“The pulpit is ever the earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world.”

– Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

The pulpit, or the stage, as we understand it to be today, is the one non-negotiable and responsible body for all happenings everywhere at all times under its authority or overseeing. These pulpits are on every level of the world and civilization, of countries, of states, districts, societies, houses and families, and down to the individual over his own mind.

It is this leader from the pulpit that gives the body beholding it an eye, a vision to look at things the way they are supposed to look at them. Some may turn their heads away when confronted by the majesty of the pulpit, others may look at it admiringly and think it god-like, revealing; while the ministers and board of the leader plot from behind and look askance at them, in the end it is the man on the stand that has all eyes pinned on him, and he, too, who feeds and caresses these eyes with promises of a better future.

The different ways in which we interpret the role of the pulpit shape the nature of the pulpit itself. If the sole job of the pulpit is service, and we see it to be so, then being the head is a duty and responsibility; a defeat in a way, a sacrifice; something unwanted, even repulsive. If we have accepted, consciously or unconsciously, that the pulpit is separate from us, and we have no influence on it and it none on us, then the pulpit becomes a luxury, a desire, a competition, even a need in those who crave the fulfilment of their pleasures. The pulpit is an untamed animal.

But if we altogether forget the role of it, and are not only indifferent but also demeaning to it, and make as many leaders of the State as homes and people, then there no longer is an oratory or pedestal that we are looking up to. We, in stead of being the pulpits of our minds, start being its misusers. We become disheveled, selfish, and degrade not only every other contender for power but also ourselves in the process, and society is a fugazi, a chaos, the death of order. It is when we forget that we are only part of a machine, and not the machine itself, that we lead ourselves to ruin.

There are a few primary indicators for the person who can be a leader. There is a checklist for them to be able to obtain and maintain this position, in which they not only have a following, but a defined authority and say over not only the choices, but the fate of the following to some extent. The first of which is, that the leader, though the monitor and caretaker of the body under him, is also monitored by the body, for he is also taken care of by it. The man on the pulpit must let go of the pulpit in his mind, and see the human as only a human, and judge them accordingly. Every other condition is obsolete if this is unchecked.

The leader is a human acting with superhuman authority, and though he delude not himself to be God, he must establish himself, externally, upon a rank higher than the common man. He should remain only a man in his head, but to the onlooker there must be an immediate distinction between a man, and a man on the pulpit.

So, contrary to the leader’s own mind, the man standing on the pulpit must understand the value of the chair that he sits on. If not for himself, then he should let go of the cynicisms and doubts he has of his own ego for the pulpit and the people that trusted him with it. His judgement, although human and rational, must be delivered not only as a say, but as a command, an order from the upper hand. This is not only a characteristic but also a right of the pulpit, and the one who claims the crown must also possess a head that it fits on.

The mass under the leader, the body under the mind, the viziers adjacent, all have different goals, desires, and wants of their own. It is important that the pulpit announces the recognition of these goals, and the suppression of those wants or desires that are harmful and deterrent to the fraternity of the body of people as a whole. The conscience of the mass must be in line with the conscience of the leader, not the other way around. The mass is a chaos and juggling of minds. The leader has to arrange all the disruption and reconcile it in a single mind.

The pulpit is such that a sentence spoken from it is multiplied into whole volumes of books among the masses. A finger wagged to the left or to the right, permutates into many hands moving tirelessly for hours below. A whisper lent an ear to to the side echoes unexhausted gossip among all men and women alike. The leader needs to understand this, and study himself, and conduct himself so that the right people aren’t forced, at any given point, to do the wrong thing.

Above all the leader must make everyone recognize within themselves a leader of what is immediately under their control, and ultimately every leader is under the pulpit, and the pulpit under the whole of the mass. Everyone walking on the street must have an eye to look at and a hand to pick the trash themselves and put it in the bin. Everyone should look at themselves in the mirror in the morning and know that they are in control of the body that they look at. Under a good leader, no one is unseen or unheard of. Every person is a sovereign that holds the power and the right to attend to themselves.

On the individual level, the person must be able to suppress thoughts, desires, impulses, actions, reactions, cravings, words, and fists. The mind, though a part of the body, must limit the body and strangle it by its command. The body, in surrendering to it, recognizes over time that the mind depends on it, and would do otherwise if it didn’t. And so is the leader and the people, interdependent, sovereign and yet fused, inseparable; thinking and also feeling, feeling but not overindulging. A good society knows only a good leader, for its rotting would change not the people, but the pulpit first.