When the dream of power is no more
The power of the mind is based on its fundamental belief that it can tell right from wrong. This is the same as the power of knowledge. Modern society might have its peculiar flavor of knowledge, such as the scientific or the egotistic, but knowledge has exerted its power since age immemorial. Such power feeds itself. Through constantly validating its own correctness by believing in its correctness, it lives in the dream of power.
This is why the mind has a god-complex. The rules and traditions it has invented enforce a god-like dominion upon reality. It then validates the truthfulness of this dominion through using its knowledge to explain why it is correct. In essence, the mind uses knowledge to justify the holiness of knowledge. There is nothing holy in knowledge. Holiness has only been used by the mind as justification for its own attempt to dominate everything.
This is why the mind has an expansion-complex. It wants to colonize everything. It wants to occupy and take over and absorb everything under its seemingly final and authoritative explanation of reality. When it cannot justify its explanation and knowledge anymore, it invents more knowledge to appease itself. This can never end, and the mind does not want to end. To continue its proclaimed dominion over reality, it must continuously and tirelessly defend its claim to the throne.
This is where it gets very tricky, because the mind can also pretend to be attacking or rebelling against its own authority. But this very rebellion is a testament to its continued proclamation that it knows what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, when the rebellion is over, the mind is still on the throne. In reality, no rebellion took place. The mind is only imagining to attack itself. It sells itself the dream of decolonization and equality, while it remains in the seat of its proclaimed power.
Is it ever possible to end this dream? Yet, does the mind want to end the dream? When the dream ends, the mind will have to face its utter insignificance and powerlessness. The power it believes to exert upon reality is revealed to be nonexistent. This penetrates all layers of life, from the personal to the political, from the intellectual to the emotional. The mind can never say it knows anything, so no conclusions reached by the mind is ever final. Finality is actually a constant renewal of reality. There is nothing final, and this is final. Nothing more can be said. Finality means full stop. It means no more. When the dream of power is no more, the mind is free.
Cover photo by Aman Upadhyay on Unsplash
