8/18/14

Step 230 - My suffering is born of confusion. Entry for Step 229 - I will not blame another for my pain.



Greetings All –


YOUR SUFFERING IS BORN OF CONFUSION. Allow yourself to be confused so that you may recognize the true path of reclamation. Is this idea confusing to you? It may be confusing because people will not accept their confusion. They will tell lies about it, saying they are certain when they are confused, projecting blame upon others to excuse themselves or projecting blame upon themselves to excuse others. All of this represents confusion.


WHEN YOU REALIZE THAT YOU ARE CONFUSED, then you can claim the means to regain your certainty. If you do not accept that you are confused, you will impose substitutes for certainty upon yourself and the world and thus remove yourself from the possibility of receiving your certainty. This is why you must realize that your confusion is the source of your suffering, and you must allow yourself to be confused to recognize your true predicament.  Recognizing your true predicament, you will see the great need for Knowledge, and this will engender in you the dedication and the self-application that is necessary for you to receive that which is your inheritance.


TODAY REPEAT THIS IDEA UPON THE HOUR and do not forget to do so. In your two longer practice periods, engage your mind actively in attempting to understand the depth and the meaning of today’s idea. Recognize objectively all of the feelings and the thoughts that are in favor of it and all of the feelings and the thoughts that are opposed to it. Take special care to recognize any objection that you might have to today’s idea. Then, recognize the power of this idea within your own mind. This will give you a recognition of today’s idea and its true meaning. This will also help enable you to realize objectively the current construction of your mind. This is all part of your education as a student of Knowledge. Give yourself to considering today’s idea and do not be complacent with simple answers and explanations, for today’s idea contains a gift you have not yet experienced.


PRACTICE 230: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Stateside? Time to get a supply of composition books for journals. The fancy ones are nice, here’s an Amazon selection, but at $5 to $10+ a copy, that is a big cost when journaling for the rest of your life. Here’s the Staples option for everyday writing:


It is OK to have a special or topical journal, but over time, I’ve moved to a single journal, even as it relates to taking notes at conferences.  Journaling is a way to capture messages and thoughts of/for one’s soul.


This is a difficult Step. In the journal entry I refer to ACIM and on the Steps page to RUOW.

That: “The pain that hurts you is the crown of thorns of your own ideas and assumptions, your own misgivings and misinformation and your own unforgiveness towards yourself and the world,” has taken me until this year, 2014 to understand. It might have come sooner, had I given it more thought, but I did not.

The mocking of Jesus as the King of the Jews with the crown of thorns, symbolic of a nonexistent worldly kingdom, really meant nothing to The Christ, that spiritual quality one can achieve that ends the separation. 

We are invited by most forms of Christianity to take on the burden of Jesus, take responsibility for his treatment - this an unforgiveness  for sure, but a guilt that seems valid. We probably would have done the same thing. So, effectively - I was putting on the crown of thorns. It seems similar to taking up the cross, today the burden of the messenger, but really: "unforgiveness towards yourself and the world." Depending upon your background, this part may not draw your attention the first time through.

From the Journal:

7:15 a.m. Wednesday, March 1, 2000 – Where am I? "I will not blame another for my pain." Work pain – how/what is the solution?

A strange feeling day. I was wakened by the alarm. Came downstairs. The squat while rewinding the VCR helps get the blood flowing. That seems to be a primal position – it isn't exercise, but seems to help in limberness.

My stillness for the S2K "I will not blame another for my pain." Is good old ACIM. I'm faced with the issue of my pain because of a failure to perform. It is an old – seemingly hard issue – that I've yet to learn how to deal with. Letting go has only led to more independence than obstinance. M--- is here now 15 years and she still has the weaknesses she started out with. Her strengths don't fill the day.

1:52 p.m. at Arby's for lunch. Resolved M---‘s leave issue this noon – with adjustments to the timesheets – we have a long way to go – GC or not – to do the earth job here.

11:10 p.m. An interesting day. Tomorrow more "Just in time’s to do." – Spoke to Sarah. Her mind is expanding. B[her birth mother] will talk to her, but first she must write a letter.
Forgiveness of others is a tenant of Christianity and most world religions; it is also one of A Course in Miracles. Easily advocated, but difficult in fact to achieve. Something to work on.      

Steps page:



RUOW – Right Use of Will is essentially a psycho-drama of creation, a dysfunctional first family where creation was a sexual product of creator personalities who didn’t know what they were doing, immature beings having birthed beings, and expressing guilt for not knowing what they were doing. Entertaining creation story with spiritual insight, but there is no forward path of practices to help one live in the world of today, preparing for tomorrows, near and far. 

Sidetracked today perhaps, but such territory is part of one’s life-scape. All things work together for good.

NNC
 


P.S. At Step 230, 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