Words such as wish, desire, love, and their like mean more or less the same thing; but the word "will" has a greater importance than all those other words. And the reason is that will is life itself.

The Bible calls God love. Love in what sense? Love in the sense of will. The Creator created the universe by what? By love? By will; love came afterwards. Love is the will when it is recognized by its manifestation; then it is called love; but in the beginning it is will.

For instance, the Taj Mahal, the great building at Agra, is said to be the token of the love that the emperor bad for his beloved. At the same time, when one looks at it objectively, one cannot call it an expression of love; one would sooner call it a phenomenon of will. For the beginning of the building at least, one may look at the spirit, the impulse which started it, as a phenomenon of the emperor's will; after it was finished one can say it was the expression of his love.

When a person says, "I desire it", "I wish it", it is an incomplete will, a will which is not conscious of its strength, a will which is not sure what it wills. In that case it is called a desire, a wish. But when a person says, "I will it", that means it is definite. A person who never can say "I will it", has no will.

From this we may conclude that will is the source and the origin of all phenomena. Hindus have called the creation a dream of Brahma, the Creator. But a dream is a phenomenon of the unconscious will, when the will works automatically.

The will is the action of the soul. One can also call the soul the self of the will. The difference between will and soul is like the difference between a person and his action.