Today I will be serious and lighthearted all at once. Step 225 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices

Greetings All –

Today I will be serious and lighthearted all at once. Step 225 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]

Today I will be serious and lighthearted all at once. Step 225

THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION IN TODAY’S MESSAGE for you if it is understood. To take your life seriously is to receive its true grace, which will make you very happy. Therefore, you must be very serious with yourself as you are learning now to become a vehicle for Knowledge, and you may be very happy and lighthearted that Knowledge is with you. This, then, is the true application of your mind, for you are lighthearted with that which is lighthearted, and you are serious with that which is serious. A mind that is serious in its outward direction and lighthearted in its internal delight will be a mind that is fully integrated. This will be a mind where Heaven and Earth touch.

THE GRACE THAT YOU WILL BE RECEIVING THIS DAY will engender happiness and true appreciation, yet the application it calls for will require your serious engagement, your sincere dedication and the genuine application of your mental and physical faculties. Here your strengths represent your happiness, and your happiness is strengthened by the application of your true abilities.

THINK OF THIS UPON THE HOUR as you repeat your idea for today. As you attempt your deeper meditation practices, seriously engage your mind so that it may experience the lightheartedness and the great joy of Knowledge. In this, you will see that today’s idea is entirely uniform in its meaning. In this, you will not confuse that which is happy and that which is serious. This will give you a greater comprehension of the world.

PRACTICE 225: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture: Friends, Pécs, Hungary.

Journal entry link Step 224x1

Journal entry link Step 224x2

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.

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.