Greetings All –
Step 47 - Why do I need
Teachers? (MP3)
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folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]
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YOU WILL ASK THIS QUESTION SOONER
OR LATER and perhaps on many occasions. It is born of your expectations of
yourself that you would ask this question. Yet, when you look carefully at your
life, you will see that you have required instruction for everything that you have
learned. Perhaps things that you felt inside yourself appeared to be created by
you, but they, too, are the result of instruction. You have been prepared
through relationships for everything that you have learned, whether it be a
practical skill or a deeper insight. To realize this engenders great
appreciation for relationships and a full affirmation of the power of
contribution in the world.
IF YOU WERE INTENDING TO HONESTLY
APPROACH LEARNING any skill, first you must recognize how much you do not know,
then you must recognize how much you need to learn, and then you must seek the
best form of instruction possible. This must apply to the reclamation of
Knowledge. You must realize how little you know, how much you need to know and
then receive the instruction that is provided. Is it a weakness to need a
teacher? No. It is an honest recognition based upon an honest evaluation. If
you realize how little you know and how much you need to know and the power of
Knowledge itself, you will understand how obvious this is. How can you give to
those who think they already have, when in reality they are poor? You cannot.
And their poverty will be self-inflicted and self-maintained.
WHY DO YOU NEED A TEACHER?
Because you need to learn. And you need to unlearn that which you have learned
that is holding you back. In your two practice periods today, with your eyes
closed in meditation, consider why you need a Teacher. Observe any thoughts
that seem to indicate that you could do it on your own if you were smart enough
or strong enough or met some other qualification. If these expectations arise,
recognize them for what they are. They are an insistence that you remain
ignorant by proclaiming yourself an adequate instructor. You cannot teach
yourself what you do not know, and the attempt to do so merely recirculates old
information and binds you closer to where you are now.
THEREFORE, IN PRACTICE TODAY
RECOGNIZE your need for true instruction and your resistance, if it is there,
to the presence of true instruction which is available to you now.
PRACTICE 47: Two 30-minute practice periods.
Picture:
Gulf of Mexico beach at Treasure Island, a city in Pinellas County,
Florida. I was just sightseeing this day after my American Association of
Geographers conference in Tampa. I get sun burned easily, so none of this, but
I do like to walk on beaches, having done so in my youth on the shore of Lake
Michigan.
Yesterday: Step 46 - I must be small
to be great.
From the Journal:
12 A.M. - Sept 1, 1999 S2K #46 I must be small to be
great. "Look objectively. You are meant to be a vehicle for a Greater
Reality to express itself in the World." It has been clear to me for some
time that I'm a very small player. ACIM suggests we do our small part. This is
parallel. We have big ideas in our small bodies. The gap between what we want -
what we envision - is so great, and can get greater. Some work with a martyr's
zeal - I'm not there. In context I see myself as tiny. I'm playing out one
reality.
Thank God for the
millions, billions of souls that keep this amusement park/amazement quark
going.
5:45 p.m. - S2K #46 -
No. 2 - I am small. There are things/beings/smaller - By being/acknowledging
small, I can be humble. Which I am - yet my personality projects command and
irritates others. I'm irritated because they don't see. Who"s being small?
To say a person is being small means they miss the picture. My
manifestation is small in the context of the world. Many great builders have
preceded me and now exist. It is not my goal to be great - that is ego - but
since I need resources for the vision I will need to be great enough to attract
the people/resources.
Jesus supported these
thoughts. He said, don't go to the head table, wait to be invited there.
I've not sought to be
a leader, but got there by default. In picking planning I thought it was just technical,
not political. It requires that people believe me to be credible.
I'm a little willing
to be a vehicle, though more preparation seems required.
A lesson or more,
quickly comes into focus with S2K exercises. They are more than the text
suggested.
These lessons, though seemingly short, can require we
deal with much.
NNC
Journal2nd Time Step 46. 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
my first year 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.
