Will power is the keynote of mastery, and asceticism is the development of will power.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
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 the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Chapter VII – Will Power )
A person might ask, ‘Is, then, the secret of happiness in the way of the ascetics, in tormenting and torturing oneself as they have done for ages?’ Even that does not give happiness. It is only a distraction from the worldly pleasures which produce illusion. The ascetics shut themselves up in order to have an opportunity of taking another direction. … For even asceticism is not a happiness. It is only a means of self-discipline.
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 ruler of mind is greater than the ruler of a nation.
( from Githa, Series II: Chapter 2 – Amaliyyat (Psychology), Paper 1 – To Develop Psychic Power: Concentration to Increase Power [ unpublished ] )
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 world within is attained.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad) Samuel L. Lewis
This will-power is both love-power and life-power. When it expresses itself as power it is called “will.” That is to say, in love – true love – power, intelligence, and beauty should be in equilibrium. When beauty dominates there is adoration which leads to intoxication, and when power dominates there is more fire without always more light.
In order that will-power be not destructive, in order that it be one with intelligence and beauty, the spiritual life is followed, which concentrates everything upon Unity. No doubt the life of self-denial in the desert accomplishes it, but that is like spending all one’s time gathering fuel for a fire, which is used neither to cook food nor to warm others. The real spiritual asceticism is followed in the midst of the world. This is nothing but a willing surrender for the purpose of a greater benefit for oneself and the whole humanity.