ILLUSION OF POWER

ILLUSION OF POWER

Man has always loved power, and the instinct to dominate others has always thrilled his fancy since Adam. This instinct, amongst other things, led to many conflicts, and infamous explorations recorded in annals, across the globe. This exploration led White Europeans into many creeks in Africa and Asia where subjects were found and used for the gratification of power. The peaceful habitats of the locals were disturbed when the power unleashed its malevolent force, first with the slave trade and later with subsequent colonization. No matter how power manifests itself, it is always in disguise of fear, weakness, and ineptitude in a duty of governance and relationship. When a mortal treats another as a subject, forces him against his will, and even destroys his life, he shows incontrovertibly profound psychosis. He is a being that has lost contact with reality; he is delusional and in serious need of help.

When Martin Heidegger stated that "man is a bundle of possibilities," he invariably revealed in man an unstable creature that must be constantly guarded lest he brings destruction to others and himself as well. Therefore, for him man can only be defined when he is dead in other to rule out these possible possibilities. A look into the history of man affirms this Heidegger's postulation that man is indeed a threat to himself as he had attempted several times to annihilate himself from existence. The first and second world Wars are the foretastes of this intention, and from the look of things, man has not stopped trying. He is still working very hard to make sure the goal of self-destruction is reached and very quickly so. The pertinent questions are: why and for what purpose?

The truth is that man doesn't want to destroy himself nor put others in harm's way as his actions seemed to portray. He loves life; he treasures happiness and responds positively to love (the energy of life). This is talking about a man in his healthiest form and not the modern man whose egoistic mind-made self has usurped his being and imperceptibly enslaved him. The modern man is held down in bondage that he can hardly admit that he is not the one acting anymore, but a separate entity that has taken over his mind and set out to finish him. The entity which he nursed for millennia through compulsive thinking and which he can no longer control, is today ruling his life and about to ruin him.

The subtlety of this mind-made self that hid behind ego as a veritable tool to be used to accomplish the self-destruction is so ingenious that it can't be suspected. Therefore, man never learned from history. He will walk the same part and put his leg in the same trap again and again. No matter the bitterness of the experience, it is hard to find out the cause. whatever was identified as the cause of a conflict and destruction of lives and property is far removed from the truth. It can only be the effect of the cause. Therefore, repetition of the same mistakes is frequent. This is why we always toy with taking up arms to slaughter each other? And in a world that is ravaged by poverty, hunger, and destitution military budgets for the acquisition of ammunition in many countries are enough to banish hunger forever on earth. In our delusion, we thought power is more important than life, and those who once played with power may have realized how futile it is.

Men who once saw power as a valuable and eternal possession are nowhere to be found today. Where are those people who once wielded this power and terrorized the earth and their fellow men? Where is Nero who towered like a colossus over the Roman empire; and who deemed himself a god, with destructions unimaginable under his belt? Where is Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) who ordered the inquisition to the Dominican and Franciscan Orders and watched as his fellow men got slaughtered in cold blood? Where are King Henry IIIV and Thomas Cromwell, his ruthless righthand who orchestrated thousands of execution during that evil reign? Where are Adolf Hitler and Emperor Showa whose delusions led to the second world war? Where are Leopold II, Joseph Stalin, and Idi Amin of Uganda today? What is the value of the evil these men perpetrated on earth and the one we are perpetrating today? What is the gain of hatred and inhumanity we display on daily basis?

Yet, in the same trap of madness, we have fallen into and are ready to blow the earth to smithereens in a subservient directive of the false self who indeed is schizophrenic. To identify the cause of our problem is certainly the prism from which we can see truly the illusion of power. We shall understand that humans can't take a different part than this destructive one unless there is a divine intervention to suspend human free will. We are doomed from our own making; for we are the ones who nurtured this monstrous intellect; over-cultivated it to Frankenstein specimen with no other goal than destruction and effacement of the human spirit from creation.

To see the earth as our home and materiality, all that is, serve as a recipe for conflict, war, and destruction. This is where the false self behind the ego wants to place man, and it succeeded too well. It bound our spiritual sight, cut off the intuition, and left us empty beings who are trapped in their heads with no value on earth anymore. We see only the physical life and deny the spiritual life because it is beyond the accessibility of the intellect. Therefore, we get attached to this earth and go to war to invade and destroy others in the name of power. How different it could have been to know that we are all pilgrims on earth whose home lies far away in spiritual land.

If this earth were to be our true home, conflicts and wars will find justification. If we are the owner of the earth, fighting in its defense will have some meanings. But we are only unruly guests who are fighting and killing each other even though we will never be here in the next hundred years. So, what are the essence of war and the destruction of life and property? It is not that Ukraine plundered Russia's pantry and the latter are dying of hunger. It is not that Ukraine carted away Russia's women and Russia must visit her as Troy once was visited. If it is not ignorance and madness, what could trigger war? The more we shout civilization, the more barbaric we become. This is the reality. The illusion of power only lies in the fruit it bears. It is of total loss!