Today: CT Step 52 - My spiritual advancement will fail if my other Pillars are not built. (MP3)
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| My spiritual advancement will fail if my other Pillars are not built. CT Step 52 |
You can see clearly in your own experience how
people will give away everything for one Pillar. They will cast away everything
for relationships. They will neglect everything for their work. They will even
neglect everything for their spiritual advancement, only wanting to meditate
all day long and be in a high state. You will see how people give away
everything for their health and their health concerns and how this Pillar
dominates them for their whole life.
This is not the way for a student of Knowledge.
There is no stability here. There is no foundation here. Yes, if someone has a
true calling to be masterful at one activity, this will dominate their life and
experience. But these cases are exceptional and often these people suffer
greatly because of it, having never developed their other Pillars sufficiently.
Here you must learn a balanced approach. This
serves as an antidote to eccentricity, to compulsive behavior, and to erratic
thinking. It provides a balance, which is often the very element that is lacking
in people’s lives. Here you are not a superstar in any area, but you are
capable in them all. This frees you to do greater work, to learn greater things
and to make a greater contribution.
If your Pillars are always crumbling beneath you,
they will dominate your life. Here you may not have perfect health, perfect
relationships, a perfect job or a perfect spiritual practice. Instead, you work
in all these areas and, as a result, they will all grow and become strong. Then
the Creator can give you a gift for the world and you will not crumble under
its weight. Then you can bring something into the world without failing
yourself.
How obvious this is when you think about it. And
today we want you to think about it. Think about the examples of those who
neglect one of their Pillars or all of their Pillars for the one preferred area
of their life. Even in the realm of spiritual practice, people will give over everything
for one Pillar. Recognize how inappropriate this is. Even in monasteries,
people have to live Four Pillars. They have to work to maintain the facility.
They have to get along with other people. They have to deal with mundane
activities. They have to deal with practical necessities. The problem arises
when people have self-appointed destinies. They do not want to join the convent
or the monastery, but they want to live a very spiritually focused life and
have everything be very spiritual. Yet they cannot give to the world because
they do not have the power or the stability to do it. And they are unwilling to
yield to the world because they are out of relationship with it.
Today it is important to think about these things.
Beyond your practice in stillness and your hourly remembrances, think about
this. Keep your spiritual development in perspective. Realize how it is
dependent upon the other Pillars in your life. And realize how they are
dependent upon your spiritual development. Think deeply about this and you will
see things that can help you and that can help others.
Practice 52: One
30-minute stillness practice.
Contemplation practice.
Hourly practice.
Picture: Santa
Maria delle Grazie ("Holy Mary of Grace") church and Dominican
convent in Milan, Italy. The mural of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is
in the refectory of the convent. The day I visited, there were no tickets for
the mural, so we went to this part where there was an exhibition and this replica
of the mural with a history.
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| Replica of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci |
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
Monday,
October 15, 2001
12:11
a.m. Tuesday, October 16 – age 55 – now. No time for contemplation on Step 51 –
spent 3 hours rebooting my computer to clear up a problem. At least I didn't
have to take it in. Lost some emails – What can I do?
Monday
went OK – work – very busy…I'm wanted in a few places.
I go
along with the idea that the work I'm doing is on the way to my real work –
though it is a mystery. A caution that was encouraging was about those who
"…only do the work that is their real work before they are really ready to
do it, before it can be done in such a way that it can support them".
"It
may take you a long time to find your real work and a much longer time for it
to support you financially".
I
feel this is where I a.m. – the RI-RC idea, but it can't support now which is
why the partial programs work.
– So
I a.m. patient…
Choosing
to be patient. Sometimes that is about all one can do. 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.
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