Many present a picture of "those who thirst for power" as though this objective was some deviant aspiration that only a few are afflicted. Systems that attempt to abridge this natural predisposition for power and control in all human beings eventually succumb to change through the stronger drive inherent in this need. Ego seeks self-protection through power and control. The greater the power the more control is exerted over an external environment that threatens its existence.
Therefore, it would seem that consciousness seeks out ways to reduce victimization from an external reality that seems determined to control consciousness or, at the least, demand that consciousness attend to it exclusively. In fact, we may attempt to become more compassionate to each other, but nature has no consideration for our compassion and has demonstrated this through natural calamities that annihilate whole populations.
Thus, many may ask why seek to end man's inhumanity to man when nature will simply fill the vacuum (if we even could alter our hatred of one another). Why try to alter the human model when nature/reality does not adhere to our model anyway and is indifferent to our modes of compassion and destruction. Imagine the day when we all finally become compassionate to one another only to be decimated by a rogue virus or taken out be an asteroid.
This is why I see little hope for an external solution that only maintains our consciousness as powerless and victim to the whims of an external physical reality or natural universe. The solution will be a product of a consciousness (collective/individual) that includes nature as an object of consciousness and amenable to the intentions of collective consciousness. All attempts at tweaking the external world, ignorant of human predispositions which cannot be altered (if consciousness continues to be victim of external reality and ignorant of nature's being impervious to our plans) are destined to continued the "repetition-compulsion" of centuries of failure and suffering.
The solution is Spirit within and when whole populations can be convinced of this then I imagine change through consciousness will result in change in reality.
I don't necessarily feel that we inherently have a need for "power," per say, yet the ego does desire to be less a victim of external reality. Therefore, I believe we all do tend to impose ever greater levels of 'control' over our individual world or, as Heidegger phrased it, our tiny, individualized "realm of care and concern."
Possibly, it may only be perceived as "power" when control reaches levels to where we inadvertently impose our control upon others. Thus, when our reality expands to include ever greater realms, we thus have a greater likelihood to make impositions upon reality which has greater control on more levels and more people and this we refer to as "power."
This highlights the ego's undeniable need to control reality, which could be perceived as the initial stages of the affliction of suffering which results from extreme uses of power. There is no doubt that we can perceive ourselves as victim of our world and even our routine everyday interactions with reality are chock full of 'reality' pressing in upon us as we, in turn, press back, so as to assert greater levels of control based on our belief in attaining an order to the things we perceive. Such an 'order' is often perceived as achieving 'happiness.'
Maybe real "freedom" is the complete absence of the NEED to control reality and thus greater freedom is inherent in less need to control? So if one day everyone in the world were to wake up and suddenly believe, right down to the deepest unconscious layers of the mind, that "everything as as it should be," would everything then finally be as it should be? (but that is referred to "magical thinking").
However, it is doubtful that such a condition could ever be attained since all that is required is one person to believe in control and thus impose the specifics of that belief upon reality and we would then need to press back against that belief with our own relative conceptualization of the way things should be. This seems to be the way things currently evolve or develop. Interfere in my attempts at control and I will work to impede your attempts and such is the dynamics of war.
We could become "addicted" to control. However, in the clinical domain the colloquial or conventional term "addiction" is replaced with the term dependency (addiction has too many different meanings). Thus, many are dependent on control regardless of the effects of that control on others which we then define as "power." Belief in an external world requires control to some extent, in order to avoid victimization, and we seem to measure "power" by the degree that my attempt to control reality imposes ON or, in fact, oppresses others.
Thus, to avoid the potential for the existence of power, we would need to attain a conscious belief that control is not needed or, in fact, less needed in all domains of existence. Yet, I sense this would be equivalent to a kind of mass suicide since we all so dearly demand control and, in fact, we consider control of reality our God-given right and we consider this ability to attain ever greater control the "pursuit of happiness."
Can Collective Consciousness realize that no control is needed?
I believe the collective consciousness or 'One Mind' must give up the need for control and this can only happen when many separate minds realize One Mind or Oneness.
The problem is the body. Bodies cannot join, only minds can truly embrace and merge (and I don't mean "paranormally"). Love is an experience of mind and can only be expressed ineffectively through bodily connections, although conventional culture emphasizes bodily connections as the way to an experience of "love." In my opinion, this tends to obstruct real spiritual communion from which Spirit can be realized.
Therefore, any larger "worldview" that is initiated through individual 'selves' must, in a sense, emphasize mind over body. The package of beliefs consciousness reflects ON as 'self' is body-mind dualism. Yet, the emphasis tends to be body and the world attests to this conceptualization, since our greatest fear is the death of the body and we live out our lives vigilant to protecting the 'self' from this possibility. We tend to hold to some tenuous belief that the mind will carry on or take on another form or go to God, or whatever. Life as we know it demands priority be accorded the body above the mind, since the priority belief is that "you only have one life to live, so make the best of it."
Any radical paradigm change must seek to reverse this current emphasis. The mind must take precedence above body and there can be no equalizing or seeking an equivalence. This requires a radical reversal to everyday life and not simply the adoption of some "contemplative-meditative" practices. Joining must be emphasized as nonsexual thereby allowing sexual emphasis to simply recede to the background while the mental realm gains in significance (this does not negate sex, but simply puts in proper perspective within the 'whole'). Physical attachments are then transformed as helpful to mental joining but that the merging of minds is priority or 'job no #1."
