Greetings All –
I must be small to be
great. Step 46 (MP3)
[Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive –
Step PDF also.]
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| I must be small to be great. Step 46 |
IS IT A CONTRADICTION THAT YOU MUST BE SMALL to be
great? It is not a contradiction if you understand its meaning. Recognizing
your limitations allows you to work in a limited context very successfully.
This demonstrates a greater reality than you could have realized before. Your
greatness must not be based merely on hope or high expectation. It must not be
founded on idealism but on true experience. Allow yourself to be small, and you
will experience that greatness is with you and that greatness is part of you.
IN YOUR TWO PRACTICE PERIODS TODAY, allow yourself
to be limited but without judgment. There is no condemnation. Actively engage
your mind in focusing on your limitations. Focus without condemnation. Look
objectively. You are meant to be a vehicle for a Greater Reality to express itself
in this world. Your vehicle for expression is quite limited, but it is fully
adequate to accomplish the task that is yours to accomplish. In accepting its
limitations, you can understand its mechanism and learn to work with it
constructively. Then it is no longer a limitation but a form of joyful
expression for you.
PRACTICE 46: Two 15-minute practice periods.
Picture: Sheep
dog herding demonstration – Virginia Scottish Games and Festival, Great Meadow,
The Plains.
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 Spirituality” and 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.
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. Posts linked below 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.
