x2 ~ Step 47 – Journal Step 46 - I must be small to be great.

Today: Step 47 - Why do I need Teachers?  (MP3) Journal Step 46

Why do I need Teachers? Step 47

YOU WILL ASK THIS QUESTION SOONER OR LATER and perhaps on many occasions. It is born of your expectations of yourself that you would ask this question. Yet, when you look carefully at your life, you will see that you have required instruction for everything that you have learned. Perhaps things that you felt inside yourself appeared to be created by you, but they, too, are the result of instruction. You have been prepared through relationships for everything that you have learned, whether it be a practical skill or a deeper insight. To realize this engenders great appreciation for relationships and a full affirmation of the power of contribution in the world.

IF YOU WERE INTENDING TO HONESTLY APPROACH LEARNING any skill, first you must recognize how much you do not know, then you must recognize how much you need to learn, and then you must seek the best form of instruction possible. This must apply to the reclamation of Knowledge. You must realize how little you know, how much you need to know and then receive the instruction that is provided. Is it a weakness to need a teacher? No. It is an honest recognition based upon an honest evaluation. If you realize how little you know and how much you need to know and the power of Knowledge itself, you will understand how obvious this is. How can you give to those who think they already have, when in reality they are poor? You cannot. And their poverty will be self-inflicted and self-maintained.

WHY DO YOU NEED A TEACHER? Because you need to learn. And you need to unlearn that which you have learned that is holding you back. In your two practice periods today, with your eyes closed in meditation, consider why you need a Teacher. Observe any thoughts that seem to indicate that you could do it on your own if you were smart enough or strong enough or met some other qualification. If these expectations arise, recognize them for what they are. They are an insistence that you remain ignorant by proclaiming yourself an adequate instructor. You cannot teach yourself what you do not know, and the attempt to do so merely recirculates old information and binds you closer to where you are now.

THEREFORE, IN PRACTICE TODAY RECOGNIZE your need for true instruction and your resistance, if it is there, to the presence of true instruction which is available to you now.

PRACTICE 47: Two 30-minute practice periods.

Picture:  Gulf of Mexico beach at Treasure Island, a city in Pinellas County, Florida. I was just sightseeing this day after my American Association of Geographers conference in Tampa. I get sun burned easily, so none of this, but I do like to walk on beaches, having done so in my youth on the shore of Lake Michigan.

From the journal Step 46 - I must be small to be great.

7:20 a.m. Wednesday, October 4, 2000 – #1 I must be small to be great.

My ideas outstrip my limitations. That is ego? My limitations have required me to be creative and I've been able to do good things with limited resources. I was getting too great for my britches, so they made me smaller, yet I still work and accomplish. I am constantly limited – sometimes it makes me creative; sometimes it makes me crazy. I see people who do not seem so limited. It may be they are focused. I'm focused – but I run out of energy, get depressed. I am to write – but where is the energy? I self distract. That is creative in the sense of ideas coming in, but there's no output for them. If I could limit the office to 7.5 hours per day, then I'd have time. That's what I need to do. Use limitation more effectively. We need many reference points to know where we are.

Limited life in a vast universe. We can't live vast, only limited.

8:07 a.m. I found the Cat Stevens CD – which, to my amazement, I had. So – I can send to David – CDs that will help him use good times in the past – to carry them through the rougher present.

10:39 PM. …

The day was productive…but coming home is the end of sanity often.

This morning I spoke to Kevin B…. He's now the demographer for the Department on Aging. He's a potential technical partner for the future.

#2  I must be small to be great. Not small enough tonight to fit into the limits imposed by … world. What does that do for this relationship? Not much. I spend superficial time/maintenance time, instead of doing my very small work. Alcohol – cheap Merlot – does not help, yet it does. I'm beginning. Does Knowledge in S2K move one like HS in ACIM – I am here to represent him who sent me. He will direct me – what to say, what to do.

Are we to be Spiritual Robots?

Urantia – We are here to do God's will.

ACIM – God's will and my will are the same.

RUOW – Right use of will manifest creation.

S2K – My will is to know and do the creators will.

This relationship is failing. I cannot turn myself inside out to fake it’s working. It is unlikely she will change or grow to a level that accepts me.

I am capable of being small…need I get smaller? Need I disappear? Seem somewhat enjoy that.

Lots of thinking and writing; any progress? Let us continue.

NNC

 

Note: If you’ve some interest due to this or other Steps, you should go to the beginning blog post. From here you will learn about Steps to Knowledge and can begin it on the day that makes sense; then progress as needed. You can use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps. They will remain in order in the archives - one post per Step.

Often it takes 18 months to get through the Steps once. For this blog, the pace is one-a-day, but it really makes no difference how fast you do it, only that you begin, persist and repeat. Posts here provide a trail that may let you have a virtual companion when and if you want one. One may have to study alone, as I did in the beginning. There are other Steps students blogging their experience and you might find a person more like you as a companion, or use a number of such Steps journeys. There are options as well through the Free School of the New Message.