x2 Step 364 - Knowledge carries me because I am a student of Knowledge. – Journal – Step 363

Today:  Step 364 - Knowledge carries me because I am a student of Knowledge. (MP3)  [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]

Knowledge carries me because I am a student of Knowledge. Step 364

AS YOU CARRY KNOWLEDGE, you will feel Knowledge carrying you. You will feel Knowledge guiding you and directing you, preserving you, protecting you from harm, keeping you from difficult and harmful engagements, engaging you with individuals with whom you must be engaged and leading you away from divisive engagements which do not have purpose. Thus it is that you become a leader and a follower, for you follow Knowledge and you lead yourself. You yield to Knowledge, yet you exercise the power of decision upon your own behalf. Thus it is that you become a great follower and a great leader. Thus, you are in a position to serve, and you will increasingly feel as if Knowledge were carrying you through life. And you will feel that you are carrying Knowledge as well. Seen correctly, you will realize your true relationship to Knowledge. You will realize that you carry Knowledge within you and that Knowledge carries your well-being within itself. This is perfectly complementary. It is perfect because it is born of perfection itself.

BE A TRUE STUDENT OF KNOWLEDGE. Engage yourself in practice. Give yourself in practice. Do not alter your practice. Do not neglect your practice. All you need to do is practice and be attentive, practice and be attentive. Upon the hour and in your two deeper meditation practices, where you come into stillness to be with stillness itself, practice to practice, practice to learn and learn to learn. Today you are learning to learn. Today you are a student of Knowledge.

PRACTICE 364: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture: Saint Christopher holding the Christ child. This statue is atop the Sint Christoffel Kathedraal in Roermond, The Netherlands. I visited there in 2009, not knowing that in Dutch, Christopher is spelled Christoffel.

In this case, the collective Knowledge of the Christian community in Europe carried and continues to carry the message brought through by Jesus. It is from this foundation that many work. The other world religion foundational teaching carry us until we can come to seek Knowledge. 

From the journal:  

6:56 a.m. August 17, 2001 – Friday

Getting the local governments a little further down the road in time.

6:13 p.m. → The Regional Community Problem Solving Model – tipping point – local solutions – shift to regional integration –

7:23 a.m.– early to bed, late to rise. Sarah and David's situation is taking it out of me.

– Boundaries are no good unless they are used.

– Cindy is willing to take Sarah's baby and raise it. I'd rather not do that. Sarah is in a place where I can't deal with her – nor can anyone.

11:50 p.m. Practice #2 – Step 363 – "Knowledge is my true desire because I am a student of Knowledge". As I’m close to completing Steps a 2nd time I don't have the enthusiasm of the first go – because I remain so much of a beginner still after two passes. Monday I may begin Section II again – without Steps, I won't have the discipline.

Running out of steam near the end? The first year I wrote in the journal, then commented about it on the 2014 blog.

11:12 p.m. Two days to complete S2K and it feels like I'm losing ground. The goal is strong Step 363 – "Knowledge is my true desire because I am a student of Knowledge."

The peak experience of Steps 357 and 358 is nearly a week old. As that wears off, “it feels like I’m losing ground.” That is not an uncommon experience. Soon the decision will have to be made to continue as a student of Knowledge or not. Is it possible to go back to one’s old thinking, or is it better to work ahead in these teachings? I decided to continue years ago. It will be your choice soon. Can you go back to the thinking you used to have? Let us 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.

x2 Step 363 - Knowledge is my true desire because I am a student of Knowledge. – Journal – Step 362

Today:  Step 363 - Knowledge is my true desire because I am a student of Knowledge. (MP3)

Knowledge is my true desire because I am a student of Knowledge. Step 363

KNOWLEDGE IS YOUR TRUE DESIRE. Think not that your desires are false, for all desires, if recognized, are for Knowledge. It is because you have misinterpreted your desires or have attempted to use them to fortify other things that they have led you astray. Do not attempt to be without desire, for life is desire. Desire is purpose. Desire is meaning and direction. Yet, you must recognize your true desire, which is the desire for Knowledge to fulfill itself and to claim itself, the desire for Knowledge to save you and for you to save Knowledge. How can you save Knowledge? By holding it within yourself, by being a student of Knowledge, by carrying Knowledge everywhere you go, by reinforcing your awareness of Knowledge, by being simple with Knowledge and by not attempting to use Knowledge to fulfill your own aims and your own purposes.

