News from Saraswati Publications (sanskritmantra.com)

Hierarchies of Power, Part 3

An excerpt from True Stories of Spiritual Power

Personal Power And Corporations

Organizations have their own agenda. Those who control or influence any type of "space" in any consubstantial relationship have real power:

Anyone who controls a corporation will have personal control over certain activities, states of mind, policies and relationships within that organization. It is tangible, personal and actual power operating in a pure and direct way. This can mean the control of events or the control of the style and kinds of personal interactions in the company. It can even include control of the kinds of thought that take place within a given organization. An IBM executive mandated "white shirts only" in his division for thirty years. This as an example of real and tangible power.

The kind of "space" which was controlled in this real-life example was mental in that it dictated what people thought operationally about dress. It was physical in that it controlled what was worn. It was not emotional in that it did not make people feel great about wearing white shirts all the time. In all, several kinds of "space" were actively controlled by the person for thirty years.
Within a corporation, only those thoughts that contribute to the goals set by the president and chief executive, or the board of directors, are allowed to determine corporate actions. Those thoughts or ideas that are at odds with the goals of the leaders are eventually identified and eliminated. If not, trouble achieving corporate goals begins to develop. If elimination is not possible, a power struggle ensues to determine what the dominant thought categories will be. Persons of power will vie for domination. This is the essence of a negative kind of competition.

People with this kind of corporate power usually leave other people free so long as subordinates do not violate certain subtly defined borders of mental, emotional or practical activity. The president of a company will leave subordinates quite free to fulfill their own power agendas, so long as they do not conflict significantly with those agendas he or she has set. This policy produces an atmosphere where those who are aware of their own personal power and who wish to advance through the corporate ranks may test their power. They want to see just how far it can ex- tend before they begin to sense opposition, conflict, disapproval, censure, victory and an increase of tangible limits of power, or outright dismissal.

The person testing the limits of power might make contact with someone else who is similarly testing his or her own power. When two sources of expanding personal corporate power meet, interesting things will take place. Whether there will be competition or alliance is always an open question. At that initial contact, agreement can be reached. Any agreement stemming from that moment can also be changed at any time, as conditions change. After all, some people are more powerful in short bursts, while others can sustain output for a very long period of time, eventually wearing down even the most powerful adversary. Sometimes, of course, sparks fly right from the first. There may be an immediate "struggle to the death," as it were. Intelligence of the combatants also plays a part.

There are many different kinds and levels of intelligence. Creative intelligence is quite different from intellectual intelligence. Myopic or close-up intelligence is different from holistic, far-sighted, or overview intelligence. None is innately superior to the others, although this might be open to hotly contested debate among some of the classes of intelligence. For our purposes here, the kind and nature of the intelligence colors the quality and outcome of the first encounter of expanding corporate power-seeking entities. Without knowing the nature and intelligence of the combatants, predicting the initial or long-term outcome is not realistic.

Spheres of Influence are created by organizations but fulfilled by individuals within the organization. The president, the section chief, the branch manager, the division head, the owner, manager are all individuals who enact the potential power of their positions. They are the kinetic expression of the organization chart.

The extent to which an individual succeeds in controlling the realm of power bestowed by his or her organizational position rests on one of two things:
1. Personal power. If one has developed his or her own basis of personal power, then the organizational power may have less effect. The organizational structure may actually bend or make an opening to accommodate your personal power. This usually happens if someone in the organization, who has power, decides that your powers and its applications within the organization can actually benefit the organization or the person fronting for you. Either way, it is your power that has produced the result.
2. Alignment with another person in the organization who possesses personal power. When someone within the organization has "recognized" you in some way, one of two things will usually happen. Struggle for supremacy will ensue, or potential avenues of cooperation will be explored covertly or overtly. If the person who recognizes you has aposition superior to yours on the organization chart, any alliance will be based upon how well you enhance their position. Only for the most selfless of people will there be any help for you on merit alone. At this time in history, the world does not operate on merit this way. But changes for the good are on the way. Based upon my experiences, I believe that the change in a positive direction has already started and that exceedingly strong forces are at work to transform the old model, almost like termites. One day the old structure will be so riddled with pieces of positive personal spiritual power from a variety of sources that the old operational model will simply crumble.

Consequences Of The Mind
In this final realm of the Sphere of Influence, we have huge latitude. For instance, someone with real personal power but no ethical guidelines might take a trip to India, meet someone like Laser Swami (Shankaracharya Sri Sri Jayendra Saraswati Maha Swamigal) and his/her whole life could be changed for the better.

