Will power is the keynote of mastery, and asceticism is the development of will power.

It is the ego, fed on pleasures and comforts of all kinds, which is our enemy. Therefore once we crush our ego, our will becomes the ruler over our pleasures, and when the will is master we are master. The variety of our past life is now submitted to the unity of our being.

from http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XII/XII_I_15.htm


The nature of the mind is such that it creates a thought and throws it over for another thought to take its place. This being the nature of the mind, it makes it difficult for one to concentrate upon one object steadily. The mind of an average person may be pictured as an unruly horse that jumps and kicks and throws anyone that tries to ride it. Masters of the world are those who have mastered themselves, and mastery lies in the control of the mind. If the mind became your obedient servant, the whole world is at your service. The king of mind is greater than the king of a nation

~~~ "Gita II, ’Amaliyyat 1", by Hazrat Inayat Khan (unpublished)


The first exercise to help the will power to develop would be to check every act, word, and thought which we do not wish to occur; to avoid unintentional actions, speech, and thoughts. The other exercise that is necessary for the development of the will power is that of seeing that neither our mind nor our body rules us, but that we rule our body and our mind. Desires such as appetite, thirst, sleep, even the desire of moving or standing or walking, all these desires should be under control. There should be a time in every day when every desire of the body is checked. See if you can do it; and then as long as you can let the body go without listening to it, do so.

from http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_7.htm


The fasting and abstinence, and all these things, were taught in order to develop the will power, which results in self-discipline and which is the secret of all mastery; and it is by this power that the kingdom within is attained. Once man has touched his self within, the illusion becomes dissolved. ... Under all conditions of life which produce obscurity and confusion the soul-realized man sees the light, and to him all men, of lesser or greater degrees of evolution, are nothing but different forms of the Divine Immanence. In this way the man who has probed the depths of the mystery of life becomes God-realized. When he no longer has his limited self before his view then only he experiences the state of which Christ has spoken: ’Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.’

from http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XIII/XIII_2.htm



~~~ Will power is the keynote of mastery, and asceticism is the development of will power.