Of all the attitudes and qualities that need development in a healthy personality, none is more important than personal power or the development of the 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 a 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 the 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.

Your power is the energy that you use to take risks. If you don’t own your power, you are going to have a hard time keeping your bubble of protection up. Your power is what allows you to “fake it until you make it”. Your personal power, in essence, is your center. When you are in charge you feel more centered.

When you use your power over a long period of time you have what is called discipline. Owning your power is what allows the conscious reasoning mind to stay in control and not to be overwhelmed by subconscious or environmental forces. When you don’t own your power you get depressed. Anyone who is depressed is not owning their power.

There are two opposing forces in life: Good and evil, light and darkness, positive and negative, illusion and truth, egotistical thinking and spiritual thinking. Your power is your weapon with which to fight the negative and identify with the positive. As Edgar Cayce said, “There is no force in the universe more powerful than your will or power.”

The conscious reasoning mind, with the will or power, then directs all the incoming forces. If we don’t have the will or power we would be overwhelmed. People in the extreme state of giving up their power, control, and mastery have become psychotic. The conscious mind has abdicated all responsibility for control, mastery, orchestration, and directorship. The subconscious mind and the environment totally take over.

You don’t have to be afraid of your power because you are going to use it only in a loving way to serve God, yourself, and other people. Whenever you are in power you will feel good. When you have your power, you are challenging and asserting yourself. When you don’t have your power, life is clobbering you. The essence of what I am trying to teach in my work is that we are causes of our reality. To be the cause of our reality all the time, we must own our power.

How Do You Claim Your Power?

You claim your power by choosing every morning, the second you get up, to affirm the attitude in your mind that you have it. Say personal power affirmations to yourself to cultivate and build this energy. Also, say emotional invulnerability affirmations to build your protective bubble since this is so much involved with owning your power.

Edgar Cayce, the great sleeping prophet, made another very important statement involving power. He talked about the importance of developing positive anger. I emphasize the term “positive” anger. Positive anger is controlled anger that is not directed at other people or yourself but rather at the dark force that is trying to push us down. It is used to catapult us toward the light and positivity.