The Power of Love

Talk given in Sound Ceremony Training in November 2023 

Power is an illusion, 

roles shift like sand.
For even the one who commands,
is, in essence, 

serving a grander hand.

We all have different relationships to power, positive and negative—to the powers that be, to powers that suppress and oppress, dominating powers, authorities, to power struggles in our immediate environment, to power struggles in our inner egoic environment wanting to be and achieve and get somewhere. It's always this interesting dance. Power however, is just a force. It is a neutral force. It doesn't have a positive or a negative; it has a potential. Its force is latent with potentiality and its trajectory depends on the intention, the action, the way it is pushed. It can be harnessed in whichever way it needs to be. 

Power has definitely been abused in many places, in many political roles and leadership roles, in wars and genocides, and horrific, unspeakable things. And it is generated towards the force of goodness, kindness, and compassion. It is also wielded by the peaceful and those who rest in the calm potential of power––because they know what it is to wield a great responsibility.

There's that quote by Jimi Hendrix, he says, "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." What a beautiful statement, he nailed it. Because when we do not understand the great responsibility of power, it becomes confused and distorted, it becomes unclear. 

The love of power is somewhere related to that little mind virus that I’ve mentioned before, that little mind virus that we see in civilization. It's one of comparison, it's one of competition, and it's one of greed. And that love of power is a very greedy thing, isn’t it? It always wants more, it never has enough. As such, it will never be enough and this insecurity governs the craving for more power, more dominance. The love of power wants to conquer and dominate the world, it wants to conquer and dominate nature. How can one conquer nature? Nature will always have the final say on us.

When power becomes corrupt, when we take the love of power over the power of love, when we take a love of power over seeing the source of power, when we confuse power to think it is about us, that it elevates our ego, that it places us above our neighbour, that it puts our name in the history books or something like this, that is a corrupt power. For in the power of the saints, in the power of the meek—the monks and nuns, mendicants and monastics and simple people of the world—they show us time and again that true power is in the garden, true power is on the walk home, true power is in the children, true power is in the look in your eyes, true power is in the serenity of humility.

True power is that which cannot be corrupted. You have to turn and look to where power comes from, looking to where that force that is not good or bad, but has a pure potential, a potential that rests in purity. You have to look to that very force that lays behind the universe. Where does the potential force that moves and sustains the universe come from? When we turn our heads towards true power we are filled with something else. Something that money and fame cannot buy. We are filled with a treasure that hands cannot craft. There is an endless reservoir of power that comes to fill us, and when you see that power, isn’t that a power that is worthy to bow our head to? Not somebody wearing the crown, not somebody holding a flag or gun, but to the still presence that moves all things, the timeless silence that sings all songs, to the infinite space that holds us all.

Sacred power, true power, the eternal light, the power of love. Whatever name you give to it is fine. It is not concerned with names. This is a beautiful contemplation. Let it sink in, because otherwise, if we are unaware, we may confuse power with money and status and fame and notoriety and all of those worldly things. Chasing after worldly power is like gathering leaves in a gust of wind. No matter how tightly you clutch them, the wind will scatter them beyond your reach. That is not power. It is fleeting, it will slip through your fingers, it will be gone.

There's a story from the East that comes to my mind. There was a wandering mystic travelling through a royal city. He was very revered, the people loved him and spoke of his esoteric powers, his great humility, his wonderful teaching. The king of the town got very jealous. He said, "What is it about him that they're so fond of that I can't do? Surely whatever he has, I can possess it too.”

And so, he brought the wanderer into his kingdom, wanting to extract what it was he had. The king fed him banquets and invited him to parties, he lavished him with riches and gave him good quarters and everything a person in the kingdom could want. And the wanderer just lapped it all up. He received all that was on offer, he dined and drank and danced like there was no tomorrow.

Finally, the king said, "You're no different than I am! What is it that makes you different from me? What is it that you have that I don't?" And so, the monk said, "Come with me, I'll show you." And they walked out of the palace. And they walked down the road, they walked out of the city, they walked through the village, they walked to the very edge of the kingdom, and the king got worried. He said, "I can't go any further, this is not my land anymore. Tell me now, for I have to stop here and go back. " And the wanderer kept walking and without turning back he said, "That's the difference between you and I."

So, when we confuse corrupt power or worldly power with true power, it comes back to that place of considering something bigger than the scope of just our little life. We definitely want to generate some power here for ourselves: some goodness and comfort, abundance and beauty, giving and forgiveness, love and family or whatever you so desire in this life. But what our life is informed by is much bigger than us. Step back and see that we are the result of many, many thousands of generations of successful lineages of parents and grandparents giving birth, which, considering all of the suffering, the wars, the diseases that we've had in humanity, the fact that we're here is nothing short of a miracle. It really is an astonishingly beautiful thing. We are a very delicate and fragile thing sitting here.

When we seek power that is corrupt, when we try to accumulate power in this world, it's because we try to run from that delicate and fragile thing. We don’t know how to trust it. We fear it and fumble with it and want to squeeze all we can out of it while it is here, because its foundation is insecure. But anything built on the foundation of that idea is shaky, that is what is really insecure. 

The task is to look at the ground where all things shatter, the ground that does not tremble or quake. It is a mysterious ground of space, a ground of being, a ground of presence. We look to that ground, then we find security in the great unknown, in the great mystery of things. Even in the face of the fragility and the delicate nature of human life, somehow that mystery becomes a stronghold because it points to something that is eternal, something unbreakable and unshakeable. We are a very delicate and fragile thing sitting here, but we are made of something that cannot shatter or be broken.

That means that you're also made of the same clothes as that power. And that means that when we've felt powerless or our power has been taken from us or we haven't felt fully good or right about the things that happen in the world or all of these places and parts of our life and our personality that have happened to us, there comes a time to take responsibility and become the parents to all of the inner children that we have and to take back our power not by ourselves but by discovering the true face of power. 

Because in truth, you cannot lose this power, in truth your power has never been taken, in truth this power is not your own but a greater power that owns you.

That is the power of love. What would it be like to be owned by love? To be claimed into the oneness that all things rest in? 

The power of love does not impose itself upon you; however, its might can move mountains. When you touch this might, it moves you to gentleness, it restores your resting power, your receptive power, and it is also the power that gives. For one finds compassion for all things when they discover all things are tied to each other.