In meditation a one-pointed mind is developed, and this creates a dynamic will. Willpower is a greater and deeper strength than wanting.
Book description
As an authority in both Eastern and Western techniques, Swami Rama presents a philosophy of total health. Maintaining that each individual possesses the responsibility and the tools to regulate his own well-being, he discusses the practical aspects of cleansing, nourishing, being still, utilizing the emotions, self-training, and exercise.
Book Excerpt: Holistic Science by Swami Rama
Why meditate?
Meditation is very powerful and therapeutic. There could not be anything more powerful than meditation. I learned this lesson once when I was a boy. I fell down the mountainside and injured my right knee.
A large, persistent lump developed there. One of the swamis said, "You can dissolve that lump with your mind."
I said, "I don't want that lump, and yet it is still there."
He said, "You don't want yourself to be a bad boy-and yet you are a bad boy. What do you mean by 'want'?
Want is not powerful: you want yourself to be good, and still you are not; you want that lump to dissolve, and still it does not. So wanting has nothing to do with it. Learn to meditate. In meditation a one-pointed mind is developed, and this creates a dynamic will. Willpower is a greater and deeper strength than wanting."
I told him, "You do meditation. If you think your mind is very powerful, then why don't you just help me and dissolve this lump?"
He agreed and said that he would. He told me to sit down at such and such time and in one week the lump would be gone. He said, "I could dissolve it right now, but I want you to become aware of the process and learn." In exactly one week the lump disappeared. I could not find a trace of it.
Steps to learning
The first principle of learning to be still is regular practice; the second is patience; the third is observation; and the fourth is analysis. It is true that you must understand yourself from within to attain a state of perfection-but analysis is not sufficient to transform the personality.
After analysis comes the discrimination to make a proper decision, You should never determine to do something unless you have explored all the consequences and chosen the best alternative for your development. This principle of choosing the best alternative is called discrimination, and is the fifth principle for developing control of the mind.
The reason you experience failure is that you do not know how to make decisions at the right time and place. Your faculty of discrimination cannot decide in time, because there is no strength behind it. One Urdu poem says "When I was young I had strength, but no wisdom. Now that I am old I have wisdom, but no strength." When you do not know how to decide things in time, there is misuse of strength and a lack of wisdom.
You cannot decide things in time because you lack determination, willpower. And one-pointedness. All success in the external and internal world depends on these factors.
As you progress from one step to another it is very important to understand the mind and how it functions, for it functions in exactly the way you make it.
The day you understand this and determine to change it, it changes of its own accord. So you must understand one more principle: determination. Once you have analyzed and decided what to do, then you should determine to carry it out.