Spiritual power amidst chaos

The sounds of sirens and blasts all across the Middle East are creating a sense of intense terror and hopelessness among people I love. The ground beneath their life and work could be bombed at any moment. It feels like collapse is coming.

How do we keep reclaiming our spiritual power in these cruel times?

Desire for external “vertical” power
In moments of uncertainty, chaos or collapse, we all tend to want decisive external force or power. We might feel that decisive actions (e.g., domination, control, or retaliation) by “vertical” authority figures (e.g., parents, political leaders, courts or armies) can relieve our helplessness. External authorities can restore the sense that someone, somewhere, knows who is to blame for any situation and they can finally doing something about it. 

War magnifies the desire for external control a thousandfold. There is a seductive call of the warlord, or the charismatic leader. We know that it is a fantasy that a purge of some "enemy" will restore order or peace. But when our city is under siege, the desire for a leader who will "fix it" becomes intoxicating. Vertical authority telling us that they are controlling the situation can create a sense of certainty amidst complexity and reduce our anxiety. 

Personal chaos & need for grieving
The instinctive desire for an authority in the form of an external leader and their external "vertical" force is not confined to geopolitical crises. It appears wherever stress, anxiety or trauma is more than our capacity to contain it — in families, in institutions, in ourselves. We see this in our daily lives — when a difficult conversation becomes unbearable and when discomfort is suppressed through domination instead of compassionate dialogue. Instead of an external authoritative human, we are guided by authoritative or controlling voices within ourselves.

The scale changes; the pattern does not. Beneath this desire towards "vertical power" there is often a woundedness, trauma and grief that has not been acknowledged.  The activist who becomes rigid and dogmatic, the community leader who demands total loyalty, the friend who lashes out in a meeting—all are trying to manage the unbearable vulnerability and woundedness by seizing a kind of power, however small.

Is external power enough?
A deeper truth is that the process of individual or national maturation does not obey external or "vertical" force or authority. A peace treaty signed under duress or a leader toppled by foreign bombs or a friend temporarily controlled by manipulation —these are external events. They are not the same as one person, community or a nation developing the internal capacity for compassion or democracy. Maturation of individuals, communities or nations cannot be engineered from the outside. A sudden influx of new knowledge or removal of a constraint (e.g., a leader or a "bad" part of ourselves) is not equivalent to the budding of internal capacity for growth.

Maturation like the budding of a flower unfolds slowly and demands something different: an psychological structure strong enough to tolerate ambiguity or complexity, to not know which single factor is to blame, to hold paradoxes (ike yin and yang) without immediately converting it into action, and to have the courage to look at our assumptions. Yes, we absolutely have cruel and stupid leaders right now. And it might be essential to sit with the ambiguity of not knowing how it will end, to grieve what is ours to grieve, to rage but also to resist the urge to dehumanize the people on the "other side" entirely, to hold the paradox that our thriving may depend on people we currently see as the enemy. Embracing grief and complexity are acts of profound inner resistance against the war's demand for total allegiance to hatred. 

What enables inner liberation and maturation?
Freedom to choose new external circumstances that is unsupported by inner psychological, social and spiritual liberation does not stabilize a human or a nation. The outer form may change, yet the inner dynamics persist. A people liberated from an occupying force, but still consumed by the trauma and the urge for revenge against their former occupiers or even their neighbors, has not yet achieved inner freedom.  In fact, I would argue that we can cultivate spiritual power or inner liberation even when external circumstances are oppressive; this is exactly what greatest saints across the world have taught us through their lives.

As we grieve our wounds and trauma, we can develop what psychologists call differentiation, the ability to maintain our unique sense of self while staying in relationship with others (e.g., external news, humans or circumstances). Without this inner differentiation, external freedom or power is just a change of scenery, not a change of self. A new flag over a bombed-out building does not mean the war is over for the psyche. Getting a project done efficiently is not the same as nurturing a long-term resilient partnership.

External power or vertical force can dismantle structures, yet it cannot generate the spiritual power required to sustain freedom, compassion or democracy. A resistance movement can topple a regime, but it cannot, through force alone, create citizens capable of democratic dialogue. A decisive partner can win an arguement but cannot heal a traumatized relationship. Without inner liberation and spiritual power, external freedom remains fragile. The work of sustained self-governance — whether personal or collective — requires a structure capable of working with emotions, tolerating disagreement, delay, and uncertainty without collapsing into domination.

What will you do?
As external cruelties unfold, I will keep expressing care for those who are being directly harmed. And I will continue to focus on inner healing, liberation and power.  I will keep working on my ability to remain with heartbreak, grief or uncertainty. I will keep accessing inner joy, gratitude and equanimity whenever I can through what I call four layers of belonging that include meditation/prayer and nature kinning (Ecodharma), grief-rage ceremonies, and cultivating deep relationships with the human and more-than-human world.

Can YOU stay with your fear, rage, and without surrendering to a control-seeking voice? Can you let the tension of not knowing—of being vulnerable, of being under threat—slowly, painfully, teach you how to become something new, together? I feel that the answer to that question, in every heart, in every small room and in every shattered city, is the only thing that will determine if joy and compassion can grow from the rubble of cruelty.