Integrity & Power

What is power? Why are people so scared and so judgmental about it? What is the value of integrity, and how is it interconnected with our innate powers?

Many seem to view power as one of the main problems in the world today. Yet, others believe authentic power to be the only potent solution capable of saving us from our current troubles.

Some spend their entire lives seeking more power, while others devise creative ways to rid themselves of the power they already possess. Some crave it; others want far less of it.

Some believe power is evil. Others perceive it as an act of God.

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We all want powerful leaders at the top of our organizations and societies. Yet, the more powerful they actually are, the more we fear them, label them as corrupt unconscious tyrants, and wish to unseat them as soon as possible.

Power grants both collective trust and social fear simultaneously.

As humanity, we are deeply confused and incoherent in our collective beliefs about what power is and how we perceive, live, share or experience it.

We might spend years in therapy and thousands of dollars to "empower" ourselves. Yet, at the same time, we harshly judge and shame those in power around us at every opportunity.

Isn’t it funny?

It’s like wanting to get married, going on dates, even buying a dress for the occasion—while simultaneously telling everyone how stupid, irresponsible, pathetically boring, and unconscious married couples are.

It’s wanting something deeply, yet parts of you remain scared, judgmental, or unwilling to fully experience the very thing you desire in your mind or heart. So, you shame it.

Interestingly, this dynamic becomes particularly evident in spiritual and new-age communities when the concept of pure power and its darker aspects are explored in greater detail.

People often turn to spirituality or the deeper consciousness explorations to find greater inner power or to reclaim their innate energies from the collective "system of nonsense." Yet, these are often the same communities where you'll encounter the fiercest critics of power—radical opponents of governments, corporations, or any political, social, or economic authority.

They seek "spiritual power" while simultaneously becoming judgmental and even fearful of that same power's manifestations in the mental, emotional, and physical realms.

Ironically, these communities—championing self-empowerment under the guidance of so-called conscious, godlike beings—are often where systemic trauma related to power abuse runs deepest. They harbor some of the most sophisticated fear-based control strategies, mass manipulation tactics, and even corruption.

They love the idea of great inner power—often only in their imagination—but are far from ready to embody that power in the world or our shared reality. They want to feel power and have more of it, but they shy away from the responsibility, accountability, and social consequences that come with it. They want only one side of the coin.

But power doesn’t work that way. If you want to feel like God within yourself, you must also be ready to act like one in our shared reality and with every being. And that’s a very different game. Accessing authentic power and knowing how to hold it or to share it wisely with others are not the same thing.

Using authentic power solely for personal empowerment or to promote your individual vision and egocentric purpose doesn’t make you a powerful leader. It makes you a potentially spiritual, clever—but deeply scared and manipulative—coward.

It gives you tools to protect yourself better and a sense of personal superiority over the "average human" (in your mind only). But it doesn’t serve humanity or others in authentic and meaningful ways. It doesn’t make your community—or even you—more powerful in the world or our shared reality.

Self-empowerment without the full embodiment of power in the physical form isn’t authentic leadership or an efficient strategy for a more coherent power distribution in the system. It’s a new form of elitism—sophisticated spiritual manipulation and systemic corruption rooted in a deep trauma of the collective soul.

These individuals know how to harness and even "get high" on authentic power and divine energy of others. But they have no idea how to use it wisely to transform our shared reality in meaningful and coherent ways.

They may know how to access their unlimited powerful spirit and mind but have no idea how to feel that power in their bodies, sense it fully with their hearts or put it into systemic action in our shared physical reality.

They know how to empower themselves, but they don’t understand the process of community empowerment or how to genuinely empower others.

They’re not real leaders.

They’re doing exactly what the CEOs and politicians they judge are doing—just differently and, in most cases, with far less impact, quality, or significance than the "leaders" they shame for no reason.

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Before you judge and criticize authority or its current expressions in others, ensure you truly understand what you are talking about.

Ask yourself how it might feel to carry the weight of responsibility for millions of people before shaming those who currently do.

The truth is, you will never fully grasp the real struggle of a leader unless you have been one yourself. So perhaps it’s best to withhold personal judgments about their perceived power in the system or your superficial analyses of it.

If you have never felt in your body the energetic charge when others consciously choose you as their leader, granting you control with all their trust, vulnerability, and fears over decisions that will shape their lives, you cannot comprehend the immense responsibility it entails or how it truly feels inside.

If you’ve never attempted to handle this level of social and energetic accountability—entrusted to you by the free will of others—then your knowledge is limited, and your experience inadequate to judge those who hold power or leadership positions today.

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Empowerment is a delicate and complex process.

People often seek leaders because they are not yet able to manage their own powers effectively, coherently, or safely within themselves. Thus, they delegate their inner power to others—to leaders whom they ultimately trust and select.

In doing so, they empower these leaders with energies they themselves cannot yet fully process. They transfer both their energy and the responsibility for its meaningful use to the leader.

This dynamic is a natural process of power transfer and distribution, one we’ve practiced as a species for millennia in many different forms between us.

