Greetings All –
My life is a mystery to
explore. Step 36 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your
Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]
 |
| My life is a mystery to explore. Step 36 |
TRULY YOUR LIFE IS A MYSTERY and, yes, truly it
requires that you explore it if you wish to comprehend its purpose, its meaning
and its true direction. This is essential for your happiness and fulfillment in
the world, for if you have been looking carefully at your life, you will
realize you have not been satisfied by little things. For you who seek
Knowledge, something greater must be given. You must penetrate the mere surface
of things, which seems to adequately stimulate most people. You must accept
your deeper yearning or you will cause yourself unnecessary grief and conflict.
It is not important what other people value. It is important what you value. If
you are seeking for greater meaning, which is true meaning, you must penetrate
the surface of your mind.
IN YOUR TWO PRACTICE PERIODS TODAY, again
concentrate in meditation upon feeling the presence of your Spiritual Teachers.
This is not something you have to try to do. It simply means relaxing,
breathing and allowing your mind to open. The quality of your relationship with
your Teachers is essential to give you strength and encouragement, for you may
justly doubt your own skills, but you have good cause to fully trust the skills
of your Teachers who have passed this way before on their way to Knowledge.
They know the way, which they are seeking now to share with you.
PRACTICE 36: Two 15-minute practice periods.
The whole text above could be repeated here for
emphasis. This is Step 36 of 365 Steps, everyone of which is important. This
Step is important.
Picture: Arches
National Park, Moab, Utah
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.
