Enjoy :)
I’d like to begin my talk on this day, “National Sorry Day”, the
anniversary of the tabling in Parliament of the report “Bringing Them Home”, 16 years ago, by stating that, as a
non-indigenous person and a visitor on country, I take the time to pay my
respects to the Ancestors, Elders and present day people of the Wurundjeri and
the Kulin Nation as a whole.
Now, in 1887, the historian and moralist Lord Acton summarised
a concept which has been known and widely discussed for many years by writing,
in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
That has frequently been shortened to:
“power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
If you’d like an example of some earlier consideration of this
topic, William Pitt the Elder said in a speech to the UK House of Lords in
1770:
"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those
who possess it"
A few decades before then, the French Republican poet and
politician Lamartine wrote:
“It is not only the slave or serf who is ameliorated in
becoming free... the master himself did not gain less in every point of
view,... for absolute power corrupts the best natures.”
My inclusion of a French Republican poet is somewhat ironic,
as it is the vanity of Napoleon Bonaparte declaring himself an Emperor two
centuries ago, together with the vile excesses and cruelty of too many of the
Roman Emperors two millennia ago, that are the most often quoted examples of
this warning in the everyday or mundane world.
There are other examples, though - the constant struggle
against corruption in the worlds of politics, governance and the law, with various
commissions and investigations are easy for me to think of.
I spent many of my formative years in Queensland, and chose
not to take part in some of the demonstrations against Bjelke-Petersen’s
excesses because I did not want my skull cracked by the police – or worse. The
behaviour of the police at that time, before the Fitzgerald Enquiry, was truly
appalling – and a prime example of Lord Acton’s warning.
By the way, one of my uncles was in the Queensland Water
Police at this time, a man who was praised for saving Brisbane from worse
flooding than it actually had during Cyclone Wanda in 1974 by helping to secure
an oil tanker that had broken free and threatened to block the river, a man who
left the police after the Fitzgerald Enquiry in disgust at the failure to
remove more of the corruption.
Sociologically, power is considered to have a wide range of
forms, one of which is what is called “privilege”, or, more properly, “social
privilege”, which is a useful concept to study, as it helps us to be aware of
what we have and tend to take for granted. That is particularly relevant on
“Sorry Day”, but that is a topic for another time and place, perhaps.
In the spiritual sense, any time we take advantage of a
position or opportunity unfairly, we are guilty of an abuse of power – theft of
stationery from work is the example I’ve heard most often quoted in that
context, which is a “crime” that seems, on the surface, to hurt none but,
ultimately, hurts our own soul.
It’s a little bit like not turning up when you said you would
be somewhere. The old Saxons used to consider such acts would weaken their
personal honour, an old fashioned word for what we would probably use
integrity, these days, but I think the old word is more appropriate.
If I go back to the example that too many people consider a
victimless crime, taking stationery from an office, the person who is most hurt
by that behaviour is the person who takes the stationery. That abuse
of power has hurt themselves, and led to a situation where they now have
demonstrated a need for learning which, no doubt to their horror, will be
provided to them by the Forces that guide this Universe.
So in addition to the warnings about how having power,
particularly lots of it, can be damaging to oneself, there is also the issue
that power can be misused. The actions that led to the Stolen Generations,
which eventually led to the National Sorry Day which I mentioned, are an
example of the misuse of power, at least part of which was well intentioned.
Yet, despite all this, there is power that I actively and
deliberately seek.
Let me tell you a story I read quite a few years ago about
someone, a young person who was studying shamanism in the USA, who was taken to
a place of power. He was told that he was going to a place of power, and after
a day of travelling, and lots of walking, was asked for his comments. He
responded by asking: “Where was the
power?”
“Did you feel anything -
any peace?”
“Yes I felt lots of
peaceful energy, but where was the power?”
That peace was the power, and that is one of the powers I
crave and seek.
That power assists me in to cope with everyday life, assists
me in my quest to be a more spiritual person, and it seems also to be of benefit to places and other people in my life.
Mind you, sometimes I get credited with peace when that’s not
what I’m feeling. When I helped to organise and run the Victorian Queer
Spirituality Conference in 2005, on the morning of the second day one of the
attendees commented on how peaceful I looked, sitting, drinking a coffee. I
smiled politely and nodded back, but after about two hours sleep the previous
night I was just exhausted, and the coffee was to keep me going.
