Imagine that you’re standing in a room, and hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room is a single 60-watt incandescent un-shaded light bulb.  If this were the only light in the room, in some places, like right under the light, you would probably be able to read a book or write.  In other places, like the corners, there might not be enough light to read or write, but you could certainly see enough to carry out some tasks, have conversations, etc.

This 60-watt light bulb produces light energy, or waves, that spread out from the source – the filament - moving in all directions at the same time.  This disorganized distribution of light energy causes the waves to disperse randomly, some bumping into each other, others going off in all different directions.  Scientists call this “incoherent” light.  In order to significantly increase the amount or range of illumination, a dramatic increase in energy is required.  For example, if you replaced the bulb with a 150 – watt bulb, you would have least twice as light, but it would take twice as much energy.

If you were to place a mirror on the ceiling you would be able to direct a lot more light downward.  And if you sequentially added mirrors around the bulb, you would eventually end up with a spot-light effect, in which all of the lights energy was directed at a single point.  Logically, that single point would by much brighter - exponentially brighter - even though you did not increase the amount of light energy. 

If you continued this “focusing” process far enough, eventually the light waves would become ordered and focused, moving together in the same direction at the same time.  In other words the light energy would become “coherent”.  The ultimate example of coherent light is a laser beam.  And while 60-watts of incoherent light (the light bulb) will barely light up a single room, 60-watts of coherent light (the laser beam) is capable of burning a hole a foot wide all the way through the sun, 90,000,000 miles away!  The same 60 watts of energy!

What does this principle of coherence teach us?  Among other things, it teaches us that the secret to unleashing unimaginable power is not a matter of generating mega-quantities of energy; it is a matter of coherence.  In fact, if we have highly effective coherence, we might have to significantly reduce the amount of energy we exert or risk unleashing a power we simply couldn’t control!