CONVERSATIONS
Newsletter for the spiritual striving of youth in NorthAmerica

Spiritual Leadership –- a short meditation

Paul Beasly, 26 September 2005

"It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse."
Adlai Stevenson

Agree or disagree?
"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others." Robert Louis Stevenson
"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision." Theodore Hesburgh
"Leaders shouldn't attach moral significance to their ideas: Do that, and you can't compromise." Peter Drucker
"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in others the conviction and will to carry on." Walter Lippman
"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be." Rosalyn Carter

Introduction
Love in humanity is the only source from which spiritual leadership can develop. No other foundation will stand up to the storm of doubts and crippling blows that we all suffer as individuals. A conscious and free love of humanity is the first requirement. Conscious love can then develop further into the life of feeling as faith in others, optimism and hope. Love in humanity can then work deeper into the will, providing the necessary strength, courage and determination to face the inevitable challenges. Spiritual leadership must initially take root in conscious thought, develop in the life of feeling, and blossom in our will and deeds. This essay will explore the three-fold nature of spiritual leadership.
Spiritual Leadership requires a clear understanding and a strong knowledge of the concepts and themes of leadership. Two such themes are authority and freedom. By exploring the relationship between authority and freedom, the concepts of leadership ought to come to light. The Armed Forces is one sphere which presents a strongly authoritarian leadership. Duty and authority/obedience are the two pillars upon which military leadership functions. Spiritual development presents a contrasting sphere where love and freedom provide the foundations for effective leadership. We will begin our study with the following question: Does a leader have authority? In the Armed Forces, authority is unquestionable, and the punishment is severe; death or imprisonment. There is an important reason for this. A strong chain of command removes consciousness from the deed or actions that are carried out. This allows for deeds to be accomplished that would normally not be possible for an individual to carry out, either because they are unpleasant, or because the individual lacks the courage. The most inhumane and superhuman deeds are accomplished during military conflict.
The following excerpt presents an example that highlights the power of authority and the sense of duty and explores from where this power arises. The first paragraph introduces some background ideas, but of most interest is the terrible force that is spoken of in the second paragraph.
"There is a physical world, an astral world, lower devachan, and higher devachan. If you push the body even lower than the physical realm, you arrive in the subphysical world, the lower astral world, the evil lower devachan, and the evil higher devachan. The evil astral world is the province of Ahriman, and the evil higher devachan is the province of Asuras. There is a physical world, an astral world, lower devachan, and higher devachan. If you push the body even lower than the physical realm, you arrive in the subphysical world, the lower astral world, the evil lower devachan, and the eveil higher devachan. The evil astral world is the province of Ahriman, and the evil higher devachan is the province of Asuras.

The subphysical world:

If you drive a chemical action below the physical plane, into the evil devachan, magnetism arises. If you force light down into the subphysical (that is, lower than the material world), electricity arises. If the harmony of the spheres is pushed farther down into the province of Asuras, an even more terrible force is generated, which it will not be possible to hide much longer. One must image this force as far more powerful than the most violent electrical discharge, and we can only hope that, before someone discovers this force and delivers it into the hands of humankind, people will have rid themselves of everything immoral within them." (A lecture by Rudolf Steiner, The Etherization of the Blood, Basel, October 1, 1911)

Leadership in the Armed Forces
The following question is posed: What is this terrible force? ...far more powerful than the most violent electrical discharge... and created by driving chemical reactions below the physical plane. The author believes that this is a prediction of nuclear power and weaponry. Now, without passing judgment, it is our task to discover the concepts and themes behind leadership in light of these thoughts. How was such a power discovered? And how was it ever possible that such a terrible force could have been delivered to humankind? The answer is through very effective, authoritarian leadership. During the Manhattan Project, up to 120,000 people were working in a city upon this project without knowledge of the reasons for the project. Such tight control over the knowledge enabled those who were working on the project-the scientists, engineers, the soldiers and bombers, etc.-to work without consciousness and without the need for moral decision. A strong sense of duty and national spirit carried the actions of those in the armed forces and replaced the need for conscious decision-making and a wrestling with ethical or moral dilemmas. The play Copenhagen wonderfully presents this struggle amongst two scientists, Neils Bohr and Heisenberg. They were working for opposing sides, were both aware of the moral issues, and struggled deeply with the conflict between their national spirit and higher morals of humanity. At the soldiers' level, national spirit, duty to country, and natural bonds directed the actions and obedience.
Directly after the bomb was dropped ...on Hiroshima on the morning of 6 August 1945 ... while 78,000 people lay dead or dying in the ruins, a White House statement called on the Japanese to surrender or "they may expect a rain of ruin from the air." (J. Keegan "The Second World War" p. 584, Penguin 1989)
This portrays both incredible destructive power and sacrifice made by the nations of western spirit. The spirit of the West unleashed a terrible power in order to defend itself and to continue to have power and influence over evolution for the years to follow. The consciousness of the ramifications was only visible to very few, and through strongly authoritarian leadership, the nearly impossible in terms of technical feats came to pass with the deeds and efforts of so many. Leadership in the armed forces commands authority through the national spirit that forms the deep sense of duty in all who serve the nation.

