Field training tells us that, in order to have something we want, we have to be willing to have it but also to not have it. The willingness to have what we want is essential because willingness, not desire, is creative, but the willingness not to have what we want also is essential, because mobilizing nonlocal efficiency in the direction of the desired fulfillment depends on the release of our will. If our will is not released, then the thing we want can take us hostage. And as long as we can be taken hostage, we remain in a state of contradiction, willfulness, resistance, and suffering.

So we have this paradox of having through being willing to have and willing to not have. And it is a tough call which one students struggle with more. Often, the desire is mistaken for the willingness to have the desired thing, but these two are by no means the same or even in agreement with each other, for we may be set against the thing we want, and in this sense, set against ourselves. And wherever desire and belief are at odds, belief prevails. This is why it is important to be clear about what we want, but also to be clear about what we’re believing—which in our terms means specifically what we’re taking to be real and so, allowing to inform our identity.

Within the circle of this paradox, having and releasing and receiving are three ways to describe the same inner stance. When we are willing to have what we want, but also willing to not have it and so have released our will about it, then that thing comes to us, for the paradox of our willingness creates a vacuum in the Field that the Field must fill according to the Law of Correspondence, according to which reality always corresponds with the “I” (identity) of the beholder.

Much is gained from honest and unflinching self-assessment, and certain questions are helpful in placing us into the company of the truth that sets us free. Are we willing to have what we want? This is first. Perhaps we are not. Perhaps we find even the desire embarrassing. If we are not friendly toward the desire, we are automatically unfriendly toward its fulfillment. If we approach our desire innocently, without making it bad or wrong but simply allowing it as a natural state of our being, a feature of the inner landscape or weather, then we may make peace with our estranged desire, welcome it home, and immediately feel the relief of what Stephen Levine calls “ending the war” within. Next comes release of the will. And this is another paradox in itself—because our refusal to be taken hostage by something we want, no matter how deeply we may want it, the willingness to have our desire but not be had by it, establishes at the center of us an independence and authority that no fact can assail, even while the same release of the will acknowledges our utter dependence on a will greater than our own. Our independence, then, is interdependence, and our authority can be exercised fully only in the moment of delegating authority. Is it hard to understand how the Field might find such an approach irresistible?

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