Greetings All –
My gifts are for others. Step 53 (MP3)
[Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive –
Step PDF also.]
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| My gifts are for others. Step 53 |
YOUR GIFTS ARE MEANT TO BE GIVEN TO OTHERS, but
first you must recognize your gifts and separate them from the ideas which
restrain them, alter them or deny them. How can you understand yourself except
in the context of contribution to others? Alone you can do nothing. Alone you
have no meaning. This is because you are not alone. This will be viewed as a
burden and as a threat until you realize the great meaning that it has and the
gift that it really is. It is the salvation of your life. When life reclaims
you, you reclaim life and receive all of its rewards, which far exceed anything
that you could give yourself. The value of your life is consummated and fully
demonstrated through your contribution to others because until contribution
exists, you can only partially realize yourself—your value, your purpose, your
meaning and your direction.
IN YOUR TWO PRACTICE PERIODS TODAY, feel your
desire to contribute to others. You do not need now to determine what you wish
to contribute. That is not as important as your desire to contribute, for the
form of contribution will become evident to you in time and will evolve as
well. It is your desire to contribute born of true motivation that will give
you joy this day.
PRACTICE 53: Two 30-minute practice periods.
Picture: Walking
through the city, full of the gifts of the ancestors, we don’t know what ours
are intended to be. Antique store - Winchester, Virginia.
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.
