The 1x1 of Being - The 8th Key - Love or Control
16 Dec 2025 · 14 min
In this episode of the "Conversations with the Universe" podcast, Sylvia Leifheit shares how a near‑death experience transformed her perception, making her more sensitive to the subtleties of human existence. She frames life as a continual choice between two mutually exclusive paths: the path of love, which aligns with the awareness of a universal connection (the "All‑One"), and the path of power, which is rooted in ego identification, fear, and separation. Using a concrete relationship scenario, she contrasts how a partner who feels doubt can respond either with love—through open, compassionate communication, trust, and consistent supportive action—or with power—through surveillance, retaliation, and ego‑driven games. She outlines six supporting "keys" that sustain the love path: communication, trust, action, consistency, patience, and respect for the other's unique experience. Leifheit further explains that power is an illusion tied to limited consciousness, illustrated by the symbolic meaning of the number 8, whose lower belly represents separation and upper belly represents wholeness. She warns that a life guided by power leads to emptiness, while a love‑guided life yields abundant, lasting fulfillment. The episode concludes with an invitation to join "Spine," a global spiritual network that connects seekers with healers and resources for conscious growth.
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Dear human being, beloved soul, I welcome you to my podcast series Conversations with the Universe. After a near-death experience, my perception of our human existence changed profoundly. I became more sensitive with all our known senses. I feel more intensely, see people with different eyes, and often take a different perspective on life and our challenges. In my books, I share these altered perspectives and all the knowledge that has flowed through me since my near-death and thus record it for all those who are searching for something more, for the meaning of our existence here on Mother Earth. And it is now a great pleasure for me to share this knowledge with you in this way as a supplement to my books. This season I'm dedicating myself to my very first work, "The Basics of Being." I wish you many wonderful insights on your path. Thank you.
Love, Sylvia Leifheit. First, a quick note about my network, Spine. This is short for the Spiritual Network. And is the first global social media network for holistic knowledge, awareness, spirituality, and above all, a bridge between providers and seekers. I invite you to join us and connect with me there. Feel free to look around, find lots of podcasts, events, healers, but above all, lots of inspiration to grow. It's free. But now let's start with today's episode: Love or Power? The key to decision. Basically, there are only two paths in a person's life between which they must choose again and again and always differently: to walk the path of love or the path of power. Choosing the path of love means choosing to become aware of the connection with the All-One. Being aware of this connection immediately excludes the desire to experience separation. Choosing the path of power means identifying completely with the ego and thus keeping consciousness at the low level of animal consciousness. It is the decision to separate what cannot be separated. It is the decision for illusion instead of truth. Or in other words, live your life in love or without it, for the path of power is the path of absence of love. I have already mentioned this description in connection with fear, and indeed, when you walk the path of power, you are on the path of fear. Especially in everyday life and in interpersonal encounters, the explosiveness of the question becomes clear: Do you make your decisions out of love? Yes, you read that right. Making decisions out of love at work? That's not possible. But I'll answer that for you. It's the only thing that's possible. Everything else builds a house of lies that will bring you down, either in the form of illness or the collapse of everything you have created. You have experienced how closely love is connected to consciousness. Love is the conscious experience of connection, so a life without love means not really consciously experiencing, feeling, or sensing these connections. Only the ego is capable of constantly enduring such a state of separation. And it is also the ego that creates fear from this absence of conscious connection, that is, from the absence of love. Men and women who engage in power games are slaves to these fears. In order to maintain the illusion of security, they no longer begin to live and decide from the heart, but from separation and calculation. Visualization. I think we are all familiar with the following situation: two people live together, are perhaps even married and love each other. One of them begins to flirt with other people, to meet secretly and perhaps even more. The other senses this, and the first doubts arise. Now the decision of the heart begins: the path of love or the path of power. On the path of love, The partner who begins to doubt takes the other by the hand and they sit down together to talk about these emerging feelings and clarify them. The doubting partner asks lovingly, "I have the feeling that you are not well, and I have the feeling that you are doing something foolish because of this feeling. Am I right? And if so, please tell me why. What was the cause?" What was the moment when the despair inside you made you take this path? What did I do wrong? Are you happy? What can I do to make you happier again? Did I hurt you? Then tell me when and where, so I can apologize! The path of power, on the other hand, could look like this: One person begins to doubt whether the other is really being honest. So the doubter starts to check up on them, secretly reading letters. Emails, or chats. The findings will certainly not be very gratifying, and as a result, a power game begins. The anger of the ego will rear up like a wild animal and become uncontrollable. The next step on the path of power is the well-known "You do unto me, I do unto you." In this specific case, that means "Then I'll cheat on you too." And so the vicious circle of power has begun, in which only the lower vibrations of the egos and their thoughts have room for action. The fact that there is a connection between these two people, however weak it may be, is forgotten with every breath of the ego, becoming unconscious. This gives the ego of the doubter a sense of balance, but