12/5/16

My practice is my contribution to the world. Step 340 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

My practice is my contribution to the world. Step 340 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]

My practice is my contribution to the world. Step 340

YOU ARE A BEGINNING STUDENT OF KNOWLEDGE. As a beginning student, you engage yourself completely with your practice. Do not imagine for yourself a great role as a saviour or redeemer in the world, for this will only discourage you because you are not yet prepared to carry forth things of greatness. Your duty is to follow the steps as they are given. This is the requirement. In time, greatness will grow within your experience, and you will experience greatness within the world. Yet, as we have so often indicated in our preparation thus far, the greatness you will experience will express itself in simple and mundane things. Therefore, do not imagine grandiose ideas of yourself as a saviour. Do not see yourself being crucified in the world, for these images are born of ignorance and you do not comprehend their true meaning.

FOLLOW EACH STEP, for each will require your complete attention and engagement. Without your attempting to add what is unnecessary to your preparation, you may then become fully engaged with your preparation. This will fully engage you and will elevate all of your physical and mental abilities and give them uniform purpose and direction. Your practice is your gift to the world. From your practice all gifts that you will give in the future will be able to be given with confidence, with love and with certainty.

UPON THE HOUR REMIND YOURSELF that your practice is your gift to the world. If you really wish to serve the world and if you really wish to exemplify within the world that which you hold most dear and that which you honor within yourself, then give yourself to your practice and do not neglect it this day. In your deeper meditations give yourself to practice, for practice is an act of giving. And you who are learning now to receive are also giving yourself to learn to receive. Thus, you are learning to give as well. If you cannot give yourself to practice, you will not be able to give to the world, for giving to the world is a form of practice as well. Remember that all you can do is practice. No matter what you do, you are practicing something, you are asserting something, you are confirming something and you are studying something. Given this understanding, give yourself to your true preparation, for this is your gift to yourself and to the world.

PRACTICE 340: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture:  These are the Holy Days. Christmas is one of the Holy Days in the season of Holy Days and this tree at the Galleria serving the Greater Dallas region – the Metroplex or North Texas, is a symbol of multi-jurisdictional cooperation as a means of contribution to the world.


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.