John-Roger, circa 1981.
"Spirituality is a very simple way of life. It is not complex at all. The simplicity of spiritual consciousness makes it very easy to go back to the primordial consciousness of Spirit and just allow it to be. The complexity is the expectation we place on it and the levels of illusion that we project into it." - John-RogerThis article by John-Roger was first published in the Movement Newspaper, 1973.
Many people deal in the levels of false expectation. Many people, when they meet me for the first time, say, “I expected you to be a man about fifty or sixty years old, with long hair and a beard — but you’re not that at all.” And I say, “You’re right.” And it’s almost like they think I should defend the fact that I do not fit their expectation, that I should soothe their false expectation.
When a person has a false expectation, there is nothing you can do for him. He has to handle it himself. If you try to make amends and bridge the gap between his false expectation and the reality of what is, you’ll find yourself getting caught in something that won’t be pleasant for you. Let me give you an example: If you go to a movie and you like the movie, you may tell your friends about it and tell them how good it is.
Then they go to see the movie, and their expectation level is so high that the movie is a flop for them. So they come back to you and say, “Are you the one who recommended that movie?” And you say, “Yes, right, didn’t you think it was great?” And they say, “No, we thought it was lousy.” You say, “But didn’t you like the part when…?” And you immediately start defending your opinion. They say, “No, we didn’t like that part either.” (You can always come back with, “Didn’t you like the part where you walked out?”)
If people are disappointed as a result of a false expectation, the feeling is theirs to take care of. If you talk about the Light and about MSIA, and they create illusions and then disappointments, you’re not bound to defend your position. You don’t have to defend anything, because they’re free to come and they’re free to go, and that’s the only level of honesty in which you can work. If you try to defend their illusions, can you see the problem you will have? You may have to come to the point where you sound rude by saying, “Suit yourself.” If they say, “Well, I’ll listen,” then you can say, “Great, then let’s go on.”
In other words, if they drop what they expect you to do and say, “Go ahead and do what you can do,” then you are free to relate to them. And if they lift in consciousness, then you both can be joyful. If they don’t lift, you are both clear in consciousness. Either way, you’re in pretty good territory if you do not try to defend their levels of expectation.
If you want to have a happy time, then use this as a challenge: If someone says, “Oh, I thought that should have been better than it was,” just say, “That’s an interesting point of view,” and go on about your business. If you feel you have to “sell” them, just go on about your business. People sell themselves. But you have to give them an opportunity to do that. All you do is present what you can do and what your particular service or idea or whatever can do for them if they use it the way it is designed to be used. If they use it another way and it doesn’t work, you have no responsibilities.
It’s best to stay clear, to stay free in your consciousness, to know where you are, what you’re doing, and what your approach is. Then, if they start taking off to something else, you can simply tell them, “Suit yourself.” And step away into your own direction. When you allow them the freedom to suit themselves, to go on with their direction, and when you make it clear that you’re going to continue working the way that you’re working, it becomes a great security for everyone. When you say, “I won’t allow you to interfere with what I’m doing, and I’m not going to interfere with what you’re doing,” you will find great respect coming to you — not necessarily admiration or glorification, but just respect.
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Spirituality is a very simple way of life. It is not complex at all. The simplicity of spiritual consciousness makes it very easy to go back to the primordial consciousness of Spirit and just allow it to be. The complexity is the expectation we place on it and the levels of illusion that we project into it. Because the spiritual form is so simple and pure, it’s malleable, and it can be molded into anything. It will allow itself to be molded into various levels of consciousness.
You can, in a very simple way, reach into the spiritual consciousness by just saying, “Here I am, Father — whatever…” and letting the Light and the Spirit just flow in; that’s the most simple way. It is also the most direct way and the most complete way. But it can also be the most frustrating way, because not too many humans are going to let go and let anything come in. They’re going to reach out and try to yank it in, or attempt to control and create all sorts of things and then force other people into their mold. And when they’ve got you in the mold and they think they’ve won, then you file for divorce or leave your job, because you don’t fit the mold.
On the mental level, you will often play all sorts of games, attempting to defend yourself and your position. You don’t have a vocabulary adequate enough to defend an illusion. It’s so much easier to say, “Okay, I did it wrong,” than to say, “But if the person down the street would have gotten up five minutes earlier and left for work fifteen minutes earlier…”
You parade the issue and defend your position to make yourself look good, until someone says, “Okay, you look fine,” but inside you’re still miserable because you’re not in a correctly balanced state mentally. I talk to people and I may suggest something to them, and immediately they go into a mental defense position like, “Don’t disturb my mind; I’ve got my mind made up, so don’t give me any new information that might disturb me. I’m settled.” You can do anything you want to with your mind. But if you’re busy defending your position, you really won’t be able to do anything with your mind. It’s okay if you feel that you need the defense level; use it until you can get past it. But don’t stay in that area.
SPIRITUAL ONENESS
As long as you try to separate yourself from other people, you will have difficulty. This does not mean that you have to reach out and join yourself to them. You’re already joined. That Oneness is already there; you don’t have to do anything, and that’s what’s so nice. But the difficulty comes when you try to separate yourself by saying, “Who needs you?,” and the voice inside says, “Me.” Then you think, “Well, I can hold out longer than she can.” So you back off, and then she backs off, and it’s miserable because you didn’t want her to back off; you wanted her to turn around and say, “Oh, I’m sorry,” and come forward and beg forgiveness. But she expected you to do the same thing, so you have a standoff. Nobody’s going to move.
