What an exhilarating six days of Orientation we have just experienced! The new Fall intake for year one of Transcendent Leadership overflowed aplenty with the joy of learning, expanding, and growing. What a joy to align with like-minded lovers of Spirit!
We lucky students received abundant encouragement from a great team of loving facilitators. These are “the faculty,” who introduced us to the wonderous world of leadership, scholarship, and creative enquiry. A rich offering indeed. This is leadership in its broadest sense. One that includes an expanded awareness of Being to inspire the wonders of leading from the heart. Following J-R’s loving example, we are each encouraged to lead our lives from inspired Being that flows from self-leadership.
John Morton shared with us that Transcendent Leadership is like ascending to the peak of the mountain. So why not come and join us on this profound and joyfully loving journey?
–Dawne Domah, DSS, Ph.D., and TL Master’s student
In exploring what is meant by Transcendent Leadership, it is important to me to state that first and foremost leadership is both an inner and outer quality. Kind of like belly-buttons. We freshly-minted students invite you to consider that the most important aspect of leadership is our relationship to the divine within, allowing all else to follow. In that regard, perhaps students of the inward path are already students of Transcendent Leadership.
The term Transcendent Leadership certainly evokes different thoughts and images for each of us. Last week, a group of joyful, eager seekers met for 6 days in Santa Monica (with some online) to consider just what those thoughts and images are for us. We are following the lead of the initial cohort who kicked off the TL program one year ago. The first cohort (class) had full enrollment at twenty students. We still have some spaces in our cohort and we invite the greater community to fill out our roster, or start preparing to join us next year!. We are here to tell you why.
First off, we want you to know that we had a wonderful time! (Dictionary definition of ‘wonderful’ = marvelous.)
We spent our days exploring our three Fall class topics, starting with “Awareness, Attunement, Alignment” presented by our Dean, Joanie Clingan, Ph.D. and Karen Faherty, Ph.D. I don’t know about you, but I could spend the rest of my days on that subject alone. We pressed on to our next class, entitled “Loving: The Master Key to Transcendent Leadership.” Really? A class totally focused on the essence of the Traveler’s teachings?! That one’s offered by Linda Whitaker, Ph.D. and Lili Goodman Freitas, Ph.D. And then, reeling from our great good fortune, we staggered into our final class for the semester: “Multidimensional Consciousness!” Hmm, we knew we’d heard about that somewhere before. From the syllabus: “The purpose of this course is to fuel the fire of multidimensional consciousness.” ‘nuff said. Facilitated by Jeffrey Morgan, J.D. and David Whitaker, MFA. A word about these two young men: if they continue to withstand the test of time, which us old folks must acknowledge is life’s major task, then we are confident our church and its teachings will thrive into the future. The clarity of their purpose and dedication to its vision is remarkable. Another TL faculty member, Gregory Stebbins, Ed.D. (nick-named by us ‘The Silent One’ and acknowledged by Joanie as the TL Program’s ‘rock’) delivered a stellar piece on Transcendent Leadership that helped us objectify our process of discovery.
For icing on the cake, David Allen of “Getting Things Done” fame shared an hour or so with us by Zoom from the Netherlands answering our questions and describing how his “art of stress-free productivity” can support us in our multidimensional experience on this planet. Paul Kaye, MSIA’s president, brilliantly spoke about the Stoics and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius’s “Musings” where the emperor recommends finding a model to follow. Paul spoke of the importance of delineating one’s values and how adhering to those defines character.
The great wonder, the marvelous aspect of this course, is that we approach this material from both spiritual and scholarly points of view. Scholarly simply means, according to our understanding now (and Lord knows this may change; that’s why we have teachers, after all) we will investigate far and wide various meanings underlying each of these areas. Think of the vast storehouse of writings on awareness or loving, for example. And most importantly, scholarly means we consider these ideas and add our voices into the conversation! In Transcendent Leadership, we are invited to compare and contrast different points of view, to offer our own, and to reference John-Roger’s writings throughout. In effect we are building a data base on the subject matter of MSIA’s teachings that references all the wonderful qualities of practical spirituality that J-R teaches.
The spirit of this class is the joy of immersing ourselves in our personal spiritual development and discovering its correlation to the greater world. This is done through a beautiful balance of inner inquiry and attunement as well as through reading and research. The master’s degree program is fully vetted through an accomplished faculty and at the same time has the oversight and blessing of the Traveler and Spiritual Director of PTS, John Morton. One of several research specialists on the faculty, Andrée Leighton, Ph.D. delivered such an enthusiastic description of scholarly goodness and inquiry that many of us were moved to delve deeply into writing and inquiry, well beyond what the program requires. Having said that, this program at its core seems to be about our spiritual inner awareness. The amount of reading, writing, and activities each of us chooses is up to us, and is always in support of our spiritual attunement. We expect to have great fun on this adventure.
Come join us if you are ready to go to the summit and then go higher! Act with speed since the Fall classes (self-paced, of course) began this week!
–Andrew Millar, DC, and TL Master’s student
PTS’s Transcendent Leadership Program is a two-year program that explores what it means to lead a life of Soul Transcendence. Faculty are still accepting applications for a new class that began on August 26. You can participate in the program from wherever you live, with a 5-day “residency” in Santa Monica every semester (six months). Students and faculty come together in person at these residencies, where we are blessed with intimate time with our Beloved Traveler, John Morton, as well as other exceptional guest speakers who demonstrate leading a life of Soul Transcendence. Please go here to learn more or to begin your application and join us on this transcendent adventure transcendentleader.org
