Power Is to be Transformed, Not Rejected, in Spiritual Development

Power is disconcerting. Humanity is attracted to it, while at the same time, it fears raw power. It is often said “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” What is then to be done with our vital nature that expresses power and provides the motive force for our lives?

Those inclined to asceticism respond that power needs to be avoided, rejected, disregarded. The only thing that matters from that viewpoint is knowledge based in Oneness. If powers arise they are considered to be temptations and should not be developed or followed.

Those who focus on the external life and its development tend to worship at the altar of power. They want to accumulate it, they want to deploy it and they want to control others with it. This is where the ‘corruption’ enters into the picture. The more power one accumulates, the more one begins to believe the myth of infallibility and ‘being right’ because the very fact of their success implies, to them, their rightness. They tend to want to equate ‘power’ with ‘knowledge’. This occurs even in the service of a religious ideal — witness the Holy Inquisition, the conversion at the point of a sword, the burning of witches, the Crusades, the development of laws to enshrine a particular doctrine in place and use these to penalize those who hold differing beliefs, and other abuses of power in the name of God.

We try to put a control on power. Society sets up rules, moral codes, guidelines for the right use of power and the wrong use of power. Yet these rules are disregarded by those who actually accumulate power in the form of wealth, political or social influence or simply the use of brute force to exert their will upon others and the society at large.

Spiritual seekers are notably confused and have a difficult time navigating the demands of life, which implies the development and the use of power in some form or other, and the demands of the spiritual path which generally tell them to abandon the active life and focus on their inner spiritual development. The result has been the begging bowl, the vows of poverty and the retreat into the caves, the mountains or the deserts.

Yet something is missing. The avoidance of life, the avoidance of the use of power implies a division, a separation, a duality in existence which is not there in reality. The divine creation exudes power! The vast manifested universe unleashes incomprehensible amounts of power and in our very world, all existence is based on the use of power. Somehow we must find the balance that includes the vital force, the power of life, in the spiritual focus.

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother accept the need for the power of the life-energy. They point out that it has an essential role and must be transformed and put into the service of the divine. The goal is to overcome the ‘corruption’ that is based in the inflation of the ego that generally comes with control and the accumulation of power. The role of power should not be in conflict with the role of knowledge, harmony, beauty or love. All these aspects of the divine manifestation are intended to balance and harmonize in the eventual perfection of human life for which we are striving.

In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo takes up the role of power in its various forms and how to transform one’s use of power to put it at the service of the Divine. He describes what it means to be a ‘true doer of divine works’. He takes up the role of money as a sign of a universal force that needs to be deployed to increase the beauty, harmony and balance in the world. He describes the great powers of the divine Shakti that manifest everything that exists.

In The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo writes: “Will, Power, Force are the native substance of the Life-Energy, and herein lies the justification for the refusal of Life to acknowledge the supremacy of Knowledge and Love alone, — for its push towards the satisfaction of something far more unreflecting, headstrong and dangerous that can yet venture too in its own bold and ardent way towards the Divine and Absolute. Love and Wisdom are not the only aspects of the Divine, there is also its aspect of Power.”

The Mother observes: “… Sri Aurobindo says that the vital part, the vital being is the greatest obstacle because it is unregenerate, and that there would be a possibility of transforming it if it surrendered entirely to Love and Knowledge; but as its predominant quality is force, energy, power, it does not like to submit to other parts of the being, and this justifies its refusal to submit itself, for those virtues in their essence are as high as the others. That is why it has neither the same power or the same capacities, for it is not developed, it has not surrendered, and this is what causes the dilemma: it does not submit because it has this power, and this power cannot be utilised…”

“If the vital were a mediocre being without definite qualities, there would be no difficulty in its surrendering, but it would be altogether useless. But, on the contrary, the vital is a sort of stronghold of energy and power — of all powers. Yet generally this power is diverted; it is no longer at the service of the Divine, it is at the service of the vital itself for its own satisfaction. So, as long as it is like that, it cannot be used.”

“It should come to understand that this energy and power which it feels within itself cannot becomes useful unless it enters into perfect harmony with the divine plan of realisation on earth. If it understands that, it becomes quiet and allows itself to be enlisted, to so say, in the totality of the being, and then it takes on its full strength and full importance. But otherwise, it cannot be used. And usually, all its activities are activities which always complicate things and take away their simplicity, their purity, often their beauty, and their effectiveness, for its action is blind, ignorant and very egoistic.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XVII The Vital, pp. 132-133