The instinct toward power reflects an important aspect of our divine essence,
But what passes for power in the world is too often a distortion,
An imitation of true power.
In this episode we talk about the differences between false and real power,
And what it means to stand in the true power inherent to your very being.
We hope you enjoy.
You know,
Power is something that I have spent,
I would say,
Close to 25 years examining,
And it's been maybe more than any other subject,
Both spiritually and when I look around at the world that has just so naturally caught my attention and interest because people talk about power a lot.
I think we talk about power way more than we realize.
We describe things as powerful,
Or having power,
Or giving up your power,
Or we associate certain people with power.
Why do you think we need power?
What's the appeal?
Why do we need power?
Because it is essential to us.
We need power because it is part of our essential nature.
We crave power because every single ego in its core feels powerless.
One of the problems that I see with our explorations of power is that we tend to always see it outside of us somehow,
And that's natural when the ego feels powerless,
That it always sees the source of power as being somewhere other than itself,
Which is true.
It's true.
There is no power in the ego.
Zero.
None.
So it's natural that when we're identified with our ego,
We do feel powerless.
I think it's logical that we start out as children.
We have no power as infants,
Right?
We really don't have any agency in the world.
We can't take care of ourselves.
We can't necessarily express our desires or our needs,
And they need to be kind of handled for us.
There's this gradual evolution through which,
In the course of childhood,
Adolescence,
And into adulthood,
We assume more and more agency for a person.
And gradually,
The power that we perceive outside of ourselves becomes something that we have some access to.
I now have the power to maybe clothe myself and then feed myself and then get a job and buy things for myself,
Etc.
And then adulthood becomes this place where we start balancing or perhaps discerning what power belongs to us,
What power is outside of us,
And sort of move on this spectrum between the two.
And I think one of the reasons that's so tricky is because,
Well,
As you said,
For one thing,
The ego has no power,
And we mostly operate from ego until we know better.
But also because power is an imaginary thing.
I mean,
Agency is one thing.
Being able to get things and feed yourself and the physical requirements of being a human and surviving is one thing.
But for a human to have power over another human in some sort of a master-subject relationship,
That is wholly imaginary.
And so the power structures I think that we have as a society,
As a species,
Are just sort of an ego writ large.
We spend a lot of time parsing power,
Who has it,
Who wants it,
Who deserves it,
Who doesn't deserve it.
And we agonize over these things sometimes,
And we fight wars over these things.
Like instead of agreeing upon how to do things in life,
We accord power to some people,
And they might lord it over other people.
And so we have masters and slaves and owners and employees,
And power is just this big mess of struggle and negotiation that we're always dealing with.
It's not a very peaceful way to be in the world.
Indeed.
Well,
You know,
We tend to view,
There's a lot of things wrapped up in these subjects.
For example,
We tend to view hierarchy and authority with power,
And we tend to associate power with control.
And that all gets chalked up into,
There's a sort of negative ethos that surrounds that,
So much so that I noticed that these days,
Even the use of the word power,
People cringe.
It's like they back up just in the use of the word because the word's been so perverted.
And I think that ties back to our childhood deeply,
Because in our childhood,
We're not in control,
And nor should we be as children.
We don't have the wherewithal to be in control.
But there's this mistake in our consciousness where we associate control with power.
And then what happens,
I think,
Is we get a society of grown-up children,
Big-bodied children,
Who are still playing out their childhood desire for control.
And in that,
You either have it or you don't have it.
And if you don't have it,
You're the person who wants to fight for it.
And if you're the person who has it,
You want to perhaps wield it over others.
But there's a whole different possibility that you're hinting at,
Which is the possibility that we might actually have a hierarchy,
And that power can mean something like responsibility and care and dominion rather than control.
And it doesn't matter whether we're on the side of having power or having no power.
As long as it's about control,
It's not sane.
It's not going to work.
I think there's this general assumption,
At least in American culture,
That power is desirable,
That one should want to be in some position of power.
And I had a bit of a power fetish when I was just out of college.
I had watched TV series like Dynasty back in the 80s,
And these nighttime soap operas where it was just people doing evil deeds to other people and delighting in them because that meant they had power over them.
