Tribute To My Teacher John MacPherson

This past week my teacher of 14 years passed away peacefully at the age of 84 after a long bout with cancer. Though I had not seen him in many many years, he has remained present in my heart. I will always have deep gratitude for him and what he taught me and so many others.

His legacy lives on in his students and his students' students, including the hundreds of those who have passed through the doors of the Awareness School over the last 15 years. 

This spiritual work is a very specialized and profound teaching carried on the wings of mystics. Many know it as the Fourth Way, but some know it as the Way of Truth for it is hidden in many spiritual paths. The living dharma passed from person to person is transmitted through the Heart of Higher Realms.

The foundation relies on many nuanced practices for bringing oneself to a disciplined state of Presence. Without this foundation, the heart opening does not have the possibility of remaining permanent. There are two ways of working, one is the active inner, intentional efforts and then there is the great work of surrender.

Students along the way study Presence and The Ideas but few receive the Living Essence of the teaching because it requires surrender and trust.

We can learn these things from studying a path, but when one trusts another human with their vulnerability, their heart and their aim, and allows themselves to be truly taught by another, the teaching is then passed along through that connection. 

My teacher John was not a guru. He was not an intermediary between me and God. He did not don the white robes. He was not a task master, but he did inspire me to be disciplined like a samurai warrior because he was one himself. 

He was humble and human too. 

I first met him when I was hired to be the pianist for a Movements Class. As a professional pianist, the music came easily to me, and he remarked after the class that there was a Being presence in my playing.

What followed was an hour long conversation about the Work of which I understood very little. I could feel his presence. I could tell that he might have something I was seeking. That started 14 years of intense spiritual work.

He did not feed me fish for the day but taught me how to fish for a lifetime so that I would never be dependent on him. 

This was his egoless nature and he gave and gave. 

For fourteen years, I learned the ways of the Dervish. I was taught 47 different meditation exercises in those fourteen years to the point of understanding each one’s purpose and effect. I was given very precious typed out notes from his teacher’s teacher and Mme De Salzmann who passed down this knowledge only to those who could be trusted with this information. They were passed on to those who proved capable of understanding the secret language of Higher Worlds and who could maintain this as sacred.  

No casting of pearls before swine.

I learned the power of Sacred Dance and their alchemical keys to higher centers. He taught me how to do the Movements, how to play for the Movements and sent me to others to refine my teaching skills in this area. 

I was initiated into a Sufi Order and have been leading zikrs for 25 years. 

I was supported when the walls came tumbling down within my own psyche, when my heart was open and vulnerable, and when I surrendered to God in divine light. I was taught how to maintain higher states which led to permanent stations of higher consciousness. I was taught the stages of enlightenment as they occurred.

I was ferried across to the other side where the building of higher bodies was not only possible but necessary in order to continue to function in this world.

Most of all, I learned to trust another human being implicitly and I followed every instruction he ever gave me.

Only one who knows these things can teach another so effectively.

Only one who has attained a great deal of freedom can assist another to equal levels in such a profound and effective manner. He recognized the signs along the way. He was familiar with the territory and had direct experience of these levels of opening.

John was my Yoda and closer to me in ways that no one else has ever been in my entire life. This is because it was an unearthly love, not platonic, not romantic, not familial nor anything I have ever known. It is a spiritual love that one discovers only through the touchpoint of invisible realms and trust between two human beings. 

It is Rare. It is Sacred. It is Eternal. 

And so for me, his death simply changes our form of communication. We have connected easily in the ethers for the last 15 years, but now his spirit has expanded into the greater light of divine consciousness where he resides in his eternal higher being body. 

His presence is ubiquitous. He is closer than ever.  

May his Soul be blessed forever. 

I know mine is.