Of all the attitudes and qualities that need development in the healthy personality none is more important than personal power or the development of will. This last statement and point cannot be emphasized enough. Everything I have spoken of so far (in this book) will not work if you don’t have personal power. Personal power is the key that makes the theory and ideals work. Personal power, or will power, is the first golden key.
What is personal power? Personal power or will is the guiding force of the healthy personality. Personal power is first an attitude. We can choose to hold an attitude of weakness or strength as we begin each day. Your power is the energy that you use to enforce your decisions.
For example, let’s say you want to exercise at 3 o’clock. When 3 o’clock comes it is a good bet that you will need your power to make yourself do what you have committed yourself to do. Your power is also needed to control your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind will push you around unless you own your own power, so personal power is the enforcing agent of the conscious mind. It is the energy that mind musters to command and direct that personality. Personal power in its external usage is assertiveness.
Personal power is also very much tied in with decisiveness. It is intrinsic in the attitude of “fish or cut bait.” If you are not decisive, then the subconscious mind or other people will make your decisions for you. The subconscious mind has no reasoning, and other people’s decisions are not always in your best interest.
How can you be the master of yourself and your life if you do not have personal power? If you don’t own your power, then you end up giving it to the subconscious or to other people. We know that God has power. The fact is that we are co creators and mini gods, so we have power, too. God helps those who help themselves. You can’t help yourself if you don’t own your power.
There is and has always been total personal power available to you. Personal power is nothing more than energy in your physical body and subconscious mind that you are using to control your life. Part of owning your power is being a spiritual warrior in life. Never giving up, and the will to live is really the will to fight.
Yoga teaches that life is not only a school but also a battlefield. We are trying to get to the top of a mountain. Progress entails taking three steps forward and slipping back two, or seven steps forward and slipping six, ad infinitum, until the top is reached. This is the nature of life for everyone on the spiritual path. The most important thing is not to be a quitter.
Paramahansa Yogananda, the great Indian sage, said, “A saint is a sinner who never gave up.” Part of owning your power is to keep plugging away. It is also having faith in God’s power, as well as your own personal power. When all outer security is stripped away, you always know that you have your power and God’s power available to you and with you all the time. This is true safety and security.
