7/13/16

Knowledge is more powerful than I realize. Step 195 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

Knowledge is more powerful than I realize. Step 195 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]

Knowledge is more powerful than I realize. Step 195
KNOWLEDGE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU REALIZE. It is also more wonderful than you realize. You are as yet afraid of it because of its great power. You are unsure if it will dominate you or control you, unsure of where it will take you and what you will have to do and unsure of what the result of all this will be. Yet, as you go away from Knowledge, you re-enter confusion and the world of imagination. As you come closer to Knowledge, you enter certainty, confirmation and a world of reality and purpose. How can you know Knowledge from a distance? How can you determine its meaning without receiving its gifts?

COME CLOSE TO KNOWLEDGE TODAY. Allow it to silently abide within you, as you are learning to silently abide with it. Nothing could be more central to your natural experience than the experience of Knowledge. Be glad that it is greater than you realize, for your evaluation has been small. Be glad that you cannot understand it yet, for your understanding would only limit it and its usefulness to you. Allow the great to be with you so that your greatness may be demonstrated and experienced today.

TAKE THIS IDEA WITH YOU AND PRACTICE IT UPON THE HOUR. Keep it in mind throughout the day. In your two longer practice periods, allow yourself to experience the depth of Knowledge. Feel the power of Knowledge. Strengthen your resolve to do so. Dedicate your self- discipline, for here self-discipline is wisely employed. Knowledge is greater than you realize. Therefore, you must learn to receive its greatness.

PRACTICE 195: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture: For Step 195, I looked at all those in my working collection. Thirteen candidate pictures were selected. The major notion was to depict some aspect of “power,” but none of the images gave what seemed needed. The church here represents a setting where an openness to Spirit would be one’s meditative state for the Step's recognition: “Knowledge is more powerful than I realize.”

This may not resonate for some, but I had been amazed by the powerful size of European cathedrals since I first saw them in the 1970's; this a period when I was agnostic. It seemed to me it was the power in the spiritual ideas of Jesus that had inspired these great edifices. In the case of other messengers and the buildings related to their religions, the feeling has been the same; powerful ideas in earlier times and still powerful today. This is St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City.


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 Spiritualityand 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.

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.