And honestly,
At the time,
I kind of thought,
Well,
That looks like a good way to be in the world.
You can see the person on the top of the heap instead of the person getting dumped on on the bottom of the heap.
And when you look at the world through that lens,
It's like power could easily become your fetish,
Your one and only goal in life,
Regardless of what it entails or how it harms someone.
But the funny thing is,
Whenever I was,
Say,
In the workplace promoted into a position of power,
I couldn't stand it.
I didn't want to have power over other people.
I didn't want the responsibility.
I didn't want to have to deal with their problems.
And there was no joy in wielding that power at all.
It just made people dislike you.
It's not a pleasant place to be.
And I really just,
As an aside,
I absolutely admire good managers and good bosses who know how to tread that very difficult tightrope between organizing people to do work and not creating a miserable environment in which to do it.
That example,
To me,
Speaks volumes about the subject of power because you're right,
I think within every ego is a quest for power.
And the funny thing is that very few people are prepared for it and very few people actually find it desirable when they have it because it's not at all what we think it is.
Most people that I've noticed,
Or at least that I come into contact with,
They tend to view power from the bottom of the heap and power at the bottom of the heap looks very different than power when you're sitting on the top of the heap.
It looks very,
Very different.
And I think that that's part of our confusion around power is that it is,
Well,
At the bottom of the heap,
It tends to go with this notion of oppression and victimization.
And I think that one of the things that we have to talk about when we talk about power is how victimhood and oppression are just negative sides of power.
They're just the opposite pole.
They're just the pole of powerlessness.
Yeah,
I think the fantasy of power,
At least the way I used to conceive of it in my own mind was that I could just sort of wave a magic wand and things would be as they should be.
I would speak it or think it and it would be done.
And obviously that's not the way it works.
And also that by being in a position of power,
I wouldn't be subject to the sorts of demands that someone who has to take orders in a workplace,
For example,
Would have to contend with.
There wouldn't be that relentless onslaught of things in my inbox.
I just really had this distorted vision of what power might mean.
I thought it meant my life would be easier and more satisfying because I would have achieved something,
But none of that was true.
It was astonishing to me how much I hated having that responsibility.
And I certainly didn't see things like passive aggressive coworkers attacking me to try to take away my power.
I didn't foresee that at all and that was a great surprise.
So I really do identify with what you're saying about how some people who seek power as adults really are playing out that childhood fantasy of,
Well,
Mom is making me clean my room and I can't go play with my friends today.
And if I ruled the world,
Then I could just do whatever I wanted.
I mean,
There really is an echo of that in adulthood when you're seeking power for power's sake.
Truly,
Truly.
And you know,
It tends to come with a great conceit and arrogance and it goes something like,
Well,
If I had power,
The world would be a better place.
It's like,
Don't be so sure.
Yeah.
Well,
You know,
I think that's part of the problem that we see in politics and government sometimes is people who know what power really entails don't necessarily go seeking it.
So we don't always get the best people for the jobs running for political positions.
You get the people who are just after the power and not knowing that that would involve actually serving,
You know,
Doing the job and working for the people who elected you.
Yeah.
I don't remember.
It might've been the Greeks.
I can't remember for sure,
But it might've been the Greeks who had a system where in order to be put into a position of power,
It was essential that you didn't want it at all.
So if you were assigned to some role of leadership,
The prerequisite was that you definitely did not want to be the leader.
Power is punishment.
It's a good system,
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I could get behind that.
It's the mark of a true leader.
What would you consider,
Aside from maybe not wanting a position of leadership,
What would you consider necessary qualities in someone who is going to lead a government,
Say,
Or any position where you're leading large groups of people?
What would I consider the essential qualities of such a leader?
What would make an ideal leader,
I guess?
Well,
I think the first and foremost thing would be that any true leader,
In my view,
Is going to be intimately aware of the hierarchy of existence and know with absolute certainty that he or she,
As the leader,
Always remains under God as the essential leader of all things,
The head of all things,
The power behind all things.
