Sometimes I wonder to see that the most powerful people are the most helpless. Michael Jackson was so powerful and rich and yet was quite helpless when it came to their addictions which ate away his body like termites. The most wealthy people in this world feel helpless when doctors fail to provide any treatment for the physical ailment of their kids. It is amazing to read the books of Arun Shourie who writes about the helplessness he faced unable to find any treatment for his special child. The most powerful dictator of the world, Hitler, had to commit suicide at the end of the day. Yet, most people keep seeking powers throughout their lives. Probably we need to contemplate deeper to understand the notion of power.
Did Krishna seek power? He was so full of love for everybody that he did not need any power. Similarly, Rama was full of love and compassion for everybody and therefore did not need any power. Do we need powers when we love somebody? Do we need the power to make a difference in the lives of our kids? When we love somebody, we connect to that person and that connection brings concern and care naturally. We like to make decisions in the best interest of the kids and kids naturally understand that and therefore respect the viewpoints of the parents. There is no need for any position or power or a law in this regard. However, the same is not true in social settings. We do not love the people around us. We do not connect to them. Leave aside the people around us, we do not love ourselves. We can't love somebody whom we do not know. Since we have no introduction to ourselves, we can't love ourselves. Out of that inner disconnection arises a deep sense of hollowness and as an escape mechanism we keep looking for some meaning in safety, security, and power.
We feel that if we get certain positions, we will be able to control the behavior of the people around us. The topmost positions in bureaucracy and politics worldwide are most sought after because people feel that would be able to favor their own people who in turn would hold them in high esteem and therefore they will feel elated. Some feel a sense of power in their positions because they can inflict damage on others. In fact, with experience, I have seen that we give powers to any person who is internally disconnected he is bound to misuse the powers. Since most of the people seeking powers are hollow inside, the moment they get powers, they want to use them either to benefit their followers or to damage the people they do not like. The more they use their powers and the more they get disconnected from their inner self, the more they become fearful and the more they glue to these powerful positions and get ready to do anything to get these powerful positions. This is a vicious cycle. Fixation to falsity can never bring joy. Initially, there may be moments of euphoria, but that evaporates soon to leave behind the heavy burden of guilt, shame, and fear, and unable to bear that burden, we try to find other ways and means to get some comfort in the form of more powerful positions. Some become so restless that they get attracted to some baba who too needs rich and powerful clients to handle his own hollowness and the two try to scratch each other's back.
I have myself experienced where this need for power comes from. Our society is not only full of inequalities but also quite brutal in some sense. It is so feudal that if you are born into a poor family, everything is a struggle. People feel that have a right to mistreat you and even abuse you for your poverty. Naturally, any child who is attached to his parents feels helpless when he sees his parents being abused and mistreated by the rich and affluent. That brings a strong desire to gather powers. I feel that is the beginning for most of the power seekers. Once this process starts, it has no end and we spend almost the whole of our lives running after a false goal that can never bring happiness in our lives.
Not so that we do not get opportunities to understand the true meaning of life. However, we are so obsessed with the bright, shiny falsity that truth gets relegated to the background with silent murmurs. While power is the music of DJ, love is like the chirping of the birds. Having gotten used to the DJ, we become deaf to the music of love. We want louder music, and more power, to escape from the inner hollowness. We become so blind that we fail to see that power can never do any good to anybody. If we try to help somebody with our positions, we are making that person more dependent on us and moving further away from his inner reality. The day he will be forced to encounter reality, he will undergo greater pain. In fact, if we are devoid of love, how can we ever make anybody happy? If we are full of love, we do not need any power or position to make a difference in the lives of people around us. Thus, power appears to be the greatest falsity, and the sooner we get rid of the same, and better it is for ourselves. When we discover that inner connection, we can help others too to get connected. It starts a chain reaction of love and compassion that fills the people in the entire society with love and compassion. When the kids are born and brought up in a society full of love and compassion, they do not run after the mirage of power to waste their lives.
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