Knowledge is with me, but where am I? CT Step 1 (MP3)
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| Knowledge is with me, but where am I? CT Step 1 |
We return to this lesson, the lesson which began
your initial study in The Greater Community Way of Knowledge. This lesson is
fundamental. If you can understand this question, if you can penetrate its
seeming mystery, you will understand the nature of human suffering and
disability, and you will see clearly where the answer resides.
Knowledge is with you completely, but you are not
with Knowledge. Not yet. Intermittently here and there. And sometimes more
completely. But your hours and your days and your weeks pass by with your mind
somewhere else, preoccupied, overwhelmed, overtaken by your circumstances or by
your feelings and moods and so forth. Until the mind can serve a greater
purpose, until it can be reeled in and directed according to the Grace and Spiritual
Wisdom that live within you, then it is a reckless instrument and cannot be
used for a greater purpose.
Yet now you have the opportunity to bring the mind
into focus, to arrest its recklessness, and to give it direction, purpose and
meaning, which it desperately seeks in all things. So return to this
fundamental lesson: "Knowledge is with me, but where am I?"
In your practice today, spend 30 minutes practicing
stillness. Select a time that you can practice today and every day to follow, a
time that you can use on a consistent basis in order to deepen your
comprehension and discernment. In addition to your one practice period today,
it is important that you contemplate the meaning of this lesson. Spend another
practice period sometime today considering what this question means,
considering what it asks, and how it can be really answered. Look beyond the
obvious and you will see deeper things. Make this connection that you must
become close to Knowledge and stay close to Knowledge in your journey in the
world. In this way, you will be able to receive its grace, its wisdom and its
certainty.
In addition today, as in all the days to follow in
this study, learn to stop upon the hour as you have practiced before in Steps to Knowledge. Stop upon the hour
and take a moment to see how you feel within yourself-how you feel physically
and emotionally. Take a moment to observe your immediate circumstances and
environment. And if you have the opportunity and the time, ask yourself,
"Is there anything I need to know at this moment?" This is your
ongoing practice upon the hour during your waking hours. Return to practice if
you miss a practice. Always return. And over time, your mind will become much
more present, discerning and observant.
This indeed is the purpose of this exercise.
Knowledge is with you, but where are you? Find
where you are and bring yourself back to Knowledge.
Practice
1: One
30-minute stillness practice.
Contemplation practice.
Hourly practice.
Picture: Dickey Ridge Trail,
Shenandoah National Park, July 6, 2008.
The 84 practices of “Steps to Knowledge Continuation
Training Steps” begins here and is published a Step a day. A copy of the
Introduction is included with the MP3 file. I am the student speaking the Steps
for this effort. I hope your find the voice tolerable.
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’ve not done Steps to Knowledge twice completely,
read the related materials, and have a sense of the direction of this study,
you won’t get the experience. Begin at the beginning.
This fourth time will continue with the CT Step
plus a link to a New Message publication chapter or message.
Chapter 1: The
Will of Heaven
If having another person’s journal entry is useful,
you can find the first time series beginning January 1, 2016 in the archives of
this blog. We continue.
NNC
Note: If you’ve some interest due to this or other
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. You can
use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps. They will remain in
order in the archives - one post per Step.
Often it takes 18 months to get through the Steps
once. For this blog, the pace is one-a-day, but it really makes no difference
how fast you do it, only that you begin, persist and repeat. 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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