From Plato to Frederick Nietzsche to Michael Foucalt, power has been a topic of importance and interest throughout history. Power is the ability to manipulate reality.
All life has power and it is possible that non-life has powers as well. Symbols, in the system of reality, may have culturally specific or independent power. Ideas have power. People and machines have physical power to move physical reality- whatever that is. More appropriately, all existence can be said to be various forms of energy.
Power is found in books, movies, music in a way that can reach all of humanity. An idea or art or any person can cause wars, prevent wars, cure the ill, cause illness, enlighten minds, or destroy minds.
911 was an event that was caused by human technological power to demolish buildings. But, the psychological power of the media exponentially multiplied the conscious power of the event to shape minds all over the world. No matter what one believes about the causes or conspiracy involved (Middle eastern extremists did it, Israel did it, Bush administration/Pentagon did it, etc) in 911, the event was one of the most powerful in recent history not because of the physical energy power involved (though it was strong), but because of the psychological power of the media in using and reporting on the event for geopolitical ends.
All humans have access to nearly or totally infinite power though most people are unaware of this access because it seems unproven or all too optimistic. Ghandi and Hitler, Jesus and Stalin, Siddartha and Alexander the Great, John Kennedy and Ghengis Khan, all were individuals who began to tap into the power available to all people.
However, when great amounts of power are placed in the hands of an individual on Earth, they become a powerful target. The extermination or death of a powerful individual can cause them, as a symbol of peace or tyranny, to have even more power, in death, than in life.
Power can be granted to words and phrases. There is great negative power in racial, the historical use of political and ethic derogatory words like "nigger, kike, cunt, satan, evil, wetback, spick, krout, gook, wop, guinie, frog, cracker, white trash, etc." We give these words more and more power the more we avoid talking openly and honestly about words.
Banishing words or symbols from a society, such as banishing Nazi terms and symbols in Germany, only serve to give these symbols more power under the public current. There are many great powerful words that can be used positively and help enlighten, such as "love, compassion, truth, faith, honor, wisdom, god, friend, humanity, greatness, heavenly, etc.". The power of love to conquer hatred, the power of hatred to destroy nations and people.
It is powerful to save and it is powerful to destroy. Power comes in history books and in Japanese and Texan revisionism. But, revision of history is a subjective skewing only in some people's eyes.
Science is very powerful in both a conceptual and energy-releasing and utilizing manner. Nuclear and Fusion technology is very powerful, but, the power of love is, in my opinion, the fundamental force in all of reality and its expression is creativity in substantial forms of reality and space-time.
Power is dangerous and power is helpful. Seeking earthly power to rule the planet is certainly a focus of the New World Order but this power is dwarfed by the power of spiritual love that permeates the universe in both space-time and in the realm of mind and choice.
Intelligence agencies in major and small nations wield psychological power over their people and over other people through false use of information about plots and attacks. Armies are powerful in that they can use machines in space-time to exterminate infrastructure and life. But, more powerful than any of these things is Truth.
Truth is powerful because it is more adept at shaping opinion and history than any other force except perhaps for love- but I would argue that no other concept is as true as love.
Negative power to harm our bodies, minds, nations, families, and our conceptual schemes or paradigms in general, is only powerful if we give it power through our own fears. Fear is the generator of negative power in tyrannical political situations throughout history. Humans are always free and capable of thwarting negative power when we have deep metaphysical realizations of our true nature as beings in the universe.
We can be affected by and moved by positive power and positive power throughout history has liberated slaves and enslaved minds. The best form of slavery is in the systems where most of the slaves are not aware of their slavery.
In America today, we are slaves to materialism and debt. We work more for that which we don't need and does not enhance our existence as sentient beings. However, the powerful media and the powerful corporations and political interests we are exposed to, only through our own ignorant choices, instills in us the importance of cars, sex, drugs, weapons, houses, real estate, and myriad other superficial and material concerns.
The television and the internet are massively powerful technological tools that, in the wrong hands, can and has led to the enslavement of many minds throughout America and the human world in general.
Power can be used for control as much as it can be used for enlightenment. Enlightenment, in my opinion, is the process of coming to realize the true nature of one's self and of reality in general. It is not generally a process that can or is instilled through institutional knowledge but only through personal reflection, meditation, or shamanistic investigation. Enlightenment is a phenomenlogical process because it is only truly accessable within the individual.
Though, forces like the New Testament, Buddhism, speeches by JFK and Ghandi, speeches by Gurus and Yogis, words of the Tao, and other portions of our reality can show us paths and ways towards this understanding of a deeper knowledge. This deeper knowledge that imparts enlightenment can be used to relieve fear, hatred, suffering, destruction, and slavery of body, mind, or soul- though all of these things need not be seen as actually distinct but only conceptually so.
Power is neither good nor bad. Power is neutral. One's power to affect change for the better is infinite though humans generally are able to only affect change in limited earthly arenas of communities, nations, and the planet in general. These limited uses of power to affect change can reverberate and echo across space and time.
There is still negative and positive energy in places where negative or positive things have happened and these energies may attract entities which feed off of such energy.
Although I do not consider any place in space or time to be absolutely good or bad, places where millions of people were slaughtered radiate negative energy. This may manifest in dreams, bad feelings, bad moods, etc.
Likewise, places, documents, or artifacts that have been used to inspire good also radiate good energy and this may be a reason for certain holy or revered places. One could ask whether knowledge of the events determines the interpretation of the energy, but it may also be, in at least some sense, objectively energetic in a non-cultural framework.
All uses of power, good or bad, remain as memories in the system. Karma is the idea that all energies must, in the end, be balanced. There is no timeline for karmic whiplash or karmic balancing, but the belief that it will be balanced, at some point, seems to appeal to the elegant nature in which the universe always finds balance. There can be no science or scientific proof of Karma, or the idea that we can access infinite power. However, one can observe one's own life experiences and history in general to see how injustices often lead to war or the psychic damage of the unjust.
People and nations and the planet and the universe all experience balancing between light and dark energies. Slavery led to the civil war. Japan and Germany were severely damaged by their empirial expansion and murderous, torturous use and extermination of human life.
Opression is always met with the oppression of the oppressors. It may not happen in a being's or nation's immediate future. But, the premise that consciousness goes on infinitely is one that I find true- though I can not and will not attempt to prove such a premise. It is an idea garnered from personal, private exploration of the consciousness we, I assume again, all share.
Salvation is always met with the benefit of the saviour. Suffering for the sake of others will be met with reward for the sufferer. Standing up and being cut down for a benevolent cause will always be met with the universe's honor of those who stand up- even in death.
Power for good should be used. Power for evil is always an illusion; in that, it will be maintained. Evil thinks it is more powerful than good. The murderers and torturers of the world think their power will last because of history or immediate gratification in terms of sex, money, or material possessions. But, all of these things fade and the scorn of history and of metaphysical beings that dwarf humans will come even after life.
This is not an argument for heaven or hell, but we will all find ourselves, temporarily, in one or the other should we so deserve it. Only you know what you deserve and judgement can only come from reality itself and never a finite being. All finite beings have access to infinite being, but this is something humans are not aware of yet.
