CT Step 74 - I seek to be a force for good in the world. – Journal – CT Step 73

Today:  CT Step 74 - I seek to be a force for good in the world. (MP3)

I seek to be a force for good in the world. CT Step 74

With Knowledge, you can become a force for good in the world. You can keep the light of Knowledge alive in the world. You can keep the freedom to experience and to express Knowledge alive in the world. You can counteract the forces that oppose the expression and the experience of Knowledge in all of their manifestations.

Here you become a force for good though your life may be filled with mundane activities and simple endeavors. You are a force for good because the power and the presence of Knowledge is with you. This is not a power that you invent or that you can even describe to others. It is not something that you make a personal claim to, as if it were your personal power. It is a power that is with you and abides with you because you have created a place for it, and you are a willing participant with it. It is universal. It is holy. It is good. It does not belong to anyone.

Become a force for good through your practice today and through your practice each day. Feel this goodness within yourself during your time of stillness. And during your hourly practices, remind yourself that you can become a force for good in the world. Do not look at your own personal abilities and shake your head, for it is not your personal abilities alone that will account for this greater force. It is your ability united with the power of Knowledge within you that will make this possible, and it is towards this that you are moving today.

Practice 74:    One 30-minute stillness practice.

                         Contemplation practice.

                         Hourly practice.

Picture:  Encampment site - YMCA of the Rockies – Estes Park, Colorado.

Plan B - If the MP3 doesn’t work, here’s the link to the folder: New Message - Student Spoken Steps CT Recordings - Steps to Knowledge Continuation Training - Working file

From the journal:  CT Step 73 - The mental environment of the world is changing.

Tuesday, November 6, 2001

6:04 a.m. Terminal B, Dulles Airport

The plane departs at 7:20 a.m. I came early as required for security. The Mental Environment has changed.

I'm going to visit Mom – my birth mother. My task is to help her begin to confront her anger and to deal with her life. The long held secret that she attacks physically my father is now Known. [11/9/01 – The → real problem – overload, past stubbornness of Dad] my work over the past 15/21 years – since I had to begin to understand alcoholism gives me some sense of the challenge. [11/9/01 – The need was to support Mom.]

I spent over an hour last night talking to Diane. She believes she understands, but she doesn't. What a simple – Dad either goes home or to a nursing home, she complicates; and what is complex – Mom & Dad's relationship in history, she simplifies.

This is an experience I didn't really want. It is perhaps an error of birth. I will do my best to help my earthly family come to the resolution they can.

Steve is dealing with the dysfunctional Marie – and I'm free to move on. Considering my mental environments, I've limited my exposure and still control, to a degree, the office environment and my home. There are other forces there, but they don't run the show.

It is from this perch that I've been able to work at understanding the world. Regions being created normally from the top down for management, but not used for empowerment – central governments don't want regions to be too uppity, too aligned.

10:09 a.m. Has the mental environment of the world changed? Just read the life notes of Mom & Dad. Life…society…in their growing up – it was simple. No wonder they weren’t that prepared for their own marriage. What has been moving the world so fast? Invention, war, peace?

Two sights to record. On Friday, November 2 at the Regional Commission building ceremony I was standing in the parking lot and looking up, caught the sun on the edge of the W roof – like the monolith/ape scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I bought the DVD on vacation in Colorado and played the start of it last Sunday for Ed and Mary. – Coincidence – perhaps – but a milestone/landmark for me. I need the freedom to do the work. The kids need to take care of themselves and Mom & Dad have to be more graceful in their exit – they've a chance to heal their earthly relationship. I'll be the intermediary again as much is possible. For all I know – this may be my work.

Today – flying to Pittsburgh – the landscape looked different. It was perhaps the bright sun and angle of the morning light in fall. The ridges and valleys stood out. Going into Pittsburgh, seeing the developments on the hills – no boundaries visible – not regional or local. The bright sun shone on the south facing house walls – in their neatly space subdivisions. They were bright white in dark shadows – so they looked like rows of tombstones. – all on boot hills – in the Pittsburgh suburbs. It made me think of the GC perspective on the vulnerability of life in the open, on the surface on earth.

The war in Vietnam was lost in part due to the tunnels which allowed movement and made the bombs useless. In Afghanistan – it is the caves which will keep us from ever doing more than contain them.

4:47 p.m. CST – 2827 Forest Ave. – Two Rivers, WI – Home alone. Mom at the hospital with Dad. I see their love and devotion – Penny and Diane do not. Who is blind?

Pacifist as I am…I listen and wait. I ask NASI NOVARE CORAM that all the guides and Unseen ones – for all parties – assist me in helping all come to peace.

I just realized that I've only had about two+ hours sleep. Today's Step – 73 – "The mental environment of the world is changing". Reading my parents answers to questions about their childhood; their relationship to family, etc. demonstrate how much change has taken between them and I, then that of David and Sarah, and now their changes. The question then – who/what is causing such change? Is it only population growth and technology?

11:31 p.m. CST/12:30 AM EST – 55 years of life for me – 60+ cable TV channels – MTV's – music of 80s – trend of 70s – leads to 90s → Sitting here in the living room in Dad's chair flooded by memories. The house looks perfect – inner detail – order – the framing was set in the 1920s – seeing Betty L… at Aurora Medical Center today – Billy, Norm – the passage of time – Billy 50 years with Hamilton's. A bike path on the Lake Shore Drive – simple lives pushed along. Penny & Diane – with the baggage of their youth, intolerance and ignorance.

I feel things moving, Life moving → I'm not in bed? Why not? I've got to feel what I can feel, see what I can see. How did this all get to be – and what holds it up in the sun?

9-11 brings energy and focus – for a large number. Lives going on – I watch. I observe. My body is creaky – I need my Tai Chi – I'm unburdened @ RC – how can I use my energy for humanity?

I thought being here I might write. Only observing…only questioning – exploring. By reading the parent journals they did in 1995 – I experienced their whole lives today – interesting – with the purpose?

Mental environment. My Mom has one. Diane and & Penny need to come to peace with the past. They are interpreting the present through the past.

Does Steps help one navigate through one’s own life and resolve issues in relationships? I was trying it here. In the future, skills I am beginning to develop will prove to be useful. What I wrote then in not totally correct, but that is what I felt then or understood. Evolving toward higher skill in relationships at this point, though the book “Relationships and Higher Purpose” won’t be published until 2007. Being a student is a long term commitment. We continue.

NNC

Note: If you’ve some interest, but this is the first time you’ve seen 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. Begin at the beginning.

If you do know about Steps, but have not done Steps twice completely, read the related materials, and have a sense of the direction of this study, you won’t get the experience. The Introduction begins:

“This is the Steps to Knowledge Continuation Training. It is designed to build upon the Steps that were learned in Steps to Knowledge to enable you to experience the grace, the power and the direction of Knowledge in your life and to become an expression of Knowledge in everything that you do. If you have completed the book, Steps to Knowledge, twice through and have followed the instructions as they were given without altering the curriculum in any way, then you are now ready to begin this more advanced study”.

If you are an independent student, that is certainly an option. 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.