Failure comes when will surrenders to reason.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Will is not [merely] ‘a power’, but it is all the power there is. How did God create the world? By will. Therefore, what we call ‘will power’ in us is in reality ‘God power,’ a power that increases by our recognizing its potentiality and proves to be the greatest phenomenon in life. If there is any secret behind the mystery of the world of phenomena that can be learned, it is will power. It is by will power that all we do, physically or mentally, is accomplished. Our hands, with all their perfect mechanisms, cannot hold a glass of water if there is no will power to support them. If will power fails, a person seemingly healthy will not be able to stand.
It is our lack of faith that generally causes failures. In faith is the secret of fulfillment or non-fulfillment of every thought. There is no doubt about the fulfillment of a desire if our faith works with it. But when our own reason and doubt come and destroy the hope, one generally meets with failure. … there are numberless people who are thinking and reasoning all their lives, asking themselves, ‘Shall I do this? How can I do that? How can I overcome these obstacles? And all the time they are thinking of the hindrances, or waiting for suitable circumstances to arise, and they never do. Their whole life may be spent in the pursuit of something which reason prevents them from attaining.
( from The Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Faith, 10th paragraph )
An important rule of psychology is that every motive that takes its root in the mind must be watered and reared until its full development. And if one neglects this duty, one does not only harm the motive, but by this the will power becomes less, and the working of the mind becomes disorderly. Even if the motive be small and unimportant, yet a steady pursuit after its attainment trains the mind, strengthens the will, and keeps the inner mechanism in order.
For instance, when people try to unravel a knot, and then they think, ‘No use giving time to it,’ they lose an opportunity of strengthening the will and attaining the object desired. However small a thing may appear to be, when once handled, one must accomplish it, not for the thing itself, but for what benefit it gives.
( from Githas Series I: Sadhana, Paper #10 [ unpublished ] )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Will is the Divine Energy which penetrates the mind-mesh and has capacity to rise above it. When the mind begins to turn its thought upon particular experiences, it seizes the will-power and prevents it from returning to God, keeping it in the mind. This is the murder of Abel by Cain. This causes all suffering and also prevents further will-power from entering the sphere. Mind cannot use that beyond its capacity, but can misuse anything and everything.
The great weakness in reason is that every person may use it for some particular end and even wickedness can be defended by an argumentative mind.