10/8/15

Step 281 - Above all else I seek Knowledge. (MP3) Entry for Step 280 - Review



Greetings All –

Step 281 - Above all else I seek Knowledge. (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]

Above all else I seek Knowledge. Step 281

ABOVE ALL ELSE SEEK KNOWLEDGE, for Knowledge will give you all else that you need. You will seek Knowledge with total conviction when you realize that any other avenue of endeavor and any other use of your mind and body will be hopeless and will lead you into greater confusion. For without Knowledge, you can only learn that you need Knowledge, and with Knowledge, all true learning will proceed. Your past has already taught you the great need for Knowledge. You need not learn this again and again. Why repeat the same lesson over and over, thinking that it will yield for you a different result?

OF YOURSELF YOU CAN DO NOTHING. Without Knowledge you can only generate more imagination. Therefore, there is one answer to your one greatest need, and the one answer will meet all other needs that emanate from your one great need. Your need is fundamental and the response to your need is fundamental. There is no complexity here, for in essence you need Knowledge to live meaningfully. You need Knowledge to advance. You need Knowledge to realize your True Self. You need Knowledge to fulfill your destiny in the world. Without Knowledge, you will simply wander around and come once again to realize that you need Knowledge.

THIS IS A DAY OF THANKSGIVING, for your prayers have been answered. Your need has been responded to. The gift has been given to you to reclaim your Knowledge. Above all else seek that which will serve everything through you. In this, your need and the remedy for your life will become simple, and you will be able to proceed in certainty and patience, becoming a consistent student of Knowledge. Day by day you are reclaiming your True Self. Day by day you are escaping all else that seeks to pull you into the darkness of confusion. Day by day that which is unreal begins to disintegrate and that which is genuine begins to emerge.

UPON THE HOUR TODAY remember and affirm this great truth—that you seek Knowledge above all else. In your deeper meditation practices, allow yourself to enter stillness. Allow your life to be transformed. Allow Knowledge to emerge so that you may be a vehicle for its expression, for in this you will find happiness.

PRACTICE 281: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Yesterday:  Step 280 - Review

Returning to the journal to read these entries of 15 years ago, I begin to see how Steps is changing, improving my life. The stress I was under may have made the results seem greater, but it was the stresses that pushed me along to the Steps.

Although I found many interesting things in “Greater Community Spirituality,” the first book I read, it seemed to me like a commercial for Steps. Throughout it, the reader was being advised to take Steps to Knowledge. As it turned out, that was no commercial, but wise advice I was slow to follow.

If you are in the Steps, you may have had similar experiences. In the journal entry I’m bolding and underlining the comments that bear out, at least to me, signs of benefit from the Steps practice.

2:20 p.m. Saturday, April 22, 2000 – at VA Beach – room 635 – Conference Center. I spent the last 90 minutes eating and surfing TV. Nothing is on. I could go to A.R.E. This is two-week review for S2K.

Cindy is with her friend Penny. I have about 5 hours to myself. I'm fatigued from the week, the drive, from life. Yet – S2K lifts me up.

I'll walk the beach a little. There's no place to go. I've looked for a Word 2000/MS Works book. I want to be prepared when I get my new PC. I want to be a power user in order to present my region's content.

I must learn the logic behind Word. I've not grasped that before. I can't worry too much about software or technology wars. I just need to be the user.

---

2:50 p.m. The long practice – Step 280

Knowledge has conveniently provided a lawn chair on the beach in front of the hotel. It is windy, sunny – but not too cool for this practice that might otherwise be done @ Little Bear. This is the experience of freedom – here in this context – I am truly free – still in the changing world. At peace – and wishing others were with me. It is like being on the stern of the USS Barney DDG-6 – In the North Atlantic – perched atop the ocean riding a steel hull – the power below – harmless, yet immense. At a time like this I feel I might disappear into nature for several hundred years.

Step 267 – 279 Get an overview of what has happened in the past two weeks. I have gone from slave to my work to free man with time for my mission of regions work. I have time for my other pillars –

3:22 p.m. Back on a new bench on the dune deck after getting another jacket for below my wind breaker. Be prepared.

How to do this review? I just read my 3 x 5 with the daily Steps. There has been great movement in my life these last two weeks. I'm less ego driven Tom and more open to the world I can get into space easily – as I've done a few times in writing this.

4:45 p.m. I've completed reading the journal entries for the past two weeks. I Am a Student of Knowledge. This in the core of my being – spirit leading mind and body, both of which are quite tired.

6:15 p.m. Ate dinner, ice cream, coffee – listening to HOS – caravan. Percussive music. As I pursue Knowledge these the versions fall away? I don't know. My sense is that I'm not here to save the world. No one is – reclamation of Knowledge is a greater work of the many. I endeavor to remain open… I'm reading the Steps of the last 2 weeks as the final piece of my practice.

