12/3/16

Today I will be attentive. Step 338 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

Today I will be attentive. Step 338 (MP3)  [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]

Today I will be attentive. Step 338
BE ATTENTIVE TODAY so that you may see what is occurring around you. Be attentive today so that you may experience yourself in the world. Be attentive today so that you may experience that the fire of Knowledge is burning within you. Be attentive today so that you may experience that the presence of your Teachers is with you. Be attentive today so that you may see that the fire of Knowledge is burning within the world and that the presence of your Teachers is present in the world as well. These things will naturally come to you as you are attentive, for without condemnation you will see what is actually occurring. This will confirm your spiritual nature and purpose in the world. This will confirm your true identity and give meaning to your individual life.

BE ATTENTIVE UPON THE HOUR TODAY and have confidence that being attentive will yield its own true results for you. Without judgment and evaluation, you will see through all fearful appearances that the world may present to you. You will see through all fearful appearances that your imagination may present to you, for all fearful appearances are born of and substantiated by imagination. In being attentive to the world, you recognize the world’s confusion and its need for Knowledge. This will confirm your own confusion and need for Knowledge and will make you happy that you are now preparing to receive Knowledge itself.

IN YOUR DEEPER MEDITATION PRACTICES BE ATTENTIVE, be present and give yourself in stillness within the sanctuary of Knowledge. You need only be attentive. Judgment is not necessary. Be attentive and you will penetrate the false and you will receive the true. For true attention will always give you that which is true, and false attention will always give you that which is false.

TODAY YOU STRENGTHEN THIS FACULTY OF MIND, this ability to be attentive. You strengthen this for yourself and for the world, which needs to be recognized. For the world needs to be loved, and love only comes through true recognition.

PRACTICE 338: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture:  A hiker approaches a downed tree on the Dickey Ridge Trail, Shenandoah National Park, Warren 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. 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.