Somewhere along the line, people with power may finally understand that applied power always has consequences. The three Laws of Newton have their spiritual counterpoint. In the realm of karma, for which a working understanding of reincarnation is essential, every action has its consequence at some time; if not this lifetime, then another lifetime later on. This single understanding can explain many facets of history.

One small thought about this idea. The Romans who had slaves condemned themselves to have to undergo the experience of slavery in some future life. If the Roman slave owners were fair in their treatment, their future incarnation as slaves might not be a lifetime of terror and misery. If, on the other hand, they were brutish and cruel, they created the same for themselves later on. This simple idea can explain many things.

"Pardon Me While I Strip You Bare"
Some in the corporate world have power similar to what the East would call a spiritual adept, but who have no moral compass to guide their use of power. They just march along using power as naturally and amorally as they select a suit of clothes or decide what to have for breakfast.

The following is an excerpt from THINK, a book written in 1969 by William Rodgers. In this biography of IBM and the Watsons ,who founded it ,is found an amazing discussion of the man who succeeded the Watson family to run IBM. I became interested in learning more about this man after meeting Herbert Grosch, one of the developers of the famous IBM 360 computer which revolutionized corporate and government operations and records keeping. Over lunch, Grosch nearly cowered when discussing his former boss. It was Grosch who directed me to Rodgers book from which the following passage is drawn.

"Learson somehow suppressed or subdued an overpowering personality for years. . . until he and top management were conditioned for each other. Except for Tom and Dick Watson, Learson became the dominant, domineering and self-confidently commanding figure in the whole corporation.

. . . around headquarters they marvel at him the way they admire nuclear power or the unexplained phenomena of the universe.. . . he was able to hide for years the evidence or suspicion of the toughness that would have got him fired.
. . . In his march over the limp bodies of the softies, he has left distraught some otherwise hardy souls caught in the debilitating radiation of what they called TV fallout . . . a mind

honed to the technological edge.
. . . Lacking the scientific expertise common in recent years to commanders, Learson's mind and searchlight eyes focus on subordinates and associates like a laser beam that transmits back to him all the millions of bits of data the questioned man possesses, leaving him momentarily stripped of knowledge or will, his memory core deprived of both program and a capacity for storage."

Here is a good description of a man who has some power. It is personal to him. He knows how to use it. He is intelligent enough to use it carefully and judiciously throughout a career and largely keep it veiled until he is running the company.

Part of the reason the descriptions about Learson are so unnerving is that it explains so many things. Have you ever wondered what the qualities are that leads a person to become the head of a large corporation or bank? Did you think it was virtue? Loyalty? Expertise in the field of the company or sales or accounting? Think again. The answer is power. One may have any or several of those other qualities, but power must be first. One must be able to best the others crowding forward for dominance. Among males, dominance through mashing horns has been replaced by mashing minds or wills. What the men don't seem to know is that women have the edge when it comes to power. The cultural reaction (in societies largely dominated by men) has been to contain the power of women through cultural ritual and pseudo protective guise. But the time is fast coming when this particular genie will no longer be confined to the bottle.

The author, William Rodgers, chooses language in describing Learson that could also be used to describe certain spiritually gifted swamis or monks. Yet Learson is described as a man without apparent conscience or compassion. Service to humanity is not a quality ascribed to him in any way at any time. Ruthless might be a better word, but this is ruthlessness with teeth in it. There are other people like Learson in every aspect of life. There are also people like Laser Swami who are hidden among the general public. The former feed upon us as they use us or discard us in the process of fulfilling their desires. The latter serve our higher development, almost like a secret society diligently working on us and with us, individual by individual.

From what I have experienced and what has come to me in my meditations, the victory of the forces of compassion and love is a foregone conclusion. It is now merely working its way out on the material plane.

To quote psychologist Shelley Kopp, "Evil is potential good in need of transformation." In a similar vein, an Eastern cliché says, "Every Saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

Interesting Isn't It?

I had been a television trainee at a station for several months when it underwent a complete change in management. A new person was brought in as the Chairman of the Board, and he brought other people in with him. Changes started almost immediately. Before the dust settled, over sixty people left the station within six months.

The first thing I did was prepare an analysis of the training department. Without going into great detail, the training program and even the programming department of which it was a part was an organizational mess which operated more like a fiefdom in a local kingdom that a department of a major corporation. And it operated at completely inadequate, substandard wages. I looked upon new management as a golden opportunity and prepared the kind of analysis I had been trained to perform as an officer in the Army.

