Greetings All –
YOU HAVE GREAT FRIENDS BEYOND THIS WORLD. That is
why humanity is seeking to enter into the Greater Community because the Greater
Community represents a broader range of its true relationships. You have true
friends beyond the world because you are not alone in the world and you are not
alone in the Greater Community of Worlds. You have friends beyond this world
because your Spiritual Family has its representatives everywhere. You have friends
beyond this world because you are working not merely on the evolution of your
world but on the evolution of the universe as well. Beyond your imagination,
beyond your conceptual capabilities, this is most certainly true.
FEEL, THEN, THE GREATNESS OF THE UNIVERSE in which
you live. Feel, then, the opportunity you have to serve the Greater Community of
which your world is a part. You serve your great friends within the world and
your friends beyond, for the work of Knowledge goes on everywhere. It is the
attraction of God. It is the application of good. It is the force that redeems
all separated minds and gives purpose, meaning and direction to the universe.
Regardless of the mechanism of physical life, its value is determined by its
origin and its destiny, both of which are beyond your comprehension. Realizing
that Knowledge is the means that propels the world in its true direction, you can then value and receive that which gives
your life purpose, meaning and direction.
UPON THE HOUR TODAY consider that you have friends
beyond this world, both in other worlds and beyond the visible as well.
Consider that you have this greater association. In your two deeper practice periods
today, allow your mind to enter stillness so that such things may be
experienced. Do not dwell upon them in your imagination, but allow instead for
your mind to become still so that it may bestow Knowledge into your awareness
and experience. You have friends beyond this world, and they are practicing
with you today.
PRACTICE 211: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly
practice.
Yesterday: Step 210 -
Review
When making journal entries, it is important to note
the right day, date and time. It was hard for me to figure out why the Review
came on Friday instead of Saturday, as I’ paused early on to get that
alignment. I had to go and review my calendars for that period to figure out
why things did not match my expectation. Eventually I remembered that I’d
skipped ahead for a more positive Step from 200 to 201, and that put me on a
Friday for review, which is why the journal seemed confused.
Two graphics are included, the first a very simple mind map, a technique I’ve
used since learning of it at a World Future Society event in the early 1980’s.
It is a technique that is part of the Plan-Do personal
planning process.
From the Journal:
Friday,
February 11, 2000
2:40
p.m. Here in the wilderness? – After Rotary – I need to connect. Went home for
a short meditation; only could do 15 minutes, though timer set for 30. After
that – a need/desire for coffee – my mind map attempt was basic and reproduced
here:
[Yes - Knowledge is missing its last e, not a cropping error.]
So I
went to LTWK – and in Spiritual Development reread about the differences
between communities of law and communities of Knowledge. They are different. I
want the Community of Knowledge. At work – in the world – we deal in
communities of law. It is a matter of scale.
So
my burn out work dilemma is that I'm trying to get the community of knowledge
in a community of law
9:30
p.m. Two week review. S2K. How am I doing as a student? Very hard to do hourly
– the meditations have been short this past week, though in Texas at David's
not – no problem.
I've
had some tough days relating this to the world and keeping my discipline.
Energy with --- has been up and down.
>Regions
– a new one planet geography of community e–regions
Why
am I even concerned with regions?
Public
focuses on taxes – not what is done with them.
The
S2K goal – a stronger minds in service he spirit/KNOWLEDGE
11
p.m. As a student – average – C or C-/ too distracted – bringing in too much
The Steps page contains a self-evaluation from 2009:
It is easy to judge one’s self as a: “slow student,”
however the slowness, looking again five years later – 2014, is just a consequence
of the depth of the material. Each time one returns to a Step or text, there is
always more in there than you had seen in prior readings. It is, I think, because
as a student, one has lived in the world with the greater community perspective,
contemplating the new perspective, expanding one’s own thought and receptivity
to outside perspectives, and thus new insight appears. It is the thinking mind
as a compost heap of ideas, generating richer soil. Like a tree, each season a
new ring is added to the core, roots go deeper, branches reach higher, and
stronger winds can be survived.
As a student, I have certainly grown, yet remain
from the greater community perspective, a “beginning student.” “In the
beginning” is a vast territory.
For example, in the review today, done outdoors in the woods, reading again Step 202 – “I behold the Greater Community today,” this grabbed me: “You do not live in a human universe. You do not live in a human world. You do not live a purely human life.”
Spending time with that, I recognized that I’d been
the only person on the trail most of the four hours I’d been there. This part
of the world, Shenandoah National Park, was trees, rocks, plants, birds and
mammals, to it was easy to again see that humanity in the world’s environment is
as an optional species. Nature would not miss us. The world is not human,
though humans now are the dominant species. Perspectives change as a
consequence of this practice. Let us continue deliberately.
NNC
P.S. At Step 211, we are into Part Two of Steps, so
if you’ve found this and find some appeal in this or other Steps, you should
really go to the beginning blog post. From here you learn about Steps to Knowledge and
can begin it on the day that makes sense and then progress as needed. You can
use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps. They will remain in
order in the archives - one per Step.
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 here 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. There are options as well
through the Free School of the New Message.