Power: Fair or Right?

this the mediaI awoke this morning with an answer.  I saw clearly why some people fight and cannot acknowledge the other side. They have to be right. I have learned this in conflict resolution but somehow the knowledge is different when realised (known).

I was contemplating Oneness, that is we are One family, One world. From this perspective I saw how people take power as they are insecure deep down. The mask is that they appear aggressive but in truth that aggression masks fear. So when we attack them back their fear escalates. That is why war doesn’t work. This is not an anti-war statement, this is truth speaking.

So I found myself sinking beneath the mask to the interior of a person and exploring what is lurking beneath the surface that the person doesn’t even know. I saw the darkness as insecurity, fear, hurt, vulnerability and so on. However, the person in your face about their story is really masking these energies that is driving them. I would say in most cases the person definitely doesn’t know it is this darkness within driving it. I realised this morning it is the ego. The ego is the sense of separate self and beneath that the sense of aloneness, defenselessness and the importance to keep alive this persona.

I’ve read about the ego in Eckhart Tolle and listened to his New Earth recording which is a powerful overview of how unconscious works through the ego. Unconsciousness is simply not knowing you do not know. So we grapple to find truth, to find security, to find peace, to find happiness not knowing that what is driving us is a fear of the opposite. The fear is the opposite driving.

So if I fight unconsciousness it pulls me into the drama, it will suck me into a vortex where I attach to my beliefs and I find myself seeking to win the argument but in truth there is no winning because none of it is true. The other fighting is denying the truth as they can’t face fairness within themselves. That would mean giving up the argument which is their perceived protection. They are shielding themselves with words making themselves right and nearly convincing the other of their ‘victim’ status. They have to portray this to manipulate the other into believing them and being on their side. In conflict resolution they pull people in as Glee clubs. We see this play out in groups when they gang up on one person, known as bullying. It has happened to me a few times in my life. I seem to inspire it. I guess it is because I speak my truth and can be passionate about it. So the other feels threatened and they will then create a story to darken the look of me. We see this in the media when a person’s reputation is destroyed through gossip and projection called news. We know nothing about their life or the truth of the whole story. Yet the public will use that as gossip to have something to say to feel belonging with others, in agreement. Interesting huh how it is played out. So the Glee club is what reinforces the lie and the ego. The group, if it feels attacked, will hold together tighter, we see this with wars overseas against militia’s labelled whatever. Underneath it the fighting makes them come together stronger that is why what we fight we create. A better way of philosophically wording this is ‘what we resist persists what we look at disappears’. Wise words. So the more you attack the more you create the object of your fear as fear attracts what is feared.

There are energy dynamics at play that most people don’t understand. Their energy, their emotions, their feeling are purveyors of where they are at. If angry, then there is fear, if fearful there is powerlessness, if happy there is security, fulfillment, agreement with life. If you are not in agreement with life – not fair, should be different, any form of resistance you will feel negative and this is the lie or fight with life. Oh how many times have I been in this lie, many many times believing I was hard one by when in truth I just fought reality as it is. I think it has been the hardest lesson for me. Is to simply let go and allow. Yet in many instances like my world trip I did just that. As a clown I do just that, I just don’t control the flow, I allow the humour to come or not, I allow the silliness to be there or not, I smile, play, dance and try to sing and that becomes my dance with life, which always feels good.

The clowning for me has been the best teacher. I have really seen through this energy what it is to mirror, to play, to allow and just flow with everything it is far easier than trying to control, dictate, force and resist anything – that is the recipe for pain. That is why the world suffers so much, it has rigid beliefs, cultures, religions that say it should be other than what it is is. Yet if all subscribed to the view of love is the answer, I am not speaking Christian or any other denomination, I am speaking of the energy of love which allows completely. The real love is unconditional and that means there are no conditions to loving someone. You accept them as they are – even the murder, rapist, abuser, bully etc. I’ve seen them and sat with some of them and saw the crying child within, the wounded soul seeking love or a very poor shadow of it in all the wrong places. They believe they get power from what they do but in truth it is the ego trying to feel invulnerable and attacking what it fears – could be the feminine (vulnerability), the child (innocence), the man (defeat, superiority) and so on. But they can never win, as the ghosts of those actions will always haunt them. I met men a man who had murdered a child in war. He told me straight of his trauma and he was not getting over it. He relieved his guilt over and over. I wanted to do The Work of Byron Katie with him, I felt all soldiers should do it. I wanted to take him out of the agony of an unnatural act, such as murder. It is unnatural despite research on monkey’s. It is not our nature to kill or to hurt another. Our nature is the opposite, it is to love, to save, to care and so on. That is why people coming out of war have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as they went against what they knew to be the truth, they were told to obey orders, the group reinforced this (Glee club) and they did as they were told. Later the dreams came and nightmares. But I so want to say to them the past is over, the present is now and it is here that we learn from the past and don’t repeat it. Some of the most inspiring people have come from great trauma as they transformed themselves into teachers. They chose to be fair, which is really about facing the truth of situations on balance. To be right ignores the other side as it pummels the other into submission. This is the archetype of the bully that has to have control because it is so fearful of losing it. Doesn’t look like a tough person, that analogy was never true. It was the fearful projection of someone who feels they have no power. The person who bullies feels secure when all are obeying, they are not leaders. Real leadership allows, principled leadership leads with integrity, that is goes to the front, takes on the risk, takes on the challenge first, then shows others how to do it. That is real leadership. It does not sit in protected bunkers pointing to its foot soldiers to do the dirty work, the leader is out in front leading by example. Yet today we see so many dictators in the role of leader because people blindly believed they were strong because they didn’t falter in their decisions. That is because they didn’t see the big picture which would give reason to pause and consider the myriad possibilities sitting there. No answer is every black and white. They are choices that open trajectories of different reality, imagine if a decision is to kill imagine the children not born, the people not met, the experiences that won’t happens as that person died. Imagine if the decision was to spare life under the Geneva convention, to help the wounded, imagine the lives they go onto have, the marriages, children, friends, the ripples sent out of a powerful life lived. We have no idea the outcome of any decision but I can assure you it is massive in terms of life and what is created. If it comes from love happiness is expanded, if it comes from fear, unhappiness is expanded. Both expand but in what direction?

So I am going to think and feel more deeply about whether I or others is fair or right. I feel that will frame power plays beneath the surface. We lose community when we are right as we don’t share power or allow there to be two sides. There will be more conflict through resentment, jealousy, anger, hatred and so on. These are the proxy wars that go on through families, friends, through what we do. We take out our anger on who is in front of us. If we choose love then we naturally join, we look at best interest over self interest. We expand the pie, we give more to others and this sends a signal to life of giving as wealth. This is the real wealth or what I call the fool’s gold. It is the real abundance that shares its last penny, that gives bread that sees what it owns as not owned but a temporary material item. There is no hesitation to include or praise or encourage in this type of energy. It is the energy behind the greatest people, the most wondrous acts of kindness, it motivates random acts of kindness. It is what we all live for and is where we come from.

So perhaps contemplate on this day are you in love or fear? Are you fair or right? For your decision literally changes your life and life on earth.

The truth sets you free.