Choosing Your Power Source
In life we all want power, love and connection, we want the ability to do, to have and to be so many things. Yet we are just so limited in achieving these things.
These limitations, our lack of love and power, and the subsequent striving for such things, are often a cause of heaps of struggle, pain and disappointment.
What shall we do to get the power we want and the inner satisfaction we crave?
You would expect that I, being a detacheched monk since age 11, would advise that the solution would be to give up the endeavour for such things.
In fact, many spiritual enthusiasts would advise this. Many spiritual teachers say to stay away from the world and to stay away from action in the hopes of also destroying the suffering and possible destruction that arises from such action.
But my friend…
This time around I will not iterate this standard spiritual advice.
Yes, there is beauty, power and serenity in detachment.
But today…
We are going to explore what I call the Shining Path to Power (as delineated, in my new book ‘Eternal Dharma’, Chapter 12, page 192).
The Shining Path to Power is not a pacifist’s journey, It is rather a journey of intense-passionate-spiritual action-based love. The journey of those on the Shining Path is an active function of love, design and choice. And thus it leads to the most Effective Action possible.
Let’s get into it… You can strive for power from two different standpoints.
1. The first standpoint is the point of selfishness.
This is when our energy, in the form of desire, focus and physical action, is pointed inwards–
not inwards in a spiritual search for finding one’s true self. Instead, it is inwards in a sense of selfishness and unhealthy self-absorbed-focus.
When we act from this standpoint the results-to-come are clear.
People have acted based of misguided self-interested since before recorded history and the results are always the same: suffering, pain, dissatisfaction, disappointment and even death.
The above pains, as well as wars, depression, rape, bigoted politicians, disease, economic chaos and so on, all result from traversing what I call, “The Dark Path to Power”.
Luckily there is a higher and even more powerful way of being….
It’s the Shining Path to Power.
2. The Shining Path to Power comes from the standpoint of selflessness.
Ironically, this path grants us more power and satisfies our needs and desires more than the Dark Path ever could. It is ‘True Selfishness’ in its highest, most beautiful and purest state.
The shining Path is born from an in depth understanding of one’s deepest purpose, one’s Eternal Dharma.
The fact is that we don’t live and exist alone, we live in reality where everything we ever wanted comes from relating and relationships.
Relationships– more specifically loving relationships, even more specifically, spiritual loving relationships, even more more specifically, spiritual loving relationship with the divine, and even more more more specifically, our unique, personalized individual spiritual loving relationship with the Divine– are our Eternal Dharma.
This means such loving is who we are, what we are made of and our highest purpose. We exist for Passionate Love and love is action.
By consciously making all our actions a selfless expression of spiritually passionate love, then such actions are done for and done by the power of the Divine.
This spiritually passionate love, though permitted by feeling, is not a whimsical sentiment, it is logical structured practical action done as part of a higher purpose.
Such Action is not a manipulative maneuver to coax reality to serve our selfish wants but is a communicative dynamic dance with the Divine.
These actions in and of themselves are deeply fulfilling, imbued with love, and are thus in harmony with your true core nature (dharma) and the rest of reality.
And because such actions are tuned into the highest truth and come from the best frame of mind, they are substantially more effective.
We most often oscilat between both the Dark Path and the Shining Path. And of course the more we learn how to follow the shining path the better off we are.
So… How do we walk this Shining Path?
Walking purely on this path is the art and science of living and loving, which we were born to master.
My friend, obviously such mastery needs more than an article or a few tips (that’s why I wrote a book).
Anyhow tips are fun, so here are 3 helpful tips that, if applied, can create a tremendous difference in your life.
Tips for Walking The Shining Path to Power:
1: Always tune into nature. God or the Divine speaks through the things of this world. If you quiet your mind and try to listen to the Divine, you will be able to hear the pulsating desire of the Divine in all things guiding you to the most perfect Effective and Loving Action possible.
2: Whenever you are posed with a life choice ask yourself:
Which choice has the most love?
Which choice is the least manipulative?
Which choice will help me grow in both my practical life and my spiritual purpose?
Which is the Dharmic choice?
3: Don’t be in-authentic and when you catch yourself being so…Stop it!
Authenticity is when we are naturally expressing ourselves as we are. When we are in-authentic we are pretending to be something we are not, this is the Dark Path trying to manipulate the situation to be something that it’s not.
Rather, be as genuine and authentic as possible. It may feel risky, but only because it’s real and has more power, beauty and potential for connecting in transcendental love with the Divine.
For those of you eager to master the Shining Path to Power as well as a plethora of other principals, get Vishnu Swami–The Maverick Monk’s new book ‘Eternal Dharma’ and thus be fortified with what you need to reach your next level of personal empowerment and Passionate Enlightenment.
