Greetings All –
Why do I need Teachers? Step 47 (MP3)
[Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF
also.]
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| Why do I need Teachers? Step 47 |
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. Where the good life is lived, much of the time. 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.
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.
