8/28/16

My anger is unjustified. Step 241 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

My anger is unjustified. Step 241 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]
My anger is unjustified. Step 241
ANGER IS UNJUSTIFIED, FOR ANGER ALONE is merely your response to your failure to apply Knowledge. This engenders anger at its very source. But this need not happen, because anger is a response. As a response it can generate anger in others and stimulate a violent response internally and externally wherever it is applied. Knowledge, however, will redirect anger so that it has no destructive qualities, for what you wish to express is that which fortifies Knowledge in others. It is the strength of your conviction and not your desire to hurt yourself or others that is the true efficacy of the emotion that is the core of anger. Thus, it may be said that your anger is a true communication that has been distorted by your own projections of blame and fear. Once these distortions have been cleared away, the true communication that is the seed of all anger can be expressed. This can only bring about good.

ANGER, THEN, IS NOT JUSTIFIED, for it is a misinterpretation of a true communication. Your anger is not justified because anger is born of confusion. Yet, confusion calls for preparation and the true application of Knowledge. Therefore, the sinful are not punished but are attended to. The wicked are not sent to hell but are prepared for Heaven. This is the true nature of God’s purpose in the world. That is why God can never be angry, because God is not offended. God is merely applying God to a situation where God has temporarily been forgotten.

IN THE GREATER SCOPE OF THINGS, even the separation of all individual minds is a very temporary occurrence. You cannot think yet at this level and will not be able to do so for a long time, for you must undergo the various stages of development that integrate your mind into greater and greater experiences of relationship and life. But as you proceed and as you take each vital step that expands your horizons, you will begin to understand that anger is unjustified. It merely represents a failure to apply Knowledge in a particular situation. This calls for remedy not for condemnation. Here you will realize that your anger is something to be understood. It is not to be rejected, for if you reject anger, you also reject the seed of anger, which is true communication. Therefore, we wish to clean away that which has spoiled your true communication so that your true communication may shine forth, for true communication always comes from Knowledge.

THINK OF THIS IDEA UPON THE HOUR. In your deeper practice periods, actively engage your mind in looking at every single thing that you are angry about, from very tiny things that are specific to things in general that upset or discourage you. Remind yourself as you review your inventory of anger that your anger is unjustified. Remind yourself that it calls for the application of Knowledge and that within each angry experience or feeling that you have, there is a seed which is true. Therefore, your anger need not be rejected but cleansed, for in cleansing your anger you will be able to communicate that which you intended to communicate in the beginning where you initially failed. Then your self-expression will be complete, and anger will be no more.

PRACTICE 241: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture:  Jan Van Eyck square, Bruges, Belgium. This bronze statue was erected in 1878 in honor of Jan Van Eyck (c.1390 - 1441), who lived and died in Bruges and is known for his paintings of unprecedented, almost photographic detail. He held high positions throughout his career, including court painter and diplomat. The young people might be holding a bit of anger in the year 2009, one year after the global financial crisis. Steps to Knowledge and this particular Step might be useful to them.

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.