And so naturally,
To me,
That leader is marked by qualities of godliness,
Whether that's justice,
Truth,
Righteousness in its truest sense,
Love,
Compassion,
Strength,
Beauty,
Courage,
All of those things,
But those things,
Not as they're defined by the ego,
But as they're defined by our spiritual nature.
And to me,
That's what a leader must have,
Is that the leader must be a servant of truth,
A servant of God,
And otherwise there's no leader at all.
Humility.
Yeah,
Humility is like the first thing that happens when you become subservient to the higher authority.
Yeah,
I agree completely.
Well,
Let's dive into that a little bit.
Yeah,
Let's talk about the fact that all true power comes from God and is not of the ego.
I mean,
It's possible to approach a position of power or being in a position of power with everything you just listed,
You know,
Without having a formal spiritual practice,
I'm sure.
I mean,
I think some people are just kind of born that way or raised that way,
Taught that way.
Although I do tend to think that having some,
Having done inner work and having an understanding of how the ego operates would be essential if you're going to perform humanely in a position of power over other people.
I mean,
That doesn't mean you should make it a test.
You know,
If you're going to go into government and run for president,
You need to have a spiritual practice.
I'm sure we could find an atheist who practices in a way that,
You know,
Would at least approximate a respect for a godly power.
But I don't know.
I mean,
What do you think?
That's an interesting quest because certainly I agree with you that to be an effective leader and to be someone who exists properly within the hierarchy of existence,
You wouldn't have to be of a particular religion or a particular belief system or philosophy or have any kind of particular spiritual practice.
But I think what you said is important,
Which is that such a person would have been raised or have developed themselves with some degree of awareness of what it means to be human and what our relationship to existence is,
Whether they're atheist or religious or not.
Personally,
It's a little hard for me to see that coming from an atheist only because atheists leave out the most essential piece to that,
Which is that there is something which you are below.
And as long as there's not something above you,
There's always the possibility that you're going to be the thing at the top.
You know what I mean?
Yeah,
And atheists tend to replace God with intellect or science.
Same thing,
Yeah,
Basically.
Some version of intellect.
And that's what defines the Luciferian rebellion is this notion that you can dispense with God and that there's an order of being or a way of living that doesn't require God's presence,
Doesn't require the presence of truth.
And I just don't see how that can work personally.
Although,
I don't know,
You know,
The atheists I know,
And I know several,
Point to the abuse of power by religious authorities to support their view on the world.
Of course,
Yeah.
Religious people are definitely not immune to the ego's attempt at power,
That's for sure.
In fact,
They may be the most sophisticated purveyors of it.
Yeah,
I think you're right about that.
Definitely.
The problem with the religious power seeker is that they behave as if God needs to wield its power over others rather than God being the supreme example of humility or selflessness.
And so that confusion is made in that kind of fundamentalist thinking where religion then becomes the language that dresses up a drive for power.
Yeah,
It's almost as though you've gotten a permission slip from God to let the ego run wild.
Yes.
Right.
Well,
And it's what you see in fundamentalists,
Any fundamentalist tradition is like,
We can do what we want to you because God is on our side.
Right,
Right.
It's so dangerous.
Yeah.
So,
You mentioned Lucifer,
And I do want to sort of carefully tread down this exploration of why people abuse power.
You're grinning.
When you said carefully tread,
I was like,
Oh,
Where are we going?
It became anticipatory with a smile on my face.
Yeah,
I see that.
I mean,
How many despotic leaders has the world seen who,
For whatever reason,
Gleefully wielded their power over others in ways that created immense harm,
Whether it was Hitler or Pol Pot or going back into ancient times with the Romans crucifying Jesus,
Et cetera.
What is the animating energy that drives that?
Feelings of powerlessness.
Oh.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Explain.
Well,
You don't crave power unless you feel that you don't have it.
Okay.
So,
The craving for power comes from this sense of its lack or its absence.
When we're identified with the absence of power,
Which feels like being oppressed,
It feels like being a victim,
It feels like being someone in the bottom of the heap,
There's this natural desire.
I mean,
Even if you read the stories from the boys who shot up Columbine,
They so exemplify this kind of attitude of being someone at the bottom who is going to show the world how powerful they actually are.
