7/18/14

Step 199 - The world I see is emerging into the Greater Community of Worlds. Entry for Step 198 - Today I will be strong.



Greetings All –


WITHOUT THE LIMITATION OF A PURELY HUMAN VIEWPOINT, you will be able to see the evolution of your world in a greater context. Viewing the world without the distortion of your personal wishes and fears, you will be able to observe its greater movement and discern its overall direction. It is essential, then, that you realize the direction of your world because this is the context that gives meaning to your purpose and to your specific calling while you are here in this world. For you have come to serve the world in its present evolution, and your gifts are meant to serve it in its life to come.


YOUR WORLD IS PREPARING TO ENTER into a Greater Community. The evidence of this is everywhere if you but look. Without belief or denial, things can simply be recognized. In this, life’s demonstration is obvious and need not be discerned from complexities. What makes life complex is that people want life to be what life is not, they want themselves to be what they are not and they want their destiny to be what it is not. Then they attempt to gain from life that which confirms their own idealism, and because life cannot confirm this, all becomes distressed, conflicted and complex. The mechanism of life may be complicated in its minute details, but the meaning of life is directly obvious to anyone who looks without the distortion of judgment or preference.


RECOGNIZE THAT YOUR WORLD IS PREPARING TO EMERGE into the Greater Community. Do this without embellishing this recognition with your own imagination. You need not give form to the future. Only understand the present course of your world. In this, the meaning of your own inherent abilities and their future application will become ever more evident to you.


UPON THE HOUR REPEAT THIS STATEMENT and consider it seriously, for it is the absolute foundation of your life and it is necessary that you understand this. It is not mere belief; it is the evolution of the world. Within your two deeper meditation practices today, engage your mind actively in considering this idea. Look at your own beliefs that speak for or against this idea. Look at your own feelings about it. Examine yourself objectively as you attempt to engage with this powerful idea. This is a time for mental engagement. Utilize your practice periods with complete dedication and involve yourself completely. Allow your mind to penetrate the superficiality of its own surface ideas.


IN KNOWLEDGE EVERYTHING BECOMES STILL AND QUIET. Everything becomes known. Here you begin to discern the difference between knowing and thinking. You realize how thinking may only serve in the preparation for Knowledge, but that Knowledge far exceeds the range and grasp of any individual’s thinking. Here you will understand how the mind can serve your spiritual nature. Here you will understand the evolution of the world.


PRACTICE 199: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.


Note: “For you have come to serve the world in its present evolution, and your gifts are meant to serve it in its life to come.”





From the Journal:

 11:05 PM Monday, January 31, 2000
Where am I? What do I know? What do I think? What do I want?

At David’s in Copeville, Texas. I spoke to David today about the Four Pillars. It was another lecture to him. …

Today’s Step 198 is “Today I will be strong.” I don’t know in what way I can do that for David and Sarah. Their lives are marginal in today’s American society, but so is mine. I can’t judge – I am supportive – but I don’t know where they’ll end up.

I talked to Cindy on the phone – there was little there.  A little snow – but no one went to work.

I wonder about my life – I will complete the Steps – then see what happens.

The development out here in rural Collin County is ugly – scattered – land will be wasted in America.

Housing developments are yuppie enclaves – the bubble continues to float – and may burst.  

From the journal, one can get the joy I have being in Texas with my 21 and 23 year old kids. It is these problems that we want spirituality to solve. It can’t. It does bring understanding, which leads to patience and survival. Strength is needed everywhere, all the time in the modern world. That may always have been true in life, but modern society makes it a greater challenge. The Step of “being strong” is one needed every day.  Let us go on.
 
NNC


P.S. At Step 199, 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