CT Step 55 - There are forces in the world which I must comprehend. – Journal – CT Step 54

Today:  CT Step 55 - There are forces in the world which I must comprehend. (MP3)

There are forces in the world which I must comprehend. CT Step 55

There are forces that affect people in the world that you must comprehend. You must gain an understanding of why people all think the same, why they have the same attitudes, why they use the same words and phrases, why they have the same responses, responses that do not come from Knowledge, why they hold to the same assumptions without question, why they follow one another blindly around, why they act mindlessly and foolishly and why they hurt themselves and other people.

If these forces were not in the world, the world would be a place of Knowledge and would be totally unrecognizable from what you see today. So clearly you must understand the forces that limit you and hinder you if you are to advance. Do not claim that they are beyond your scope or beyond your comprehension, for this is not true.

Therefore, today think about these things. Do not assign a cause to a person or an institution. Do not say, "Well, the government is this, and the government is that." There are greater forces. Yes, they can manifest through individuals, organizations, groups, authority figures and so forth. But really, what is this power? Why is it so effective and why do people succumb to it so easily? How is it being used by those who wish to control others? And how does it control those people who are doing the controlling?

Do not try to answer these questions, for this is an exploration. The important issue here is that you are asking the questions, not that you are giving yourself the answers. In your practice in stillness, let all questioning go. Practice upon the hour, using awareness and discernment.

If you are advancing in this curriculum, you will begin to feel and sense things that you only intermittently felt before. You will sense the presence of forces. You will feel influences within people and around people. You will see that there really are counter-productive forces in the world. They can act through people. They can act independently of people. This is why you feel good in certain places and not so good in others. This is why one place does not feel like every other place, why one person does not feel like every other person. For Knowledge to be so thwarted in the world, there must be significant forces opposing it. Today begin to explore what this could mean and where this could possibly come from.

Practice 55:    One 30-minute stillness practice.

                         Contemplation practice.

                         Hourly practice.

Picture:  The Prada and Louis Vuitton fashion houses are visible here at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, Italy. Is fashion something that makes people think the same? A mental environment we should be concerned about?

I have several pictures to choose from. The lead picture shows many people. An aspect of America where a lot of people think and act the same is housing.

Approach to Love Field, Dallas, Texas, showing suburban development.

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 54 - The Fire of Knowledge is burning within me now.

12:06 a.m. Thursday, October 18, 2001 – How can I be so confused? I've watched piano competition – the van Cliburn awards – on WETA – passionate, talented musicians in a very competitive environment. What does that convey to me? I see inspired, talented people. What about the talent of the composers whose works they played? Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Schuman –

Community does not have such an art. (? 9/20/02)

And our world – US A here, the new book Power and Money – about Las Vegas and how gambling, government and gangs built that world and – support the drug trade… Back to the 1940s the same drug trade that damaged Sarah and David's lives; and supported anti-communist thugs – who got CIA support – only because they were anti-communist.

The Islamic attack justified – America – Still ugly on the world scene. We work for a living town. David Ickes and the conspiracy folks may be right. Who is on top?

Is this more intervention for Earth control? Greed is always misused.

12:15 a.m. Step 54 – "The Fire of Knowledge is burning within me now". Text says "Today, in your practice and stillness see if that Fire lives anywhere within you. See if you are passionate about anything, if anything feels urgent or essential in your life – something that cannot wait, the thing you must do before you die, the thing that must be done and that you must do. In stillness, listen. Watch. Feel. Let the body a be an instrument of Knowledge now".

7:35 a.m. Understand and promote regional (greater) community based on the commonality of humanity. ($, ideas, people, time, brain capacity, etc.)

Scarcity makes community necessary. The UU church, in order to build a congregation, needed to cast a wide net. Its name – a regional name [Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley] – puts that in its mission/it self-definition. Region – inside out – understanding "greater community" is my fire. The original spark that drew me to GC. Community "common-unity" is how life creates its next step and thrives/survives in context/in its environment.

Communities which clash – which try to dominate others – are not cognizant/reflective of the greater context?

Step 54 asks one to: “See if you are passionate about anything, if anything feels urgent or essential in your life-—something that cannot wait, the thing you must do before you die, the thing that must be done and that you must do”. I did have an answer then, and it has remained a focus, thought 15 years later it has still yet to be completely defined. My came about over many years – there’s little guidance as to when that might be discovered. Odds are, our initial thinking may be wrong. We have to leave room. So, 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.