CT Step 5 - I must find my true relationships in order to know my direction. – Journal – CT Step 4

Today:  CT Step 5 - I must find my true relationships in order to know my direction. (MP3)

I must find my true relationships in order to know my direction. CT Step 5

A critical part of your development is finding those individuals who are destined to share your greater work in the world. Finding them, then, can preoccupy the early stages of your development. In doing this, it is often necessary to leave other involvements that do not represent this greater purpose and destiny. For some people this can take many years to accomplish. Yet until you are free to find your true companions, then you must engage in this work, in this effort. And if you have been so fortunate to find even one of your true companions, then you have a new beginning in your life. Here your development and their development become really essential. Here you become accountable to more than just yourself. For you now practice for others as well as for your own advancement. Here failure means that you fail others as well as your Spiritual Family.

Receive this not with guilt but understand that it gives you great strength and commitment, for in reality this is the case. People believe that they are weak and so they look for other powers in the universe to guide them and to protect them. But here you are learning The Way of Knowledge, which is the way of true initiation. For this you will need strong companions. And they must become strong for you and you must become strong for them. You must become strong to find them. You must become strong to join with them. And you must become strong to advance with them. This is a gift.

Today spend time thinking about the meaning of today's lesson. It holds the key to understanding human relationships. A great deal can be revealed to you if you spend time considering the meaning of today's practice.

Look upon the world without condemnation but with clear eyes. See that without a greater purpose, human relationships cannot fulfill their greater meaning and value. These relationships can only be partial, and they are at the mercy of the conflicts of those who participate within them. And because these relationships are governed by the conditioning of the world, freedom and true self-expression will not be possible within them. Understand this and you will understand your past and a great deal about what has brought you to this point.

Continue your one daily practice in stillness and your hourly practices. Think about your greater companions.

Practice 5:      One 30-minute stillness practice.

                          Contemplation practice.

                          Hourly practice.

Picture:  A concert is the sort of venue one may go to, alone or in a group, looking for a relationship. Pécs, Hungary – May 22, 2010.

Note: Corrections were made to the intro of the audio and inclusion of practices on the PDF for CT Step 4 yesterday. Please replace those files if you’ve downloaded them. CT Step 4

From the journal: CT Step 4 - If I understand the world, I will understand myself.

6:28 a.m. August 28, 2001 – Tuesday – feeling somewhat better. The Step today – "If I understand the world, I will understand myself".

7:30 a.m. I see the world's movement. Its integration and disintegration. Population growth forces humanity. S2K says I am here to serve. I see an opportunity to pursue it slowly, patiently even. What more can I say or even think. I am confused, yet I lurch in what I feel is a forward direction.

→regions based on settlement patterns and governmental chartering.

1:03 p.m. Home for lunch. The Water Supply Committee met. It is going well. There will be an Authority…but no long-term work for me – it will have an engineer director… At the end of the meeting – Clayton headed off to Richmond. I had the sense that my work here is done and it is time to move on. I'll need a job – a contract – do I have something to sell? Maryland is a good bet? I was going to wait until I completed the second pass through Steps.

6:04 p.m. Practice #2 – I don't understand myself or the world. I meditated this a.m. and they aren't going to let me do that. This must be the contemplation time. It felt earlier today that my work was over at the RC and that I can now begin a more aggressive search, though the idea of a move scares me. I just don't want to work that hard. Neither do I want to be a politician. For too long a time I've been searching for, looking for my "other people".

Work has gotten so mundane as to be gagging me – Marie's continued and increasing helplessness. Steve is good, he’s an asset – with the political patter of suburbia – exactly what I'm not, but that is the Valley's future.

I see, have seen, have worked on – cooperation. Of the people that might listen to the argument, Gov. Glendenning is one. In the face of the needed work, the skill requirements and data needs, my brain melts.

11 p.m. Sarah is due in 9 – 10 days. I have nothing for her. The State of Texas should take her baby and put it in foster care. Is this being strong? Sarah can't take care of a child; she can't take care of yourself. Is this a multiplication of error? If destiny, it is a sad one. I'm focused on how I can deal…yet I can't.

→ How can the system get bigger without the individual being overrun?

 Sticking to the practices; much going on. 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.

