One of the chief problems with contemporary spirituality is that it doesn’t cultivate power–inner power or spiritual power or “thought power” or shakti. Without power, there can’t be the inward turn nor can there be an expression of that power in the form of love. I need power in order to give, to serve, and, above all, to love. As will be argued in the last section, I, if I’m a worldly person, also need to power in order to bring something truly significant into being.

What Is Power?

Power is maximum effectiveness in bringing something about together with minimal resistance.

Someone who can make a free throw in basketball look easy is, in this sense, more powerful than someone who can’t make a free throw or who struggles to make a free throw.

Great power, then, is evinced in the Daoist sage for whom all activities flow easily and fully.

How To Cultivate Power?

The great news is that there are very few basic methods propounded in sacred texts. Three such spring to mind:

1. Concentration: One goes from many thoughts–scattered, dispersed–to a single thought. Someone who is packing her bags in a disorderly way is far less powerful than one who is methodically packing for a trip. Someone who can complete a task while sticking to it is more powerful than one who toggles back and forth between the task and her phone. And someone who is able to direct his attention at a dot on the wall (trataka) and keep it so directed is more powerful than someone whose attention wavers from dot to wall to errant thoughts.

2. The capacity to say “No”; the capacity to say “Yes”: This is a version of self-control, temperance, or willpower. If one can say “No” with minimal resistance to, for instance, getting drunk, then this evinces considerable power. Or if one is able to say “Yes” to helping a neighbor without doubts or vacillations, then this too is not only an expression of power but is also a cultivation thereof.

3. From lower to higher: One must be able to formulate an ideal or a goal for life and (see 2 above) stick to it. One with an ideal to which one sticks is more powerful than one without a goal–or one with a goal to which one does not stick. The ideal should be like a lightning rod; it should be galvanizing.

Of course, there’s a virtuous circle here: as concentration is enhanced, clarity with regard to the ideal becomes crisper; with greater clarity comes easier resistance to temptation; and so on.

Coda

Implicit in what I’ve laid out is an assumption that I’ll now make explicit: there is no greatness in life–no ascent toward the Source, no businesses formed and built, no artistic expression of merit–without considerable power. Therefore, even or especially a worldly person has every reason to care about and thus to cultivate power.