And that's why we can never call that,
I don't ever want us to call that true power because it's the absence of true power.
It's tyranny which disguises powerlessness.
Right.
Because it's that perception of a lack of power that drives people to seek power in the first place.
And then once you've achieved a position of power,
Other people are coming for you.
And so you're still not secure in your power,
Right?
I mean,
There's still,
The power's got to be fortified and perhaps displays of power are in order for some people just to show that,
Hey,
Don't come at me,
Don't even try it.
Yeah,
You got to protect it.
And it's just such a colossal immaturity in a way.
I mean,
We're still sort of hearkening back to that childhood fantasy.
Think of that song Jeremy by Pearl Jam.
Thank you.
You know,
Where King Jeremy the wicked ruled his world,
You know,
The poor beat up kid in school who shot up the classroom.
So you're right,
That kind of inherent craving to take power back and to punish those who you think have stolen it from you.
Yes.
That's the problem of Cain in the story of Cain and Abel,
Is Cain feels disempowered and his revenge on life is to become wrathful.
Of all the things in our human experience that we should be most cautious of,
It's that.
Revenge and wrath?
Well,
The feelings of powerlessness that lead to the desire for power.
Because those feelings of powerlessness are not real.
They're not real and people build entire identities,
Civilizations,
Movements based on that feeling.
Yes.
Yes.
Like how many movies are there that are based on a revenge quest because someone's been harmed in some way or some of their loved ones have been harmed and then they go after the perpetrators.
And there's some,
You know,
As humans,
We find some great satisfaction when they're finally hunted down and get their just desserts.
But let's explore that a little bit because I'm kind of harkening back to my own childhood,
Which was not terrifically pleasant.
And I did used to have revenge fantasies on my parents.
I figured I would prove to them by being so spectacular as an adult and so successful that I was superior to them,
Blah,
Blah,
Blah.
But underneath that,
And this is what's interesting to me,
Was simply a desire to be loved,
To get the love that I felt that I hadn't gotten from them.
A desire to be respected,
You know,
Receive that nurturing and that validation that would help to understand what power is and how it's properly used and to have my agency as a human recognized.
You once referred to that,
I think,
As the majesty of the child.
You know,
Unfortunately I had enough good role models around me that that didn't,
I don't think,
You know,
Didn't pervert me to the point that I wanted to go out and harm people as an adult or anything.
But there are people who are so damaged that,
You know,
That doesn't ever get resolved.
And their animating—wait,
Do I bring up Trump here?
Their animating drive in life becomes accumulating power and tormenting people,
You know,
As a means of satisfying that revenge wish.
The motivation for power is so pure and true in its real form and it unites us with those qualities you mentioned,
Love and majesty and those sorts of things.
But because we are largely an undeveloped world,
Psychically,
Spiritually,
We know almost nothing about that power and we have very few true examples of it.
And so all we know how to really do is imitate power.
And the way that we see certain individuals do.
And then we create this dichotomy between the powerful and the powerless,
You know.
And I think the first time I really became aware of this was back during the Occupy Wall Street movement where there was this really big push to speak out against the haves on behalf of the have-nots.
And there was this so much language about power that started to emerge out of that movement.
And as I was observing it,
I realized this isn't really about power,
It's about money.
Because in our childish viewpoint,
We associate things like money or position with power.
And then if someone has that and we don't,
Then we surmise that we are without power.
But the problem in that is that the people on the other side who are calling out those who are abusing their power,
They're wanting the exact same thing.
I mean,
They're essentially asking for it.
And all of that neglects what you're describing.
It neglects what it is that we're really truly after,
That real inner majesty.
And that's why I think it's quite impossible for anybody to be a real leader without having a spiritual basis.
Because without it you don't really know that inner majesty.
Yeah.
Well,
We should talk about what that majesty actually is and what constitutes real power.
Because it's not the ability to get other people to do your bidding or to buy anything you want or to have some kind of a social status that sets you above somebody else.
It's something entirely different and it doesn't look at all like what we think of when we hear the word power.
Right.
The phrase my teacher gave to me was the power to be.
The power to be.
That when being is enough,
When there's not this quest for more.
