask yourself each morning the questions:
“What will be the goal of my efforts today? Is it reasonable? What will be the goal tomorrow? What other secondary objects must I sacrifice in order to devote myself entirely to the one that interests me the most? Am I not giving in to the mania for mental dispersion by imagining that I can enjoy at the same time the pleasure of being a good sportsman, a perfect dancer, a competent mathematician, a cafeteria public lecturer, a clever investor, a Don Juan, an eminent cellist, a cubist painter and a fine bridge player?”
A tiny chick that is offered grains of rice, wheat, barley, or oat semolina quickly acquires the ability to discern where its pecks should go. It pecks at the semolina first, which is more appropriate for its needs. Will you be as wise as he is?
NOTE:
[1] See the article “Ideal – the Dynamic Force of the Will”.
000
The article “Goal – Do You Know What you Want?” was published on the websites of the Independent Lodge of Theosophists on 18 November 2024. It was translated from the book «Dictionnaire de la Volonté», by Jean des Vignes Rouges, Éditions J. Oliven, Paris, 320 pp., 1945, pp. 51-53.
The original text in French is available on the websites of the ILT: “But – Savez-Vous Ce Que Vous Voulez?”.
000
Read more:
* How to Strengthen One’s Will (by HPB).
000
Helena Blavatsky (photo) wrote these words: “Deserve, then desire”.
000