You may say, “I don’t see you coming forward and saying that it was your fault.” And she says, “No, because it was really your fault.” And then more separation takes place. It’s much easier to say, “If you thought it was my fault, maybe you could show me how to correct it. The way you see it, what is it that I’m supposed to do?” That can become pretty interesting. But if you were really smart, you might say, “It was probably my fault, too,” and then you have probably corrected the imbalance. As soon as you can say, “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry if we’ve separated ourselves,” that is not reestablishing, but it does stop the separation. It stops the push that is attempting the separation; underneath it is still together.
Even though physically we incorporate different corporate bodies there is still a Oneness in the physical body. We are still connected together. You might wonder how this is so. You can walk into a room where somebody has a headache; you sit by him and pretty soon you start picking up the headache. You turn around and ask, “Do you have a headache?” He says, “Yes,” and you say, “I’ve got it, too.” There is a connection there, but it is a connection physically.
But the emotions are where we are really connected. It took me quite some time to realize it, but it was brought home to me very heavily one night when I saw a movie that showed the Indians being massacred — women and children and all. And to express their grief and pain, they threw dirt in the air. And I thought, “We don’t throw dirt in the air physically, but we do it in other ways.” And there is something about expressing the emotional hurt this way that is very real and right. There’s something about getting into the dirt where you can release the frustrations and start moving your body around.
But we’re not too smart these days. We might hit someone in the nose instead of going back to some of these old rituals that are universal, workable ideas. Getting down to the dirt level and throwing things around on that level releases the emotions without inflicting or hurting anyone else.
Sometimes when you think you’re not hurting somebody — when they’re being hard — you hit at them even harder to get in. But way too often, you’re in way too far and stomping way too hard, and the other person is doing everything he can to get out of it. He’s backing off so fast emotionally that he causes you even greater pain. When people do this to you, when they come toward you in emotional turmoil, just tell them, “I understand what’s happening. You’re in. I can feel what you’re going through. You don’t have to stomp any longer; I can feel it. You don’t have to yell. I can hear you. You’re in. Now let’s come into a calmness and solve the problem…”
It takes quite a bit of wisdom to tell a person, “You’re in on the level of my hurt. You’re in a level that’s going to hurt me, and I’m going to be shutting myself off to you. That means that I’m going to shut myself in; but lest I do that, I’m going to turn and give this expression to someone else.”
If you don’t let the emotions flow in some direction, you become locked in. If someone can’t understand you intellectually, you can find people that can, if you’re on a mental level. If you’re on an emotional level, you find those people that you can relate to well with on that level. You can flow into those levels where you can work and relate and grow.
Most of us have just about had our fill of separation and hurt; so we’re moving into the ultimate level of conscious spiritual awareness. We flow toward those people who are seeking the same thing — so we don’t lock ourselves in from the rest of the world. And we can then help each other in moving through the levels of hurt and despair and move into the joy of accomplishing. We start having the courage and the ability to very carefully speak up and tell other people what our areas of concern are and what our areas of concern are not.
SPIRITUAL LOVE
To be spiritual is not to be wishy-washy. Spiritual people are kind and they have hope and charity — which has sometimes been mistaken for weakness. Spiritual people are strong, because it takes great strength to break away from the people who would pull you into the muck and the mire of where they are. You may have to say, “I love you and I never thought I could exist without you, but I am now going to exist without you.” If they say, “There must be something terrible happening; you’re pulling away from me,” you can say, “Nothing is pulling me away from you; you are pushing me away from you.”
But you may come together and say, “We can walk together and share what we can share. If we can sit and talk about herbs as a common meeting ground, then that is the level on which we will share.” There may be special loves with whom we want to share on more levels. And we will move into a greater and greater union of Oneness with them, so that we enter into that love which is the greater spiritual consciousness. And we may become dynamos as we allow the greater energy of Spirit to be transformed down through our consciousnesses and out into the rest of the world, to all the other levels.
The Holy Spirit will use us when we clear ourselves to allow It to flow into our consciousnesses and out into the other levels. Many times when we’re not sure about our actions, we say, “for the highest good of all concerned,” and the Holy Spirit can then choose the level on which to flow with us that is clear. We then walk in a divine consciousness that says, “Whatever happens is okay.”
If you shake a person up, it is just possible that that is the level that has to be altered in him at this time, and you’re the one bringing in the Spirit that is going to alter him into a greater awareness and clear out that thing that has been blocking him. If something you hear or see shakes you, whether it’s physical, emotional or mental, that is then your area to look at, because it is blocking you from reaching yourself. Go at it with a great devotion and fervor and, if you will, be fanatical about it. Don’t give in until you can handle this thing in a neutral consciousness, not in just a capable or competent one — but where you have mastered it. Then it’s easy to master the second area and the third area, because they’re already in line to be mastered. But it can be really rough to master that first one.
THE PROMISED ONE
The truths are all universal. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.” That is really the most profound message we can give you. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God; the Kingdom of God is within. The Father resides in this heaven. You are that spiritual being that you have been waiting for. You are the Promised One. You know it. That’s why you have a difficult time reaching out there into the world to make things work. That’s why you have a difficult time reaching out to other people or teachers to make things work. You are the Promised One to yourself. You have to reach into yourself to make it work.
No matter what I do, I do, and it may not work for you. But what you do, you do, and no one can take it from you, no matter what their levels of expectation are, for or against you. This physical realm isn’t perfect. There is no one on this physical realm that is perfect. Perfection lies in Spirit. You can more perfectly learn to do things here, but as soon as you think you’ve achieved perfection, somebody will come along and “nail you to the cross” or they’ll step on your ingrown toenail or slap you on your sunburned back.
Issue yourself a challenge — don’t let your anticipation levels get beyond what’s going on. Don’t defend yourself against other peoples’ opinions, misunderstandings, or expectations. Just be yourself and keep yourself clear and honest in your relationships with all things and all people.
Baruch Bashan
