Using Relationships to Grow

“If children were raised in a higher consciousness level, this world would transform tremendously and magnificently. That is bringing in a full dimensionality to it. You are your own advocate. Raise yourself no matter how you were raised.” – John Morton

This article comes from a sharing John had in March 2021 with the Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy Doctorate of Spiritual Science Year 2 and Year 5 classes.

Clarifying and processing relationships is something we are all involved with. We are in a relationship with ourself that never stops, including whatever goes on physically. We are born into the world; we die and deal with whatever is in between. Whatever is before or after all of that is included in relationship.

I encourage people to consider there is a relationship to a capitalized Self, like Big Self, High Self and God Self. Then you are using relationships to grow, and that is ongoing. You are developing. We are all developing at the Soul level. It’s non-stop. The Soul knows how to use everything that happens – the best, the worst and anything else.

Having that awareness is valuable. Trust that whatever you are going through with agreements, disagreements and surprises is an opportunity to be in relationship with yourself. You work it out for yourself. This is really important. The way I would say it for all of us is you need to be your own advocate. You need to stand up for yourself because who else is going to be there?

You might say, “I had my parents.” Dads and moms can also be put-down or disruptor artists. They may do terrible, awful things and the records show it. It can be perfect, but it doesn’t always play out that way. Let that go. Be beautiful, magnificent, and majestic.

Some parents will do great and good things for their children they don’t do for themselves or anybody else. There is something really powerful in that relationship. I’ve said many times that parenting is the most important job in the world. What does that mean? You are raising God’s child. It’s like, “Tag, you’re it.” The parent has the responsibility. It doesn’t always work out in a neat, clean package. Parents are sometimes removed because God does that too. Or they had no business becoming a parent other than providing a sperm or ovum. Otherwise, they are not very qualified. They’re lousy at it.

If children were raised in a higher consciousness level, this world would transform tremendously and magnificently. That is bringing in a full dimensionality to it. You are your own advocate. Raise yourself no matter how you were raised. Whatever influence that was, raise yourself. Raise yourself up so you are loyal to yourself at the highest level. The best loyalty is to your Soul.

We practice that in MSIA and call it out directly. How do you do that? It is not necessarily loyalty to your feelings, attractions, habits or all those kinds of things that people do. Those can be things that aren’t really important at the level of Soul. They can be very disturbing to the Soul. Unnecessarily disturbing, like pain and suffering. We’re all learning that.

Be truthful. The worst deception is self-deception. Really be there with what is true. Go to the level of your heart. If you realize, in your heart, “I love this person,” it’s over. Everybody else in the world might go, “I don’t get it. There should be a law against this. Those two should not be together.” But it doesn’t matter if you love somebody. That’s it. It’s over. I’m talking about you really giving it all like there are no holds. It’s true love. You could say, “That is very vulnerable. What about my own love?”

You don’t have to stop loving yourself to love somebody completely. The best way to do that is to love yourself so completely that you are also loving them completely. How can you do that with every single person in the world? If you tried to meet every single person, a lot of them would die before you had the chance. You wouldn’t get the opportunity.

Practically, it does become very personal at times. It can be an intimacy where there is only one person to whom you give that intimacy, but it’s on the level of God. That is how I see the opportunity. You would love this person the way you would love God. God is not jealous or envious about this. If anything, God is in celebration.

If you have the kind of loving that becomes conditional, I don’t even call that loving. I just call it, “conditional consciousness”. You pull back the loving and then do the conditions as your way of expressing or relating to your life. I don’t call that unconditional. It’s not loving as soon as it becomes conditional. The unconditional loving is where I just love, and I’m not trying to figure out what’s in it for me. If I say, “You have to do unto me what I just did unto you or else,” that is not loving. Love freely and openly.

Be your own advocate. You are the one who would know what is true for you. Every person has that responsibility, and it can be different. That is one of the things that makes a relationship fantastic. Our differences are so amazingly great! Or they can be awful, terrible differences. Like if you say, “I don’t want to do that,” and they say, “Well I do.” How do you sort that out?

Where are we going with this? Are we going to stay in the loving? Or are we going to get all caught up in our differences? If you say, “I somehow lost track of the loving,” remind yourself that you are the one that lost track. They didn’t do it to you. I don’t care what they did. It’s your loving. 100% your loving. If you lose it, if it goes down, if it’s in suffering, that is something you are doing. You can still take care of yourself. Be your advocate. Don’t let anybody hurt you. That’s that. Don’t allow that, and don’t hurt yourself.

Sometimes we slip up, particularly in the things we say rather than do. There is probably much more mental and emotional damage than what people physically do to each other. I’m not talking about extreme violence and murdering people. That’s way, way too far. The damage I’ve observed with people from what has been said and done to them psychically is often worse in my view. People have been physically really hurt, violated tremendously, but psychically is where it can be the most difficult.

