Thursday, December 09, 2004

INTOXICATION WITH POWER

"Power is dangerous without meditation. Any kind of power is bound to become destructive if there is no meditation involved in it. Lord Acton’s famous statement is basically true, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, because power means energy. What is one going to do with energy if one has not the understanding to use it rightly, if one has not the perspective to see clearly where to go, what to do, what not to do? Then power gives a certain intoxication. The unconscious person becomes even more unconscious, the mad person becomes even more mad.
Latest researchers into psychiatry have come to a very significant conclusion: that many people who are insane are really insane because they have so much power that it is beyond their control. They cannot cope with it. Basically they are not bad people, not evil, but their power is like a sword, a naked sword in the hands of a child. What is the child going to do with a sword? Either he will harm somebody or he will harm himself; hence power either becomes murderous or it becomes suicidal. These are the only two possibilities without meditation.
But once meditation becomes the foundation, then power is creative, then it brings great poetry and great music and great dance in your life. And not only in just your life; it starts overflowing you, it starts reaching others." - Osho: The Old Pond - Plop!