“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” These words come from a speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. in August of 1967.
Fifty-seven years later millions of souls have been born, lived, and died without understanding the truth behind these words. Wars have been fought; nations have fallen, while others have risen to temporal prominence.
World economies have expanded, then collapsed, only to repeat their ingrained capital market mind-set. Two new generations have populated their homelands, contributed to their communities, and influenced global opinions with their own generation’s approach to human living. Yet, in the fullness of existence, what has really changed?
One welcome change is the sheer scale of the world-wide citizenry who now resonate to the simple idea behind MLK’s words. From mountain towns in Sri Lanka to the flatland villages of western China to ancestral tribes roaming the Amazon to the islanders of the South Pacific nation states to the ranchers in the vast expanses of Australia’s outback and onto the enclaves of European, British, American, and Canadian countrymen and women who are increasingly realizing the abject failure of previous generations to teach us the meaning of true power.
The easiest way to comprehend power is through elimination. Power is not might, nor violence, nor control of anyone or anything in physical reality. In truth, power does not really exist in the material world; power merely flows through, in and out of temporal existence. In the world of tangible and material, it is glamour that we humans succumb to on a steady daily basis.
The source of power lies upon the plane of Spirit; and its enduring essence is force. Unmarked, unblemished, unaligned force. It is the prejudice of human emotions which contaminate this pure spiritual force. Violence, in all its expressions, is the human betrayal of this divine force. Control is a moronic notion of separated self- possession of an actual universal force; and the idea that might ever makes right is the sad summit of glamour at its most delusional.
History is replete with examples of failure caused by this misguided perception of human power in the world of Maya. The terrestrial world, an alluring and abundant planetary Eden of Earth is the world of Maya.
Maya, a kaleidoscopic vortex of ever-shifting vibrations, is a school for the Soul. Maya is a learning ground to which we return through many lifetimes. Maya is the land of discovery where we find our bearings, lose our way, explore truths, and eventually unearth a shared lighted pathway home. To the Soul, there is nothing of permanent value in the world of Maya, other than Love. Love, in all expressions, is the only gift of enduring moment; all else in the world of Maya is temporary.
Knowledge is temporary and ever-fluctuating with the evolutionary winds of time. Wealth is temporary and incredibly easy to misplace when consumed with greed. Great and small nations, races, religions, cultures, whole civilizations are each and all temporary fields of human experience on the Earth’s learning ground of Maya.
Maya is force channeled and concretized into material substance, all material substance. An unceasing confluence of forces swirling in time and space create outlines of all tangible forms, recognizable shapes of earthly livingness. Our collective need for definition creates labels; and we validate this world by naming the objects we see around us, including ourselves: trees, plants, oceans, mountains, animals, human beings.
Not being satisfied with that which already exists, we then claim ownership over creation by designing buildings, highways, and great cities of human activity and commerce. Transportation hubs soon follow, along with innovative means of transporting goods and ensuring ease of travel.
It fails to dawn on any of us that employing violence to dig up the earth to access materials for our personal comforts will one day bear extreme consequences. Nor does it occur to us that the selfish violence displayed by overfishing lakes, rivers, and oceans will soon deplete the resources for future generations, as well as strip the farmlands of vital nutrients necessary for survival.
After living through centuries of excess, defined by an identity of false mastery, we then label ourselves the victims while simultaneously remaining the perpetrators of plenty and squanderers of wanton waste all because we failed to question our own illusion of empowerment.
We went along to get along. Humanity has now run out of time; and Earth space is compromised by unleashed chemicals, microscopic pollutants, and unfathomable human selfishness.
Our ancient identity with violence, might, and control has now brought us to the brink of planetary extinction. Weaponry designed to not merely kill, but rather to annihilate an entire race, sub-culture, or sovereign nation has become mankind’s proudest achievement. Increasing natural mega-disasters being fueled by human ignorance and our own prideful refusal to face foolish mis-steps throughout our succeeding generations has created today’s reality of approaching termination for all earthly life. Shame on us that we have brought Dante’s Inferno to life.
It could have been so different had we simply identified with truth rather than illusion, with spiritual rather than material, with selfless rather than selfish, and with the elegance of Soul rather than the grossness of glamour.
There were those throughout the centuries who attempted to awaken our hearts and imaginations to a sustainable earthly reality. Now, we must awaken ourselves and reach for the impossible, the improbable, and Humanity’s last best remaining option.
We need a global purpose and shared conviction that brings forth a fresh definition of Identity. A new framework that understands that constructs are evolving forces in humanity’s consciousness which is now moving away from I and growing into the power of We. When approached with openness, receptivity, and a willingness to rebuild trust, miracles happen. The impossible, the improbable, and the unlikely can become tomorrow’s earthly reality. It begins with vision.
There is an ancient African proverb which captures the true Spirit of power. In certain tribes, when a group of school-age children are ready for initiation the village Shaman takes them deep into the forest and lines them up in front of a tree.
Five hundred paces away, in front of another tree, he places a huge basket of fresh fruit. On his command, the children are all to race towards the basket. Whoever reaches it first becomes the declared winner and owns all the fruit.
As the proverb explains when the Shaman gave the signal, the children looked at each other, held hands, and marched forward in unison. When they arrived at the basket, the fruit was shared equally. When the Shaman inquired as to why they had responded this way children replied “Wutu,” an African word meaning “sharing all”.
I am because we are. This is a pure and powerful vision of a future human world that could heal, secure, and richly benefit all mankind.
To the attendees at the annual World Economic Conference in Davos, to the many directors in all the global institutions, to the political leaders of every nation, and to the members of the United Nations General Assembly, the children of the world are watching and waiting.
In a world of Maya where appearances are rarely as they seem, a receptive mind might re-read MLK’s quote and interpret these words as: “Spirit at its best is Love implementing the demands of Karma, and Karma at its best is Spirit correcting everything that stands against Love.”
To the countless spiritual seekers who are already altering human experiences through the deep and profound power of thought, there is an awaiting challenge in Bailey’s book, Glamour: A World Problem that we are each called upon to meet.
“The quality of your Love will count and not so much the accuracy of your analysis or the perfection of your technique” Page 148.
At this critical moment in human history, let us rise in unison to this challenge.