When the analysis was complete, I made an appointment to see the new Chairman of the Board. Much to his credit, he saw me within three days. In retrospect, for him to see me so quickly when I was so many rungs below him on the organization chart is a tribute to his accessibility. Not allexecutives are like that.

When we sat down together, I told him what I had done and handed him the six-page summary with nine recommendations for change. He looked through the document quickly but thoroughly and scanned the recommendations. His face changed ever so slightly. He looked up, caught my gaze and said, "It's almost as if you were privy to my inmost thoughts. I have many of these things in mind." I shrugged and made one of the most inane statements of my professional career. "Maybe I am." I was being a smart alec and didn'teven have the good sense to know it. The chairman thanked me for my recommendations. I had wanted to become his aide and learn the business from inside his office. I made that clear. It was made equally clear to me that this was not going to happen. I was offered a position in sales, which I declined. He enacted all of my recommendations, including the termination of certain staff members who, in my opinion, were "hiding under desks" in the such-and-such department. I shudder at my attitude in those days. I did not become his aide. By ability, I may have deserved it. By attitude, I most certainly did not. I left the station shortly thereafter.

Two years later, I was back at the station. They needed a slam-bang-new children's program and I had one. I even had videotapes to show them what I was talking about. The chairman was still there, but he was out of the office most of the time now, tending to other parts of the corporate empire. One day shortly after I went into production for the new show, the chairman walked in the front door right behind me. He spied me, broke into a big smile and stuck out his hand. I grabbed it. Before I could say a word, a surge of energy came out of his hand and into mine. I was shocked.

Since I last had seen him, I had changed my life around quite a bit. I was now a priest in the Temple and was meditating several hours every day. My sensitivities were open and my sensibilities were improving. As the energy from his hand rushed into mine and up my arm, I reflected on his comment to me that earlier day about me being privy to his thoughts. I understood that comment in a whole new way.

I stood there with my outward personality sort of vacant, still holding his hand while these thoughts shot through my mind. After about two seconds, he took his hand back, looked me right in the eye and spoke. "Interesting, isn't it?" It wasn't a question so much as a statement. I nodded my head. "See ya," he said in an almost adolescent way and headed for the elevator. I sat down in the nearest chair to gather myself.

I concluded that the statement earlier about being privy to his thoughts was an opening gambit to see if was really psychic. I missed his cue, having no clue that such things even existed. If I had responded in some civilized way and communicated that I understood what he was talking about, I might have gotten that assistant job I wanted so much at the time. Or not. Who knows? But it was quite clear to me two years later that he had "abilities." He knew how to move energy around consciously. And by sheer chance, I had gotten myself in a position in his memory where he chose to show me a thing or two.

This incident combined with the Learson account lead me to understand that upper echelons of any powerful organization have their own ground rules. Those ground rules are based entirely upon power. After all, by Rodgers' account, Learson was not even a particularly technically-oriented man. What put him in charge was his power. Similarly, the chairman had come to this television corporate empire with a fierce reputation.

I did not see that part of the chairman. I saw a reasonable person who would cordially take an appointment with a young man 27 levels down from him on the organization chart. But neither did I present any serious challenge to his power. I heard stories later about some who did. What I did see was a small demonstration of conscious, intentional personal power. It was done to impress me. It did. But it also was instructive in a way he never intended.

Control vs. Freedom
Just as Learson operated in his way and served his own desires and agenda while at IBM, there are others whose divine agenda is quite the opposite.

One the one hand, there are people using power who have as their agenda to bring us under control. They are not interested in our growth, our freedom, our religious pursuits or the rest of it. They may even aid our financial situation if it serves their needs. But be assured that their money is a form of control. This does not mean that money is bad. It merely means that money is a tool that they can use, just as the Tofflers point out in the book: Powershift.

On the other side are forces that want us to grow. They want us to become more of whatever we are. Their aid may be disconcerting at times, as they break through walls of conditioning and protection, but their objective is our freedom . . . nothing more.

The comparisons are as stark as they are real. One set of forces seeks to limit us. The other set seeks to remove limits. These two objectives are bound to collide in the struggle to control society and eventually the way the world operates.

Since flesh and blood people wield these forces, it is certain that at some level, there are people in each group who are aware that there is another side. They are aware that there is a group of people working towards exactly the opposite objectives from themselves. The implications of this understanding reverberate through time itself. In the Byzantine wheels of interplay between these forces, one comes away with a sense of an ongoing, verylong-term protracted struggle between these opposing forces.

Next month we will briefly explore "The Greatest Power.