Book Review

Book summary of Spiritual Partnership by Gary Zukav, published 2010. Reviewed by Charlie,
Mar 28th 21.

Gary Zukav defines a spiritual partnership as “a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual
growth.” This means that one or more people enter into a spiritual partnership knowing that they cannot
grow for the other and that the partnership only continues as long as all partners are committed to their
own spiritual growth. Should one person in the partnership choose not to continue committing to their
spiritual growth, the partnership dissolves, it has served its purpose for your spiritual growth in the time
it lasted and it is now time to move on.

Zukav describes the loving parts of our personality as experiences such as joy, love and peace that are
expressions of your soul. He defines frightened parts of your personality as emotions such as anger,
fear and resentment. These frightened parts of your personality are the reason your soul is experiencing
this lifetime in the Earth School, to recognize and heal them, to live more from the loving parts of your
personality. Authentic power is created consciously, from choosing to act with joy and love instead of
anger or fear. External power is how humans have lived until now, this is based on the (perceived) need
to manipulate and control to be successful or secure. Your spiritual partners can help you assess if you
are creating authentic power, but they cannot create it for you.

Zukav gives four guidelines for practising spiritual partnerships, Commitment, Courage, Compassion
and Conscious Communication and Actions.

Commitment
When you begin a spiritual partnership, either with another person or with yourself, the greatest
commitment you make is to your spiritual growth. Everyone is committed to something, even if they
are not aware of this. Often, people are unable to look at themselves impersonally and so cannot see
what it is they are committed to. Some people might believe they are committed to a healthy goal, but
cannot see the commitment to external power underneath. Some people are aware they are committed
to pursuing external power but are unwilling or unsure how to change this. The first step is to become
aware. A common commitment is to love or fear and these are mutually exclusive. Being committed to
your spiritual growth means to focus on what you can learn about yourself in every moment. Every
event is an opportunity to learn. You can pay attention to what emotions you are experiencing and what
physical or physiological sensations align with each emotion. At the same time, becoming aware of
your thoughts will help you assess other layers of communication within you that you can learn from.
Your intention is also important. Why are you doing what you are doing? Is it out of love or fear?
In our community, we are committed to our spiritual growth. With our spiritual partners, we strive to
become more conscious and aware by discussing all aspects of successes and challenges, from
emotions, intentions, levels of awareness and the situation itself. These help to identify the frightened
parts of our personality so we can heal them.

Courage
Courage is not to do something reckless or “brave” to prove yourself, to others or yourself. To be
courageous is to act in integrity with the loving parts of your personality and move beyond the
limitations of the frightened parts of your personality. This helps you to heal the frightened parts of
your personality. It takes courage to own your actions, to take responsibility for them and not blame
anyone else. This is one of the central ways to create authentic power. Practising integrity takes
courage, this means to not give into the frightened parts of your personality and choose to act from the
loving parts of your personality instead. This leads into saying or doing what is most difficult. It isn't
always easy to act from the loving parts of your personality but doing so allows you to be aware of
your intention and share what needs to be shared.
We practise courage by getting out of our comfort zones, physically, mentally and emotionally. Helping
us identify the frightened parts of our personality and discussing them with our spiritual partners
creates a framework for our spiritual growth.

Compassion
Compassion is to see yourself and others as equal souls who sometimes have frightened parts of their
personalities active. This shift, of seeing everyone as equals who can be angry, fearful or resentful, but
are truly loving, peaceful and joyful is a huge paradigm shift that removes judgment from yourself and
others. Compassion is not sympathy or pity, it is to view the other person as an equal and non-
judgmentally assess what is the right course of action in the moment. Compassion is to be aware and
fully present. Compassion is to see the frightened parts of another and care enough to help them heal, if
they are ready to. Compassion isn't exclusive, you must be compassionate with everyone (including
yourself) to be compassionate with one person. The first step to becoming compassionate is to change
your perspective from fearful to loving, how can you remove judgment from the actions of another
person or yourself? This naturally leads into removing distance – physical or emotional – that you feel
stops you from being compassionate with another. What repels or disgusts you in another is only a
reflection of what your do not like in yourself (whether you are able to admit this or not), seeing how
you do this yourself releases distance and creates equality. Being present while others speak is to listen
actively, to understand them, not just to wait until it is your turn to share your thoughts.
We practice compassion by knowing that we are all equals on our journey of spiritual growth.
Removing judgment we feel for ourselves or each other is a way to increase compassion. We can use
interactions with others to reflect on our own intentions and judgments and how we can create
compassionate intentions that lead to the creation of authentic power.

Conscious Communications and Actions

This is striving to make all of your communications and actions conscious and loving. Creating
authentic power is a holistic concept that encompasses every event of your life, no matter how
seemingly large or insignificant. To commit to creating authentic power, you have to submerge yourself
in it. When you have the intention to create authentic power, you will be drawn towards creating it with
other people who have the same intention by the Law of Attraction. Authentic power requires you to
value the experiences, well-being and lives of others equally to you own. To create authentic power is
to make all interactions loving because this is the journey towards wholeness and the refusal to be
controlled by anger, fear or resentment. Consulting your intuition is a way to assess what you should do
and to help you determine if your intentions are loving or fearful. Choosing your intention before
speaking or acting is to act consciously, having assessed the consequences and choosing to act from
love. This is to act from the healthiest part of your personality. If you are deep in a frightened part of
your personality, the healthiest part you can access might simply be to stop what you are doing.
Speaking personally and specifically allows you to take full responsibility, as you are owning what you
are saying and reduces the change of misunderstandings with other people. Lastly, releasing attachment
from the outcome removes a need to please, control or perform because the outcome is the
consequence of everyone's intentions. This is also where you pay attention to what you learn about
yourself from the outcome and the process as a whole.
In our community we practise acting consciously by assessing our own intentions and actions and
holding our spiritual partners accountable if we notice they are acting unconsciously, now they can
choose to act consciously.
These four Spiritual Partnership Guidelines can be practised within our community in every interaction
to ensure we are keeping our own commitment to spiritual growth, acting courageously and
compassionately and being conscious in our communication. With our spiritual partners, we make an
ongoing commitment to our spiritual growth and consciousness. How can you practise these guidelines,
with people who are your spiritual partners, and with those who are not?