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For some time, I have pondered the question of what power is, at its best, as well as how it goes wrong in people. I have been mystified on so many occasions by the gross abuses of power on the part of people who imagine themselves to be serving the good, and wonder how the mind and heart can be seduced by such illusions. These wonderings were already at work in me when my husband, Tom, and I recently went to Oaxaca, Mexico, for vacation.

Over the past year, Oaxaca has been the site of social upheaval. Last fall, what started as a teachers’ strike led to tens of thousands of citizens demonstrating and carrying out civil disobedience, calling for the resignation of Oaxaca’s governor, Ulises Ruis Ortiz, who many believed to have been fraudulently elected. The protests were met with undue police force, and eventually federal troops were brought in to squelch the whole thing. Peaceful demonstrations were met with tear gas, water cannons, tanks, and blockades, and before they were suppressed, at least a dozen people were killed.

Tom and I stayed briefly in Oaxaca City, where military blockades and squads of soldiers carrying guns and clubs could still be seen at points around the city.

We were inspired, though, to see that people were still coming out to make peaceful demonstrations, and we had the chance to mingle with one such gathering in the courtyard of a cathedral very near our hotel. Seeing the crowds of people risking danger to take a stand for justice and democracy, hearing them chant and sing together, brought tears to my eyes.

In Oaxaca’s Governor’s Palace, Diego-Rivera-style murals celebrate Mexico’s proud revolutionary history, its heroic liberators, and its humble but beautiful people. And yet, behind the same walls, corruption infects the government and leaders. Common citizens go neglected, and the country’s significant wealth is hoarded by a small minority while so many live in desperate poverty.

I find myself asking, what happens to people who rise to leadership with noble visions and values, and then inevitably become deluded and self-serving?

What happens to those who intend to serve the good of all, and yet, when they come into the halls of power, access and influence, begin to lose their way, eventually becoming as exploitive or autocratic as the leader they deposed? History has seen it again and again. How is it that the mind, the heart, the will of a person are gradually corrupted, so that they justify protecting and increasing their own status at the expense of those they supposedly serve? How is it that the culture of power persuades us to forget our promises, our vows, our commitment to our ideals?

It occurs in all institutions and to all kinds of leaders—in schools and hospitals, churches and charities, businesses and non-profits. It happens at the large scale and the very small scale. Who has not known, or been, the big fish in a small pond, anxious and hostile toward anything that threatens their special status?
Certainly some despots come into power who never have an intention of serving anything but their own interests, but I think more often it is something like the passage we heard from Tolkien, in which the honorable knight, Borimir, dreams of vanquishing evil and ruling wisely and benevolently. Yet ultimately he cannot resist the hunger of his own vanity and the intoxicating promise of self-importance, to which the ring of power whispers and calls.

I came across some reflections from the Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan Lee on the subject of power, who explains that a person can bear and utilize power appropriately only to the extent that he or she has given up self-serving agendas. This is the paradox of power: that great power can be wielded responsibly and effectively only by the one who is utterly unattached to what that power can do for one’s personal self. This state of non-attachment comes only with constant discipline and vigilance. The more power with which we are invested, the greater the necessity for our vigilance, restraint, and clarity of awareness.

In his book Spiritual Power, Vaughan Lee warns against the places where worldly power has become pooled and concentrated. Like the ring in Tolkien’s epic, the culture and energy of these places can easily ensnare even the best-intentioned leader.

He writes:
“The places of power in the world not only carry the darkness of their exploitation, but they also have at work in them forces that protect them….One can become lost in the multitude of illusions that swirl around these places, illusions that seem to belong to one’s own hidden dreams and desires. These illusions constellate in the patterns of one’s own mind, may even seem helpful and beneficial, but are charged with subtle self-interest. One needs to be very focused in order to penetrate these places and stay true to the purity of intention that drew one there….Their energy…magnifies our own weaknesses and patterns of self-deception. Even the desire to be helpful is a trap, and the longing to save the world is a disaster. Spiritual poverty, “having nothing, and wanting nothing,” is our safeguard…. For this is not a darkness that one can transform through devotion, but rather a power than must be penetrated.”

I find this warning timely as many well-intentioned public servants begin to announce their aims for the US presidency. I think especially of Barack Obama, who at least seems so fresh and untainted by the culture of politics, so able to speak simply and clearly, and yet we all have a shadow self, and I wonder if he will be able to withstand the seductions and perversions of that world.

