Sunday, July 31, 2016

There are greater relationships awaiting me. Continuation Training Step 45


There are greater relationships awaiting me. I must prepare. CT Step 45 (MP3)

There are greater relationships awaiting me. I must prepare. CT Step 45
There are greater relationships awaiting you. And you must prepare. Part of the preparation is freeing yourself from those engagements that may be inappropriate for you now, even if they were appropriate for you at an earlier time. How can you find these great relationships if you are not free to participate? You will be ambivalent regarding them if you think that their arrival in your life will upset your other commitments to people. Even the arrival of the Greater Community Teaching will arouse considerable anxiety if you think it will upset or disrupt the delicate balance that you have in your life at this moment. The Creator’s first purpose is to unburden you. This requires change and readjustment. If this change is not welcome, if the need for it is not understood and supported, then the answer to your great need must wait and your prayers must be left unanswered until a later time.

There are greater relationships awaiting you. You must be available to them. Do not fill up your emptiness or your loneliness with people. Do not become socially engaged unless it serves a greater and immediate purpose. Let Knowledge be your guide. Follow your natural inclinations. Resist your social conditioning if it obstructs this. This is choosing within yourself. It is a shift in your internal allegiance. It is saying "no" to your own bondage and "yes" to your freedom. Knowledge will commit you totally to the right people, but it will remain silent with everyone else.

Think of this throughout the day, and when you practice stillness, be close to Knowledge. Dedicate yourself at the beginning of this practice. And upon the hour, remember to look and to listen to see where you are, how you feel and what is going on around you.

Practice 45:   One 30-minute stillness practice.
                         Contemplation practice.
                         Hourly practice.


Picture:  Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This futuristic building has provided many pictures. An ideal setting for these “greater relationships”. The reality is likely to be mundane, but as of now, we don’t really know.




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.

Saturday, July 30, 2016

If I understand my relationships, I will understand my priorities. Continuation Training Step 44

If I understand my relationships, I will understand my priorities. CT Step 44 (MP3)
If I understand my relationships, I will understand my priorities. CT Step 44
Again we emphasize this matter of relationships and priorities, inner choosing, inner freedom, and the emergence of a greater purpose in your life. Certainly, the emergence of your greater purpose will change your former obligations and responsibilities. Surely it will create a fundamental shift here. Your position with everyone will change. With some people, that change will seem minor. With others, it will be quite significant.

Understanding, then, your relationships as a reflection of your values and how you view yourself becomes an important tool in understanding your own development at this time. If you feel overridden by the desires and the will of others, if you feel that you must carry forth social commitments regardless of your own sense of restraint or anxiety, clearly there is a problem here at hand. Clearly, your own authority is not being exercised and your freedom is not being used. Knowledge knows where you belong. Knowledge knows whom you must give yourself to. Knowledge understands your real commitments in life and where they must be placed. Any commitments outside of this are essentially weak and unstable and are subject to question. You must question them.

Beyond your practice in stillness and your hourly remembrances of awareness and discernment, again consider your obligations to others. Ask yourself, "Is this relationship appropriate for me?" And if you feel that it is, ask yourself, "To what degree must I commit myself here?" Be careful not to answer your own questions, however, for the real answer is waiting for you.

Practice 44:   One 30-minute stillness practice.
                         Contemplation practice.
                         Hourly practice.

Picture:  Wedding parade forming – The French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana. The following is how it looked underway.

Many relationships in process; may they have been understood then or in process now.



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.

Friday, July 29, 2016

My responsibility is to Knowledge. Continuation Training Step 43



My responsibility is to Knowledge. CT Step 43 (MP3)

My responsibility is to Knowledge. CT Step 43
One of the things that limits and hinders people is their sense of obligation to others. Discerning what this obligation means and if it is appropriate represents a challenge, particularly at the outset. In the beginning of studenthood, one of the formidable challenges that almost everyone faces is questioning their allegiances to other people and the agreements that they have made in order to see if these allegiances and agreements are really true and represent Knowledge. Here there can be challenges at the outset, for the fear of guilt and repudiation can be very great. And the student of Knowledge does not yet have the self-trust to know that their deeper inclinations are true and that they should follow them. As a result, there can be much wavering and confusion and going back and forth over things that in reality are very clear and obvious.

Therefore, today take this opportunity to make sure that your obligations to other people—-the agreements that you have made, the commitments that you have made, and the assumptions that attend them—-are accurate and appropriate. To your children, you owe a natural devotion and until they are self-sufficient, you owe a commitment of your time and energy. This is obvious. But to other members of your family, the situation can be much cloudier and more difficult to discern.

Therefore, beyond your practice in stillness and your hourly practice in awareness and discernment, consider today any obligations that you feel you have to your friends, your family, or to anyone else who might come to mind. Take time to contemplate this and ask yourself, "Is this allegiance appropriate for me?" The answer is either "yes "or "no." Ask the question and become still so that you may hear the answer.

Practice 43:   One 30-minute stillness practice.
                         Contemplation practice.
                         Hourly practice.

Picture:  Moon over Port Washington, Wisconsin.



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.