Through the Gates of Greatness: Liberation From Limitation

By Guy Finley, featured in the Summer of Peace

To begin with, and to set the stage for our study, 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 - groups that 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 it 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 shortly, 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. Which brings us to several questions: What is the nature of the Best in us? Where is this fearless nature to be found? What purpose does it fulfill in our lives? Let's answer these questions one by one to help us begin to realize this still secret and fearless part of ourselves.

First, the Best in us is that yet-to-be-awakened aspect of ourselves, of our Higher Consciousness, that doesn't "think" about whether or not to act in the face of fear, but that knows, under any and all conditions, that it is impossible for it to fail. And because of this Native Knowing our Higher Self lives without the usual limitations that fear always imposes.

What is the nature of the Best in us? Let's see. Whoever we are, regardless of our respective circumstances, the Best in us is our individual capacity to outgrow not just the limiting aspects of our own character, but to grow beyond even the best parts of ourselves already once transformed. In other words the Best in us is a secret part of us with an unlimited potential to transcend itself. It is a self-verifiable fact that, once seen, goes to prove the existence of Infinite Compassionate Intelligence, call this Greater Consciousness what you will. With this in mind we arrive at our next question: Where does this Leader Within us, the Best of us, dwell?

This fearless nature has its home within the invisible ground of our being, yet this interior ground is not a static quality. It is more like a kind of invisible foundry - a spiritually timeless place where who we are to be is forever being forged between the make-up of our present understanding and the ever-unfolding nature of the present moment that this understanding encounters. It is the choices we make in these moments that decide our individual destiny and that determine whether we grow into the Best in us or not, for within each such moment one of two very distinct natures may appear in us and preside over us. Which brings us to a tale of two natures in one.

There exists one nature in us that knows itself only by what it has been. It defines what is possible for it to do in the present only by consulting what it has done in the past. This self is the essence of mediocrity. It always has multiple reasons why its best can never be good enough, so that by its logic there is but one conclusion and that is, "Why bother to try?"

And then - there is another, Higher Nature within us that does not define itself by anything apart from its wish to explore and realize its own infinite possibilities. This nature is the Best in us; it is the Leader Within. Our task, if we would live without limits, is its awakening.

Before we look into what it will take for us to awaken to what is the Best in us, we need to better understand the parts of ourselves that run into one limit after another, as well as why we habitually accept this unwanted sense of self-restriction that attends their presence in our consciousness. Let's see what we can discover.

When we see something looming ahead of us that looks too hard to handle, what is it at work within us that feels like it has reached the "end" of what it is capable of doing? What is it that reaches this closed-in conclusion? Here is the surprising answer: The limit of this captive self is the length of the leash of what it knows. This means, the boundary of its reality is the extent of what it has been through, so that the active circumference of its level of consciousness is restricted to the content of its past experience. And this explains why any condition that beckons it to go beyond this psychological point is viewed as either being unattainable or even as a danger.

For this nature it could be as simple as wanting to, but being unable to, say (to another) what one wishes to say for fear of being misunderstood, as once occurred (painfully) in an earlier relationship. Maybe we wish to study some new discipline, but won't attempt it because "stupid" people - as we may have been called in days gone by - cannot possibly succeed at such tasks.

These findings should allow us to see that at least one of the pillars at the base of our limitations - if not the whole foundation itself - is some form of fear. Which brings us to this important note: We never meet a fear itself. Our fears themselves always remain invisible to us. Instead we meet fear's proxy, its representative on earth! And what is the nature of this proxy? Anything that we name as being our limitation in life. And we should be able to easily recognize these stand-ins, especially since they are always telling us: "Danger ahead. Stop here! Don't go any farther. You can't possibly succeed at that!"

In other words, just before the gate of what could be the realization of a whole new Greatness - right when we have the opportunity to team up with the Best in us - we run into some sort of barrier - what we commonly accept as our "limit." But what exactly are these limits? What is their real nature? Once we apprehend this fact, we are on our way to real self-freedom.

