Speaking truth to power

This response arose after reading a BBC article by Lucy Kellaway:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13974474
The seven deadly sins CEOs won't admit. (Apparently they are Control freaks . Vain . Ditherers . Bad at listening . Bullies . Afraid of conflict . No good at small talk). But the line that prompted me was (in bold below).

"Given that most of the 60 interview candidates were probably guilty of at least one of the above, why did none of them own up?

The first possibility is that they didn't dare.

But I suspect the real problem is worse: they don't know what their faults are.

A decade of psychobabble, coaching and 360-degree feedback has made no difference.

It has not changed the most basic truth - people never speak truth to power."



This is generally true because of what and where power is defined and believed to be. We assign it to those persons whom we project our fantasies upon - and who seem to be able to have power of decision over the fates of others - or to exercise more influence upon events than others.

Rather than focus on such personas I feel to turn it round and consider the same mentality in our own mind and to look at why WE do not generally choose to listen to truth, and why we become caught up in a war of deceptive perceptions, in which partial truths are used as fodder for propaganda or truth is altogether hidden from sight - depending on the particular tactical advantage offered. Because we believe deception IS power over a fearful truth - or a truth that renders us powerless and invalid.







Is listening to truth possible, from within a love of the will to power?

Such a listening is clearly dis-allowed while the wish to assert one's will is active.


Why seek further for an understanding of why human beings deny, distort and deceive the truth of them selves and each other?


The self-identity that arises from the will to power is a trap. But it is traded in the same way as drugs. IE - in the implicit presumption that it offers enhancement of and relief from reality. But it reinforces the very conditions that it is supposed to overcome.


It might seem that leaders are particularly prone to such traits, (as the article lists), but you will find everyone quite able to assert their will in their own particular ways.


One subset of the way we assert our will is to avoid personal risk by getting or letting others to do what we not want to deal with.


Until there is a willingness to bring the issue of the personal will and its ego to light, we will continue to participate in a way of life that actively undermines and denies truth.

But truth isn't a contest of interpretations, definitions or mapped out models. Truth is one with trust. Honesty is predicated on - and extends -  trust. Once we are willing to deceive ourselves, we dislocate our own mind from its true nature - but then experience the world in terms of threat, competition, scarcity and guilt - or a sense of self unworthyness that we may then seek to overcome.


Those who 'know not what they do', act out within their self made illusion, in forgetfulness of the willing that they are doing that dislocated their mind from its Truth.


Soul is not threatened - but to lose sight of the nature of our love is a terrible and desperate experience. It is also the core experience of the human doing.


Jesus - whether the story is considered history or not - is an example or model of human being. Because to be is a receptive listening, beholding and discerning - from which comes a different will than that of reacting to fearful or loveless judgements - whether those judgements are so called received wisdom of experience or panic or greed of the moment.


To undertake any responsibility in the world is going to involve difficult decisions - or choices where none of the options off an ideal answer. But in the willingness to allow true communication, the best or optimal step will arise as the expression of win-win - even if it can be seen as win-lose or lose-lose from a thinking perspective outside the process of communication.


Presence can be bluffed - but such a presentation has no true presence. A true man or woman has a clear presence. But unless you are in your own truth, you will not be discerning the difference.


The manipulation of truth is of course nothing to do with truth - but with perception.

It might seem that we live in amazing times, where mind control is writ large in corporate terms and appropriation and asset stripping move into the so called personal realm of our minds.


On what basis is anyone or anything to be believed or trusted anymore - and are my own thoughts reliable as the true expression of my heart's knowing?


Give unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar - in that we do the things that are required while we are the world. But give unto God that which is God's - for the truth is not made by man nor is our own awareness and capacity to know truly.


Maybe God is too misused a word in a world that made its own competing versions. But to truly listen is to put the will to power behind you - and simply know what is truly given you to share. Awareness is true - but is hostage to stories that distract attention from a freedom of being that cannot be truly lost - but can be used to deny its own nature, while trying to become a 'someone' - all by ourselves.

The sense of powerlessness that is part and parcel of the human conditioning is illegitimate, but true power is shared and not wielded. Some are drawn to overcome their sense of self limitation in ways that are writ large upon the world, for better or for worse in worldly terms. Others feel that a strategic powerlessness of diluted power is safer, whilst secretly coveting the capacity to wield it.

Truth speaks to truth. The will to power speaks to a like will. While we try to serve both, each undermines the other. Listening to this will serve reawakening to your heart. Honesty is known in the presence of the heart.

Thank you for your attention