This is the problem that every new, eager leader has faced, as a famous piece of writing from Islamic history reveals. Here is an excerpt from a letter written in the middle of the 7th century by ‘Ali bin Abi Talib, the first Imam appointed by the prophet Mohammed, to Malik al-Ashtar at the time of Ashtar's appointment as governor of Egypt. Ali writes:

O Malik…let the dearest of your treasuries be the treasury of righteous action. Control your desire and restrain your soul from what is not lawful to you, for restraint of the soul is for it to be equitous in what it likes and dislikes…. Never be regretful of pardon or rejoice at punishment, and never hasten [to act] upon an impulse if you can find a better course. Never say, "I am invested with authority, I give orders and I am obeyed," for surely that is corruption in the heart, enfeeblement of the religion and a path to changes in fortune....

Just as myth and history are full of characters who succumbed to the seduction of power, myth and history also give us characters who represent that willing divestment of self-interest necessary for true service.

To stay with the metaphors that Tolkien works with, one should notice that the central hero of the story, the one who by destiny is called to break the power of the ring, is the least likely: the smallest of persons, the hobbit Frodo, so without guile or interest in the personal aggrandizement that the ring falsely offers. By his very nature unassuming and inconspicuous, and yet also deeply perceptive and unexpectedly strong of will, he is the only one able to bear the burden of the ring’s power until the deed is finished.

An obvious figure in religion is Jesus. If you take the gospels as sacred stories with their own literary truth and spiritual integrity, we find a character who expresses enormous power—the power of persuasion, of spiritual and moral authority and the miraculous powers of healing. Yet he chooses homelessness and poverty for the sake of his particular calling to the throngs of the disinherited. True to the end, he chooses self-sacrifice in order to work what he believes is the ultimate good for all.

Gandhi was deeply inspired by the figure of Jesus even as he remained rooted in Hindu culture. He integrated Jesus’ example into his own vision of leadership and his work in guiding the Indian people to their liberation. He adopted the dress and poverty of the lowest caste of Hindu society, the untouchables, whom he named “the Children of God,” the ones who are born into and never escape the most reviled professions within their society—cleaning latrines and attending to the burial grounds.

By choosing material poverty and vulnerability, Gandhi gained enormous moral power, won the trust of the masses of oppressed Indians, and galvanized their will for dignity and freedom. Only by being totally uninterested in improving his own status was he able to empower the people themselves, until they found in themselves the unstoppable strength that would take down the British rule.

Gandhi embodies the paradox of power. There is no question that he wielded it. In spite of his small, sinewy frame, his walking stick and humble loincloth, he was, as a presence, as fierce and commanding as a lion: he was Mahatma, Great Soul. He held the paradox together. He understood the absolute necessity of power. Only overwhelming strength would be able to disrupt the tyranny of the Empire, with all its resources and weapons and conviction in its own supremacy and entitlement. He understood that he must exert his own power, the intensity of his own will, vision, charisma, and authority. Yet somehow he wielded this power while also giving it away, always encouraging the people to recognize what strength lay in their hands.

What has all this to do with us? A person may not be a Gandhi, may not even come into a significant position of leadership during his or her lifetime, but we all need to engage power, participate in power, exercise power, if we want to accomplish anything meaningful. We will all at some time be asked to be bold and self-confident in order to influence others. Perhaps our effectiveness in this will be increased or decreased depending on how self-interested or self-protective we are. This is the strange and subtle paradox.

Speaking for myself, I know I am more powerful and more effective to the extent that I am more willing take risks. I am more willing to risk when I can quell the constant, subtle desire to protect myself and my self-image. I am more able to risk as I gain detachment from what others think of me and from fears about my own potential losses. So in some subtle way, it is by curbing my anxieties and attachments, curbing my self-interests, that I become more powerful.

None of this is to say that we should not protect ourselves when we are being abused, or that we should not desire safety or the respect of others.

Here again is the paradox, because the non-violent mass movements that have overthrown despotic leaders and governments have been carried out by those who were most downtrodden. If the people had not had an immense desire for their own liberation from abuse, they would not have been able to overcome such tremendous obstacles and dangers.

So perhaps to be honestly powerful means embracing passionate conviction and commitment, while at the same time being willing risk everything. Such risk not possible when one is trying to stay secure. One who is protecting his or her corner on life or striving to increase his or her personal stake without sharing with others will not be able to wield power constructively.

As a community we have such potential and power present among us. We are rich with vision and with leaders. We long for the positive transformation of the world around us. What will it take, what kind of risk, what kind of transcendence of self-interest, will it take for us to take up the power we have, enable it to grow, and to manifest our potential?

Let us not be afraid of our power, but embrace it and channel it into the best and most loving expression that it can be.

May it be so.