Spiritual Partnership by Gary Zukav
Spiritual Partnership
By: Gary Zukav
Published: March 2010
Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power, I will be talking to you about relationships in ways that may be one-hundred-and-eighty degrees different than the way that most people think about relationships. Instead of talking about making your relationships better, I will be talking about making them different. Specifically, how to make your relationships vehicles of your spiritual growth. That will do more to create the kind of relationships that you want than anything else possibly can, provided that the kind of relationship that you want is conscious, loving, grounded, joyful, and fulfilling.
Most people think about what they can get out of a relationship – such as company, relief from loneliness, comfort, emotional security, and sex on the one hand and help building a business, a house, a portfolio, or a winning sports team on the other. I suggest that what you can get out of a relationship, any relationship if you choose, is emotional awareness, the ability to consciously choose intentions that will create consequences you are willing to assume responsibility for, the joy of giving and receiving without fear, and the fulfillment of exploring the depths of intimacy of love. In other words, I suggest that you can use your relationships to grow spiritually. But there is much more. I also suggest that spiritual growth (and specifically your spiritual growth) cannot occur without relationships of substance and depth.
This does not mean that your spiritual growth depends upon what other people choose, say, and do. It does not. It depends solely upon the choices that you make. However, it is a lot easier to make choices that are healthy, or that seem healthy, when you are not experiencing the needs, desires, demands, requests, complaints, and compliments of other people. I seemed to be much more enlightened (or at least less unenlightened) when I as living alone and saw myself as a backcountry recluse than when I began to open my life – really open it – to other people. That created more pain in me than I could have imagined, and every experience of pain showed me (and continues to show me) parts of my personality that are rigid, righteous, feeling superior and entitled or inferior and unworthy, needing to dominate or needing to please, and so on (and so on).
In other words, real relationships caused me to take seriously my intention to grow spiritually, or be an aware and kind person, or at least to attempt to grow spiritually or be aware and kind. I couldn’t hide from the parts of my personality that were not these things because they hurt too much when I encountered them. I often didn’t notice them when I was living alone.
There is a reason for this. We are now undergoing a dramatic, profound, and irrevocable evolutionary transformation: we are expanding beyond the limitations of what we can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch, and that is changing everything, including our relationships. Now we need relationships (and not isolation) in order to grow spiritually - which means that you need relationships in order to find and heal all the parts of yourself that prevent harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life (the intentions of your soul), and also to find and cultivate all the parts of yourself that want to create harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life.
Spiritual partnership is designed to help spiritual partners do exactly this. It has new rules, different dynamics, and unimaginable rewards. A spiritual partnership is a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. Spiritual partnerships are replacing every previous type of relationship as millions of us become multisensory (no longer confined to the limitations of the five senses). They are more challenging and more rewarding than any other kind of relationship can be. This article is about spiritual partnership, my new book is about spiritual partnership, and my life is about spiritual partnership, too. I am happy to introduce spiritual partnership to you.
Gary Zukav is the author of four consecutive New York Times bestsellers. 1989, The Seat of the Soul led the way to seeing the alignment of the personality and the soul as the fulfillment of life and captured the imagination of millions. His gentle presence, humor, and wisdom have endeared Gary Zukav to millions of viewers through his many appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Visit Gary at
WWW.SEATOFTHESOUL.COM