Will and Washing Dishes

From my friend and fellow student, Mark of the New York Center

Will and Washing Dishes

Will is the undeniable and instantaneous command of an Awareness over a Form. It's a natural attribute, not something you have to earn or work for. Every Form—whether it's physical, like your body, or metaphysical, like a thought—has a deep connection, or "resonance," with the Awareness that brought it into existence. This resonance is the key; without it, Awareness has no dominion.

How Will Manifests: A Simple Example of Washing a Dish

Think about the simple act of washing a dish. Your will manifests as your conscious desire to perform an action, and it is carried out by your somatic nervous system (SNS), which acts as the bridge between your thoughts and your movements.

When you decide to wash a dish, your brain's motor cortex sends a signal. This signal travels down your spinal cord to the specific nerves of the SNS that control the muscles in your arms and hands. These nerves, called motor neurons, carry the message from your brain and spinal cord to your skeletal muscles.

The moment the signal reaches your muscles, it tells them to contract. The coordinated contraction of different muscles allows you to pick up the dish, scrub it with a sponge, and rinse it under water. This entire process happens in a flash, showing how a conscious thought—your will—is translated into a physical action.

But the SNS does more than just control movement; it also provides sensation. Sensory neurons send signals back to your brain, giving you feedback on the dish's weight, the sponge's texture, and the water's temperature. This feedback loop is crucial for fine-tuning your movements. For example, if the dish starts to slip, your sensory neurons instantly alert your brain, and your brain sends a new signal through your motor neurons to adjust your grip. This constant communication between your brain, muscles, and senses is what makes the SNS so effective at carrying out your will.

In this example, your Awareness is manifesting as your desire to clean a dish. As long as that desire persists, the various Forms involved—your nerves, muscles, and even hormones and metabolites—work to fulfill that request. They don't question or debate the order; they simply act to satisfy the will of Awareness. While you may feel in control of the big picture, you're not consciously directing every single nerve impulse or chemical reaction. You're simply providing the will, and the Forms that have resonance with your Awareness handle the rest.

If you have built castles in the air, that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. —Henry David Thoreau

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The Scullery Maid, Guiseppe Maria Crespi (1710-1715)