6/30/16

Today marks the completion of the first stage of your preparation. Review – Step 182 Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

Today marks the completion of the first stage of your preparation. Review – Step 182 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]


TODAY MARKS AN IMPORTANT TURNING POINT in your preparation. Today marks the completion of the first stage of your preparation and the beginning of a new stage. Review the past week in one long practice period and then take time to think how far you have come and how far you need to go. Recognize your growing power and strength. Think of your outer life and recognize how much needs to be accomplished there, both on your own behalf and for the well-being of others. Recognize how little you know and how much is available to you. Do not let any self-doubt dissuade you in your undertaking, for you need only participate to receive the greatest gift that life can give.

REVIEW THE PAST WEEK AND THINK NOW of what has transpired in your preparation thus far. Observe the development that has occurred within you these past few months—the growing sense of presence, the growing sense of inner certainty, the growing sense of inner power. Allow for the fact that your outer life has begun to open. Certain things that were fixed before have now been loosened so that they may be rearranged on your behalf. Allow your outer life to be rearranged, now that you are not seeking to dominate it for your personal protection. As a greater certainty arises within you, outer circumstances must be rearranged on your own behalf. Thus, you become a source of change and not the recipient of it only.

RECOGNIZE HOW FAR YOU HAVE COME, but keep in mind that you are a beginning student of Knowledge. Allow this to be your starting point so that you may assume little and receive a great deal. From this great point of reference, you will be able to see beyond the prejudice and the condemnation of humanity. You will be able to see beyond a personal viewpoint and have a vision of the world that the world is desperate to receive.

PRACTICE 182: One long practice period.


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.