CT Step 46 - I must have courage to choose my freedom. – Journal – CT Step 45

Today:  CT Step 46 - I must have courage to choose my freedom. (MP3)

I must have courage to choose my freedom. CT Step 46

What is worth protecting if it denies you your freedom? What is worth having if it binds you and bonds you to the past? Who is worth being with if all that they can do is remind you that you are weak and pathetic and unable to follow what you know? These are all valid questions. The impediments to freedom are still greatly valued, and freedom is looked at with anxiety and uncertainty. Your prison cell door is open and has been all along. But are you willing to venture out of the seeming security of your bondage?

Many people will stay right where they are because things are familiar, even if these things create intolerable circumstances. People will not leave their bondage. And some even think that their bondage is spiritually important as if they must stay and work through some aggravation within their nature, when in reality God is calling them to step out and step away and move forward. You will hear every kind of excuse and every kind of justification for people staying in a state of bondage. And you will feel their ambivalence. Even if they are drawn to the truth, they are afraid of it. And the strength of their fear can overcome their natural inclinations.

This is vital for your learning in discernment and discretion. This is part of the reason you cannot share the mystery of your life with anyone with whom you are friendly. This is why you must choose your partners very carefully. You cannot be reckless in relationships and have any hope of fulfilling your greater purpose here.

In your deeper practice in stillness today, let your mind be free of its constraints. Focus your mind. Allow it to be still. Upon the hour, when you are in the world, look and listen. Stop yourself and look and listen. Recognize how people are not present for what is happening right now. See how preoccupied they are. See how they do not know what is occurring. They do not know what they are doing. They are just acting as if they were programmed to do something and they are doing it.

Look, but without condemnation, for you know this behavior well. And now you are beginning to learn the challenge of becoming free from it—-a formidable challenge and yet a worthy one.

Practice 46:   One 30-minute stillness practice.

                         Contemplation practice.

                         Hourly practice.

Picture:  Richard Serra's 2006 sculpture "T.E.U.C.L.A." (Torqued Ellipse UCLA) at University of California – Los Angeles's Murphy Sculpture Garden.

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 45 - There are greater relationships awaiting me. I must prepare.

6:48 p.m. October 9, 2001 – Along the creek – at a different place. I had a headache most of the day. – Chocolate responsible – over eating at lunch…being unhappy @ RC – even though there's good work to do there and people with whom to work.

Step 45 – "There are greater relationships awaiting me…I must prepare". I'm tired of preparing and want the relationships. So – coming home the thought/or the urging was to get into the woods. Here I am – having played by walking the stream-bed from the bridge back towards the trail-head. It is fall – getting dark…a little chilly – but here I am to contemplate. At first – when I met Patricia Summers – and she told me about the destined relationships, and even at the start when Marshall talked about that, it was scary. Cindy continues to give me moments of doubting our relationship’s wisdom – day after day sometimes.

Now I'm desperate for my new – destined relationships…as I get to the end points on some local projects.

Here @ the stream I see the reflection of the sky. If I were Nostradamus I might see something. Of course my mind could create something.

So – this is the contemplation.

7:04 p.m. – So, now I get this sense to write.

Dear Tom,

Progress is grand and it leads to hunger for more – a hunger no calories can meet. Hunger, not related to mealtime is a cue for movement. Each step has a purpose. Some are easier than others depending upon the person. A lean horse runs along race.

11:25 p.m. After getting back from the woods, Cindy told me of a call from Dania – someone from a TLC meeting, she from Hawaii. She called – in reference to Al Joy and "Solar Psychology". I found him on the web…read his stuff, then called Dania (a woman). It seemed it might be an opportunity to promote GCS, though there’s not much of a surficial match based on the website. I took the info and fed my view, as now influenced by manifesting GCW. They may do a workshop @ the Chapel. I might go.

I then called Sarah. We had a good conversation. She said things were on her mind. I asked if she wanted me to listen. She talked/asked if it was normal for people like her coming from a place like the State hospital to be concerned – I'm not certain what word she used it may have been "nervous". I mentioned the term "postpartum depression" and explained it. Some women are overwhelmed by the responsibilities even coming home to a family support system and a husband.

This continued. She was expressing some nervousness…so I went on again to talk about open adoption – and I said I'd support her making that choice. The conversation was broader – but I'm too tired to write it all.

This day I wrote: “Now I'm desperate for my new – destined relationships…”.  No doubt a common thought for students; one I’m not certain that I’ve been able to fully answer yet. I heard and recorded another letter to myself. Useful as always. I consider whether or not another teaching has any relationship to this study and will weigh participation against an opportunity to bring GCS to others. This part will remain difficult. 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.