It's like what the Tao Te Ching says when Lao Tzu says,
Mastering others is strength,
But mastering oneself is true power in that sense,
Right?
That this mastery of oneself.
Yeah.
We use the phrase to stand in one's power a lot.
And I know that sometimes when someone says that,
They're talking about something slightly different than the true power we're describing.
But to be able to stand there undefended with the understanding that nothing about you requires defense or can be destroyed,
That you're already unassailable.
That's what it means to be connected to true power.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
Exactly.
That's what it means.
Well gosh,
That's so beautiful.
That's exactly what it means to stand with the power of true nature behind you,
Is to stand undefended and unassailable.
Which is what Jesus did.
Yes.
Yes.
Even as they killed him.
Yep.
He was in his power.
Yes.
That's power.
Yes.
That's the kind of power that sends chills down your spine because you can,
You know it when you see it.
Yes.
Right?
You know,
It's not standing up there with some gaudy military uniform.
It's not tanks rolling down in front of your government building and commanding troops all over the planet.
It's that simple ability to stand undefended and know,
And know that you're in your power.
Yes.
Right.
We get it so wrong.
We get it so wrong.
I mean,
Just like so many other things that,
You know,
When we approach through the lens of ego,
We get things wrong.
But that's a primary one.
I think about this sometimes when I see other people in arguments,
For example.
And I actually thought at one time I should make a t-shirt that says,
What are you defending?
Because I wonder what it is that they're defending.
I mean,
You have two people attacking each other over what?
You know,
Disagreement on an idea or a plan or one's interpretation of an event versus the others.
And there's this power struggle going on because somebody has to be right and theoretically come out on top.
And yet the content of what's causing this conflict is wholly imaginary.
It's wholly a construct of one ego or both egos.
I mean,
It makes no sense.
And yet people die over these things.
You know,
Somebody looks at you wrong in a bar and maybe,
You know,
That's the end for you.
You know,
What you just spoke into existence here is the whole game,
The whole dance.
Like,
You know,
We're all sitting around pretending.
We play store,
We play house,
We play government,
We play all these things and we attribute a certain level of power to these games.
None of them have any power whatsoever.
They have zero power.
Like you said just a moment ago,
It's all imaginary.
And when we realize what true power is,
We see that with crystal and clarity.
And you know what's funny too is that if,
Say two parties are arguing over imaginary power like that,
If one party suddenly declines to believe in that power,
It will disempower the other person.
So,
I mean,
I have a great example of this.
Last year I was caring for sea turtles on the beach around here.
And on one of our runs one day,
My friend and I were riding a quad down the beach and we accidentally rode over the lines of somebody who was going to go kite boarding.
Nothing was damaged.
Nothing was harmed.
We just didn't see them.
The owner of the kite came over and lit into my friend and just was reading her the riot act.
And then she instantly started to defend herself because she couldn't help it and she felt she'd been wrongly accused.
And so I just kind of stood aside and watched this whole thing marveling at the fact that two people were arguing over this very insignificant thing with raised voices and red faces.
And suddenly the man who had come over to yell at us looked at me and saw me just observing him and not participating.
And he just stopped.
And it was like somebody had yanked his plug out of the wall.
He just kind of deflated,
Mumbled something kind of begrudgingly about,
Be more careful next time.
And,
You know,
That was it.
My friend,
On the other hand,
Was bugged by the whole thing for the rest of the day.
But such a silly thing that could have been handled without these sort of swaggering gestures of outrage and I've been wronged and you must make it right.
You know,
You must make me whole because I don't know if there's some concept here,
There's some honor that needed to be defending.
And like I'm saying,
You know,
We should have a shirt like,
What the hell are you defending?
Well that's why doing inner work is so important.
You know,
What you just shared in that story is the thing I hope that listeners to this actually take home,
Which is when you meet false power,
Don't fight with it.
Because to fight against false power brings you into its environment.
It brings you into its atmosphere.
True power stands aside and watches with no defense.
I love the way you've said this,
With no defense,
With no sense that it's being assailed.
Yeah.
I mean,
Can you imagine if some president or king wanted to launch a war and the entire army just kind of sat there and stared at him and didn't know?