An elected leader, therefore, finds themselves entrusted with immense new energy, unclaimed power, and a great deal of freedom to channel this collective energy as they see fit. We consciously and willingly empower our leaders in this way, giving them responsibility over our own life forces, trusting them to wield this power wisely and meaningfully.

Ultimately, we trust them more than we trust ourselves in certain areas, especially when it comes to decisions about our collective well-being.

However, when leaders begin to exercise this power and make decisions that directly impact our lives, we often feel dissatisfied. We may believe they are not using our trust appropriately or acting in our genuine interests. This dissatisfaction leads us to try and reclaim the power we once delegated, often by disempowering the leader or the entire system through judgment, critique, or rebellion.

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The true role of a leader, then, is to gracefully accept the power entrusted by those who are not yet ready to wield it themselves and to use that power in ways that ultimately empower those they serve in return. The ultimate goal of leadership is to nurture others into becoming mature, powerful individuals who no longer need leaders at all.

It’s about accepting the cowardice of others, transforming it into a more conscious or useful form, and giving it back to them as empowerment and personal freedom.

This is not an easy task.

Leadership involves navigating the ever-evolving dance and flow of power between people.

We give our power away to others, hoping they will return it to us in a better shape or form. Likewise, when we take on leadership roles, we do so with the intention of one day returning the power entrusted to us in a way that fosters growth and strength in others.

We engage in this exchange of responsibility and somehow inequal power dynamics because we genuinely believe it to be the best way forward, given the complexity of the world we live in.

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Yet, as the world grows more complex, some are exploring alternative ways to manage power. Some believe that humans are no longer worthy of being leaders or ethical enough to take responsibility for others. For these individuals, the idea of an authoritative AI dictator as the head of an international government system seems increasingly plausible, and in some cases even desirable.

We have begun to lose faith in human nature and our capacity to share and delegate authentic power between us. Paradoxically, we place unconditional trust in “smart” machines, controlled by technocrats, to dictate what we believe, how we act, and even to bear the full accountability for our collective ignorance and fear.

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We are making technology our government and even our God these days.

And this is being celebrated as the ultimate freedom of choice—a triumph of data-driven rationalism, efficiency, and a newfound sense of justice and coherence in the system. We delegate nearly all our human vital force, energy, and power to technology, believing this will somehow make us more free and wealthier than our prime ministers or other human leaders ever were.

Somehow, we’ve come to believe that AI is better equipped—morally, intellectually, and ethically—to play a guiding leadership role in society than we, as humans, are.

This belief is rooted in fear and the very complex past trauma of power abuse between us.

We are deeply afraid of our own power, and now, more than ever, we are afraid of other humans too. In a time when fewer people want to shoulder the burdens of leadership amidst instability and unpredictability, we seek to hide—to find refuge for our collective fears and unclaimed powers.

No longer trusting the divine, nature or each other, we place our faith in technology and virtual realities to provide that refuge to us. It becomes a hiding space where we can remain innocent children, playing carefree while absolving ourselves of responsibility for our actions and innate personal powers. Technology, then, becomes not just a tool but an escape from our ignorance and bears the weight of our collective accountability.

How can we be powerful without accepting the intense responsibility that comes with it? Is such a thing even possible?

There are only two ways to deal with power: you either delegate it to someone or something else, or you claim it as your own. You project it outward, or you take ownership for it. Using your power means accepting full responsibility for the consequences it creates in shared reality—but it also grants you freedom of choice.

Delegating it elsewhere liberates you from accountability and stress, but at the cost of your authentic freedom.

So, the question becomes: Do you prefer comfortable slavery to the system or the intense fears of the true freedom from it?

The real choice most people avoid is between power and freedom. They often believe they can have both. In their minds, these concepts walk hand-in-hand, but in reality, they rarely coexist. If you think you are an unconditionally free and fully independent being, you likely have no idea what real power is. Chances are, you have access only to limited and mediocre quantities of it.

More often than not, the reverse is true: the more power you wield, the less you experience true freedom. And the freer you are, the less others will perceive you as powerful or grant you authority.

True leaders don’t accept power to gain personal freedom or control over others. They do it out of a deep love for humanity and our shared world. Leaders willingly surrender their individual freedom, taking on the immense responsibility for others in the hope of transforming it into something meaningful and valuable for everyone.

They choose responsibility, which brings real power, but they pay the price of their freedom for it. Few realize this.

Leaders offer us freedom from worry, stress, and accountability by taking on those burdens themselves. They shoulder the fire for us, allowing us to remain irresponsible and in denial of our own authentic power a little longer. They provide us with comfort and security in exchange for our power and the responsibilities that come with it.

This transaction makes leaders more powerful and grants them authority over us, but it also enslaves them to the collective’s suffering and puts them in the role of our ‘protectors’.

True leaders choose power not for dominance or ego but to liberate and ultimately empower others. They walk the path of profound responsibility and accountability for collective pain, not superficial personal sovereignty or illusory freedom from deep systemic suffering.

