It is the true leaders — those individuals of this world who expand its boundaries — who reveal the secret routes to new and nobler realities. Such revolutionary discoveries are never the work of organizations. These groups always spring up in the wake of the walk of those who lead in order to capitalize upon their work. Those who seek power by such means are, by definition, little more than followers of the individuals who have found the power to discover. And generally speaking, such followers tend to be fearful because their powers are always borrowed. So then, what is that makes one person a true leader and another his dependent? The answer is not what you think!

It isn’t that these leaders in life don’t have the same fears as we do; that just is not the case. The way they prevail in fulfilling the promise of their chosen path, regardless of their field, is for one of two reasons: Either their love of pursuing their heart’s desire outweighs those fears they meet or, in the case of the greatest leaders, these peerless individuals have learned fear’s ruling secret and turned it to their favor, making them self-ruling. They are able to walk past the places where most of us see a path that ends.

Now what is vital for us to understand at this point is that in both cases — whether it is the love of something that draws a person through a territory otherwise prohibitive to others, or it is someone able, at will, to pass through life’s “impossibilities” — both types of leaders employ the same empowering principle. This is good news for us because it means that even if we haven’t yet come upon a real love of something for us to do with our lives, a love that “casts out our fears,” it is possible for us to learn to love the principles that lead us to this fearless nature. These spiritually empowering principles, that we will touch upon in the coming days, are the invisible backbone of a special spiritual character that lives latent in all of us. For now we will call this character… the Best in us. (To be continued…)