That's what we need.
We need some good human beings who are not willing to go along with foolishness.
Yes.
Right.
But wars will continue to occur as long as we feel the need to fight over borders and resources and defend our honor against someone else who wants to attack us.
And unfortunately people continue to die until we as a planet,
As a species,
You know,
Learn this lesson that power is simply inherent.
It's simply what you are.
I think what conversation on power brings in here also is some degree of the examination of good and evil because there is a spiritual warfare that goes on in this life where we do have to stand up against evil.
We do have to stand up against malevolence and we do have to devote some of our life to not letting malevolence win.
But all too often what happens is that that drive gets confused with the drive for power.
I think that's one of those subtle lines because it's very easy to associate the other,
Whatever the other may be,
With malevolence and power and to mix all those things in together as if they're the same thing.
And you know our conversation on power deserves a very careful look also at how do we respond to malevolence with power,
With true power.
That's a good question.
You know,
I think the first part of the answer to that question would be to really scrutinize any assumption that we're making that we're in the right.
Absolutely.
Because that sort of moral certainty deployed without any examination leads to all sorts of bad things.
Yep.
Even if you're truly dealing with a force or an entity that's doing active evil harm.
I mean that's why we have things like the Geneva Convention and rules of engagement in warfare is to not let our combat generate atrocities if we can avoid it.
Yeah,
It's very fine.
And that's once again where we need some degree of enlightened leadership,
People who can actually tell the difference between power and malevolence and who really truly understand that difference.
It's messy.
It is messy.
At the very beginning of this we were tossing around the phrase,
Speaking truth to power.
So now we set up a situation where someone who's in a leadership position,
Like let's say they're misusing power in some way,
That makes it necessary for someone who is being led to question it or stand in their own power in opposition to that and say this is not okay.
This is where an individual's embodiment of true power would be absolutely essential to be able to stand again,
You know,
Undefended,
Willing to accept whatever consequences come from speaking truth to power,
From disobeying an illegal order.
Those are the perhaps real heroes or people who can use that awareness of what power actually is.
Yeah.
This is so unbelievably complicated to talk about.
It really is.
Well,
It's hard to be a whistleblower.
I mean,
This is why you need to have the courage that's rooted in that power of being that you described earlier.
I think what makes this unbelievably complicated is that people will sacrifice power when they're afraid and they will sacrifice power when they perceive that their leadership is benevolent in some way.
There's a number of things going on in the United States right now that are unconstitutional and yet we accept them because we accept them on the basis that they are safe.
This becomes an unbelievably complicated thing to talk about.
Yeah,
Because now we're getting into issues of personal responsibility and things like that as well.
Yeah,
Right.
That's a whole other episode.
You hit it on the head here though,
Which is that each individual in order to realize power must step into the position of responsibility with all the characteristics that we're describing.
Scrutiny of oneself and their ideologies,
Humility,
Right?
Observance of an authority higher than themselves,
Being possessed by the true qualities of power,
True qualities of leadership and responsibility.
That's no joke.
I mean,
Those are not easy things to develop.
Right.
On a personal note,
I think one of the things that irks me especially about people in positions of power is those who treat it as a game to be won at all costs with no observance of the way people's lives are affected.
Vast numbers of people who are being affected by their actions or their speech from a position of power because to them it's not about that.
It's about trancing your rival.
But those people have no power.
No true power,
Correct.
Yeah,
That's what we need to realize because as long as we're still giving it attention,
We're giving it a power it doesn't have.
Oh,
That's a good point.
Yeah.
That's the problem I see on the side of our powerlessness is like as long as we're devoted to looking at those who seem to have power and are abusing it,
We're still in the same game.
We're still dancing the same dance.
When I went to my first teacher,
It was just after the Iraq war had started in 2003 and I was so unbelievably distraught about it and the injustices that were being done and the abuse of power and I was protesting and I was speaking out and I was getting involved in the littlest ways that I could and I felt powerless.
I went to my teacher and I asked him about it.
