Who is the authority?

As a seeker, I liked looking for people who had authority, in whatever form they showed up in. As a drug user, I liked people who knew how to live that lifestyle. As a religious person, I liked priests and holy men and women, who were serving God better than I was. In nonduality, I looked for the enlightened ones, that seemed so far beyond my petty existence. All the time, I constructed a mental wall between what I imagined as myself, and what I imagined as the other. The grand words of liberation were too much to bear, since I was quite sure I knew I was 'me', a defective and limited person who had a long way to go. When the idea of authority was looked into, it seemed like conditioned thinking was in charge of things, in determining every facet of what I called real. Investigating the authoritative claims of the mind started a revolution, and the false king was exposed for the fraud he is. Turning the consciousness upon itself, reveals that all comes from a singular source, rather than a fragmented world of conflict and confusion. Authority? Who is it, and who needs it?