12/24/16

I am present to serve the world. Step 359 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

I am present to serve the world. Step 359 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]
I am present to serve the world. Step 359
BE PRESENT TO SERVE THE WORLD, and the presence that serves the world will speak through you. Be present to serve the world, and you will be present to that presence. You will be engaged in every activity, and every activity will be important and meaningful. Then, you will not seek escape from your experience, you will not seek escape from the world and you will not seek to find a dark place in which to hide, for you will realize the light of Knowledge is totally beneficent. You will wish to bathe in it more and more and express it more and more within the world. This is your duty here and your great love.

UPON THE HOUR REMIND YOURSELF that you wish to be present to serve the world. Remind yourself as well that you wish to be present to have the world serve you. Remind yourself that you must learn how to receive and how to give, and that is why you are a beginning student of Knowledge. Do not burden yourself with expectations of yourself beyond what is being indicated in your program of preparation. Your Teachers recognize your current stage and they recognize your current step. They do not underestimate your power, but they do not overestimate your current capabilities, either. That is why you will need them to proceed with certainty, honesty and reliability.

IN YOUR DEEPER PRACTICES, be present to give yourself to your practice in stillness. Remember again that all practice is giving. You are giving yourself so that your True Self may be given to you. Here you bring what is small to what is great and what is great brings itself to what is small. Here you realize that you too are great and that the small is meant to express the greatness of which you are a part. The world calls desperately for this greatness to be revealed, yet you must learn how to reveal greatness in the world.

PRACTICE 359: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture:  Scaffolding provides the platform for a workman involved in restoration of a building façade.


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. The 1x and 2x links above 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.