Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power [Hardcover]

Zukav, the author acclaimed for books such as The Dancing Wu Li Masters and The Seat of The Soul, brings us a paradigm-shifting book about relationships. This book is not just about intimate partner relationships, but about principles that apply to all relationships. It examines how humanity appears to be facing a shift from 5-sensory perception to multi-sensory perception (perception beyond the physical senses). According to Zukav, this shift provides an opportunity for us to base our relationships on developing spiritually - supporting one another's spiritual growth and building internal power rather than seeking external power.

In this conceptualization, Zukav discusses how fear-based aspects of ourselves constantly seek external power to pursue an illusion of security. The love-fear dichotomy is seen at the heart of this challenge. Zukav points out how all the institutions of our existing society are geared toward pursuit of external power (that includes traditional ideas of marriage) - something which will theoretically fall away as humanity evolves in the next couple of generations.

This book presents clear ideas and guidelines for building spiritual partnerships - which involves facing fears, building self-awareness, letting go of judgments, having integrity, and having compassion for oneself and others. The book is excellent in offering an outline of the hows and whys of spiritual partnerships. Zukav has a smooth, engaging style of writing that will draw in readers to embrace what he is teaching. These teachings will definitely help foster healthier relationships and spiritual development.

My own reservation about some portions of this book (the reason I'm not giving it a full five stars) centers around Zukav's vision of humanity's transformation in the coming decades. Humanity has always had multi-sensory ability - in ancient eras (and even now in some indegenous cultures) people were actually more tuned in to their non-physical sensory awareness. Zukav implies that there's occuring now a rapid shift into a reality on Earth where everyone will be regularly tuned into ESP on a constant basis. Frankly, that seems highly questionable - and most people don't appear close to being spiritually mature enough to handle that expansion of sensory awareness. This book is well suited to those aligning with their soul/higher self and pursuing spiritual development - but it doesn't seem that humanity as a whole is making this shift that Zukav describes - a segment of the population who are likely to be interested in this type of book are embracing such a shift, yet the masses are to a great extent asleep to their spiritual selves. The future that Zukav predicts is a potential reality, but not one that appears immanent. I applaud him for showing us what's possible, though I think credibility is diminished when a future is foretold as if it's certain.

Gary Zukav's new book introduces the concept that relationships are mostly about you and your fears. He divides the relationship world into two types of people. The first is what he calls, Five Sensory people. They look for the causes of suffering outside of themselves, "in their failed relationships, illnesses, betrayals and bad luck." The second type which he says we all have to become at some point is the Multi-sensory. They are pursuing what he calls authentic power which is defined as power over themselves and their many moods and emotions. They are looking to find the roots of their needs and emotions rather than blaming their partner, life or circumstance for not meeting them. They also look at their defenses, which can take the form of feelings of superiority, righteousness and even inferiority. They consciously decide how to respond in any give situation.

According to Zukav, when spiritual partners meet in the Multi-sensory context, they value honesty, self analysis and mutual exploration even when this sharing might cause conflict or even separation. He says that most people try to find stasis in a relationship and accept limitations and compromises in order to preserve security. They project needs onto others and then give them the power to make them feel better instead of fully understanding or growing beyond the need itself.

Zukav's multi-sensory person is someone who assumes personal responsibility for meeting most of their own needs, thus making a partnership less binding. The partner is no longer seen as the all important source of our happiness and security. Here the loving environment is sustained to support personal growth. A sick relationship is a one in which the people involved are not completely honest with each other, even though it may outlive one in which both partners honesty results in separation.

People looking to "solve" relationship issues leading to some form of "happy ever after" will not find solutions here. However, Zukav makes the point that our ever increasing intuition makes this new type of relationship not only necessary but inevitable, because we can no longer hide our desires and discontent from each other as we once did and our power to manifest intentions seems to be growing as well. This makes it even more important that we understand our intentions within a relationship. The book goes on to give tips about how to monitor our intentions which he points out are often very unclear in relationships. It includes discussions that you have heard before if you have any books on manifesting.

I agree with his basic ideas, so why only three stars? Reading this book was painful because of the endless analogies, overstatements, personal anecdotes and constant repetition. I literally had to force myself to wade through it underlining the things I wanted to remember in red so I wouldn't lose them completely amidst the filler. Zukav could have covered this material in a book half this size and really gotten his point across. Instead he hammers simple ideas, often creating chapter long analogies to illustrate concepts best covered in a paragraph. He then goes back and dedicates another chapter to summarizing what he just covered. He also writes extensively about his own relationship, using it in numerous examples. This can be a pitfall for any writer because we can never be sure that the audience is as interested in a topic of personal concern as we are.

The book also fails to take an adequate look at the downside of our emerging intuitive powers, assuming instead that two people on the path will find each other and begin this work with positive intentions. What if your partner's intentions are selfish and mean spirited and you just don't realize it? Sharing a relationship with someone that is deeply intuitive means the other person always knows what you are thinking. It does not mean that your spiritual understanding and expression are equal. True equality of any kind in a relationship is very hard to come by. It is tempting to think that enhancing someones intuitive ability to understand another person increases their goodness. Intuition can be used for good or ill. Perhaps that is why these intuitive powers have not been given to the masses until this point in our human history.

The copy I've been given to review is an uncorrected proof. I hope he gives some consideration to downsizing this book before it hits the press. He has some great ideas.

Update: The finished book is listed at 304 pages. The version I had included a 27 page prologue and introduction and 259 pages of content. So this version is even longer than one I found to be over-run with filler.

This book is about a new kind or relationship, it goes beyond the old roles in marriage of a provider and homemaker, it is more than friendship, it is even more valuable than traditional family relationships. A Spiritual partnership is between equals to accomplish spiritual growth. It serves a different purpose of all the traditional forms of relationships. The partners are together in order to help one another grow spiritually instead of enhance their physical comfort and safety. Spiritual partnerships are relationships that more spiritually receptive people use to create authentic power with in themselves. Their goal is to share spiritual growth with each other. They allow each other to see the emotional armor they wear because of irritability, righteosuness, superiority, and inferiority that is caused because of inner fear, and remove it. They allow each other to lay down their weapons of anger, jealousy, and vengeance because of love. Spiritual partners are on a quest for authentic power that comes from with in as love over takes fear as the underlying motivation in their mutual lives. These relationships do not seek external power, they seek to change themselves. They trust one another enough to explore their fear and love together. They are brave enough to probe the depths of intimacy. Their path is one where they do not try to solve one anothers problems, encourage bad bahavior, or enable destructive behavior. They are their to ask the right questions, search for the underlying fear in their partner, listen with their heart, and love unconditionally. Spiritual partners realize that their problems are internal not external. Another marriage, more money, alcohol, drugs, sex, or a better job is not the solution to their problems. People that are driven by solely their five senses leave circumstances only to discover that the demons that plague their mind were waiting for them in their new circumstances. Multisensory people are evolving that are in touch with their soul, heart, and intuition. This book provides a map to join in this journey. This review does not begin to do justice to the deep spiritual insights that are found in this book. This book gives you the guidelines on how to create such a beautiful spiritual relationship. If you are ready for this message it could literally begin to change your life and relationships permanently.

"The more you explore your intentions the more you will see that no matter how many options you appear to have, you actually have only two-love and fear. Loving intentions create authentic power."

Perfect love casts out all fear.