The Source

Who is the Source?

My name is Larry Byram and I am the source of this work and founder of Higher Alignment. It is my research since 1986, which has led to the conclusions I hold and the stand I now take. I have interviewed over 2,400 individuals composed of over 700 couples and 1,000 singles. During this time I invested approximately 40,000 hours investigating what doesn’t work in relationships, and what we can do about it. Between 1990 and 1993, I tested the findings with over 2,000 individuals and then tracked the results of over 100 couples who followed my advice over a period of five years. These experiences changed my life direction completely.

As a professional researcher, I discovered the limits of data collection and intellectual theories.

At the core of relationship dynamics I rediscovered spirit and the nature of creative expression with others. While I had previously dismissed teachings about the soul in favor of a more scientific approach, it became clear that there was a higher force at work in the individuals manifesting enlightened relationships. The goal therefore became not to just prove the nature of these influences, but recognize and learn how to amplify the positive effects of Spiritual Partnerships. This led me to test these principles in all of my relationships, providing feedback and clarification that have consistently refined this work over the years.

Inner Guidance

Individuals who were like me fourteen years ago may find it difficult to accept the apparent higher design or spiritual evolution that this research now supports. It is our conclusion that there is a natural path from survival relationships to outer success relationships to Spiritual Partnerships.

The research suggests that inner guidance and intuition arises naturally as we progress in our ability to implement higher alignment skills. We can now test and validate these skills quickly, and from the nature of your relationships confirm whether you are primarily learning gender identity, individuation, Common Neutral Ground, Empowered Mutual Way or Higher Alignment skills. It appears to be no accident that our inner development mirrors our self-acceptance of our creative being. It is also not accidental that intuitive skills that integrate our inner and outer being, and mirror our inner and outer worlds, provide the feedback loops that accelerate our conscious development.

Spiritual Connections

It was also startling to discover how many of the world’s religions reflect some of the key elements that make Spiritual Partnerships work. In this I claim no expertise or authorship, merely that this research increasingly validated the common precepts of many of the major world religions. Without requesting it, this has led many spiritual leaders to recommend this program to their community. This support has been gratifying.

Professional Connections

This work has also been well received in some therapeutic and professional support circles. Several Ph.D. friends have participated in the early processes and now regularly use these materials as a supplement to their current practice. I am particularly grateful for the support and feedback of Dominie Cappadonna, Ph.D. and her assistance in introducing this material to the therapeutic community. It has been this community which has provided the best feedback about how to incorporate the shadow side of our personalities in this work, and honor our higher creative nature.

Some may say that my lack of credentials as an expert in relationships disqualifies the statements I make. They request  that I attain a position of peer acceptance that guarantees the safety of those I support. I recognize and accept that the nature of this work could border on the therapeutic world when individuals are not ready to engage their higher natures. This is why the program is designed to allow progressive unfolding, requiring conscious engagement to master the precepts. On an individual level the material is harmless. Only those ready for it will see it for what it is. This work is about healthy, co-creative relationships for those few that are willing to engage it.

Relying on fixed positions to protect society from itself is a difficult proposition. Unfortunately it minimizes the power of individuals to make their own choice, and to know what works for them. Some may believe that my lack of a Ph.D. means this work is suspect, and unverifiable. I suggest that that my work is only verifiable by you, not by any outside authorities. I would like to believe that the individuals I seek to communicate with can judge for themselves, and can recognize when what I say matches their inner experience. I therefore, request that you approach this information with an open mind, validating each step as you go.

Who Has Credentials For Enlightened Relationships?

While credentials are appropriate and useful to delineate a course of study, and a level of attainment, I have found that the lack of a course of study for Enlightened Relationships opens the door for individuals like myself to make a contribution. It is my perspective that the topic itself requires that it be shared in a non-hierarchical way. Doing work requires inner alignment with the material and a commitment to be with others without clinical detachment. Experts in this area of endeavor may actually create more resistance then forward momentum in various circumstances by taking an authoritarian approach. It has been my experience that ordinary citizens (trained professionally or not) empowered by this material can best convey it to others than any hierarchical, authoritarian approach. Field testing of this process demonstrates the speed these skills and practices can be conveyed when we speak as equal partners in the process.

While this approach may make experts and authorities uncomfortable, I will be making considerable effort over the next three years to publish all my research on the net so they can verify my findings. As a professional researcher, I was shocked by the lack of on-going research in exceptional, high quality relationships. Not only did we not have structures for validating the type and effectiveness of relationships; we lack a synthetic understanding of how motivations, fears and desires can assist or sabotage our intentions. Somehow we have not made the connection to how excitement and intensity indicate incomplete patterns and lessons.

