excerpts

Please, sirs, this is very important to understand; because, as you will see, a mind that is established in power is an evil mind. All power is evil, whether it be political power, or so-called religious power. The moment you have achieved power, position, success, your mind has already lost its suppleness, its alertness, its quickness, its extraordinary quality of natural growth, of gentleness.

You all want power, you all want position, prestige, though there may be one or two exceptions. And the mind that is seeking power, thinking it will do good, is a very destructive mind, because it is concerned with itself. Sirs, truth cannot be found unless the mind is totally anonymous. I wonder if you have noticed that love is anonymous! I may love my wife, my children, but the quality of that love is anonymous. Like the sunset, love is neither yours nor mine.

So there is evil, corruption when the mind is immersed in power; and the desire for power is one of the most difficult things to wipe out. It is not easy to be nobody, to be inwardly anonymous. You may say, "In sitting on the platform and talking, are you not expressing yourself?" Outwardly one may be talking, but inwardly one can be totally anonymous.

And when there is this sense of complete anonymity, then you will find that there comes a comprehensive action which has nothing to do with the past, or with the thirst for power that creates such animosity and evil in the world. All power is evil, whether it be the power of nations, the power of leaders, the power of a wife over her husband, or of the husband over his wife and children.

If you observe yourself when you are not posing, you will see, in the secret recesses of your own mind, that you too want power to dominate, to be known, to have your name appear in the newspapers; and when a mind is seeking power, it is a destructive mind, it can never bring about peace in the world.

So, these are factors that make the mind dull: the virtue which is cultivated by the mind and recognized by society as being virtuous; the thought and the action of a mind which is committed to a particular pattern of ideas; and the search for power, position, prestige. All these imply a self-centred activity, a self-importance, a self-expansion, do they not? It is this process that makes the mind dull, and a dull mind loses all its sensitivity.

Intensity, or passion, is the outcome of self-abnegation - not the abnegation which is a denial of this and that, but the total self-abnegation which brings about a state of austerity. In this state of austerity, the mind is simple; and such a mind is a passionate mind.

Only the passionate mind knows love; and only the mind that knows love can perceive what beauty is - not the artist who paints a picture and is full of his own egocentricity. Love is passionate, therefore love is beauty. Without beauty there is no love, and without love there is no beauty. Only the mind that perceives the everlasting to everlasting - it is only such a mind that can act without creating misery.

Do please listen with your heart to what is being said, and do not regard it as a talk being given on a topic. It is your own mind of which you have to be aware. It is your own action that matters, not the action of the political or religious leaders. It is what you are, what your mind is that counts.

The mind that has not committed itself, that does not belong to [identified with] anything, the mind that is not strengthening its own egocentricity through the cultivation of virtue, the mind that is no longer seeking power - it is only such a mind that knows love and therefore beauty.

Such a mind, surely, is totality, it has no beginning and no end, and its action is a blessing, not a curse. Only such a mind can receive the real, that which is immeasurable.

 

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Editor’s note: Few statements by K have I found to be more jarring: “A mind established in power is an evil mind. All power is evil, political or religious.”

My initial reaction was, this can’t be right, it’s too extreme. But, the more I considered it, the more I realized that it’s consistent with everything we know about how the ego works.

“All power is evil” must be considered within a certain context. While it’s more than true that there are Dear Leaders in every walk of society, this does not mean that every project or program requiring governance is evil. Especially in this world. We need to “provide for the common defense,” “safeguard inalienable rights,” and many other aspects of freedom in an imperfect world. “All power is evil” is a sturdy rubric for Summerland, which is why there is very little overt government there - even so, that little may be too much.

In any case, "all power is evil” becomes patently true within the realm of the development and sanctify of the human mind. Each soul, each person, is tasked with unfolding the inner life, allowing one's “made in the image” capacities to blossom. No outside authority can do this for us, and to suggest otherwise, or to implement policies which countermand, becomes the essence of evil. And this is what K is getting at.

Another intriguing statement is, “It is not easy to be nobody, to be inwardly anonymous.” Elsewhere in the WG collection there is discussion on the nature of animals, how they do not have a well developed sense of self, and are “inwardly anonymous.” But this is not what K is driving toward.

We are to be inwardly anonymous in the sense that we do not need to bolster ourselves by identifying with any power structure of the world. Our minds are to be, as K said in another lecture, “a state of creation itself.” This requires a certain austerity, a measure of sacred aloneness, of needing nothing from the outside. But when we seek for external power and authority, we short-circuit the mind’s innate proclivity to become a center of creation itself.

With some irony, one of the names of God is the "Omnipotent," that is, "The All Powerful." But God's power is not the power of men, not of position or prestige. God never forces, never uses power to take control of the human mind. To do so is the essence of cultism.

Spirit Guide Abu, in a tape-recorded message, addressed this issue. He said that the power of God is more like "kneading hearts like bread." See his report here.

Coming to mind is something Elizabeth Fry, on the other side, admonished: “Above all, avoid men of power and position.” If you really want to advance spiritually, she said, stay clear of the authoritarians and power-mongers. With this, she was absolutely in line with K.