We tell you all the time about Love. It is not possible to come to God without having learnt to love His Creation.
Love is altruism, giving oneself away.
True Love can not be egocentric. Love as compassion, tenderness, patience, readiness for self-sacrifice and so forth is the basis of ethics. And ethical component is the foundation, pivot of the growing spiritual person. Not only spiritual leaders can help us learn to love, not only other people but simple plants as well if we would like to study. Plants are live, feeling beings, capable even of emotional reacting.