Spiritual leadership
Anyone who desires to initiate an activity in the spiritual sphere is both incredibly privileged and seeks a heavy responsibility. The privilege lies in the gift and desire to share experiences in others' development; in helping others to develop spiritually for their tasks in this life, the life after death, and future lives still to come. And here also lies a heavy responsibility. We must consciously accept that every thought or action may affect others in most sensitive, subtle and powerful ways. We can achieve incredible good; we can light up each others' dreams, or falter and shatter them. How do we accept such a responsibility? Why would we accept such a responsibility? The decision to do so must be made in absolute freedom, nothing external should compel us to begin such work. This conscious decision arises from a deep love of humanity. The power to accomplish such work comes from the feeling life in developing a trust and faith in others. Finally, the strength in will to act is found in the power of true creativity.
Love and freedom form the foundations of spiritual leadership-love of humanity and the freedom to act selflessly. Both of these qualities demand incredible strength of character and confidence. The choice to be a spiritual leader must be devoid of any expectations, personal hopes, and dreams, and requires a willingness to fail many times over. Spiritual leadership is a choice of servitude to all others, and requires the highest level of both modesty and confidence. This is of critical importance. As leaders we must accept that it is our task to guide and help others. These thoughts can have a powerful experience akin to incredible sacrifice. Our ego naturally rebels with every fiber of its being against such thinking. The ego feels its importance dissolve to nothing under the requirements of spiritual leadership. Our personal desires and satisfactions pale in comparison to the broader dreams of humanity, and the sacrifice of personal satiation can be painful for our ego. With such difficult obstacles and powerful experiences in our thinking, how is it possible to resolve our own personal desires and still act selflessly for others? The power to overcome this is through a deep love of others, in all of humanity.
A deep and completely permeating love of humanity-this idea is difficult to find expression. Let's take a few different perspectives to get a sense of the shape of the idea. Love in others can be expressed in many ways and one such way is the genuine concern and interest one shares in another. This can be expressed as excitement and fascination in meeting a truly unique being, one who is filled with unique dreams, hopes and fears. Each individual carries a complete universe within them- a complete universe of experience and worlds that we ourselves cannot even imagine. Here there is truly a deep mystery in the individual, and a true interest in the uniqueness in others can lead to self-less love of others. Of course we meet individuals with whom we immediately feel strong antipathy, a strong dislike towards every part of their character and all his/her faults seem to grow as we watch. How is it possible to overcome our natural antipathy towards others when we must place our trust and faith in them for spiritual leadership? The truth is of course that more often than not we actually recognize something of our own weaknesses in others which we disdain. It is always easier to focus on a weakness that appears in someone else rather than in our own character. But simply such knowledge is not enough for us to overcome such antipathy. And now we move closer to the source of power in Love. I do not feel at all adequate to express this, but there is a certain power in boldness and I hope my honest and incomplete attempt will be met with understanding. We must consciously learn to love others, and it is something that is strongly intertwined with all aspects of our being. And this is of course a continual process of transformation and development.
Our history records only one Being who completely transformed Himself, down to the very substance of His physical body, which never dissolved back to dust. Here we are confronted with the incredible mystery of Christ. I believe that there is a deep connection with the Christ and our ability to freely love others. The experience of His love for our own being, for all our weaknesses and faults, lights up within us a power and boldness for us to transform ourselves and work in free love for all humanity.

Organic Leadership
During the recent Australian Youth Conference "Finding Our Way," the organizers experienced what could be described as "organic-group leadership". This was an incredible process by which the problem at hand was not solved by any one individual, but through a creative process, often involving conflicting opinions that drew from the talents of all individuals. One example occurred when the organizers were discussing the opening ceremony. There were a number of different ideas, often opposing, and the challenge was for the group to find the way to a creative solution. Compromise is associated with two ideas being weakened or compromised in order to accommodate differing opinions. Organic leadership works differently. Firstly it is based upon the understanding that a single individual cannot be as creative as a group. Secondly, it is based upon a trust in working together and a belief that the group will find the most beautiful and complete solution that no individual could have him/herself ever envisioned alone. There must be an acceptance that one's own ideas and visions are never complete!!! Time and time again during the preparation and during the conference itself we experienced a truly creative process at work. The power of this process was in the struggle each of us had in both presenting our ideas and learning to see the value in the contributions from others. Creative powers only truly blossom when an initiative takes a life of its own and the will of the individual is directed by a conscious experience found in the life and weaving of the initiative itself. This became truly magical to experience, because the outcome of our struggles completely surpassed our own individual expectations. The initiative developed a creative power of its own and drew upon the talents and gifts of all those who selflessly contributed.
Our greatest dreams and worst fears are often the one and the same thing. It is of vital importance that we learn to trust one another and place a strong faith in each others' love, abilities and powers. The first step towards this is to trust ourselves, not to be ashamed of our weaknesses, and to let our fears and dreams shine forth amongst others. Help will come to our aid if we are bold and fearless. There are tremendous opportunities for us all to work together and create something beautiful that is truly everlasting.