As I did more of the spiritual work, I talked to individuals and told them what I saw about their spiritual path and karma.

As more and more people wanted to talk to me, I got busier and busier. Eventually, in 1968, I was invited to speak to some people in Santa Barbara, California, and that was the beginning of seminars, where I would talk to groups and share what the Spirit brought forward for me to tell them.

I remember one person asking me what we did at seminars. I said, “Well, we’re moving the spiritual inner awareness.” The person said, “So this is a movement of spiritual inner awareness?” and I said, “Well, sure, that’s what it is.” In January 1971, The Church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness was incorporated. This work kept expanding and taking more of my time, and I started doing it full-time in December 1971.

All the time, I have told people to listen carefully to what I say. Do not believe it. Check it out for yourself. Maybe this path of Soul Transcendence is not for you; there may be many other paths that you have to undergo. People have many strange karmas to fulfill. The Spirit moves people in and out of this Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. That is why when new people come in, I say, “Hello,” and when people leave, I say, “Good-bye.” It is equally the same, and it makes no difference to me.

I thought at first that being the Traveler would be a sign of absolute perfection. And it actually was, but the perfection is not on this physical level; it is on the spiritual levels. Then I started seeing this consciousness unfold in other people. When I would talk to somebody, I would see that consciousness come up inside of them, something would connect, and I started honoring that Spirit in people.

I started seeing other things appear in people— the Christ, the messianic energy. I saw the Holy Spirit; I saw God. I saw things that, if I told you, you would probably say I was absolutely crazy. Well, all the teachings might have seemed “crazy” until they worked for you or you worked them. Then you probably said, “That’s not crazy; that’s practical.”

The levels you are going to go into will sometimes seem crazy to you just because you are new at experiencing them. The levels you are already on are very practical, and you are teaching them to people who are coming up as your “students.” You have to be very, very “crazy” to see the face of God. It takes a lot of courage — physical, emotional, and mental courage.

And, eventually, we all say, “Thank God for my guru, my teacher, my leader, my Light bearer, my one who stood by me, the one who really couldn’t care less one way or another what I did and if I made it, but all the time was making sure I wouldn’t fail. All the time.”

When I look back over some of that, especially when someone starts getting nostalgic, I go back to those years of the various jobs I had, the things I was doing, where I was traveling, and the hurt and the turn-down. And I see that each of those things was being guided by those teachers from a higher consciousness for me, and I didn’t have the wit to know that all along they were watching me go through my little hell. That was the purification, for me to find out all the things that weren’t necessary that I thought were necessary so that I knew humble pie from crow (and from pheasant or anything else) and learned that no matter where you are, you must always be that that you are.

This is not seeking somebody to praise you for more than you are or to make you less than you are. It’s someone to come to the level you’re on, say yes to that level, and then kick you into another level. Sometimes, it’s by not inviting you to have dinner with them, by an apparent rejection—and, all along, those people knew exactly what I would do.

I never feel so much like a puppet on a string as I do when I’m talking to people—because I must present the consciousness for the group (which makes me a puppet on a string). And, at the same time, I must maintain who I am so that this part that says, “I am that I am,” the divine part that comes through, will hold no matter what you say or think or where you go or what goes on in your mind. It will hold because, whether you’re dumb like me and it takes fifteen or twenty years or you’re smart like a few who can do it overnight, at the end of that time you’ll be sitting on what you want. And even though right now you may not know what you want, that part that you do want will appear and you’ll have it and you’ll say, “This is what I really, honest to God want, desire, need.” It’s what you already are, and you’ve always been that.

Some people look in my eyes and say, “Oh, J-R, I see so much hurt,” and I say, “You’re seeing accurately. There has been hurt. But look deeper, past that, and you will see the joy, the elation, the thanksgiving that says, ‘They didn’t take it away from me. They let me walk every step of the way.’”

You can do the things you want to do, but you’re responsible for all of it. So you start becoming responsible for your thoughts, your feelings, your body and what you take into it, and your addictive patterns. You move into moderation so that you’re not dependent upon this world. Dependency upon anything in this world makes you come back into this world.

And at some point you will enlighten, be born again, awakened to Spirit. The world dies for you, and you walk on the world, but you’re from the Spirit. At that point, it is spiritual liberation, and then you say, “I never was kicked out of the Garden of Eden. I just closed my eyes.”

Baruch Bashan

This article is taken from the new book, The Wayshower, by John-Roger, DSS, available through amazon.com.