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| Knowledge is my true desire because I am a student of Knowledge. Step 363 |
KNOWLEDGE IS YOUR TRUE DESIRE. Think not that your
desires are false, for all desires, if recognized, are for Knowledge. It is because
you have misinterpreted your desires or have attempted to use them to fortify
other things that they have led you astray. Do not attempt to be without
desire, for life is desire. Desire is purpose. Desire is meaning and direction.
Yet, you must recognize your true desire, which is the desire for Knowledge to
fulfill itself and to claim itself, the desire for Knowledge to save you and
for you to save Knowledge. How can you save Knowledge? By holding it within
yourself, by being a student of Knowledge, by carrying Knowledge everywhere you
go, by reinforcing your awareness of Knowledge, by being simple with Knowledge
and by not attempting to use Knowledge to fulfill your own aims and your own
purposes.
CARRY FORTH THE NORMAL ACTIVITIES OF THE DAY, but
carry Knowledge with you. If Knowledge is not in doubt, you need not be in
doubt. If Knowledge is not afraid, you need not be afraid. If Knowledge is not
changing the situation, you need not change the situation. Yet, if Knowledge
holds you back, hold yourself back. If Knowledge changes the situation, change
the situation. If Knowledge tells you to leave a circumstance, leave a
circumstance. If Knowledge tells you to stay in a circumstance, stay in a
circumstance. Here you become as simple and as powerful as Knowledge. Here you
become Knowledge itself.
UPON THE HOUR REPEAT THE IDEA FOR TODAY and
experience it. Within your inner life, experience it as well in your deeper
meditation practices. Your inner and outer life are where you apply yourself
and where you give yourself. They are where you carry Knowledge. In time, you
will see that Knowledge will carry you.
PRACTICE 363: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly
practice.
Picture:
This is the “Ye Olde Yule Log” fire pit in President’s Park, across from the
White House in Washington, D.C., where the National Christmas Tree is displayed.
The yule log fire was discontinued in 2012. This picture is from 2010. For our
purposes, it is the Fire of Knowledge.
Though formatted as a paragraph, the beginning of
Step 362 seems to me that it might be shown and read, as a poem, line by line,
for the true emphasis to emerge:
YOU ARE LEARNING TO LEARN.
You are learning
to receive Knowledge.
You are learning
to value Knowledge.
You are learning
to carry Knowledge.
You are learning
to express Knowledge.
You are learning
to cultivate all of your mental and physical faculties that are essential for
this overall preparation.
You are a
consummate student.
Therefore, be
totally engaged with your studenthood today, which will free you from false
assumptions and from placing impossible burdens upon yourself.
The third paragraph begins: “LEARN TO LEARN. Learning to learn means that you
are learning to participate.”
Learning to learn was a concept introduced to me in
my planning career in a presentation I heard from Donald N. Michael, a
professor of planning and public policy at the University of Michigan. The
theme was, “learning to plan and planning to learn,” essentially the feedback
loop of communications and design where you make improvement by comparing the
actual results to what was intended.
It is a systems approach, but one that is time
consuming and requires critical appraisal. That, it turns out, is hard for
humans to do, because errors need to be recognized. Evolution does this; if
adaptations are not made, there will be a reduction in population and possibly
extinction.
Professor Michael published a book, which though I
would have liked to own it, I could not afford in the 1980’s.
In 2007 I was finally able to get a used copy
through Amazon for $4.38, including shipping.
By owning the book, I recognize Professor Michael,
now deceased, as a man of Knowledge, a teacher whose work greatly inspired and
benefited my education and growth. You could get this book, if it is in your
field, but consider the teachers in your life and field who gave to you and may
still be contributing to Humanity's evolution, and honor them in some way.
Like journaling, personal planning is important. I
developed a system in the 1980’s and taught it for a while. You can download Plan-Do for free. It will be some work, but
goals and objectives work better than New Year’s Resolutions. The plan you
generate for yourself or group, will sync with the Four Pillars. At the same
link is the single page Creativity Journaling: The Good Ideas Trapper Keeper.
It is one page also, but for a younger audience. I did it for my grandchildren
and nieces.
Learning is a great and continuous challenge.
Again, the journal entry is short:
12:30
a.m. August 16, 2001 –
Knowledge
is my true desire. If I acted on that true desire without restriction, I'd
leave all behind. It is that I must bring Knowledge through here – at risk to
my soul’s temptation, sloth and indolence.
It sounds like it is for Step 363, since it speaks
of “true
desire”, but looking again at Step
362, we see it concludes with this thought:
“As your capacity and experience of Knowledge grow,
your desire for Knowledge will grow as well, for Knowledge is your true desire”.
For 2016, this blog will go on with the Steps Continuation
Training. I do not yet have someone to record MP3 of the Steps. From the end of
my second time, until beginning Continuation Training, five days pass. I have
not yet decided how to handle these days.
The Steps to Knowledge blog will have a daily entry
of the Step, a link to the MP3 and a picture. For those who may want to
occasionally check my journal entries for comparison, there will be a links to
the first time doing Steps and the second time.
My general experience has been that I do better
when I have a Step a day. Trying to use a Greater Community book as a source of
Steps, say a chapter a day or so, has not worked well.
Just like my hike to Patience on the Dickey Ridge
trail is never the same, Steps are never the same, because there is more
experience that we can bring to them each time.
Anticipating completion of this phase, 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.
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