Collective change is spiritual simply because it will require that we no longer equate oneself exclusively with a body or even emphatically a body. This is an important distinction because the body-mind belief package requires the attribution of truth to both the body and the mind. However, we perceive the dissolution and eventual demise of the body, yet we have no clear perceptions (just relative beliefs) from which to consider the eventual disposition of the mind in relation to the death of the body. This leaves us with only theoretical speculations (religion and Wilber) but these speculations are only of concern to us in relation to the death of the body, since this is our greatest fear and our greatest obstacle.
When I leave or am finished with the body (die), what is the fate of the mind? But notice that each of these considerations of death require the body and the mind exist as my "self." This demands a 'reality' supportive of this evaluation. Therefore, since we evaluate our existence on perceptive attributions or sensory data, obviously the body takes on greater significance. Thus we attend to our actions more then our thoughts, often rethinking situations as an after thought subsequent to our actions. The old adage "actions speak louder then words" may be an impediment to paradigm change. The fact is we can share actions and behaviors when, in fact, we need to share minds.
Can we find away to transfer this radical change in self-perspective to soccer moms and Nascar dads? What a colossal task, but I think doable!
Power and Control are expressed through objects/possessions.
Clearly this is correct. However, I believe that a focus on class distinctions in relation to power is missing the natural inclination of the ego-mind to immediately seek out differences and distinctions for which to contrast "self" in relation to. The ego is self-protective by nature and any contact with another ego/self demands the mind determine level of threat or benefit based on self-interest. Making class distinctions is evaluating threat based on access to resources, which are symbolized by objects of ownership, since that has been socioculturally determined as demonstrative of wealth which is our most powerful means of separating individual ego-selves.
Nevertheless, if it were not objects of wealth, then the mind would utilize other means of distinction, such as when class distinctions are equal. If we were both middle class and indiscriminately equal in all external appearances then the ego would seek out alternative distinctions from which to contrast, compare and thus, seek control. The mind's need to make evaluative distinctions (judgments) between other embodied ego's can never cease due to the nature of the separate mind-self. Belief in separate ego/self demands that I immediately (reflexively) determine what separates us, since that maintains my autonomy. This is effortless and automatic in a culture that values wealth, however, in cultures were wealth is not the discriminating factor, distinctions may be determined by other hierarchical factors such as physical abilities, charismatic factors, age, body shape, etc, etc.
I suppose we could seek to require an equalization of wealth in the hopes of reducing the discriminating effects of that type of distinction. Yet the mind's natural need to maintain separation through value judgments would seek out other modes of inequality.
Thus, sadly, there is no hope for separate minds to cease maintaining separation, since it is essentially a life and death issue. Merging or Oneness of separate minds defines the death of separate autonomous selves and this is very fearful to say the least.
Marxism and other economic based ideologies fail to account for the nature of ego-mind in the zeal to indict those who hold power. Ego-mind control of power distinctions is a natural predisposition and it makes no difference how power is symbolized in the culture because separate ego-mind wants ever greater control of it to more clearly differentiate itself as separate from others.
Even the 'integral map' could not effectively minimize hierarchical value judgments, in relation to levels and tiers, in the ego's need to remain separate.
The only real means of minimizing such ego external hierarchical distinguishing is to somehow inculcate culture with a value "meme" or paradigm that would seek to make mind take precedence over body-physical distinctions.
Alas, even that may be victim to ego distinctions between minds, creating hierarchical levels and thus discriminations based on ego/self interest.
Obviously, it is our 'wants' (since developed countries are higher up in Maslow's heriarchy) that may be obstructing other less developed populations elsewhere from having their 'needs' met. This is because we now define 'happiness' in more extravagant and sophisticated ego-body desires rather than simply instinctual needs and this requires resources.
We now desire fulfilling 'careers,' as opposed to jobs, which is more a 'want,' than a 'need.' Individuals in poor economies simply want a paycheck so they can eat, while we expect a good salary so we can eat-out. In addition, we want our shelters to make us happy, while Burma and China simply want shelters that keep them alive while they sleep.
Therefore, as long as there is this discrepancy between 'wants' and 'needs' there will always be gross inequalities globally. NO system of economics can adapt to this discrepancy, since for their 'needs' to be fulfilled, that might require that our 'wants' be sacrificed and we would suffer accordingly based on our 'wanting' happiness and the various unnecessary methods we have determined adequate to our seeking happiness or self-fulfillment (a term we use to define 'happiness').
Should we sacrifice our 'wants' for the 'needs' of the many. Any economic system that does not take the heirarchy of needs into consideration is doomed to failure. But then any system that does take this into consideration will, nevertheless, reveal failure.
Maybe when the 'haves' come to realize that what they 'have' has never, and will never, sustain them on a deeper Spiritual level, (and the have nots see the same in relation to bodily wants as opposed to needs) seeking happiness will be an intrinisic pursuit not based on economic or external considerations. Possibly an economic system based on fulfilling global instinctual 'needs' equitably, with no consideration of bodily 'wants,' may be sustainable.
Sadly, it does not seem we are moving toward any such system.
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