As you step upon the spiritual path and choose to come closer to a source of true love, that one who can be the revelation comes forward. – John Morton, DSS
This article by John Morton was first published in the New Day Herald in March of 2006.
We’re always in relationship to something—to where we find ourselves, to who we face, to who was there when we took our first breath and who is there when we take our last breath, and to who’s there in between.
Somewhere along the way, we find that we want something more than what’s inside of us. That’s part of the function of this world: to get us involved in expression, to take us from the place we are and move us forward. That in itself is an illusion, because the reality is we come to where we already are. But the world has a way of bringing us out and bringing the expression forward that’s necessary to know that each of us is already present with himself or herself.
The greatest part of that expression in this world is to be loving and to experience what love is. Perhaps you were in an environment where loving is what you came in with. Your mother was loving, the doctor was loving, the nurses were loving, whoever was there when you came into the world was loving. Still, no matter what you came into, or how great that presence of loving was, we never achieve a point of loving where it’s done, where it’s complete or over. There is always a greater loving to come into. This world is designed to bring lessons, not necessarily loving ones, and to bring you to the loving that is already present. That’s really not a secret or a revelation. It’s something that at some point we know, even if we will not admit it to ourselves.
Often, if the other extreme is present as we come into the world, our mother appears unloving, the doctor slaps us and appears harsh or violent, and then the world can appear cold, dark, unfamiliar, or alien. At that point, we begin forming an attitude that we could call unloving, and this attitude is not only towards life but is also towards ourselves because as we form an attitude of unloving towards anything or anyone, we are actually always forming that attitude towards ourselves.
One of the ways unloving can be recognized in our consciousness is that a hardness or harshness comes into our being. As hardness comes into our being, then we become calloused and insensitive. As we become more insensitive, then our perceptions portray a harsh and painful world in which we find ourselves. It then becomes easier to adopt an attitude towards the world resulting in our experiencing more harshness, negativity, and pain. We are then less capable of being loving, which is what we’re here for.
Occasionally a person can go all the way through a lifetime and gradually become more hardened and harsh as a way of dealing with the world. Actually, that would be a very rare case because, usually, somewhere along the way, there’s a visitation, a moment when no matter how dark or how cloudy or how stormy it is, the sunlight gets through and touches us, reminding us that there is more to this world than the darkness, harshness, or storm that we find.
In our process of dealing with the world, we play two sides. One side we could refer to as the negative, the painful, or the disturbing. The other side would be the loving, the light, and the beautiful. As we learn to play this game between two sides, we realize that one is more of our nature, or sometimes it’s more of the way we would like to be. In other words, we can look upon ourselves as actually being unloving, or dark, or “deep down inside, I’m no good.” We can still realize, however, that underneath our negative picture of ourselves is the desire to be good.
No matter what attitude we form in relationship to this polarity we find in the world, we are still called upon to make choices in relation to what we find. There is no way we can get out of the choices that are here, although there is decision by default or slide. In each moment, we are always making a choice to be more loving or more unloving.
A while back, I was out walking and I became aware of a message about loving. It was an affirmation: “I am increasing the loving. I am increasing the loving.” And I kept hearing this message: “I am increasing the loving.” It was as though the message was coming from the outside and also from inside me. I realized that’s an affirmation in my life for each moment of each day, and that we all have a primary responsibility to increase loving each day. That realization was humbling because I realized that I don’t always do that.
As I walked, I also considered how the source of loving is inexhaustible. There’s no way we can ever exhaust the opportunity to be more loving. Part of the illusion that I was carrying around was that the source of loving is finite. Somehow I had formed an idea that we have the ability to take away from the loving, to make it less than what it is. My experience with loving was teaching me that the source of loving is always full. It’s more than full. The supply of loving goes beyond anything or anyone that uses it, no matter how much is required.
Loving is what life is about, and this world is designed to reflect a process for increasing the loving. There’s not a real difference between what life is about and what loving is about. They’re synonymous. When we have our perceptions and our experiences that say, “Life is less than loving, or somehow life is an aberration from what real loving is,” that’s just a message that says we’re not fully aware of what loving is.
As we encounter what life is, we encounter loving. And as we encounter what God is, we encounter loving. That process is something that starts transcending where we find ourselves. It starts transcending what meets us, in terms of the physicality of this world, and starts allowing us to transcend into the other worlds. The loving starts becoming something that is all encompassing, and we realize that we are loving. The loving is more than what we think or feel or how we relate to the people and circumstances in our life.
At the point we experience our loving encompassing all things, we become aware that we’re more than what we perceive. We’re even more than what we experience. Then we’re at a point where we’re reaching into God and having God reveal the fullness of what life is. This is when the spirit in our consciousness is coming into a greater maturity. That’s when we start questing for a greater reality, a greater knowing of what loving is, what God is, and who we are. That’s when we start walking in the footsteps of the spiritual master. We start finding ourselves tracking where the master is going and looking for those signs that reveal the master’s presence.
The spiritual master is one who stands in representing the consciousness of loving. As we seek that consciousness in the world through a direct relationship, often we are looking for what we would call a true love. We want to find somebody we can truly love, where the fullness and the power of our own loving can be entirely opened and revealed to us. We want to find someone who has the consciousness to fully accept and love who we are and then return that loving in the fullness of who they are. As we realize this consciousness, we come to a place of knowing that it is beyond a personality, and we start seeking it in someone who has that wisdom as a direct experience.
As the desire to experience true love awakens in your awareness, you find yourself on what is called the spiritual path. It is a path to come closer into the consciousness of Spirit and the consciousness that is the Soul and is God. As you step upon the spiritual path and choose to come closer to a source of true love, that one who can be the revelation comes forward.
One can come forward as the spiritual teacher and the one who is standing in as a manifestation of the action of God and the loving of God. It then is a process of you surrendering to that one. The spiritual teacher is one that God is ordaining and God is guiding. It becomes a process that is a discovery for all involved.
If you’re deciding your life is based on unloving, then you’re in a very treacherous territory and your downfall is imminent. Stop right there. Go no further until you are once again on the path of loving. This Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness is always “loving in all ways.” When I first came into MSIA, they put that message on license plate frames and other places. I got the idea then, and it still is an important part of what we are doing. It doesn’t require a signature from the physical level. It doesn’t require proof. You can feel most fortunate that you even recognize it, and you can be grateful to know that loving is the way to live your life.
I’ve had lots of experiences of moving away from the loving and moving back into the loving, and only moving back into the loving really counts. When you realize that loving is what really counts, then more and more you will be choosing loving. What we know as the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness is a unified action of God. We stand in with its celebration. As we step forward, it’s a greater celebration, and as we move in loving it increases the celebration. And really, no matter what happens, it’s a celebration of loving.
Baruch bashan
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