CT Step 39 - Let me understand my relationships today. – Journal – CT Step 38

Today:  CT Step 39 - Let me understand my relationships today. (MP3)
 

CT Step 39 - Let me understand my relationships today.

Today think of every person with whom you are directly engaged—-all of your primary relationships and ask yourself these questions:

• Do I have purpose with this person?

• Is our relationship being expressed appropriately?

• Are we sharing the same destiny?

Ask these three questions of everyone with whom you are directly engaged. And listen carefully for the answer. You will be tempted to answer this question yourself, but do not trust these answers. Instead, wait for something deeper to come. The answer may not come in the moment. It may come far later. But the fact that you are asking the question and listening for the answer is the important thing here.

Do this practice intermittently throughout the day, and in your long practice in stillness listen carefully, without asking any questions. Feel the presence of Knowledge. Open yourself to Knowledge. Let Knowledge be with you and speak with you. And as you practice upon the hour, listen carefully. Look carefully. Pay attention to where you are and what is happening within yourself. Life will reveal its secrets to you if you can do this. Today is your opportunity to practice doing so.

Practice 39:   One 30-minute stillness practice.

                         Contemplation practice.

                         Hourly practice.

Picture:  Arches National Park, Moab, Utah

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 38 - I wish to strengthen freedom in others.

8 a.m. Tuesday, October 2, 2001

→ Yesterday was good – insightful – tiring. The four pillars became a matrix and a flow.

Spirituality – relationship – work – health → GCS/RI/CRC

<Sermon on the Map – Regional Communities in the NSV>

How growth, change and need have transformed local citizens into members of regional communities. A new paradigm is proposed – "Think local planet, act regionally".

6 p.m. Contemplation – Step 38 – "I wish to strengthen freedom in others".

– The freedom referred to in the text appears to be that of noting my/our "being in the world, not of the world". Text says we can "demonstrate freedom”. This is possible "when you become free of social conditioning, when you become free in the Mental Environment, when you become liberated from the shadows of your own past,… You can then demonstrate a spontaneity and an enthusiasm in life". It says this demonstrates freedom – checking on the hour is an act of – liberation – you step out of the "…world’s influence, pulling yourself out of its current to exercise a greater awareness and discernment, which are yours to exercise".

It is like Don Juan's – "stopping the world" – lifting your head off out of the current to look around.

I do feel and act more free. I have less fear. My pillars are working on my flow.

I read “The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge” by Carlos Castaneda about 1970. It was an introduction in to shamanic traditions. This was early in my journey, yet 30 years later was part of my reference points. My sense is one of progress. If we’d not had some progress, we wouldn’t have been with this so long. 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.