CARRY FORTH THE NORMAL ACTIVITIES OF THE DAY, but carry Knowledge with you. If Knowledge is not in doubt, you need not be in doubt. If Knowledge is not afraid, you need not be afraid. If Knowledge is not changing the situation, you need not change the situation. Yet, if Knowledge holds you back, hold yourself back. If Knowledge changes the situation, change the situation. If Knowledge tells you to leave a circumstance, leave a circumstance. If Knowledge tells you to stay in a circumstance, stay in a circumstance. Here you become as simple and as powerful as Knowledge. Here you become Knowledge itself.

UPON THE HOUR REPEAT THE IDEA FOR TODAY and experience it. Within your inner life, experience it as well in your deeper meditation practices. Your inner and outer life are where you apply yourself and where you give yourself. They are where you carry Knowledge. In time, you will see that Knowledge will carry you.

PRACTICE 363: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture: This is the “Ye Olde Yule Log” fire pit in President’s Park, across from the White House in Washington, D.C., where the National Christmas Tree is displayed. The yule log fire was discontinued in 2012. This picture is from 2010. For our purposes, it is the Fire of Knowledge.

Yesterday:  Step 362 - I am learning to learn because I carry Knowledge within me today.

Though formatted as a paragraph, the beginning of Step 362 seems to me that it might be shown and read, as a poem, line by line, for the true emphasis to emerge:

YOU ARE LEARNING TO LEARN.

You are learning to receive Knowledge.

You are learning to value Knowledge.

You are learning to carry Knowledge.

You are learning to express Knowledge.

You are learning to cultivate all of your mental and physical faculties that are essential for this overall preparation.

You are a consummate student.

Therefore, be totally engaged with your studenthood today, which will free you from false assumptions and from placing impossible burdens upon yourself.

The third paragraph begins: “LEARN TO LEARN. Learning to learn means that you are learning to participate.”

Learning to learn was a concept introduced to me in my planning career in a presentation I heard from Donald N. Michael, a professor of planning and public policy at the University of Michigan. The theme was, “learning to plan and planning to learn,” essentially the feedback loop of communications and design where you make improvement by comparing the actual results to what was intended.

It is a systems approach, but one that is time consuming and requires critical appraisal. That, it turns out, is hard for humans to do, because errors need to be recognized. Evolution does this; if adaptations are not made, there will be a reduction in population and possibly extinction.

Professor Michael published a book, which though I would have liked to own it, I could not afford in the 1980’s.

In 2007 I was finally able to get a used copy through Amazon for $4.38, including shipping.

By owning the book, I recognize Professor Michael, now deceased, as a man of Knowledge, a teacher whose work greatly inspired and benefited my education and growth. You could get this book, if it is in your field, but consider the teachers in your life and field who gave to you and may still be contributing to Humanity's evolution, and honor them in some way.

Like journaling, personal planning is important. I developed a system in the 1980’s and taught it for a while. You can download Plan-Do for free. It will be some work, but goals and objectives work better than New Year’s Resolutions. The plan you generate for yourself or group, will sync with the Four Pillars. At the same link is the single page Creativity Journaling: The Good Ideas Trapper Keeper. It is one page also, but for a younger audience. I did it for my grandchildren and nieces.

Learning is a great and continuous challenge.

Again, the journal entry is short:

12:30 a.m. August 16, 2001 –

Knowledge is my true desire. If I acted on that true desire without restriction, I'd leave all behind. It is that I must bring Knowledge through here – at risk to my soul’s temptation, sloth and indolence.

It sounds like it is for Step 363, since it speaks of “true desire”, but looking again at Step 362, we see it concludes with this thought:  “As your capacity and experience of Knowledge grow, your desire for Knowledge will grow as well, for Knowledge is your true desire”.

For 2016, this blog will go on with the Steps Continuation Training. I do not yet have someone to record MP3 of the Steps. From the end of my second time, until beginning Continuation Training, five days pass. I have not yet decided how to handle these days.

The Steps to Knowledge blog will have a daily entry of the Step, a link to the MP3 and a picture. For those who may want to occasionally check my journal entries for comparison, there will be a links to the first time doing Steps and the second time.

My general experience has been that I do better when I have a Step a day. Trying to use a Greater Community book as a source of Steps, say a chapter a day or so, has not worked well.

Just like my hike to Patience on the Dickey Ridge trail is never the same, Steps are never the same, because there is more experience that we can bring to them each time.

Anticipating completion of this phase, let us 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.