“It is a very joyful day when you face yourself and realize that there is great reason for you to love yourself, care for yourself, and allow yourself to know the Spirit within yourself and then the greater loving Spirit that is outside of you, too.” – John-Roger

This article by John-Roger was first published in the New Day Herald in September, 1990

A lot of people ask me how they can become more aware spiritually. There are a number of ways that you–or any of us–can do this. Specifically, reading Soul Awareness Discourses, doing Spiritual Exercises, going to seminars, all provide a point of contact with Spirit. By doing these spiritual practices, we are setting ourselves up to allow Spirit to work more closely with us in a conscious way. Spirit works with us whether or not we are aware of it. It works with us in the unconscious. It works with us while we sleep, while we’re dreaming.

You can attune yourself to Spirit through almost anything if that is your intent. Sometimes you can do it by attuning yourself to the loving you have for your family, by being in nature, by working hard on a project you love, by helping others. Sometimes, though, outer activities distract you from Spirit and cause you to get caught up in the physical, material world.

Reading a Discourse will focus your attention, which is a form of attunement or at-one-ment, into that which the Discourse represents. And the Discourse will often represent what you need at the time you are reading it. Have you ever had the experience of reading a Discourse for a second or third time and being reminded of something you know you’ve known before but seem to have forgotten? We all do that. I do that. And as soon as I can expand my awareness into something greater than “dumb,” I can start expanding into intelligence. Sometimes, relating to yourself or to someone else from a really loving place, you and/or they will move out of their dumb place and come into a more intelligent and loving place.

A reflection of internal progression is being able to discern differences as they take place in yourself, in others, and in your environment. Some blind people have difficulty discerning or differentiating objects on the physical level because they cannot “see” them. But, if they can touch them, their discernment may become very acute. When they can touch the objects, they suddenly “see” them in a different way, and they become aware of them as keenly as someone able to “see” visually.

Spiritually, we don’t “see” very well. But when you are able to bring in discernment in a different way–perhaps through reading Discourses, perhaps through Spiritual Exercises or in a seminar–you suddenly “see” and are able to discern the Spirit, where before you were unable to. You have created an attunement to Spirit in a way that is outside your usual realm of experience. You have decided to “touch” Spirit rather than just relying on your physical vision. You have created a point of contact.

Sometimes, attuning to Spirit by reading a Discourse or being with others on a spiritual path is relatively easy because there is a specific activity that helps to focus you on the Spirit. When you do Spiritual Exercises, there is nothing “out there” to hold your focus. You go inside of yourself, to your own inner consciousness, and you have to deal with all the distractions and judgments and opinions that you have inside yourself. It can be difficult. Some people say, “I don’t want to do S.E.’s because I get sick. I get fearful. I get terrified. I don’t want to do that.” You’d better do that because otherwise these hidden “terrors” will follow you to the grave. They are going to follow you until you deal with them. So pull them in and dissolve them by putting love on them.

As you start putting love on each and every one of your fears and judgments and all your points of negativity, you start transforming yourself. You start having a joyful feeling. That produces a contact with Spirit. Out comes the Soul energy and the Holy Spirit comes forward and says, “I’m your partner in this,” and the negative thought forms start to disperse. It can be a very rapid process or it can be a very gradual process. That’s up to you. But, in any case, it is a very joyful day when you face yourself and realize that there is great reason for you to love yourself, care for yourself, and allow yourself to know the Spirit within yourself and then the greater loving Spirit that is outside of you, too.

Baruch Bashan.

J-R GEM

When you make contact with the Spirit and you’re traveling, you don’t have to repeat the names. That’s just to get you there to connect.

Then you let go and you just go with it. And then you open your spiritual eyes and start to see where you’re going.

As soon as you keep trying to chant the tone you’re coming back to the mental format. So you have to let it go.

The tone is only a tool, because we go higher than the names of the astral and causal and mental and etheric Lords.

So therefore if you’re traveling higher and you chant something lower, it’s going to pull you back down to that. If you chant them as a continuation of the name, then it takes you up to the top one.

But if you have karma in one of the lower ones, you have to go back down and work it.

John-Roger
Living in Grace, March 1990