He quoted Christ and said,
Nobody gets to the father but by me and that was basically the only reply he gave and he let me stew on that for a while and what I eventually realized was that all true power is going to come through seeking it where it really is in truth,
In its true form and as long as we remain centered around where false power is being demonstrated,
We're not going to find true power and so I think it's just as much as it's dangerous for the tyrant to be wielding false power,
It's dangerous for us on the other side.
I say us as if I'm part of this group of powerless people.
It's dangerous.
I refuse that.
I refuse that narrative.
It's dangerous for those who see themselves as the powerless who need to go after false power because it's just the same dance.
It's just the same game.
Well sure but that begs the question then what do you do?
If a tyrant is harming,
Well again,
I mean we could go down that whole road of what's harm,
What's suffering which we've kind of covered before.
It is tough.
Well what do you do?
Do you just ignore atrocities that are happening that you're aware of?
Do you just,
I mean,
Do you not protest?
What is the correct response?
Is it possible to meet people who are abusing their false power with an appropriate level of objection while not simultaneously validating that power?
I think so but I think that takes a level of discernment that very,
Very few people have because very few people have the discerning eye to see what the actual distortion is.
So I do think we have a freedom to object but before that I think is our desire and willingness to embody the things that we do want like we spoke of in our heaven episode.
Like,
Okay,
You want this world to be a better place,
You be it.
Before you go trying to criticize the people who are making it a bad place,
You make it a good place.
So as Gandhi did,
Peaceful protest.
Well I'm not even,
I don't even,
I'm not a total pacifist.
I think there's a time and a place where maybe war is appropriate but there must be a discerning eye to know the difference between malevolence and the perception of power.
Well let's see,
So we've talked about false power and genuine power and meeting power when it's been abused without simultaneously validating that power.
That's about the trickiest thing we're going to do as human beings,
Is that what you just said?
Well let's come back to what your teacher told you.
How did you put it?
He quoted Christ saying,
Nobody comes to the Father but by me.
You know,
What I eventually realized from his statement was that there's only one true power which is another way of saying that all false power is going to fall on its face eventually.
That's an excellent point.
It's never going to triumph,
It's never going to win in the end.
It's such a hard thing to keep in mind sometimes that even the most tyrannical government always falls.
The most despotic leaders always meet some sort of ignoble end.
It takes a degree of trust,
The same degree of trust I would argue that it takes to trust that power within oneself,
To trust that false power will always be annihilated in some way.
Not necessarily by us,
It may not be up to us to cause that,
But natural forces will at some point dissolve it and kind of correct for that error.
Yep.
Well look at what happened in Communist Russia.
I mean communism,
Which was based on some very profoundly sensible principles in order to be unfolded,
Had to be done so in the hands of tyrannical leaders.
The whole thing,
It rose up in the ugliest way you could possibly imagine and it fell.
Yeah,
And I think there's also a component of power is never satisfied.
Kind of like what we alluded to earlier,
Once you have power you have to consolidate it or maybe add more of it.
But I think there's also a strain of – False power you mean,
Correct?
False power,
Yes.
False power is never satisfied.
I also think false power gets bored.
No,
I'm serious,
Stick with me here.
And it starts to turn to sport in a way because it becomes drunk on itself.
You know,
I'm thinking of the Romans throwing the Christians to the lions.
It seems like they just got so dissatisfied with their level of entertainment they had to make it ever more outrageous.
And I think that's where some of those atrocities come from,
Is the ego just gets so full of itself and the perception that it has power,
It wants to push the limits.
You know,
It wants to see how far it can go.
There's some compelling force there where you want to see,
How much can I get away with?
You know,
The child maybe wants to see,
Just how many toys can I accumulate?
Just how many armies can I destroy?
You see a pretty good relationship there between power and freedom.
That there's,
You know,
Just as much as we have this intrinsic impulse toward true power,
We have a true impulse toward freedom.
And if it's not understood properly,
And it's channeled through the dynamics of our ego,
Freedom means I get to do what I want.
Yeah,
And the problem ironically with achieving a position of false power is that you're not free.
You're exactly the opposite of free.
You're controlled by that power because you have to maintain it,
You have to defend it,
And you'll never be satisfied.
You're prisoner of it.