With these thoughts in mind here is a Key Lesson in two parts: First, these limitations that we run into in our lives are little other than temporary boundary lines established in our consciousness - psychological lines that feel like permanent barriers to us because of the fear that washes through us should we even consider attempting to cross them.

The second and equally important part of this Key Lesson is that in these same moments - when we are certain of our inability to go any farther - our halted experience is not due to any exterior condition we may see before us, regardless of how real it may seem. What holds us here is that we have been made captives of our own fearful feelings . . . and nothing else!

Our hopes rest in our ability to understand the secret nature of this fear, because as we awaken to its actual make-up, we learn at the same time how to walk through our limitations. Here is what we know so far: Fear makes its unwanted appearance in us whenever life asks us for an answer that we don't have, or that we don't think we can find. In other words, when we don't know what we need (and want) to know in the moment of challenge, our fearful perception of the moment before us tells us that we are not up to the task and will, most likely, find ourselves overcome by it.

But what is it, really, that we see before us in such testing moments? We have reached a pivotal point in this study so our extra attention is required to consider the next few insights. That barrier we see before us, regardless of how real and sensible it seems to be, is a limit set by a lower order of self within us. All such limits are the natural expression of an unconscious, thought-based nature that cannot see beyond the content of its own stored experiences. For this level of self there is nothing beyond its own set of conditioned thoughts by which it is defined - and through which it defines (for us!) what is possible in life and what is not!

Of itself, by itself, this level of our nature will not enter, cannot travel, beyond what is unfamiliar and unknown to it because it unconsciously realizes that it cannot exist as it has been in any place where it has never been before.

If you have ever read the Old Testament, the above truth tells of an interior principle reflected in the story of Moses, who led the journey out of Egypt, but who, himself, could not cross over into the Promised Land. What stopped him? The mental level cannot pass through the spiritual Gates of Greatness. It must help make the journey in time, but it cannot enter the Ever-New Now.

With these thoughts in mind we come to the last of the questions with which our study began: What is the purpose of awakening the Best part of ourselves? It is to help us realize that once we understand how to call upon this Presence within us to show us the Way, there exists no time or place beyond which we cannot go. How do we come to this new and liberating understanding?

In the face of any limitation, standing before what frightens us, we must come awake and remember the Best in us by recollecting and then embracing the will of this Living Light. Then, from within this higher awareness, we must choose what we know is the fearless Truth of ourselves as opposed to allowing the little will of the fear-filled self to tell us what is true about the moment and ourselves.

Here is what such conscious actions make possible: The Best in us knows that when we will act as though it is impossible to fail, it will be.

This does not mean that we will not feel fear. Do not make this mistake. It means that standing there, in these moments, we understand that these fears and doubts coursing through us - that darken the way ahead - do not belong to us. These negative and limiting psychological forces are the vestigial visions of a self that we must no longer mistake as being our own.

There are two kinds of people in this world whose quality of life, as it is for all of us, is determined by their outlook. There are those who feel chained to life by their own unrelenting doubts, and then there are those who doubt that such chains exist at all. The first group of people are held hopeless captives of vague fears that they may lose something of value should they strive for freedom and fail, while the second group know that the only antidote to such clinging doubts is through conscious deeds!The final Key Lesson in our study is a summary of not only all that serves to awaken the Best in us, but that describes the one action that leads us to its Permanent and Impenetrable Shelter: If we would but dare to attempt those things that frighten us, and persist upon this course for only a short while, we would soon discover that our efforts themselves have cleansed and cured us of our fear.

Guy Finley is the best-selling author of more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet and the Huffington Post.  

Guy Finley - FREE 8-hr Course on 8 MP3 Downloads: Seven Steps to Oneness: Journey to a Whole New Life by best-selling author Guy Finley. When all is said and done, there is only one freedom that cannot be diminished, and only one place where its abiding peace can be found: All that your heart longs for lives within your True Self. To learn more, click here.