Do What Thou Wilt

In times of terror we see those who love evil, because it gives them a reason to hate.

We often think about the struggle between doing what is right and what is wrong, but far more often the problem is not doing the right thing but knowing what the right thing is. In my experience, more often than not I want to do the right thing but it isn't clear what that is. There are often several options, none of which seems exactly right and all of which could be wrong.

Wouldn't it be good if you could trust your desires, if you could know that you are good and that what you want to do is therefore likely to be the right thing. Then you could usually just do what you want, except  where it is clearly wrong, and most of the time you would be doing the right thing or at least have the right intentions.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". Aleister Crowley wrote this in the early 1900s. Contemporary society misunderstood him as saying "do what you want", and for this they called him the great beast. Actually he meant find your true will, and do what you really will. For your true will is to do good. Mr Crowley has a dark reputation, mostly undeserved but not entirely, but for good or for ill (and who knows) his words have had an influence on my life. He also said "Love is the law, love under will". We choose to love, and this it seems to me is a beautiful truth.

So how do you get there, how do you know what your true will is? This is pretty much the same question that most people ask for much of their lives; who really am I and what do I really want?

We spend much of our lives struggling to do what is right, and feeling that we are not very good and therefore we must fight against what we want. So we don't trust our own desires and we remain cut off from ourselves and struggle to know our own heart and mind.

So I'm afraid that the path to discovering who you are, to discovering what you really want and what your "true will" (whatever that may be) is, does largely involve doing what you want - and being prepared to take the consequences of your actions.

If you're willing to trust that you are basically good, with many flaws, and that you want to do the right thing. And if you're also prepared to accept that you can only do what you can do, that even if there is some hypothetical "right thing" if it is beyond your capability then you must simply do what you can and that's all that can be asked. If you're willing to trust that trying to love people is a process that will change you, trust that in having a genuine heart you will be changed, then do what you want. And gradually, if you really are genuine, what you want will more and more be good. As you do what you want, as you're willing to listen to what you want, then what you *really* want and who you really are becomes clearer.

Obviously apply common sense. Deny the clearly wrong impulses, but be willing to make mistakes. If you get things wrong then just deal with the consequences. You only do what you are able to do, no need to feel guilty just get on with facing what is before you right now. The past has gone and the future is not yet written. Let's have some fun and be good.

Love God and do what you want -- Augustine.


"It has been said that for many people their faith involves attempting to clamber from the evil branches to the good branches in the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Instead the call is to climb down from that tree and climb into the tree of life."