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Approximately: 653 words

Throughout history, and continuing to present-day, from a very young age, we have all seen and recognized power. When we are young our first observation of power is with our parents. We learn quickly which one to ask for an advance on our allowance and who to ask if we can stay overnight at a friend's pajama party.

Most of our young adulthood is spent chasing after the dream of wealth which is, to the materialists' way of thinking, interchangeable with power, the outward, material proof of power. But have we ever considered spiritual power? It is usually not until at least our third decade that we begin to consider and give more credence to the forms of power we cannot see.

Of course we hear about the traits of charity, faith, hope, unconditional love, courage and fore-sight, but they are just words, until we begin to own what and who we are. It is when we find ourselves in a situation that we would prefer not to be in and are forced to reach inside of ourselves for an answer that we find there is much more inside of us than we ever even imagined. Our first thought is usually, "I don't know where that came from…I had no idea I felt so strongly about this!"

Speaking from a spiritual standpoint, I have witnessed many times the effect of power upon people and how it can be misused and/or misunderstood. Let us look at a couple of examples.

Imagine you are introduced to a person to whom you feel an immediate connection and this connection is enhanced by the personae of the person. Many times this person is perfectly aware of the effect they are causing upon another and will slant the conversation to empower themselves even more in the conversation. This is usually pretty blatant and can be dealt with effectively by just stepping back and rebalancing.

Now the other misunderstanding of power is a bit trickier. Many times someone in a spiritual role (let's say an elder with gifts) will be placed on so high a pedestal that they start to believe they deserve the adoration they receive. These people exude such a strong aura of power that it is often intertwined with an undercurrent of sexuality. (And yes, there are some that will say that power is sexy!)

There have been many women taken advantage of in this situation. My own opinion is that yes, everyone recognizes power, whether consciously or subconsciously. It is just that many times we are ill-equipped to separate what it is that is attracting us and how to cope with it.

We link the spiritual power with sexual/romantic thoughts and feelings because we have rarely been in the presence of true spiritual power. Those individuals that have true spiritual power are self-confident and exude such a sense of love that until we can grasp the concept of unconditional love that it effectively short-circuits our perceptions and sensibilities.

Fortunately for those of us that are blessed to be in the presence of a truly enlightened individual our bumbling and stumbling is overlooked and treated with great compassion, love and understanding and often with quite a bit of laughter.

We can only hope that if we find ourselves stumbling around away from a person of great power and under the captivating spell of power that we have a friend with the sensibility, like the Beatles, to tell us: "'It's only Love and that is all' that you are feeling - and we are talking unconditional Love!"

Lucinda Schersing, Rev. D.D. is a Usui and Karuna Reiki Master. She believes wholeheartedly in the Basic Precepts and in the many levels to the meaning of "We Are All Related". You may visit her website at: Turtle Zen