The secret to achieving any kind of success lies in an indomitable will. Here by success is not just meant a narrow kind of business or academic success, but a much broader victory over the ills of life itself.
For life is a difficult journey. Along the way we are bound to face insurmountable obstacles in the form of failures, heart-breaks, financial strains, illnesses, death of loved ones and other unforeseen events, which test our resolve to move forward.
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
To get through such situations the one quality which is of paramount importance is an indomitable will. It is an iron will which helps us tunnel through life’s mountainous challenges without losing heart or succumbing to grief, anxiety and depression.
So how does one cultivate such a steadfast will – a will so resolute that even when the most fearful storms rage outside, our minds remain unperturbed and calm inside?
The answer is – by always speaking the truth!
The Most Effective Way to Increase Our Will Power is to Always Speak the Truth!
Truth is the rock-solid foundation upon which an indomitable will is built. This fact may not appear very intuitive right away, so here is the detailed and profound explanation, from a wonderful master of Vedanta philosophy, Swami Chinmayananda:
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- “You will wonder why all religions of the world place so much emphasis upon honesty and truthfulness! A close examination of what happens in our minds before we tell a lie would be sufficient to make us understand how much harm we cause (to our willpower) when telling lies:
Supposing I want a leave of absence from my office, to go on a weekend with my friends. I am quite sure that the officer will not grant my request if I tell him the honest purpose.
So naturally, I have to tell such a big story that it must produce sufficient sympathy in the officer to sanction my leave immediately.
Thus I type out my leave request saying, ‘My mother is seriously ill’.
Now the officer calls me and perhaps he feels moved and enquires: ‘Is your mother seriously ill? What is she suffering from?’
In your honest mind, immediately the thought arises, ‘my mother is perfectly all right’. But at the same time you also feel that revealing the truth would invite a rebuff, and so you say: ’Yes my mother is seriously ill. Oh it is one of those old age diseases!’
These two sets of thinking in fact mutually negate each other and produce what is psychologically called a self-cancellation of thoughts.
This impoverishes the mental power in willing efficiently; for even when you deliberately think such a thought as, ‘I must win’ or ‘I must succeed’, the habit of your mind to entertain self-cancelling thoughts, at once produces an irresistible flow of negative thoughts, which negate your own determination to succeed. Thus thoughts like ‘I will never succeed’ or ‘I will never win’, rise up in your mind to sabotage your own previous strength of will.”
– Swami Chinmayananda in his English translation of the Prasnopanisad (pages: 71-72) (World, India).
“To tell a lie is to express differently from what you actually feel.”
– Swami Chinmayananda
In this way, through our careless actions of speaking the untruth, we sap our mind of its strength and will-power, and are thus unable to attain our goals.
Therefore the first practice to building up an indomitable will is to always speak the truth! This way we avoid letting our mind fall into the unwitting habit of constantly negating out our desire to succeed. Upon this firm foundation we can then layer on other techniques, which are widely available on the internet.
Credit:
This article is from the spiritualbee.com. It has been republished here with permission.
Image Credit : Pixabay.com
