5/22/16

Today I will be still. Step 143 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices



Greetings All –

Today I will be still. Step 143 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]

Today I will be still. Step 143
BE STILL TODAY IN YOUR TWO MEDITATION PRACTICES so that you may receive the presence of Knowledge within you. Take a moment of stillness in your hourly practice so that you may recognize where you are and what you are doing. In this way, you may access the greater aspect of mind so that it may serve you upon each hour so that you may carry it forth into the world. Be still today so that you may observe the world. Be still today so that you may see the world. Be still today so that you may hear the world. Carry forth your daily duties, but within yourself be still. In this way, Knowledge will present itself and then will begin to guide you as it is intended to do.

PRACTICE 143: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Why the focus on stillness? This clip from page 127, Chapter 12, Relationships and Higher Purpose offers perspective:

“God is still. As you become still you will experience God. As you become still you will experience your own Knowledge, which is God's Gift to you. Therefore, we teach stillness that you may know.”

Picture: Moon over the Blue Ridge mountains in Clarke County, Virginia.


Plan B - If the MP3 doesn’t work, here’s the link to the folder:  New Message - Student Spoken Steps Recordings - Steps to Knowledge - Working file
If this is your first time seeing one of the “Steps to Knowledge”, then welcome. There are 365 Steps, daily spiritual practices if one seeks to complete them in a year, but that is not necessary. They can be used by people of any religious tradition or no religious tradition. They will help one to become mindful in the world.

The Step today is from the book: Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing. The practices were brought to the world through Marshall Vian Summers, The Messenger for The New Message From God. Important background for the Steps is in: “Greater Community Spiritualityand the “Wisdom Books - I and II”. Hard copies are available from the New Knowledge Library Store. The Society for the New Message from God also has a Free Book Project. If you need the books now, PDF files can be found here: http://goo.gl/RJuuGP

Keeping a journal is recommended. If you have a Steps book, write your reactions and comments, highlight or underline points that strike you, and date the note. In this way, your Steps book can be a partial journal.

Using the PDF, you can print out pages as you need them, or use the software to maintain a digital copy where you can enter notes and highlight text that stands out.

Other modern methods of keeping a journal include having a document on your PC or phone to keep notes. You could send yourself an email or use the voice recorder function. It is important to capture insights and reactions because it is by this means that you can understand change. Sometimes it may just be a word or short phrase, an image or a scene.

To end this post I again offer the blessing: "May the presence of the Teachers be with you." In the invocative language of Knowledge this blessing is: "Nasi Novare Coram" (pronounced NAH-see no-VAHR-ay co-RAHM)

The short form of Nasi Novare Coram used by students is NNC.

NNC
 
P.S. 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 linked below 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.
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 anyone 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.