9/10/14

Step 253 - All things I truly need will be provided for me. Entry for Step 252 - Review


Greetings All –


TO THIS STATEMENT YOU MUST GIVE YOUR COMPLETE FAITH, though your past has been a record of discouragement and disappointment. Yet, even here you can realize that those things that you truly needed for the advancement of Knowledge and for the advancement of your true mental and physical capabilities were provided for you.


ALL THINGS YOU TRULY NEED WILL BE PROVIDED. It is when you want things that you do not truly need that your awareness of this becomes confused, and this leads you into dark speculation and grave disappointment. What you need will make you happy; what you don’t need will make you confused. This is very simple, very straightforward and very direct. Knowledge is always like that. Knowledge affirms that which is essential. Here your approach to life becomes simple and direct. Thus, you experience life as simple and direct.


IF YOU APPROACH LIFE IN A DEVIOUS WAY, life will appear devious to you. If you approach life with simplicity and honesty, life will appear simple and honest to you. Knowledge will indicate that which is truly needed and that which is extraneous, those things that you must carry and those which are merely extra baggage that will burden you. If you want what is unnecessary and devote yourself to that, you will lose touch with what is real and genuine, and your life will become confused and unhappy.


SPEAK THESE WORDS UPON THE HOUR AND CONSIDER THEM. Life around you will demonstrate that they are true. In your deeper meditation practices, enter stillness once again. Direct your effort on your own behalf, and your mind will respond to your command. It is your desire for Knowledge that will let all things come to you. This confidence in life will give you the assurance to proceed. This confidence in life will give you the assurance that your life is highly valued in the world. This confidence in life will affirm that which guides life itself, for within life there is Knowledge and there is fantasy, but life itself is Knowledge.


PRACTICE 253: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Yesterday:  Step 252 - Review

It has been a very long two weeks, so the Review provides some relief. It is a welcome chance to try and bring together the lessons of the prior Steps.

At the bottom of the Steps page I wrote:



 Yes, hooked on Knowledge. This sentiment was affirmed in subsequent passages through Steps in 2001, 2005 and 2012. Why would it be necessary to do Steps more than twice you might ask?

My experience with the Steps and the Greater Community Spirituality/New Message materials, each time I return to them, there is a greater depth to be seen as a result of my cumulative study, world experience and reflection. There may even be a bit of growth in there as well.  

From the Journal:

1:15 a.m. Saturday, March 25, 2000. Back from a drive to Skyline Drive with Sarah. --- Got coffee, Coke and Sun chips – saw 32 deer – a record for us – and had a good time on Sarah's work.

The news release was in the in the NVD for my position as Exec. Planner – listed as a promotion. I went to talk to Bill S--- about Regions Work and the Marsh Institute as a potential home if I could get a grant. H0e asked questions, but was supportive – and said regionalism was an element of the Institute that he'd not done much with.
---
Getting regional councils a common agenda. When they all did A-95 review, they had a common agenda.

My relationships have become simpler – I'm no longer responsible or the failure or success of the Commission – I can go on to my real work on regions and regional community.

10:12 p.m. – I've wasted almost 2 hours going round and round on a website domain registration. I was going to do "regions.cc" – Cocos Islands or whatever, but there was a surcharge. None of the existing names regions.com/regions.org/regions.net have any content. Regions Work is available across the board, but why tie that up? So – looking/thinking/doing is not what I need.

– Should I get TomChristoffel.com? Don't know – can't separate ego. I just decided to wait.
---
252-Review – Before I read the text of the Practice I have to record the thought that S2K – practice by practice – seemed perfectly time to transition me through the change in position – what sets me free to be me and pursue regions work.

"I remember when we did regions on Claudius IV."(A si-fi – flash?) – No Claudius IV.

The power of Knowledge to guide, direct and protect me was clear all week – I learned I never want to be and Exec. Director again

– I want to have an academic home for the research/proof of the validity of regions work.

– Since it all works so well, and it being late – since I wasted time on the PC. I thought I could get out of some work. Not –

I am becoming a more bold student. Knowledge is not only helping me – it helps those I reflect it too. It is helping Sarah. It helped Bill S--- – I described the way he dreamt the Marsh Institute and the way it happened as an outgrowth of his own Knowledge

Review completed 11:50 p.m. TJC

Very eventful two weeks and a powerful review, but not that much in the journal. Still, it is useful to me, and yours will be useful to you. Keep a journal in the way that makes sense.



Here’s the full Steps page. Note that I’ve underlined “your ambivalence towards Knowledge”  and wrote below: “Not I”  I am becoming committed to Steps because it has help me in my life. Your experience may be different? Difficult time could lie ahead. Steps strengthened me and those others I’ve seen undertake their study. Let us continue.

NNC



P.S. At Step 253, 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