Step 45 - Alone I can do
nothing. (MP3)
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| Alone I can do nothing. Step 45 |
ALONE YOU CAN DO NOTHING. Nothing
has ever been accomplished alone, even in your world. Nothing has ever been created alone, even in your mind. There is no credit to be received by
doing something alone. Everything is a joint effort. Everything is the product
of relationship.
DOES THIS DEMEAN YOU AS AN
INDIVIDUAL? Most certainly not. It gives you the environment and the
understanding to realize your true accomplishments. You are greater than your
individuality, and thus you may be free of its limitations. You work through
the individual that is you personally, but you are greater than this. Accept
the limitations of a limited self, and do not require a limited self to be God
or you will give it great burdens and great expectations and will then punish
it for its failures. This leads to self-hatred. This leads you to resent your
physical life and to abuse yourself personally, emotionally and physically.
Accept your limitations so that you may accept greatness within your life.
THEREFORE, IN YOUR TWO PRACTICE
PERIODS TODAY, with your eyes open, concentrate now on your limitations.
Recognize them. Do not judge them as good or bad. Simply recognize them. This
gives you humility, and in humility you are in a position to receive greatness.
If you are defending your limitations, how can you receive that which
transcends them?
PRACTICE 45: Two 15-minute
practice periods.
Picture: Urban
Up New Community Development, Milan, Italy. Such projects require the work of many.
Yesterday: Step
44 - I wish to know my own strength.
Desired, but not easy.
From the Journal:
7 A.M. Monday, August 30, 1999
On the shore at Lake Bridgeport for my S2K meditation
"I wish to know my own strength." I could only go 19 minutes. I felt
last night the strength of my will in the meditation. "My will is to know
God." I could see/feel my will extending through my life as it sought to
Know God. The seeker/search for God has been my motivation. The strength of my
will I felt yesterday before today's practice about "strength."
I am finding this much more powerful and useful than the
books about it could convey. So - the lessons run -
- Urantia - We are here to do God's will
- ACIM - God's will and my will are the same.
- RUOW (Right Use of Will) - Will manifests Spirit
- S2K - I can Know God's will
directly (?)
Sorting things out as I go. This is, I expect, common for
students.
NNC
Journal
2nd Time Step 44. This is for those who have completed
Steps once. 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 you 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.
P.S. 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. You can
use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps. They will remain in
order in the archives - one post 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.
