Incorporating Transformation Technologies

A number of years ago, in Israel, I conducted a workshop on ‘’power’’ only to realize the assumptions and interpretations of this word was alarming. It consisted of 4 sessions and dealt with the chart below.

We discussed people’s images of power and Webster’s definition of power as “the ability to act.”  We then presented a diagram describing the flow of power (see below), and we discussed clarity, wisdom and mastery, the first three ingredients of power.

“The final ingredient of power, as it appears on our chart, is Facility.

Facility is the name we give to the emotional, physical and spiritual tools needed to achieve a particular goal.

For instance, if you want to be a cellist, you first need the facility of the physical possession of a cello.  You need the facility of a teacher who has mastery of the technology of playing the cello.  As a performer, you will need the facility of an audience.  Finally, you will need the facility of inspiration to truly communicate the essence of your music.

“Ask yourself what facilities you have or need to have in order for you to attain your goals.  Money, for instance, is a facility.  People who will play with you and support you in what you want to accomplish are facilities.  Your own energy, ideas and commitment to your goals are facilities.  Your home, your car, your possessions are facilities.  If you run a business, your staff is a facility.

“I know that many of us make the error of seeing a facility as a reward, as a goal in itself.  For instance, we have come to view money and a house and a car and beautiful possessions as rewards.  Some of us in fact see love or support as a reward for being nice or being good.  It’s true generally in our society that wages, fringe benefits, vacations, pension benefits are all presented as rewards for getting the job done.  But these things are not rewards: they are facilities which enable us to get the job done.  As employers, it’s a mistake to offer people rewards if we want them to be powerful.  We need to learn to see that we give people salaries to facilitate them so they can accomplish more in the game.  For instance, we can’t play rugby unless we have a team, uniforms, a field, goal posts and a ball.  We don’t see these things as rewards, but if we don’t have them we can’t play, football.  In the same way, if we don’t have money, we can’t play.  If we don’t have food and a place to live, we can’t play.  The things we hold as rewards are really facilities which allow us to play the game.

“You will regard your possessions as facilities when there is no longer any attraction for you in owning them, and when your only interest in them is in having the use of them.  When you view them as rewards, they disempower you: you have to have them if you regard them as proof that you’re all right, or as a demonstration to the world that you are a success, or as a security against the future.  Also, a lot of us have trouble giving ourselves permission to have things because we consider on some level that we are not worthy of the reward.  I promise you that all of the guilt and discomfort you have because you think you don’t deserve what you possess or desire to possess will disappear when you begin to regard those things as facilities which empower you and enable you to participate joyfully in life and effectively support other people’s participation in life.

“I know a lot of us think we only deserve to have relationships that work when we’re in good shape, when we’re happy and feeling good, when we think we’ve somehow done something to deserve them.  We feel that when we’re tired or grumpy or things aren’t going well at work we don’t deserve love and support.  When we don’t like ourselves very much we tend to be uncomfortable about other people liking us:  we have difficulty letting people love us because we think we have to deserve it.

“If somebody wants to love you, recognize that whether or not you think you’re worth it, it’s an enormous contribution to that person to allow him or her to love you.  It’s a great gift to allow someone to love you.  If you’re around a loving person, let that person love you whether you think you deserve it or not, because that is being of service to them.  It’s really so simple and yet people have to go to incredible lengths to con other people into allowing themselves to be loved.  Loving people is easy; it’s getting them to accept love that is difficult.

“I want to talk a bit more about having facility, about what to do to empower rather than disempower yourselves and others.  First, acknowledge the facility that you have.  Take the time to sit down and look at your own clarity, your own wisdom, and your own resources and acknowledge them for all that they are.  The most available facility you have is being the kind of person who has people around who support you and in having those people around to support you.  All facility comes from your ability to have relationships that work.  And that takes acknowledgement of yourself and other people and it take being open to being supported.

“So to think of money, material abundance and love as facility is a very important concept.  Because what allows us to grow and have abundance is to regard abundance as a facility.  In fact, if you are a person of integrity, the only way you can have abundance is to regard it as a facility.  I know a lot of you feel abundance is incompatible with integrity.  And it is, if you regard it as reward, because to regard it as reward is to deny the equality that exists between all people.  To regard abundance as a facility is a context within which to hold abundance, a context which can change the dance a context which can change the face of the world, because it carries with it the spirit of service.

“So now we’re beginning to see the garden out of which power grows.  We’ve looked at four very important things which affect our ability to act.  The next step in the flow of power is to take action.  The consequences of taking action are the results.  If we don’t take action, there aren’t any results.  If we don’t take action that comes out of clarity, wisdom, mastery and is supported by facility, the action will be ineffective and the result will be less then satisfactory.

“Regardless of the quality of the result, it’s important to notice it and acknowledge yourself for it and then go on to make any necessary correction.  The better the results become, the more the correction becomes a kind of fine tuning.  It’s much easier to find a speck of dust on a white wall than to find a white wall under a pile of garbage, but the first step obviously is to clean up the garbage so you can see that the wall exists.  It seems to be a closely guarded secret that excellence is the product of extensive correction, because I sense that this idea may be very foreign to many of you.  But if you will look at the things in your life you are best at, or proudest of, they will in all likelihood be things that resulted from a great deal of practice a great deal of trial and error.  So power flows out of correction.  And without correction there is no improvement in clarity, there is no growth in the area of wisdom, there is no improvement in clarity, there is no growth in the area of wisdom, there is no enhancement of mastery and there is a dissipation of facility.  And it is the correction of each result that leads to an increase in clarity, wisdom, mastery and facility, which in turn generates the next level of power, enhances our ability to act and ensures a more satisfactory result.

“In your life, always look to see how you can expand your own facility, how you can collect around you the material and spiritual elements of support, how you can enhance your mastery of something, how you can increase your clarity and wisdom.  Learn to recognize what supports you and place yourself in the midst of that support.  This is truly what will empower you.  Recognize what supports you, place yourself in that environment and you will find your power enhanced.  Anything you do to support the evolution of your consciousness will give you more power, and to the extent that you pass along what you are learning, you are empowering those around you.”