10/5/16

I must experience my freedom to realize it. Step 279 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

I must experience my freedom to realize it. Step 279 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]
I must experience my freedom to realize it. Step 279
FREEDOM IS NOT A CONCEPT OR AN IDEA. It is an experience. Therefore, it must be realized in many, many different circumstances for you to see its universal application. This you are given time to accomplish. This will make all of your activities meaningful, purposeful and valuable. Then, you will have no foundation for condemning yourself or the world, for all things will strengthen your understanding of the necessity for Knowledge and all things will be the recipients of Knowledge.

THEREFORE, GIVE YOURSELF TO PRACTICE, preparation and application. Do not identify merely with ideas, for even the greatest idea is meant to be an expression in changeable circumstances and will itself be unstable. To have genuine stability in the world, you must identify with Knowledge and allow Knowledge to demonstrate its power, its efficacy and its benevolence within the world. You must experience your freedom to value it and to comprehend its meaning in the world. This is why you are a student of Knowledge. And this is why you must apply everything that you are learning in your preparation here.

REMEMBER THIS UPON THE HOUR as you are engaged in the world. Remember this in your deeper meditation practices where you are engaged in your inner life. In both arenas, Knowledge must prevail. In both arenas, your freedom must be exercised to be realized. In your deeper meditations, exercise the strength of your mind to enable it to come into stillness and quietude. Do not let fear or ambivalence dominate you this day. You are practicing your freedom and exercising it, for you can only be free when you are still inside, and if you are still inside, you are free already.

PRACTICE 279: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly

Picture: Baker Park, Frederick, Maryland.


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.