CT Step 4 - If I understand the world, I will understand myself. – Journal – CT Step 3

Today:  CT Step 4 - If I understand the world, I will understand myself. (MP3)

If I understand the world, I will understand myself. CT Step 4

You have a fundamental relationship with the world because it is the world that you were sent to serve. You were not sent here to condemn the world or to avoid the world or to ridicule the world or to malign the world or to grieve over the world. You were sent here to serve the world. To serve the world, you must understand it. You must understand its beauty, its conflict and its fundamental predicaments. You must have this understanding without denial or avoidance. If you can understand the world this completely, you will know why you are here and you will experience those who sent you and who are with you even at this moment.

Therefore, as you go through your day, you are building a greater understanding and a greater awareness. You are establishing yourself at a higher vantage point on the mountain of life, even as you witness the mundane events of your daily affairs. What power this gives you! What freedom to see and to know and to act according to the true direction that lives within you. Understand, then, the world. Understand where the world is going in its emergence into the Greater Community. See yourself as part of the bigger picture, not simply an individual living within your little shell, preoccupied with your own fears, goals and anxieties, but a person who was sent to give something in the world with other people. Create this larger context today as you think about today's lesson.

Stop upon the hour and see where you are and what you are experiencing. And in your one long practice in stillness and silence, let yourself come into harmony with the world's greater nature, for Knowledge lives within the world as it does within you. And you can experience this today if you are still.

Picture: Development model of Beijing Town, a part of expansion for the city of Beijing, China. June 26, 2012

From the journal:  CT Step 3 - I must be patient in order to proceed.

9:45 a.m. Monday, August 27, 2001 –

Home now. Went to work at 8:30 a.m., but was sweaty – so I came home. That's a first. Step 3 – "I must be patient in order to proceed". It seems I've been working on patience all my life.

The text says learning patience is difficult because people are living without Knowledge – they are establishing goals in life without K.

This is confusing for me. I did establish goals in Plan-Do's development – and I thought I was in contact with spirit.

I was involved in frantic pursuits – my inspiration was not shared in the regional arena – so – it had to end it did. I was unburdened. I take away the lessons – the region continues to become a community. That took 30 years. This is the prologue of my life.

4:47 p.m. Has anything healed this day? I see why I should be patient, but it is hard to be without frantic pursuits. I feel paralyzed. Sweaty & sick – unable to sleep – but my health is not threatened, only uncomfortable. I am safe – yet, as the text says, "… your mind is racing here and racing there, trying to solve this and trying to establish that".

Unable to sleep, I watched C-SPAN taped shows – must not waste time…get some input…more learning…more insight…more frantic.

There were some gems in the tapes… I do have a way to see the greater world here through the eyes of others – and that puts on a pressure to integrate what I see, yet I don't know how. Many just pray or do global meditation.

One speaker quoted from an old book he found – a Parson's Perspective I think, an old English book from the 1850s. The author wrote about a trip he was taking, up early for a train and – referring to how difficult it is to believe in the spiritual aspects, he found the physical – in the moment of stillness and quiet – hard to believe. As happens in the woods when alone. It all seems so impossible.

Then I return to the room and wait for David's call. Time for another truck payment. Good money after bad is it?

→ Before I die I must articulate regional community. That will require patience… today's lesson.

6:35 p.m. Practice #3 – long meditation – difficult to still my mind, but my intent to serve is clear. That I shall continue to develop.

Nasi Novare Coram

T-om Su-ne

The journal did focus on the practices. The reference to Plan-Do is for a personal planning method I developed in the 1980’s. I formalized it into a workshop when someone at The Lord’s Chapel asked, “How do you get goals?” I offered it a few times. It was very effective in motivating people about their lives, but the changes that came up included things like a changed spouse. That was an area I did not want to deal with, so I didn’t pursue making it a full-time business. Today one might be called a life coach. The process has worked for me – I’ve maintained an annual written personal plan since 1991. The seven goal categories I set up later came together organized under the Four Pillars. The workbook is here if you’d like to consider the process.

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.

CT Step 3 - I must be patient in order to proceed.– Journal – CT Step 2

Today: CT Step 3 - I must be patient in order to proceed.

 (MP3)

I must be patient in order to proceed. CT Step 3

Everyone seems to have difficulty learning patience. This is because people are living without Knowledge. They are trying to establish their goals in life without Knowledge. They are trying to establish their primary relationships without Knowledge. They are even trying to be at peace without Knowledge. Thus, they are at the mercy of the machinations and the conflicts of the mind. And they are at the mercy of the conflicting forces that exist within the mental environment and the physical environment. Thus things seem continually unstable and out of harmony. Great effort is exerted in building things that can fall apart in a moment, things that have no stability or permanence.

