Authority and the Self

I was meditating on the meaning of authority and how it pervades the consciousness of each of us. When reference is made to authority it should be understood that what is meant is the authority of the self. All authority has its origin in the self as an element of ones consciousness that judges and either accepts or rejects. Because we judge and conclude we allow and accept the authority of others. Authority is the result of our insecurity and fear. When we accept out of fear then we create an atmosphere of exploitation in which authority becomes a repressive extension of our insecurity. We frequently rebel against authority but we are unable to understand that its origins are deep within our own subconscious mind. It is very difficult to truly see and understand the workings of self authority because we are caught up in an endless decision making process that is at the very root of our will to survive. Since our lives are reactive, in the sense that we believe that we are a product of a result, we establish an authority that is the one who determines.

But what if there was no authority? What if we lived a life that was free of the ideals of self determination? What if we did not choose or allow ourselves to be manipulated by reaction? Is this not truly a life of freedom? A life lived just for the joy of the moment. It is true that you have to make choices in order to live, but what if choices were without psychological significance? If a person does not assign an authority to those choices then they do not become a permanent part of ones psyche. They are noted and utilized in the moment but then they are released. They do not become a point of reference which is the origin of future reactions of the self. Then it may be possible to a live life free of prejudicial authority and to reject the authority of others. Others have authority only when given through the authority of the self. You have to be it in order to give it (authority).

If you are obsessive about a belief or an opinion, then you have established an idealized authority. That authority becomes the idealistic belief that your life revolves around. Your mind is essentially closed to all that does not conform to your patterned reality. You become trapped by the limitations of your own narrow view of existence. While you may believe that you are actually expanding your knowledge within a particular discipline, what you are actually doing is furthering your inability to look at the reality of the moment through a mind that is free to discover the self. To discover the reality of the self in the moment is to open up a whole new way of living. It is a life of freedom, that sees into the nature of the self and of the whole spectrum of existence.


Looking and seeing are two very different activities. When you look you are using the mask of the self. When you see there is no self, only what is. The truth is always in what is, not in the self which is "what was" projected as "what should be". This is very difficult to understand because most of us a caught up in the "results" of a conditioned mind. Such a mind responds reactively. All reactions are a product of the past, of the known. You cannot fully understand the present moment through the past. You are caught in the repetitive illusion of understanding through comparison and conclusion. One uses the old to try and understand the new. So a persons understanding is partial and incomplete and from this we judge and choose. This is the authority that we give the self, to live life incompletely by escaping and discriminating against the true reality of the moment. A person must "see" the reaction of self in the moment in order to realize a consciousness that is beyond "what was". To realize this freedom is to find peace that cannot be imagined.