According to Osho, willpower grows only by exercising it: make small, doable resolves and unfailingly complete them. Each kept vow strengthens self-trust; each broken one weakens resolve and self-respect. Avoid grand pledges; practice steady, simple disciplines (like fixing your gaze for an hour) and persist. There is no shortcut—do exactly what you wish to cultivate, consistently, and it will develop.
You build willpower by making tiny promises to yourself and keeping them, again and again.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, is there any method to increase willpower?
So do not take a very big resolve all at once, one that you already know is beyond you—and this is what often happens: those who set out on the journey of resolve take resolves beyond their limits. Your own mind counsels you, “Yes, take it.” And then you get stuck, and you fall. Then the same mind says, “Now drop it. You’re not anyone’s slave; you took it yourself, now leave it.” Why does the mind do this? Because the greater your resolve becomes, the smaller your mind becomes. The day a resolve is fulfilled, the mind dies; it cannot survive. Mind and resolve are opposing forces. Mind is the name of your weakness; resolve is the name of your soul. Mind is your disease; resolve is your health. Therefore the mind will keep putting you in difficulties. It will say, “Take a big one.” When you take it,…
Commonly people are heard saying something—and their statement is fundamentally wrong. Today a friend came; he said it seems to me that those whose will-power is less, the weak-willed, attain to meditation more quickly. I said to him: this is the limit of foolishness. Such notions exist. In truth, those who do not attain need some justification as to why it is not happening to them. They say: because our will-power is too strong. Then Mahavira must have had weak will-power! This man who in twelve years ate for only one year in total—the days he ate add up to three hundred and sixty-five in twelve years—surely the result of weak will-power. Buddha had weak will-power. Jesus had weak will-power that while being crucified he could say to God: forgive them all, for they know not what they do.
Can this happen through will power?
Will is power; energy. There is no such thing as 'will power'. Will is power, will is energy. But by 'will' I mean the whole: Those who use the term 'will power' use it in a psychic sense. They use it to mean the power of concentration. I am not using the term in that sense. To me, 'will' means the whole. So only God is will. We are never will; we are just desires. Will is power, without desire. It is power with no movement or, with an inner movement. It is power without direction: directionless, dimensionless. When we say, "God is power," it does not mean that God is powerful. It means: God-power. God is the energY of the whole, the power of the whole. So when I say 'will power', it does not mean that will has power. Will is power -- it is energy. You can…
Osho, you have said before that if a seeker in his experiment should make an intense resolve that he would like to die, that he would like to return to his own center, in a few days his life energy will begin to contract from within and the seeker will be able to see his body as dead -- first from within, and then from without. Consequently, his fear of death will disappear forever. So the question is: in this condition, does one need to make any special preparation or take any extra precaution so that the subtle body may return safely to the physical body? Or, does the return of the subtle bo
You will find that with this resolve, sitting in the car even for half an hour did not prove to be worthless. You will come out with the feeling that you have gained something, that you are richer than you were a half hour ago. So the question is not where you experiment, or what means are used for that purpose. I just gave you an example. The point is, you may follow any experiment that will help you strengthen your will-power. It would be good if you carried on with the small ones. If a man is asked to go in meditation for forty minutes by simply closing his eyes, he can't do it; he opens his eyes frequently and looks around. Now this man is without a will, he is not centered. There are great advantages in closing the eyes, it causes no harm. But this man can't…
Osho, man's partial consciousness is a stage in the grand evolution of life. What could be the significance of his volitional efforts in its growth? Please also explain the role that the buddhas, the enlightened ones, play in the expansion of human consciousness.
Of course, obviously, a Buddha knows less than you, but that doesn't mean that you are more grown-up. A Jesus knows less than you. He knows less than any Catholic priest because he was never trained, never educated. He was just a carpenter's son -- uneducated, with no information of the world; but still, you are not more evolved than him. A Mohammed is just illiterate, a Kabir is just a nobody -- but they are more evolved. But then that evolution is something else: an evolution of consciousness, not just of things. You can substitute having for being. Being is a different dimension of growth -- a vertical one; having is horizontal. Things go on and on, and you have so many things -- so much information, so much knowledge, so much wealth, so many degrees, so many honours. But this is accumulation: it is horizontal. There is no…