To some extent that shows how things are relative, but there
are a couple of other points here:
Ø
trees seem peaceful to us, yet are constantly at
war with insects and other influences we either aren’t perhaps aware of, such
as drought, or can ignore by going indoors – such as winter’s reduced light and
temperatures;
Ø
the other point is that I actually consider
myself to be an angry person, but when I was ten, I decided to use my anger
constructively, rather than let me be controlled by it, which is the view I
have when I judge myself on this matter, but that’s a topic for another talk.
I’m going to mention another power that I seek: the power of
love.
Can these powers be abused, or misused? Yes.
Someone may be meant to start their spiritual journey through
living with a lack of peace; if I take that lack of peace away, I rob that
person of their chance to find deeper spiritual growth.
If I look at the power of love, well, in the mundane world one
of the commonest forms of corruption is to unfairly advance family members
ahead of others. The spiritual equivalent is trickier, as it is likely to
involve our family of choice, our friends, and giving them, perhaps, a benefit
of doubt that we would not give to others.
Again, consider the issues around the Stolen Generations.
The sayings warning about power are very, very appropriate,
but they apply largely to mundane power and misuse or abuse of spiritual
influence. I follow the warnings in those sayings where they apply, but I never
forget that I actively seek, whilst fully aware of and acknowledging the risks
that I take on by doing so, the powers of peace, love and – one final one, a
power that helps me try to avoid the pitfalls I’ve mentioned, the power of
humility.
On the issue of risk, one of the bosses from my day job as an
engineer once quoted Albert Einstein to me:
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything
new”
I’d like to quote now from an online copy of the “The Aquarian Gospel” that I found some
time ago, a quote which begins with a question to Jesus:
What do you say of power?
And Jesus said, It is a manifest; is the result of force;
it is but naught; it is illusion, nothing more. Force changes not, but power
changes as the ethers change.
Force is the will of God and is omnipotent, and power is
that will in manifest, directed by the Breath.
There is power in the winds, a power in the waves, a
power in the lightning's stroke, a power in the human arm, a power in the eye.
The ethers cause these powers to be, and thought of
Elohim, of angel, human, or other thinking thing, directs the force; when it
has done its work …
... the power is no more.
... the power is no more.
All things pass, and this talk has also just passed.
Thank you.
[1] BPF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Forces. See here and here for more on this.
[2] Please see here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").
Love, light, hugs and blessings
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux?)
My "blogiography" (list of all posts - currently not up to date) is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "pagans for peace" project, and here for my bindrune kit-bag.
- One size does NOT fit all.
- May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
- A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
- The secret to being (financially) rich is not to have lots of money: it is to have an income above the poverty line, and then make whatever sacrifices are necessary in order to live within 90% of your means.
- Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
- Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." and/or "Everyone knows ... " and what Bruce Schneier [2] calls "security theatre" on one side, and perspicacity and the understanding that the means shape the end on the other.
- The means shape the end.
- Sometimes you just can't argue with a biped that is armed with a sharp stick, a thick head and not too much in the way of grunts.
- Spiritual love is far more than just an emotion - it is a concept, thoughts, actions and a way of living.
- One of the basics of serious spiritual / psychic work is that the greatest work is that which we do on ourself, which seems trivial to many. Our own Innermost Essence, which is our Higher Self / Soul / Spirit, has the power to do so much, and is actively participating in the creation and sustenance of this physical reality. Some mote of our conscious or unconscious knows that, which is why we seem inclined to be dismissive of Self Mastery - which is a bit like the child who sees an adult spending money to buy toys, and fails to recognise the daily grind of work which has led to having the money.
- My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi". However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. (based on writing by) EDMUND BURKE
Your children are not your children. ... They come through you but ... they belong not to you ... for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow KAHLIL GIBRAN
We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW
Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, and the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change." SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY (US Attorney General 1966 Speech)
People I'm currently following or reading, or have considerable respect for, include:
- Red Catherine, a Romani woman living on Artemis, in South Australia;
- T. Thorn Coyle;
- Fire Lyte;
- http://paganinparadise.blogspot.com/;
- The Wild Hunt;and
- the Order of Scathach.
Tags: attitudes, fear, personal responsibility, power, society,
First published: Thorsdagr, 31st August, 2013
Last edited: Thursday, 31st August, 2013