this too is only an illusion. Just as doctors today usually treat the symptoms of illness rather than the causes, Only the symptom has been treated in this couple. The symptom is called "injury to the ego," but no one asks why it came about. Such an example clearly shows how the keys always interact, for it is the third key, communication, that was decisive in both cases. On the path of love, the two lovers still communicated with each other. On the path of power, this is no longer the case, at least not in a deep and honest way. At the same time, on the path of love, there was trust that a solution was possible, the second key. Fears and doubts were cast aside, and conversation was sought. Action was then taken, the fourth key, but this was still done in love. The consistency of this action, the fifth key, helped them to become even more aware of their actual feelings in order to reflect on them. The willingness to give the other person time to organize themselves, to find themselves again, and to be there consistently during this process without making demands was the 6th key. The knowledge of the complexity of every being and respect for one's partner mean that one does not expect the other person to feel, think, and sense in the same way as oneself, so both ask with an open heart, Who are you, and why do you do what you do? Be aware of these two components and decide which path you want to take. The responsibility lies solely with you, and only you can make the decision. Everywhere, throughout your entire life, you can choose between these two paths, and you can see more and more clearly when someone has taken the path of love or the path of power. There is no middle ground, no intermediate state, no maybe, no attempt, only the deed, only the firm decision to love come what may. All or nothing. You love or you don't love. There is no half love. Visualization. Observe consciously when you walk through the streets, in your company, where you work, or in your family. Does the person you are observing make decisions out of a loving heart or out of calculation? If their heart is open, They can only decide in love. If this is not the case, there is a great danger that they will get caught up in power games. But power is only an illusion, because as soon as you expand your consciousness and view the decisions of power from a different space, you realize how powerless these decisions actually are. There will always be someone who knows more, who can do more, and who has better opportunities than you. And that person will always have more supposed power over you than you think you have right now. For this reason, your feeling of power is only present as long as you move within your own space. Power is therefore an illusion of your space, of your world, and this illusion only lasts as long as you move within these spaces. As soon as you leave them, other powers rule over you. So be careful if you choose this path. It is the path of fear, and it cannot make you happy in the long run. Happiness is the fullness of the heart, and those who are rich in beautiful moments are truly fulfilled. But you can only experience beautiful moments when your heart is open, not when you keep it closed and listen only to the calculations of your mind. I know there will be people who now say, That's nonsense! If I have chosen the path of power, then that's the way it is. And this path will make me happy because I have chosen it. And this objection is even justified, but unfortunately, it is very short-sighted, because the way you see the world today may not be the case tomorrow. Your perceptions change, and so does your view of the world. And you are always part of something that reacts to each other. In this respect, you can never really decide that you are no longer connected. You can choose to delude yourself into believing this state of affairs in order to gain experience, but the connections are there. You are part of something, whether you like it or not. That's the way it is, and you can't even change it with your free will. In this case, you should perhaps reread what I said earlier about the various circumstances that shape your life. I am particularly fond of the formula for destiny: opportunity plus potential times consciousness. Page 98. It is essential that people who choose the path of power keep these components firmly in mind. The opportunities that present themselves and the potential that they bring will unfold in a completely different direction if the person, guided by their ego, clouds their consciousness. Just as the number 8 holds the potential for healing, it also carries within it the experience of absolute separation, i.e., power. Symbolically, being in power means being aware only of the lower belly of the 8, but when a person recognizes the other part, the upper belly of the 8, they not only finally experience the whole, the entire 8, and a flow of energy begins through the consciously experienced connection, and this flow of energy feels healthy, whole, and thus healing. Therefore, know this: There are two paths. The path of love will make you truly rich, and you will experience a life that blossoms with infinite beauty and abundance. You will experience a wealth that cannot be compared to all the earthly treasures and cannot be acquired with any earthly goods. The path of power, on the other hand, will keep you in the illusion that you can buy everything and calculate everything. As long as you think materially, that is true, but your true self is more than that. At the latest, when you look there, it will be very empty after such a life. Let's summarize. And so one will leave this world with the treasure of abundance and happiness, and the other poorer than any beggar. All this because of a single decision: the decision to be with the heart or without the heart, the decision to keep the gate closed in order to live only the ego, or to open the gate to experience the full potential of being. Love or power, connection or separation, conscious being or unconsciousness, truth or illusion. Only you can choose. Thank you again for your attention, and I wish you many more good insights in your growth. Thank you, love. Seize life. Carpe vitam. Thank you very much for listening, and I would like to remind you to join our community Spine. We are a community that wants to help you live a healthier life, practice your spirituality, and expand your consciousness. We help you find and connect with healers around the world, and we help you give your life a new meaning in different ways. We are Spine, connections that help.