Therefore, come back to Knowledge in your long practice period. It is infinitely patient with you, and you must become patient as well. For what is patience but relieving yourself of your own frantic pursuits to enjoy the luxury of stillness and the depths of true understanding. At first, this will seem difficult, for your mind is racing here and racing there and trying to solve this and trying to establish that. But as you become quiet, you become more receptive and more in harmony with your deeper nature.

Therefore, develop this patience. Let not the frantic yearnings of your personal mind govern your understanding, but abide with Knowledge, which is permanent and which has true direction in the world.

Today, practice upon the hour and in addition to your long practice period in stillness, consider the meaning of today's lesson. Look about. See how it applies to the world around you. And look at your own experience and see how it applies to you. Explore it meaning and its implications.

Practice 3:      One 30-minute stillness practice.

Contemplation practice.

Hourly practice.

Picture: This is the rock in the Shenandoah National Park that I named Patience. This naming occurred sometime in the 1980’s, as the hour walk walk in and out, I found, made me more patient. It was essentially a labyrinth walk. There’s a Pinterest page Journey to Patience.

From the journal:  CT Step 2 - The gift of Knowledge is given me today.

9:39 a.m. Sunday, August 26, 2001

Trying to re-experience thoughts of the early a.m. Deep thinking about the relationships of the universe that S2K hints about – or states without explanation.

The manifest world becomes separate from the Creator as intelligence develops. Intelligence – visioning perfection, can make one always dissatisfied. This is the "Gap" in right use of will. Life can be good, but never perfect – because that is a judgment. And each person has their own view/judgment. Life moves and reacts to its environment.

Dances with Wolves [dialogue]

Dances: You always ask about the white people. You always want to know how many more are coming. There will be a lot my friend. More than can be counted.

Kicking: How many?"

Dances: Like the stars.

Kicking: (shakes head)

Dances: Wichumpi (spelling?)

Kicking: (shock)

Dances: It makes me afraid for all the Sioux.

Kicking: We should tell this to Ten Bears.

→ Shift to scene within tent. From a leather bundle, a Spanish conquistador helmet is revealed by Ten Bears – he holds it.

The men who wore this came in the time of my Grandfather's Grandfather. Eventually we drove them out. Then the Mexicans came. They do not come here anymore. In my own time: the Texans. They have been like all the others. They take without asking. I don't know if we are ready for these people, but I think you are right. I think they will keep coming. When I think of that, I look at this helmet. Our country is all that we have, and we will fight to keep it. Tomorrow we strike the village and go to the winter camp".

3:39 p.m. Where am I? Physically, I'm on the mend from a sinus infection. Moving slowly, little energy – need water. I am in a safe space, but my children are not. David called – he and Jamie are moving out because Mary Ellen did an intrusive inspection. Sarah is in a state hospital in Texas. I feel both of my kids have been pushed to the edge of a cliff. Society must help them – I can only love them.

Steps to Knowledge has been good for me in that it gives a greater framework for life, one that makes sense.

Step 2 – "The gift of Knowledge is given me today".

7:07 p.m. Stillness – before the Big Bang – the manifestation – there was stillness. It remains – and it is to that we return, playing out the creation options in the interim. All manner of matter has organized and come to be life – the What if? is being answered. Social organization for embodied life is a great evolutionary challenge. That is where I find myself now. In today's Step – Stillness is presented as a gift – "Simply receive this stillness, this gift, this reprieve, the luxury of peace where no problems have to be solved and nothing has to be contemplated or corrected". In stillness, I did try not to contemplate. In the first session – the stillness – primordial – pre-Big Bang idea came through. I wonder why as such a small person I get such big ideas? This emphasis on stillness where "no problems have to be solved and nothing has to be contemplated or corrected", seemed to be a match with the ACIM thought "I need do nothing".

Since I am helpless to do for David and Sarah from here in the physical, I pray on their behalf for Knowledge to emerge.

Amen & Amen

T-om Su-ne

The scene from “Dances with Wolves” connected for me as an example of intervention. Intervention is part of the Greater Community understanding that humanity must reach, even though the presence of artifacts has not been proven. More and more I am trying to apply Knowledge in my relationships. 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.