Finding Balance Between Love and Power
The universe loves you, but it's also trying to crush you
The universe loves you, but it’s also trying to crush you.
Since my “spiritual awakening” a couple of years ago, I’ve constantly felt conflicted about which path to take: the path of “love and light” or the “left-hand path” of ego and power-seeking. I knew that one wasn’t supposed to feel conflicted about this; in a lot of spiritual circles, it’s taboo to admit to skepticism of the “all is love” mindset.
And for a while, I did embrace the idea that I was “the universe experiencing itself” and that “everything is here to be loved” and that forgiveness alone could heal the universe, etc., etc… But that frame of mind typically lasted for only a few hours or a few days at a time. It was jarring to go from a feeling of pseudo-enlightenment to a state of normalcy (or mild anhedonia) in a matter of minutes. After experiencing this several times over the course of a few months, I started to question the entire premise of “love and light.”
What if it was all bullshit?
Much of what I say in this article is going to directly contradict what I said in my previous article There Is No Spiritual War. I still agree with some of the core concepts I outlined there but much of my perspective has changed.
The Joy of Love
I want to state first and foremost that this piece is not a diatribe against love — humans clearly need love in order to live complete and fulfilling lives.
Research consistently shows that those who have strong social ties have greater well-being than those who don’t. Those who are socially isolated tend to experience more health problems than the socially connected. Marriage and long-term relationships are a net benefit for long-term life satisfaction. Humans throughout time have asked the divine for assistance in romantic matters. Christians posit an image of the divine that is all-loving. And every year, Valentine’s Day and similar love-related holidays are celebrated all over the world.
Thus, it makes sense that some forms of spirituality would be completely consumed by the idea of love. Nonduality, a term translated from the Sanskrit word advaita (lit. “not two”), is a belief that the universe is a singular conscious being that contains no real divisions or boundaries between its components. Nonduality views all divisions and boundaries as illusory and as causes of suffering, whereas viewing the universe “from the perspective of oneness” leads to a joyful feeling of love and bliss.1
Enter “love and light,” a New-Age term that has no clear origin but a hefty metaphysical premise as articulated in the New Age text The Ra Material (colloquially known as The Law of One):
4.20 Ra: I am Ra. The Law of One… may be approximated by stating that all things are one, that there is no polarity, no right or wrong, no disharmony, but only identity. All is one, and that one is love/light, light/love, the Infinite Creator.2
If all is one and all is love and light, then that should be all we need in order to live better lives, right? Not so fast…
The Problem With “Love and Light”
The problem with “love and light” is that it completely ignores the cold reality of our world: Those who have power almost always win over those who don’t. Power has very real consequences for both the winners and the losers of history (obviously)… but in the eyes of New Agers and nondualists, these consequences as well as the nature of power itself are irrelevant in the grand story of the universe. According to A Course In Miracles, it all just needs to be forgiven and forgotten:
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.3
This, of course, is the logical outcome of the mixing of post-Christian morality, a linear view of history, and watered-down Buddhism that began in the 20th century West: Just meditate and everything will be fine! Forgive everyone and everything will be fine! The meek will inherit the earth, justice will be served, and the kingdom of heaven will be waiting for us at the end of the world!
Getting lost in blissful meditation is great (I’ve maybe done it a few times), but this metaphysical blindspot can only lead to destruction: If one is willing to keep their head in the clouds and pretend that the solution to every problem is to love harder, they’re at a huge disadvantage relative to those who acknowledge the reality of power. So why do so many embrace this idea?
Cope
Simply put, it’s a cope (“cope”: problematic coping mechanism). Many are desperate for any form of relief from a nihilistic and dystopian world that’s making us more and more mentally ill. But why are people increasingly in this state? It’s because people feel powerless over their circumstances and fates.
Nonduality offers adherents a sense of relief: All of your pain and suffering is a big misunderstanding, it was all an illusion meant to push you along the path toward love, light, and oneness! You can push all of your negative feelings aside because it’s all an illusion! You don’t have to feel anger, fear, or sadness ever again!
As with most problematic coping mechanisms, nonduality gives one an excuse for not facing negative emotions and not working through unresolved trauma. For all of the talk about psychological projection in these circles (particularly in A Course In Miracles), there’s an ironic lack of self-reflection that this way of thinking encourages: “Everything’s great, nothing to see here, only the unawakened experience negative emotions! If you’re still experiencing negative emotions, you’re still learning and you’ll get there eventually!”
