Greetings All –
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.
This is a powerful Step. Could it
be the most powerful, sitting here at number 339 when there are 26 more to go?
The top notes begin 6/20/2000 –
the first date I did this Step. The last date is 12/8/09. There are a variety
of inks – archeology may be able to date the undated entries.
Another attempt to draw the
relationships. “(Love) Fire of Knowledge is at the center of Greater Community – GC from inside – for God so loves the world that his
sons and daughters work here for the love of God.” This thought was constructed over
a number of Practices of this Step.
“Can you who act in the world see the effect of
this presence within the world?” “Yes” Agreement here.
”GOD’S PRESENCE IS PERMANENT. The world itself is
temporary. The physical universe is temporary. God’s presence is permanent.” This gets seven, count them, seven asterisks. ACIM
says this world is an illusion; this says it is temporary. For me, this confirmed my
perception of the manifest as being temporary. I alone did not create nor can I change this,
but I can exist within it with some greater understanding of its relativity,
compared to God’s permanence.
The Step text ends: “Remember as you look upon this, within your world and within yourself,
that from the stillness of this presence emanate all good works, all important
ideas and the motivation for all important activities. This is what drives
humanity and even the Greater Community of Worlds towards Knowledge and, with
Knowledge, towards becoming one community.” I add → All
DAY – Henceforth in life. No one would be surprised that I relate
this to “regions work,” though ultimately that is really, at this point in the
year 2000, a simple outline which I am still working to complete.
The journal:
6:18
a.m. June 20, 2000 – No matter how big the universe gets – it is still whole.
All life is done in wholes > that which is un-wholy is between recognition
of its wholeness.
"The
presence of love is with me now."
→ The first
scream when domination/abuse was perpetuated adult/child – [Once I
became aware of the prevalence child abuse in the world, I was very perplexed.
Over time I came to wonder why God permitted it? In a reading I got this answer:
“The greatest abuse is failure to educate.”]
→ Fear enforced
morality [My perception of religion at age 17 as a means of
social control. Things were not done for the right reason, but for fear of
punishment in hell. I became agnostic, beginning to seek understanding in
philosophy and in religions outside Christianity as well as within. Dogma in and
competition between religions was hard to reconcile.]
---
5:50
p.m. At the I-95 Wayside south of Fredericksburg – left for Richmond @ 7 for
the AOSE meeting. I'm contributing there – this is good.
I've
stopped for my first Practice. The lesson today is profound. I've taped
comments and will transcribe them later. [Did I ever transcribe them?]
The power of S2K was not anticipated by me at the
start. I felt ACIM was powerful – and profoundly experienced the Holy Instant –
but there was more – far more – and this is that path my soul sought. Still a
beginning student – I only seek to Know and contribute to life manifest.
10:20
p.m. Where am I? At home. Back porch – tired – too little sleep for 3 days –
but what can I do? Humble – hungry – one who enjoys food – it is a joy – all
try not to judge it.
If only others could see the beauty I see in the
world. How each artifact reflects all the manifestation
that brought it to be – Round hay bales in the farm fields outside Warrenton; a
Kenworth Rig pulling a shiny trailer
–
two rigs in convoy; the eagle flying over I-95 – the deer in the pasture; also
amazing to be here from the stillness and going where? About their lives – in
the world.
What
is my work? Boundaries and cooperation. Testing, testing, testing – my thoughts
on the world to see how they are accepted.
This was a good Step and a good day in 2000. Again
doing this Step on December 5, 2014 I am heartened. May it be that your
response was so as well. Let us continue.
NNC
P.S. At Step 340, we are 25 Steps from the end –
Step 365. This is not the place to begin this Practice. If you’ve some interest
due to this or other Steps, you should go to the beginning blog post. From here you will learn about Steps to Knowledge
and can begin it on the day that makes sense; then progress as needed. January
1 is a good day to do so. Daily blog entries and Tweets begin again with Step 1
on January 1, 2015. I will be blogging year two, and referencing this
collection of year 1 – day by day. Regardless, any day you choose to begin, you
can use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps.
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.