Be your own advocate. Say, “Regardless of what they did to me, I rise up. I redeem, heal, clear, and restore myself. They can’t take that from me. That is in me.” There is a truth there. You can play at a very high level in relationship because you trust yourself and don’t allow yourself to be psychically or physically damaged. Those are violations.

What do we do when we do that kind of thing? Work it out. Forgive it. How many times do I have to forgive? One more time than you judge. There it is. But that doesn’t mean you have to sign on for another round of getting the hell beat out of you. Call that off. You can say, “That’s over. I’m going elsewhere. Where? I don’t know. Somewhere away from you.” That is self-advocacy.

If you do that out of punishment, like “I’m just trying to hurt you and bother you”, you will get karma for that. That’s not the way to do it. Instead, it’s “I’m leaving to take care of myself. I have some attachment here, so it’s going to hurt. I’m going to feel something like a wound or a loss because I had hoped, wished and wanted something far different.” Then take care of yourself. Do what you have to do.

I’m going to love you because that is who I am. I’m going to love you through this and past this. There is something God does which is released in the blessings because they’ve been tied up in the karma and what the karma wouldn’t allow. The karma has to be balanced. There is a law there. But grace would say, “Hey, let’s just clear this. Let that go. It’s back there. Let’s live here.

That is a relationship that can go high and higher without limit. I’m going to love you no matter what. That is who I am. But if your loving is going to be about hurting me, that’s not loving. I’m going to call you on that. I am not going to let you do that.

At some point, you might say, “I am going somewhere else now. Being around you seems to be enticing you to hurt me. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want you to have that karma for hurting me. I’m one of God’s beloved. You get some straightforward karma when you try to hurt me.” There is a truth in there. You are helping them by not letting them hurt you because they get karma for that. You have to go out of range where they can’t hurt you.

Maybe the relationship had romance and potential in it. But what is the reality? Was it working? No, because you got more and more miserable. Take a break if nothing else. Get back to your sweetness, tenderness and all the qualities of loving. If you can’t do that, you might say, “Look, I’m not handling this well. I’m getting sick and going insane. It’s not working for me. I need to advocate for myself to get clear of this.” That is wisdom.

If you are not handling it well, getting sick, disturbed and suffering, is that a marriage made in heaven that God blesses in every moment? There is something off there. Not that it cannot be restored. But at least take a break, perhaps a separation. If we had more room for that, not allowing the negativity, disturbance, or violation to take hold, then every relationship would be sacred. It allows for us to slip and be human.

Then what do we do? We come into the grace of it, let it go and forgive it. That is not a license to say, “Okay, you forgave me, so I can do it again, right? I’m going to beat the hell out of you all over because you forgave me. Then the next time I beat you, you have to forgive me because you are such a holy, pure, beloved being.” No. Even though you may have karma, you can take a break from it.

Look for grace in your life. You are not going to get the hell beat out of you everywhere you go because that’s your karma. Look for somebody who loves you past that. Start with yourself. Love yourself past that. Look for somebody that doesn’t want to take it out on you because of whatever karma you brought into the relationship.

I am an advocate for upfront disclosure. Like on the first date, in the first ten minutes you say, “Here are all the worst things about me.” Be honest and open and maybe you’ll find someone that goes, “That’s kind of adorable that you would tell me about all that upfront.”

It is possible that people see your scars as beauty marks. They really do. Other people may see them as ugly. But some people see what you’ve endured, what you’ve been able to take on in your life and how you keep ticking and wanting to be a loving human being. They know what the scars are from. They have a true compassion for what people have been through. They want to be kind and tender with you. They are seeing, “This is a match made in heaven.” Someone adores where you came from and that you are not there anymore.

You are here and now, blessed in this beautiful relationship, first and always with the Beloved in your heart.

Baruch Bashan

Blessing for Standing in Truth

Father, Mother, God, we ask for Your Light.

If there’s a place in your heart
where truth has been locked away and hardened,
go to that place now.

Just go inside and find that place
where you have locked the truth away,
where it’s been hardened by your experience of life.

You might see yourself standing inside at a place
that looks very much like a rock,
or it could look like a cave that’s closed off.

You’re going to open this truth.
And you open it by your presence, by being who you are.

As you stand before this rock of truth,
you begin hearing all the things you’ve done or said
that misrepresented who you are.
It’s as though the rock just starts casting
bits and pieces of itself towards you.
But you cannot be hurt for you are standing in the Light.
And the Light dissolves all the particles
and all the bits and pieces of rock.

As you stand more brightly in your truth, that rock gets hot.
All you have to do is be yourself.
Just stand in your presence.
Your light is brilliant and becomes brighter
and that rock gets hotter so that it’s red hot.
It just starts changing colors with the Light pouring in.
It becomes white hot, and then it’s gone.

What you stand in is your beauty and the magnificence of who you are.
That’s where you are at this moment.
You also realize that from this day forward,
you can walk in the truth of your being.

As you walk in truth, you walk with God.

Baruch Bashan