After some time, I realized that something was wrong with this mental model of the world: Was I embracing an excuse to push down negative emotions instead of facing my inner demons head-on? And, perhaps more concerningly, was this belief system just another form of escapism that was distracting me from taking meaningful action toward my goals? I’ll admit that learning about Nietzschean philosophy may have accelerated this process of questioning.
I started wondering if the popular New Age paradigm of love-versus-fear was actually a paradigm of love-versus-power…
Fear of Power
Why is it so taboo to talk about power? Why is a book like The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene demonized? Perhaps for good reason: We can all think of many examples throughout history where power has been used or obtained in evil ways… and anyone with a heart wouldn’t dare imagine using similar methods to obtain their goals. We need to, however, examine what power actually is and why we need it.
I define power as the ability to exert influence over one’s environment: in one word, power is autonomy. One needn’t be Machiavellian or cynical; for example, making enough money to pay one’s regular expenses is a form of power. And we can expand the definition to include oneself: The ability to nourish the body and maintain physical health can also be seen as power. The ability to attract a potential mate can be seen as power. Being able to take an action that one desires is power.
In his book “Status Syndrome,” British academic Michael Marmot posits that autonomy is essential for overall health and life expectancy. "The lower in hierarchy you are, the less likely it is that you will have full control over your life and opportunities for full social participation… Autonomy and social participation are so important for health that their lack lead to deterioration in health."4 (I read “autonomy” as “power” and “social participation” as “love.”) This is why we need power: Without it, we lose both quality of life and quantity of years lived. You needn’t have power to experience love, but you need some amount of power in order to live well.
So why are so many people afraid of power? As I alluded to earlier, the American public school system and American culture overall has taught us that power only ever leads to atrocities and historical injustices; you wouldn’t want to commit any atrocities, would you?! But this isn’t the full story: For several centuries in the West, Christian morality has encouraged a sense of guilt in anyone who desires greater autonomy over their destiny. Riding on the wave of Christianity, the New Age preaches passivity (or, at best, an emotional detachment from action) through its most mainstream ideas of the Law of Attraction and “nondoership.”
(Or perhaps many people are simply bored by the conventional idea of power. Power in the modern world is very subtle and diffuse across complex social networks; those who appear to be very powerful — CEOs and politicians come to mind — are, in reality, beholden to large, faceless mobs with outsized influence — shareholders, lobbyists, random people on social media, etc. Only the most power-hungry and narcissistic of people would be drawn to such positions.)
Contrary to the core argument of There Is No Spiritual War, these are perhaps indicators of the spiritual war that’s occurring in our world today: Many of us feel powerless to affect our circumstances and the most popular belief systems discourage us from changing. It’s time that we start creating something new in reaction to this.
The Bridge Between Love and Power
We’ve seen why nondual thinking can be an incorrect framework, but it’s important to point out what nondual thinking gets correct.
The kernel of truth in nonduality is that the universe is all one thing and none of us are ever separate from it. We are not individuals that exist without context; the universe is living, breathing, and acting through each of us at all times — and we must learn to love the universe as a whole in order to be able to fully love ourselves and those we care about. But because we are never separate from the world around us, it is both advantageous and necessary to increase our personal power so that our environment can more directly serve our needs and desires.
Also, I admire that nonduality doesn’t take the world very seriously; while apathy is never virtuous, it’s important to spend some of this experience being carefree and reveling in the beautiful madness of it all.
I hate to end it here — there’s much more to discuss with regards to spiritual war and related topics — but that will be all for now. Thank you for reading; until next time!
Foster, Jeff, & Higham, Nic. (2011, December 9). What is Non-Duality?. Life Without A Centre. https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/what-is-nonduality/
For a detailed breakdown of the difference between love/light and light/love, see https://www.lawofone.info/s/15#22, though this distinction is irrelevant to this article.
Schucman, Helen. (1976). What is Forgiveness?. A Course In Miracles. https://acim.org/acim/workbook/what-is-forgiveness/en/s/632
Brew, A. (2004, June 8). Status syndrome: How your social standing directly affects your health and life expectancy. EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/570392