This is from one of John Morton’s sharings at a recent Peace Theological Seminary Master of Spiritual Science class.

What we are doing through the PTS Master’s and Doctoral programs is the pinnacle of the teachings of MSIA on the outer level. Participating in them is to partake in the opportunity that Spirit brings forth for us to transform ourselves from the material into the Spirit, to fulfill the spiritual promise, and to partake in what is before us, as an opportunity to live in grace, to be anointed spiritually.
As you go into the Spirit, you are going to be anointed, which means that the authority, the power, the ability of Spirit will come upon you. Do not confuse that with, “Oh, so I am going to be given a great worldly mission. Maybe they should have made me the Pope so I could take care of the beings that are coming through that way.” If it becomes that, it is almost more like an accident. My sense of it is that it is often working very silently, very namelessly, so it is not about recognition or any kind of a show or proving ground. It is much more. Do you have the wit to follow? Do you have the wit to come into this presence?
Those who are participating in Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy are initiates and ministers, or they soon will be because that is part of the direction. Not only that, those who become students in these classes are usually active ministers and active initiates who know how to come forward and avail themselves of what the Seminary has to offer.
Our intention is to work with the highest God in the highest way. I think that if we tell God, “That is what we want to do,” God says, “Fine, that is available.” It is not about a lottery or about luck. It’s about choosing in relation to many other choices. The simplest choices are what you could do with your time and your money; that gets right to it. You in these MSS and DSS classes are obviously taking your valuable time and the value you have created financially, and you are putting it towards these courses.
How willing you are to do what is necessary in order to participate in the course is one of the entry points for spiritual fulfillment. For some, that is a big wrestling match. They say, “I have so much going on, and I have so many things that I could really use that money for. Couldn’t I somehow get the spiritual gifts inwardly? Like, couldn’t God just fill me with the gifts? Do I have to go through the course in order to have them?” My point of view is that God has all possibilities, so, sure, that is a possibility. But take a look at it. Is that the way being presented practically from Spirit?
It’s like spiritual exercises (s.e.’s): “Couldn’t I just chant once and get the value of two hours of s.e.’s? I can spell it. Isn’t there some credit for spelling it?” Well, maybe, but the reality is that it is much more. So bring yourself to what it is. It is calling for your dedication and your devotion.
With initiation, dedication and devotion are also keys, and we are consecrating ourselves as well. It’s on the order of joining a monastery, where we are dedicating our life the way priests and ministers do — completely. Then why do we still have this opportunity to be involved in the physical world, the 10-percent level, and to have our ordinary lives? Because in that ordinariness is all the material you need to learn and grow. So you decide. Do you decide that you live like a monk or that you will live like all kinds of other choices?
Personally, I like that I have the opportunity to choose for myself. I like it that in the current position of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, we don’t tell you what to wear and we don’t schedule or regiment your day into all kinds of forms. Some people miss that. We’ve received requests: “Couldn’t MSIA be more ritualized and regimented and have more requirements? It’s too difficult having all this freedom of choice. I seem to choose a way and then scatter myself out and get involved in things that I know aren’t really about my spiritual dedication.” I understand that, but that’s one of the signs of the high level: working without a net. We are not holding you back. We’re not putting things on you. We’re saying, “You decide. It’s a free choice. And the choices are here, now.”
I think that’s one of the reasons that, relatively speaking, MSIA is small in numbers. I also look at the personalities that show up. In our numbers, we’ve got quite a wide range. Say we looked at one hundred thousand people, and within those one hundred thousand people, there were ten thousand MSIA ministers and initiates; I think someone would be hard put to say which ones are in MSIA because we don’t seem to follow some kind of order other than, for the most part, we are very ordinary, very mundane or of the world if you just looked at the characteristics of our personalities and our lifestyles. It’s fairly mundane and ordinary—with quite a cross-section.
However, I would say that one of the ways to tell would be to look at what values we have: What do people value in getting involved in the Movement? If they are not valuing loving, they’re not going to last here too long. Maybe they are here for some other reason; maybe they are like wolves and they see a bunch of sheep here and just want to take advantage of the opportunity to prey upon the innocent and the na