7/11/14

Step 192 - I will not neglect small things today. Entry for Step 191 - My Knowledge is greater than my humanity.


Greetings All –


DO NOT NEGLECT THE SMALL THINGS TODAY that are necessary for you to do. Doing small things does not mean in any way that you are small. If you do not identify with your behavior and activities, you can allow your greatness to exist as you undertake them. Someone who is great can do small things without complaint. Someone who is with Knowledge can undertake mundane activities without any sense of disgrace. Activities are only activities. They do not constitute your true nature or being. Your true nature or being is the source of your life, which will express itself through your small activities as you learn to receive it and to see it in proper perspective.


DO NOT NEGLECT SMALL THINGS. Care for small things so that your life in the world may be stable and may progress properly. Today, in your deeper practices, again enter the greatness and the depth of Knowledge. Because you have attended to small things, you can now spend this time of devotion and giving. In this way, your outer life is managed properly, and your inner life is attended to as well, for you are an intermediary between the life of greatness and life in the world. Thus, you attend to the small and you receive the great. This is your true function, for you are here to give Knowledge to the world.

AS BEFORE, REPEAT YOUR PRACTICE UPON THE HOUR. Take it with you. Do not forget.

PRACTICE 192: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.




Remembering the hourly is difficult for all students. If you are in the world working, time can be very hard to keep track of. Simply a reminder that cell phones and computers can be set up with hourly chimes. There is a skill to finding a tone that is not too long, but which you will hear or a vibration you will feel. As beginning students we must do the best we can. There is no failure.






From the Journal:

8:10 AM Monday, January 24, 2000 where am I? At the beginning of a busy week. To Texas on Friday – just to be with my kids – generators of teaching/learning situations.

What does the region do? Lots of little things.

3:58 PM A funky day

5:33 PM Still funky. What do I know? I know that a regional grid is useful in managing from the top down. What people don't see is that being local is to be divided and separated. From the bottom up the grid can be used to empower and to differentiate.

The mid-view seat at the grid level networks and communicates among the communities. When on a national or global scale, this is done by traditional media. Below the state level there are few communications that are regional. The web/email could do that if there was structure and content.

7:02 PM still here – sent out Virginia link info – that is the most important.

9:51 PM Decision-making. Should I continue to live. What I think is that I'm lost. Indolence has overtaken me. I have no goals. I'm in a job with no control over the outcomes. I am burned out and have no place to go. My dream of promoting regions has no market; no customers.

It works – even when I don't. I've not, however, been able to find people that see the same way. Benton MacKaye could see it 70 years ago.

What I want is some like-minded people and administrative support so I don't have to do all the work myself. Then I could work on the regional structure.

I know I am in the wrong place to do what I wish to do. I don't know where my ideas would be supported? In 2 years I could retire and draw ICMA and build what I need. There just isn't enough time.

The Step today "My knowledge is greater than my humanity." My humanity is nothing – nada – it is mostly just eating, eating, eating. It is my humanity which is depressing me.

It says "Life has depth. You must penetrate it. You must enter into it. You must receive it and inquire within it. Then, you will become reengaged in your natural relationships with life."

I am not well engaged with life today.

How depressing is it that Sarah is on drugs and needs to go to treatment and be taken away from Lloyd. Only 2 kids – but I get a wide range of dysfunction.

1:21 AM Tuesday, January 25 – My mind is sabotaging my Spirit. Knowledge must assert direct action and control. I just experienced this and wrote the answer in the message book. I was thinking of getting some help – talking to a shrink. What would I tell him or her? – I heard voices in my head. The voices were telling me to work. Such are not insane thoughts. They are practical, rational. It is my mind that wants to escape work and does not have the stamina. It is weak, afraid – even though I know the work is needed.

Lesson 191 – "My knowledge is greater than my humanity," has been received. There is no doubt, more depth… But in time I'll have that. For now – more K focus – bring it on – let's strengthen the bridge




That last graphic, the hierarchy:  B – body serves M – mind and mind serves K – Knowledge/Holy Spirit, at the top.

Now, a few thoughts about this journal day over 14 years ago: journaling is a self-talk therapy of sorts. There might be another term today. Steps require honesty and there are many things the average human may have to sort out going through life. Depression is normal, but can be chronic. An older term was to be feeling “down-hearted.” My entries demonstrate the ups and downs and frustrations of life. These are the things which put us on the search for understanding which turns spiritual at some point for most.

The practice and reflection on Step 191 goes on to the next day. This has happened before, but I need to note that the Steps day isn’t necessarily midnight to midnight or any strict 24 hour period. My goal, as has been mentioned before, is to get to the end – so I’m on a forced march because of personal necessity. Your pace will be situational as well. That is allowed.

Yesterday’s journal entry made reference to the cluetrain manifesto. This was an internet production of the mid-1990’s. I got the link today and added it to the page.  The manifesto had 95 theses which you can quickly scan. It was written with great optimism that the emerging networks enabled by internet communication would bring power to the people. It hasn’t worked out that way. Looking at that twenty years later demonstrates the limits of techno-optimism, which is also a warning of the Greater Community teachings.
  

NNC


P.S. At Step 192, we are into Part Two of Steps, so if you’ve found this and find some appeal in this or other Steps, you should really go to the beginning blog post. From here you learn about Steps to Knowledge and can begin it on the day that makes sense and 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 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