As you can see, I’m feeling well about having finally begun Steps and the changes in my understanding brought about by these exercises. Even if the recommendations of The Teachers were commercial, it really was a product I needed.

One surprise reading the journal was this: “I just read my 3 x 5 with the daily Steps.  I have a file basket of 3 x 5 index cards, but thought I began those the second year. In fact I started early on. These I carried with me during the day so I could review them throughout the day. Now I use the cell phone to reread the Step during the day.

This is what they looked like – four cards scanned at once.



Here are key points I recorded from the Steps:

267 – “…to find Knowledge you must become still and observant and learn to disengage from fear and anxiety”.- problem solving – When you have a preference that is governing your mind, you cannot see the obvious. As you learn to look at problems w/K you will see the resolution as apparent.

268 – I will not be deceived by complexity today. …You must follow K and not attempt to use K to solve things according to your own designs. – (Not TJC designs – but K-designs.)

269 – The power of Knowledge will extend itself from me. … That is why you must learn to be very discerning in relationships, for as you progress as a student of K, your influence over others will be greater. You must not use this influence for selfish purposes, or your activities will be destructive to you and to others.

270 – It is very important that you recognize the relationship between power and responsibility. Responsibility requires self-discipline, self-restraint and self-control. It requires an objectivity about your own life which very few have yet attained in this world. Responsibility is a burden until it is recognized as a source of protection. It is the guarantee and the assurance that your gift will find a wholesome and welcome expression within you and that you will be advanced and accomplished by the rendering of your contribution.

271 – Accept responsibility, which is your ability to respond. Accept this, cultivate it, cherish it and welcome it. It is what will make you strong. Accept responsibility today. Accept this, for it represents your truest and greatest need. R will enable you to love and extend yourself into the world. (in stillness) Enter the mystery of your life so that you may be able to respond to it, for this is the meaning of R.

272 – You will require Teachers to guide you. … for you will be venturing far beyond your own concepts and assumptions. … Your Inner Teachers represent your most primary relationships, for these relationships are completely based upon K, and they are given to you to cultivate K safely & completely.

273 –  Do not underestimate the value of your Teachers

274 – Seek freedom from ambivalence, for this is the source of all human confusion, misery and frustration. Ambivalence is the indecision about participating with life. It is the indecision about being in life. - K dispels ambivalence, for it sets a clear direction.

275 –  Freedom from uncertainty. – “In essence, you either know what you are doing or you do not. If you do not know what you are doing, you simply wait for Knowledge. If you know what you are doing, you simply follow what you know”.

276 – “Knowledge is my salvation. … God has given you the greatest possible gift: the means within yourself to correct all error, to resolve all confusion and conflict and to set your life on a true course that is aimed at your true destiny” (this current life).

277 – “My ideas are small, but Knowledge is great”. “Knowledge is the great source of your being as it is expressing itself in your individual life”. __ realize that there is a means for you to escape the world of ideas and enter the world of relationship, where everything is viable, real and based upon a foundation that can never change.

278 – Truth is changeless, but it expresses itself within the world of changing circumstances and changing understanding. Thus, it appears that truth is changeable, yet the source of truth is not changeable. You who live in a world of change and are undergoing change yourself must realize that your Source is unchangeable. ___ As you realize that your true life is changeless, then you will feel free to allow it to express itself in changing circumstances.

279 – Freedom is not a concept or an idea. It is an experience. Therefore, it must be realized in many, many different circumstances for you to see its universal application. This you are given time to accomplish. This will make all of your activities meaningful, purposeful and valuable. To have genuine stability in the world, you must identify with Knowledge and allow Knowledge to demonstrate its power, its efficacy and its benevolence within the world. – “… you can only be free when you are still inside, and if you are still inside, you are free already”.

280 – Review - It is by following that you are able to give and you are able to lead. …be very thankful that Knowledge is being given to you, for you are realizing that above all else it is Knowledge which you seek.
 



Use of index cards has been a staple in my life. Other of these uses may come up in the days ahead. This Review day was a good day, not because of any external event, but because the prior 279 practices. I’d guess you’ve had some good days, or you wouldn’t still be doing the practices. Let us continue.
 NNC
 

Journal second time x2 Step 280.  This is for those who have completed Steps once. Doing Steps with only the texts, messages and your life experience, including what you may have studied and practiced is your journey. I’m showing Step comments after the Step, so as not to influence you in advance. It is a wilderness trek to be left to your own wits, but then you can also listen more closely for guides, angels and teachers, always first saying: “I surround and protect myself with the Love and the Grace of God.” Thankfully, I was taught this practice in 1989.

P.S. If you’ve some interest due to this or other 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. You can use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps. They will remain in order in the archives - one post 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.