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AGGRESSION AND DOMINANCE: The Way of the Past
Moral authority as opposed to the authority of force is a foundational aspect of all true leadership. Such authority stands upon the qualities of wisdom, strength, and integrity that come from adherence to the Divine principles of light, love, and truth.
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Beloved Ones,
The presidential debate last night gave to those who are sensitive to such things not as much an image of the future as of the past - a past that needs to be let go of if America is to move forward into her true virtue and destiny. The way of aggression and of dominance, of force and the use of will to assert one's authority, are part of a constellation of past values that this nation has held for a long time, that need to be released in favor of the new values of light that resonate within the deeper layers of the heart, rather than with the ego.
The presidential debate gave full opportunity for the expression of these older ways of being, each candidate seeming to take for granted that aggressive assertiveness, combativeness, denunciation of the other, and the posturing of dominance were qualities that would appeal to the American public.
We, the American people, seem to need these displays of aggression and dominance in our leaders, else they would disappear from view. We appear to have let go of the ideal of authority or leadership based on moral stature and inner wisdom, and have resigned ourselves to authority based on loudness, assertiveness, scrappiness, and the meeting of force with force. For some, the former ideal view is something that has never come into full awareness as a possibility For others, it is something that has been let go of with a sense of resignation.
This is something that will change and that must change as the values of light bring with them a re-evaluation of what authority and leadership are truly based on. For true leadership is not based on dominance or force. It is not based on aggression. Moral authority as opposed to the authority of force is a foundational aspect of all true leadership. Such authority stands upon the qualities of wisdom, strength, and integrity that come from adherence to the Divine principles of light, love, and truth. These principles exist within every human being, and must be bound to each other in order that integrity remain. Truth without love can become harshness, and, when connected with the motives of the ego, can become self-righteousness and the assertion of one's own way over all other ways. Truth with love, becomes something else. It becomes wisdom and the willingness to trust that one's own most deeply held values will be seen and heard by virtue of the depth from which they come, rather than by virtue of the force with which they are asserted.
What America witnessed last night in the presidential debate did not subscribe to these values of the heart that are the true sourc of authority. We witnessed, instead, the dynamics of past adversarial encounters where force meets force, and strength is not the strength of inner wsidom but of outer brandishment of one's will to dominate.
America's awakening depends upon the return to the deeper values of love and truth so that any point of view that is expressed may be expressed with kindness, and the inner willingness to allow for something larger than oneself to determine the outcome of events for oneself, no matter what is at stake. Gandhi understood this. Martin Luther King, Jr. practiced this. Its future unfoldment lies before us.
When America's citizens awaken to this new desire for a new kind of leadership, then the leadership of this country will change, the process of electing that leadership will change, and America's stand in the world will be witnessed as bright and shining, not because she can dominate all others, but because she can love all others well.
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