And yet, leaders suffer—often silently. Much of their suffering is ignored, dismissed, or even ridiculed. We assume that because they are in power, they have no emotions, or that they should be strong enough to handle them. We act as though emotions are not a challenge for them, as if their power makes them immune to pain.

But this is far from the truth. Leaders carry the invisible weight of collective fears, ancestral suffering, hopes, and expectations. Their power is a crucible, and their freedom—in many ways—is the first casualty of their role.

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A powerful leader cannot afford to be vulnerable or emotionally fragile—at least not in the eyes of collective perceptions and deeply ingrained beliefs.

When we hand over our power and vital force to a leader, it is often because we lack trust in our own emotional maturity to handle complex decisions. Therefore, we expect our leaders to possess unshakeable emotional stability, as they bear the weight of our unprocessed suffering and the energetic charge of wielding power on our behalf.

If a leader appears emotionally vulnerable, they risk being perceived as unsafe, unprofessional or unreliable.

The trust we place in leadership depends heavily on our belief in the leader's capacity to remain solid in heart and mind, especially when tasked with managing the collective burden of suffering. Yet, how can we truly discern whether a leader has mastered authentic emotional control or has simply become emotionally numb and disconnected from their humanity?

Interestingly, the same leader can evoke vastly different perceptions. To some, they may appear kind, integral, coherent, and wise; to others, they seem like a heartless tyrant, corrupted by power and blinded by control.

So, where does the truth lie?

Who is the real coward here? Is it the leader who steps into the burden of power, or those who willingly delegate their responsibilities, choosing comfort and freedom over accountability?

This brings us to the question of integrity in leadership.

What does integrity in leadership truly mean?

If you are a leader, how do you use the power entrusted to you with an unwavering sense of integrity? How do you approach decisions that directly impact your community with authentic dignity, essential humanity, and self-responsibility?

How do you bear the weight of your population’s inner struggles and existential suffering without disempowering them, leaving them feeling abused by the system, or terrified by the very authority they handed over to you in exchange for a sense of temporary freedom and superficial ease?

The concept of political independence and national freedom is deeply ironic and, for many, profoundly unsettling.

If you wish to claim that your country embodies true sovereignty, where every individual is genuinely free and empowered, it would mean the absence of government or formal leadership altogether.

True freedom equates to complete, unregulated anarchy—a state where power belongs only to those who seize it and where each person is fully accountable for their actions and beliefs within the shared system. Authentic freedom requires people to hold onto their inner power, along with the suffering and responsibility that comes with it.

In such a system, external leadership becomes obsolete. Each person perceives themselves as a leader and no longer seeks to delegate their inner power to someone else.

When every individual embrace personal sovereignty and freedom, no collective energy exists to sustain a system of different power redistribution. There is no human resource, energy, time, or authority to feed the machinery of control or to elevate others as leaders.

The infrastructure of external leadership collapses, replaced by a decentralized, individual responsibility shared by all.

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The concepts of a free country and a free population are not the same—and, in fact, they cannot coexist. If a country claims to be independent and rooted in unconditional freedom, this inherently means that the people within it are far from being truly free.

When a country boasts of its independence and power on the international stage, it is a reflection of the immense energy and power its political system has already extracted from its population. While such political systems can create powerful countries, corporations, and socioeconomic frameworks, the genuine well-being, meaningful empowerment, and authentic freedom of the population often remain questionable.

Truly free individuals do not concern themselves with concepts like countries, leadership, or politics. However, when people are deeply preoccupied with these notions—whether in their own lives, their countries, or the world—it may be because they have already surrendered too much of their energy to the system in the past. Now, they are left terrified of never being able to reclaim it back.

Feeling disempowered, they rely on the system and its leaders to make the “right” decisions for everyone even more, rather than reclaiming their power, processing their inner suffering, and taking on the responsibility of being truly free. Instead, they fear, judge, and criticize those who have taken on the burden of leadership—the ones who have sacrificed their individual freedom to become responsible leaders for others.

If you are not the leader of your own inner power and self, you are likely already a servant, to not say a slave, to the control and potential manipulation of someone else within the system.

You may freely judge or condemn those in positions of power, but consider this: leaders are often more courageous and capable than you might believe yourself to be. They are where they are because they are willing to assume the risks, responsibilities, and accountability for decisions you have been unwilling or unable to take on yourself.

While leaders may not be perfect—and may even, at times, seem abusive or overly controlling—they are at least acting. They are working to address the chaos, fill the void of inaction, and take on the immense responsibilities others shy away from. Even if they appear incompetent or misguided in your eyes, they still shield you from the weight of your own unprocessed suffering and your ignorance of how the world truly operates.

One day, when you finally confront the responsibility of your own power and being, you may find yourself humbled. You may even feel profound gratitude for the leaders who disempowered you so harshly and for so long. Their actions—whether intentional or not—forced you to see the cost of delegation and to reckon with the energy and your inner powers you gave away so freely to them.

It is only in facing this truth that you can begin to reclaim your sovereignty and become the true leader of your own life.