POWER PARADOX
There are many moral stories teaching us how not to be greedy, such as goose laying golden eggs. Greediness on materials are easy to identify. Greedy on fame is bit tricky but still can be explained comfortably. The story of Bhasmasura points out root cause of all greed, a paradox that gets out of our attention.
THE STORY OF BHASMASURA
For the unfamiliar ones, in the story of Bhasmsura, he does sadhana, a disciplined effort, to get special powers from Lord Shiva. The special power enables Bhasmasura to burn anyone to ashes by touching their head. Bhasmasura gets the special power, but when he tried to test the powers on Lord Shiva himself, Bhasmasura gets tricked to touch his own head and gets burnt by his newly acquired power.
Power governs us. Power is very essential to get any work done. It is natural to seek power at all times and ages. To be powerful and wield power on others is even more tempting to seek more power. But to seek power, we are indirectly acknowledging that we are powerless or inadequate power we have or power hungry.
POWER EQUATION
Power is a great tool for any leader. A leadership is to govern an entity using the power. An entity can be a country, a military, a profit & not profit making company, a family or our own body. Essential quality of a leadership is to make choices. Choices for the good of the entity. Some time the choices can be very hard and severe like loosing few soldiers, laying-off employees to protect the rest of the entity from further damage. To take such hard choices the leadership is enabled with special powers by the entity. The entity empowers the leadership, in-turn the leadership wields power on the entity. This is the power equation that works well only when both sides are balanced.
ASSUMPTIONS OF ROLES
We often assume a leader as all powerful, born powerful and magically can solve all of our problems using their powers. We, the entity, tend to forget we are the ones bestowed power on him. It is like paying premium to insurance company to cover our medical expenses at the time of accident. Cunning leaders, sensing this ignorance of the entity, use it as an opportunity to exploit powers given. On the leaders part, they assume that they are indispensable, and they can exploit the trust of the entity for their personal grandiose forever and yet remain powerful disregarding the entity that gives power to them.
DELUSION OF SELF
The Bhasmasura story points out how we take leadership charge of mind & body entity and how our assumption get us into a downfall. We diligently do yoga, chase super special foods, chant mantras to control our mind and body as any astute leader would exercise control over his entity. When we get extraordinary results from our effort, we begin to assume we are all powerful over the mind and body.
We fail to understand the roles of mind and body played in our success. We fail to locate our position in the mind and body. We assume that we are the OWNER of mind and body. The ‘ahankara’ thoughts makes us to believe not just control over our body but over others too and chase for more avenues to unlock powers hidden all over. When we begin to realize some parts of the mind and body is beyond our control, we feel powerless as we sink deeper in quicksand of delusional thoughts of ahankara.
The very idea of self is a thought that arises for a situation and the mind is empowering us through a story line of thoughts to make us believe that we are doing everything. It is a paradox. A thought that born out of the mind is trying to control the mind itself. Grass grown on the mountain trying to control the mountain. We, the elements of the earth trying to control the earth. This paradox can only result in defeat and destruction to ashes. Ashes that adorns the body of Lord Shiva.
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