By Gonny 
Have you ever noticed what happens when you give an ordinary person a tiny bit of authority?
Give someone a bright yellow safety vest and a clipboard at the local recycling center, and suddenly, they transform. They stand a little taller, point their pen with military precision, and direct you to the cardboard container as if they are commanding a battalion. Or think of the person put in charge of the neighborhood WhatsApp group, who suddenly starts enforcing “meme regulations” with an iron fist.
It is almost comical how quickly a little bit of power can change a human being.
But what happens when worldly power reaches the absolute top? We are seeing it play out on the global stage right now. When the ego is handed the ultimate microphone, like the leadership of a superpower, it doesn’t just inflate; it completely loses its mind.
When a human being is surrounded by people who only nod and say “yes,” the ego detaches from reality entirely. It becomes so intoxicated by its own believe in being special that it stops hiding the madness. We literally see leaders today boasting, “Even if I lie to them, they will still believe me.” They dare to say these things out loud because the ego, when given absolute control, truly believes it has become a god. It thinks it can bend truth and invent its own reality.
But this isn’t strength. It is the ultimate delusion. It is a modern version of The Emperor’s New Clothes, where a mind has become entirely trapped in its own bizarre hallucination, unaware of how foolish it looks.
When we watch this kind of blatant arrogance on the news, or deal with a bossy person in the supermarket, our immediate instinct is to judge them. We roll our eyes. We call them idiots. We feel intellectually and spiritually superior.
But here is a gentle, eye-opening twist from A Course in Miracles: judging them is just our ego trying to grab a little power back. 
ACIM invites us to look at the power-hungry ego differently. It asks us to see that behind the arrogance, the blatant lies, and the desperate need to control, there is simply a terrified, insecure mind. People only seek to dominate others when they secretly feel profoundly empty. When we realize this, we don’t have to agree with their actions…..we can absolutely recognize the madness for what it is, but we can stop condemning their souls. We can see the error clearly, without losing our own peace.
So, what does true power look like?
In ACIM, true power belongs to the “Son of God”, which is just a traditional way of saying our true, awakened, shared Awareness. This kind of power is the exact opposite of the ego’s clipboard or crown.
True power is completely silent. It doesn’t need to shout, manipulate, or lie to prove it exists. It doesn’t require a title, a weapon, or blind followers. Think of the sun: it doesn’t force the flowers to open by screaming at them; its very nature simply allows them to bloom.
When you rest in your true nature, you no longer need to be “special” or in control. You don’t need to shrink anyone else to feel tall. Real power builds bridges, not walls. It is the profound, quiet strength of someone who knows exactly who they are, and therefore has absolutely nothing to prove, nothing to defend, and nothing to fear.
The next time someone waves their imaginary clipboard at you, or a politician puffs out their chest on TV, you don’t have to salute, and you don’t have to fight. You can just smile, recognize the noisy theater costume for what it is, and quietly stay in the beautiful, unshakable power of who you really are.
With love and light,
G.