Today: Continuation Training Step 1 - Knowledge is with
me, but where am I? (MP3)
 |
| 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.
At this time we move on to Continuation Steps. 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 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.
Following is the journal entry from the final Step
of my second year. I’ll begin tomorrow with the journal entries for my first
time through. According to the notes on the first Step page, I’ve done this 17
times, the last beginning 3/13/2013 where I planned to do a Step a week.
12:08
a.m. Sunday, August 19, 2001 – the last of 365 Steps and here I go…
11:20
a.m. Step 365 – Practice #1. I was going to UU this a.m. and planned to
announce my completion of Steps with a candle lighting, but then chose not to
do so. Many good, intellectual people there. I may continue to attend there,
just for the people. Driving through the countryside – seeing the land, the
many houses – people with their castles. If people have their own homes, what
they do inside it? If people have their own computers, what will they do?
In
the coming years, I've got to get into writing that I feel – the experience of
regional community as a response to the isolation of suburban, exurban housing.
A simple goal, yet a huge task.
What
we are doing in water is regionalizing production and keeping distribution a
local function. That is also a data model – and the Taco Bell food model.
It
is the organization – instead of four little water plants, get one big one.
Abandon the little hearts, switch to bigger central. You grow to that, don't
start there. The local landfill, for example, becomes the transfer station,
once it is closed out. The new bigger landfill has economies. Transportation,
communication, infrastructure is needed. Local to regional is one trend of
growing to a larger operation.
The
Interstate, or other large capital projects, put the infrastructure in place,
then the local branches off or integrates.
Insights
– maybe not new to the world, but reflective of my seeking understanding. I
experience the world … then seek to understand with the tools I’ve been given
and acquired.
4
minutes remaining – in and out of stillness – so much work – What do I do
first, what do I not do?
A
"NOT" TO DO LIST –
Geographic
Information – the world is highly regionalized. Many have laid down boundaries.
Few are the true basis for community, so few operate consciously as regions.
My
goal is to make regions visible so that might be used. The molecular structure,
if used and aligned, would have greater strength and benefit humanity. Economic
necessity pushes the trend, but no connection made.
Option
for Monday – repeat again beginning at section 2 – or repeat step 365 for two
weeks – then see what is next?
2:20
p.m. What do I Know? Regional community is a valuable paradigm. It provides a
framework for cooperation. Do I need to care about UFOs? Yes – they can be seen
as Jesus – which puts us in "others will save us mode”. They could be an
impetus for cooperation, but too many minimize the threat. UFO info is
background. It is not base work, just context. Besides PDC work, how can I get
paid – convert the Known into the useable?
Skills
– orientation/rudimentary – GIS, web, database –
4:30
p.m. After my last writing I reviewed the resolution I wrote. It isn't bad.
Obviously I was inspired at the time. That could have been my work. I could be
done and go home, but the Urantia model isn't what happens – or hasn't seemed
to be happening. You fuse and disappear in a flash of light. All we have here
is con-fuse. As of August 29, 2001, I’ll have been a reader for three years. I
began as a student with the Steps on 6/27/99 and again on 8/19/2000
.
The
steps orient one to K so that relationship can be strengthened. What one has to
do can be more than simply teaching about K, that is doing the work God has
given.
8:14
p.m. Practice #2 Step 365 the goal of the Steps is to acquaint one with
Knowledge. Knowledge is ever present in us, but stillness and focus lets it
come through. Is there more that I have to practice or is Stillness enough?
9:34
p.m. What will be my Steps beginning tomorrow? Since I've chosen/know my work
is cooperation/regions/I could use my meditation time on my own affirmative
Steps.
Ideas
for Steps –
–
Cooperation is my work in the world.
–
All life is cooperating.
–
Cooperation is crossing boundaries.
–
Cooperation is respecting boundaries.
–
The earth is one planet, one Community.
In
actuality, I had a few days of my own Steps as I waited for my copy of
Continuation Training to arrive. 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.