Which is,
I mean,
It's in a way kind of hilarious if it weren't so sad because you expend all this energy to get to this position.
And I think wealthy people maybe experience the same thing.
I've heard more than one person say this to me is,
I spent all my life accumulating what I thought was this money that was going to make me free,
And instead I'm ruled by it.
Yes.
I can never stop thinking about it,
I have to manage it,
Someone might take it,
People crave it,
People are trying to exploit me now,
I can't have genuine relationships,
I mean,
You name it.
The thing that we think is going to set us free is the exact opposite of what really does.
Yep.
What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?
Exactly.
Such wisdom in that phrase.
Yeah.
Yeah,
That's the power,
Is the power to be aligned and to be embodied and to be living according to the deepest truth that you are.
Nothing else will be satisfying.
And it brings to mind,
Well I looked up Diogenes after you mentioned him the other day,
And he reminded me a bit of the Buddha because the Buddha was an ascetic in a wandering sadhu for a while and renounced all worldly goods,
Lived as a beggar,
Almost died of starvation,
And Diogenes pretty much did the same thing in ancient Greece,
Wandering around towns making fun of officials and sleeping in a jar,
Which I found fascinating.
But in both of those cases,
Those men were in charge of their lives and not beholden to anyone,
And that gave them true freedom.
If your life is yours to conduct without your being beholden to anyone or having to answer,
Although Diogenes was enslaved briefly,
So he did have to answer to someone for a while,
But apparently it sounds like he accepted that.
That position of what you're describing is really where we get a taste of true power because in true power we realize my body can be controlled,
My bodily freedom can be taken away,
My reputation can be diminished.
There are so many things that can happen that can on the surface look like an assault on my power,
But when everything is stripped away and we're left just with the power of the soul,
We're left with that very thing,
That very ingredient that is unassailable,
That doesn't need defense.
Yeah.
The power to stand there and know that you're sovereign,
Regardless of what anyone thinks of you or any of the trappings that you thought were necessary.
And I think in every adult life,
Well maybe not every adult,
But many people I know,
I think some earlier and some too late came to this understanding that,
Oh,
I don't need to operate by those rules,
The rules that say I need to create power,
That I need to create money.
And that's both an enormous disappointment to the ego,
But it's also a moment where you suddenly begin to understand at least a little bit what true power and true freedom feel like.
Yes.
Well,
There you go.
It's possible to become a slave,
To become powerless,
To even a principle such as money,
Success,
Right?
Fame.
Needing to be a good person,
Quote unquote.
Oh,
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah,
Moral superiority is a very clever attempt at power.
Yeah,
With a ton of fear behind it.
Yeah.
You see,
That's the thing is power is quiet.
That's the thing that we don't realize.
It's quiet.
It's serene.
It's like the darkest black night that is just still and silent.
Certain people can move through life with that air about them,
With the way they carry themselves is such that they don't need to defend themselves.
They don't need to explain themselves.
And somehow it's transmitted in a way that other people naturally don't attack them.
They just kind of let them be.
It's a certain vibe that you carry.
It is.
That's exactly what it is.
It's an attribute of divinity that when it is integrated and embodied,
Exudes a quiet confidence and power.
Yeah,
Exactly.
It's what you see in the face and aura of a true warrior.
There's an old story about a Zen master who comes upon a samurai and gets the samurai all riled up and the samurai draws his sword and he's ready to strike him down and then he sheaths his sword and the Zen master says,
Now that's true power.
This capacity to stand in that authority without any need to attack.
Right.
Oh,
I love that.
For this episode on power,
I brought two poems.
Both of them are very short,
Both by Emily Dickinson.
This first one talks about the intrinsic power that is here in being.
To be alive is power.
Existence in itself without a further function.
Omnipotence enough.
To be alive and will.
Tis able as a God.
The maker of ourselves.
Be what?
Such being finitude.
And in the second poem,
I hear Emily Dickinson talking more about the actualization of our power,
Coming into power.
She writes,
I took my power in my hand and went against the world.
It was not so much as David had,
But I was twice as bold.
I aimed my pebble,
But myself was all the one that fell.
Was it Goliath was too large or was myself too small?
