Spiritual Partnership

Gary Zukav defines a spiritual partnership as “a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth.” This means that one or more people enter into a spiritual partnership knowing that they cannot grow for the other and that the partnership only continues as long as all partners are committed to their own spiritual growth. Should one person in the partnership choose not to continue committing to their spiritual growth, the partnership dissolves, it has served its purpose for your spiritual growth in the time it lasted and it is now time to move on.

Zukav describes the loving parts of our personality as experiences such as joy, love and peace that are expressions of your soul. He defines frightened parts of your personality as emotions such as anger, fear and resentment. These frightened parts of your personality are the reason your soul is experiencing this lifetime in the Earth School, to recognize and heal them, to live more from the loving parts of your personality. Authentic power is created consciously, from choosing to act with joy and love instead of anger or fear. External power is how humans have lived until now, this is based on the (perceived) need to manipulate and control to be successful or secure. Your spiritual partners can help you assess if you are creating authentic power, but they cannot create it for you.

Zukav gives four guidelines for practising spiritual partnerships, Commitment, Courage, Compassion and Conscious Communication and Actions. 

Commitment
When you begin a spiritual partnership, either with another person or with yourself, the greatest commitment you make is to your spiritual growth. Everyone is committed to something, even if they are not aware of this. Often, people are unable to look at themselves impersonally and so cannot see what it is they are committed to. Some people might believe they are committed to a healthy goal, but cannot see the commitment to external power underneath. Some people are aware they are committed to pursuing external power but are unwilling or unsure how to change this. The first step is to become aware. A common commitment is to love or fear and these are mutually exclusive. Being committed to your spiritual growth means focusing on what you can learn about yourself in every moment. Every event is an opportunity to learn. You can pay attention to what emotions you are experiencing and what physical or physiological sensations align with each emotion. At the same time, becoming aware of your thoughts will help you assess other layers of communication within you that you can learn from. Your intention is also important. Why are you doing what you are doing? Is it out of love or fear? 

In our community, we are committed to our spiritual growth. With our spiritual partners, we strive to become more conscious and aware by discussing all aspects of successes and challenges, from emotions, intentions, levels of awareness and the situation itself. These help to identify the frightened parts of our personality so we can heal them.

Courage
Courage is not to do something reckless or “brave” to prove yourself, to others or yourself. To be courageous is to act in integrity with the loving parts of your personality and move beyond the limitations of the frightened parts of your personality. This helps you to heal the frightened parts of your personality. It takes courage to own your actions, to take responsibility for them and not blame anyone else. This is one of the central ways to create authentic power. Practising integrity takes courage, this means not giving into the frightened parts of your personality and choosing to act from the loving parts of your personality instead. This leads in to saying or doing what is most difficult. It isn’t always easy to act from the loving parts of your personality but doing so allows you to be aware of your intention and share what needs to be shared. 

We practise courage by getting out of our comfort zones, physically, mentally and emotionally. Helping us identify the frightened parts of our personality and discussing them with our spiritual partners creates a framework for our spiritual growth.

Compassion
Compassion is to see yourself and others as equal souls who sometimes have frightened parts of their personalities active. This shift, of seeing everyone as equals who can be angry, fearful or resentful, but are truly loving, peaceful and joyful is a huge paradigm shift that removes judgment from yourself and others. Compassion is not sympathy or pity, it is to view the other person as an equal and nonjudgmentally assess what is the right course of action in the moment. Compassion is to be aware and fully present. Compassion is to see the frightened parts of another and care enough to help them heal, if they are ready to. Compassion isn’t exclusive, you must be compassionate with everyone (including yourself) to be compassionate with one person. The first step to becoming compassionate is to change your perspective from fearful to loving, how can you remove judgment from the actions of another person or yourself? This naturally leads in to removing distance – physical or emotional – that you feel stops you from being compassionate with another. What repels or disgusts you in another is only a reflection of what you do not like in yourself (whether you can admit this or not), seeing how you do this yourself releases distance and creates equality. Being present while others speak is to listen actively, to understand them, not just to wait until it is your turn to share your thoughts. 

We practice compassion by knowing that we are all equals on our journey of spiritual growth. Removing judgment that we feel for ourselves or each other is a way to increase compassion. We can use interactions with others to reflect on our own intentions and judgments and how we can create compassionate intentions that lead to the creation of authentic power.

Conscious Communications and Actions
This is striving to make all of your communications and actions conscious and loving. Creating authentic power is a holistic concept that encompasses every event of your life, no matter how seemingly large or insignificant. To commit to creating authentic power, you have to submerge yourself in it. When you have the intention to create authentic power, you will be drawn towards creating it with other people who have the same intention by the Law of Attraction. Authentic power requires you to value the experiences, well-being and lives of others equally to you own. To create authentic power is to make all interactions loving because this is the journey toward wholeness and the refusal to be
controlled by anger, fear or resentment. Consulting your intuition is a way to assess what you should do and to help you determine if your intentions are loving or fearful. Choosing your intention before speaking or acting is to act consciously, having assessed the consequences and choosing to act from love. This is to act from the healthiest part of your personality. If you are deep in a frightened part of your personality, the healthiest part you can access might simply be to stop what you are doing. Speaking personally and specifically allows you to take full responsibility, as you own what you are saying and reduces the chance of misunderstandings with other people. Lastly, releasing attachment from the outcome removes a need to please, control or perform because the outcome is the consequence of everyone’s intentions. This is also where you pay attention to what you learn about yourself from the outcome and the process as a whole. 

In our community we practise acting consciously by assessing our own intentions and actions and holding our spiritual partners accountable if we notice they are acting unconsciously, now they can choose to act consciously.

These four Spiritual Partnership Guidelines can be practised within our community in every interaction to ensure we are keeping our own commitment to spiritual growth, acting courageously and compassionately and being conscious in our communication. With our spiritual partners, we make an ongoing commitment to our spiritual growth and consciousness. How can you practise these guidelines, with people who are your spiritual partners, and with those who are not?