Paper IX           3/19/25 1:15 PM

Will

In the name of God, the most Merciful and Compassionate.

In his Morals & Dogma of Masonry, one of the first subjects that Albert Pike deals with is Force. Later he goes on to say that Will is a force, Thought is a force, Love is a force. Now if these are forces, do they obey the laws of forces? Do physical forces obey certain laws and metaphysical forces other laws? Man has divided the universe into compartments and studies these compartments as separate sciences. In doing this he has often forgotten that the Universe is one, that Nature is one; so when he discovers what he calls a law, he restricts that law to a particular science or to that and allied sciences.

Newton especially has discovered laws of forces like the so-called “Law of Gravitation,” and the laws of motion. Do these laws apply merely to physical forces? One law is the Law of Attraction, that bodies attract inversely as the square of the distance. When the magnetic and electric forces were studied, it was observed that they obeyed the same law. When light was studied, it was observed that the intensity of light varied inversely as the square of the distance from its source. Is love a force? If so, does it obey the law? The Prophet said “When man takes one step toward God, God takes ten steps toward man.” Ten, not one. One can perceive that Mohammed was saying in a simple way what Newton and other scientists have expressed mathematically. We can also see it in another way: When a person’s love increases, when he grows spiritually, the number of people he attracts grows not proportionally, but in much larger increase, as we would say: The prophet or sage attracts people in the square of the proportion of his spirituality or wisdom.

We might pause for a minute. We use the same word “Magnetism” for this personal attraction that we use in regards to inanimate objects attracting one another, but we never pause to see if the same laws hold true.

Now coming to the question of Will. Will is so often confused with thought, and one believes by Thinking hard they are Willing hard, but a moment’s consideration will show that this is not so. Before you can think, you must will to think. Before God created this universe, He willed to do so. God as Creator is primarily the willer. The thought was an emanation of his Will. Then thinking, He spoke and it was done. God created man in His own image and man has often been called “The word of God made flesh.” Every creature is the Word of God in form, but only man expresses will and it would be much better to say man is the “Will of God made flesh.” It is this will and this Will power that has made it possible for man to differ from animals. There are reasons for believing that animals have souls, that they think, that they even worship, but the great difference between man and beast is in Will.

Many philosophers have sought in an expression of Will the cause behind phenomena and called it “The Will to Live,” “The will to Think,” even “The Will to Die,” but if we look into man’s life, the guiding spirit seems to be “The Will to be Happy,” and thus is the ladder to use to reach happiness, “The Will.” Newton’s third law of motion was “That to every action there was an equal and opposite reaction.” And we are beginning to see today in the West, what they have long known in the East, that this is a universal law, effecting all things—the law of Karma. Every Great Master who ever brought a Message taught this law. All Nature is subject to it and so is man unless he climbs by means of the rope God has given him. Another one of Newton’s laws goes: “Everybody in the Universe continues at rest or in uniformly accelerated motion (in a straight line or circle) unless impelled from that path by some external force. But if we examine this law, the word “internal” will hold as well as external.

Now Nature being all movement, her motion would be in a circular path (unless she followed a straight line) and we find that everything in nature does follow the circle. The forms of plants and animals show the presence of the circle. The forms of plants and animals show the present of the circle. Processes like metabolism are circular. The earth and planets move in nearly circular orbits. The life of a drop of water is ocean, air, cloud, rain, ground, river or conduit, ocean. The currents of air and the ocean currents show this same idea, aid this is Karma working.

But there is another force working that is not Karma. The tree grows and grows despite gravity; the flowers shoot upward toward the light; animals seek light and companionship. So we see that there is another force—Love, in nature. And we do not always see this in man. But God has given man His greatest Love by giving him Will. Man alone has the will to Love, not through instinct like the lower world, nor through inner nature like the Angels. And it is man’s use of this Will, or its abuse, that will bring happiness or sorrow.

If man does not use this Will to oppose the law of Karma, the law of necessity, the wheel, he will suffer pain and sorrow, hunger and thirst, and though he finds momentary joys, it is action and reaction. To free him from this came Krishna and Buddha, Abram and Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. “Make straight the path of the Lord.” In other words, physically speaking, we must use a force acting in a straight line to oppose circular force, and this force is Will.

And how is Will to be used? By attunement. By attuning one’s will with God’s Will. It is the same as other forces. We know that the pressure exerted by a column of water at a given point or on a given area does not depend on the volume of water, but only its height. A vertical column of water has the greatest force. When the Will is in tune with God’s will, it can overcome all opposition. We readily see how much value there is in a Niagara, and how we can use the water pressure, while a lake offers no such benefit. So if the Will is attuned or turned in the right direction, other forces can be overcome by it.

If Will were part of Thought, men would here reach a great obstacle, for he cannot conceive of Thought being so powerful as to overcome all other thoughts. But the source of Will is not in the Thought or Head. The key to it is in man’s heart. If he goes there, he can learn the direction in which to turn this power and when his will becomes God’s will (rather God’s will becomes his) a new heaven and a new earth open up to him.

Christ said: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Stop and think what this means! What would be the result of man attuning himself so he could use God’s Will? If we look we can see where Napoleon succeeded and where he failed; where Woodrow Wilson succeeded and where he failed. The greatest mistake of these men was that they associated Will with Thought instead of with Love. How different with Solomon and Asoka and Akbar! Over 2000 years have passed and columns erected by Asoka because he apparently had to oppose the Universal Will by using force of arms, still stand, a monument to the world. If our peace-makers would only take a lesson from him!

When a radio-operator wants to tune in on a distant station, he wants quiet and peace around him to concentrate his efforts. And it is much the same with the seeker after truth. And if he would tune his will with God’s will, he must have quiet and peace and learn concentration and meditation. The effort may not be much greater and as Christ said “Great is your reward in Heaven.”

Will is a force, will is a power and “there is no Power or might save in God.”