While we have made the first steps in acknowledging that the unfinished business of our childhood distorts our attractions and directs our desires, we seem to be unclear about how our drive for success increases our opportunities for individuation at the cost of our relationships. Instead many professionals appear to be more interested in dysfunctional or pathological behavior than discovering the support infrastructure for enlightened relationships. My focus has not only been discovering the reasons why we are not in great relationships, but developing a comprehensive way to engage the fears and desires that keep us from meeting each other in an open way.

Not A Guru, Not A Cult

On the other side, it is equally distressing when others idealize me or treat me as a guru because of the way I operate. I take this as a failure on my part to have them acknowledge their own power in creating their experience. Reflecting back their transference and projection is critical to their successful completion of this process. While I do not seek these affirmations, I find that humble acceptance until they can be re-integrated is the best course of action. My stand that any imbalance is a temporary one that must be brought into alignment for any creative work to succeed. In point of fact I express this as "the more you separate and elevate me, the less effective I will be as a friend and partner in your life." I also realize that the more I am initially elevated, the more I will need to be pulled down and dethroned when you start to grow. It is interesting to see the balance between people doing relationship training discounting me to the same degree as some people doing the program elevate me.

Another problem I run into is others thinking that a mentor or teacher position works best. I personally find these ways of thinking hierarchical and ineffective in partnership dynamics. This is true to the degree that you choose my approach over your approach without thinking it through and making it your own process. Thinking, being and knowing how to do it the best way for you is all that interests me. What I challenge most is doing it the unconscious way that you learned from your parents that was not your own. I encourage everyone to make mistakes and learn what works for them first and foremost. If this means you have to go out and consciously do the opposite of what I recommend then I am all for it if it frees you from your fixed positions. Finally, I would like to acknowledge that our group embraces diversity, supports everyone becoming spokespersons, and embraces the reality that we all are challenged to be more of ourselves each day.

Influences

One source of inspiration and for this work has come from the amazing enlightened couples I initially researched and then others I supported creating enlightened relationships. My own background with the Alice Bailey work, (particularly Esoteric Psychology I and II) helped enormously organizing the creative qualities and dynamics. Overall, I ended up using the names from the Michael System (Essence and Personality: The Michael Handbook by Jose Stevens, Ph.D. and Simon Warwick Smith) to describe these differences. I would also be the first to acknowledge the groundbreaking work of Robert Assagoli, M.D., as my approach parallels Psychosynthesis. Real world testing and refining of this information has lead to serious deviations from its previous presentations.

Harville Hendrix books are core reading for those working on releasing themselves from parental patterns. John Grey has also made great strides in popularizing gender base identity skills. I recommend their books as introductions that do a much better job talking about unconscious attractions then I am interested in doing. The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav is the best introduction to our creative nature and possibilities I have found.

Current Contributions

My focus has been to go deeper and identify the patterns that sabotage our relationships. Explaining pretense and defense structures so individuals could balance themselves and heal was the first unique contribution that I made to the process. The second contribution was discovering the principles of attraction and why best combinations are avoided. The third contribution was the way we sabotage and deny our path the enlightened relationships by a lack of skills. The fourth, fifth and six contributions are the Common Neutral Ground, Empowered Mutual Way and Higher Alignments skills. The seventh contribution was how to teach these skills and provide the means to validate our experiences. Over time we have been refining these contributions and will continue expand this body of work to serve a greater number of people.

Confirmations

Many others have been inspired this work and contributed ideas such as Michael Moon’s ideas about the connection of fairy tales to our internal romantic mythology, Ken Wilbur’s ideas about Holons and the evolution of consciousness, or Torkom Saraydarian’s perspective on the cost of premature or inappropriate sexuality. In many ways I have tested and supplemented ideas such as Frank Salloway’s work on Birth Order with original research I have performed. In others I have adapted and changed the ideas of J.P. Van Hulle and Aaron Christeaan about soul ages to reflect more of the patterns observed in real life. It should be also noted that much of the body types are an abbreviated list originating with Gurdjieff, and that he is the original source of different types of centering, we call process.

Ultimately, the Higher Alignment material has been synthesized from testing and validating many different ideas. It has come to the point that it is not the information that is important, but rather the process of healing and building new skills. This fits with Peter Drucker’s view that the information age ended in 1995, for it is my observation that this is the age where the power in inter-relationships will be felt, understood and finally appreciated. It is time now to reduce our attachments to pretenses and defenses to learn to engage others in a common neutral ground. May we all become empowered sources in this, the age of relationships.