10/29/16

I will step back from the world's persuasions today. Step 303 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

I will step back from the world's persuasions today. Step 303 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]
I will step back from the world's persuasions today. Step 303
STEP BACK FROM THE WORLD’S PERSUASIONS. Recognize what is certain and what is confused. Recognize what is devoted and what is ambivalent. Let not the power of the world’s frustration and confusion overtake you today, but hold the light of God within your heart. Keep it burning within yourself as you venture into the world. Thus, you pass through the world unscathed and uninfluenced because you are abiding with Knowledge. Without Knowledge, the world merely sweeps you away in its own frenzy. It sweeps you away in its inducements and its mad pursuits.

TODAY YOU ABIDE WITH KNOWLEDGE, and so you are free of the world’s persuasions. Repeat today’s idea upon the hour and recognize how important it is in maintaining your inner balance and your sense of self and certainty. Realize how important today’s idea is in allowing you to keep stillness alive within you so that your deeper meditations, in which you will practice stillness again today, can exert their influence and their results upon all of your activities, for this is their purpose.

RECOGNIZE THE WORLD’S PERSUASIONS AND STEP BACK. This you are given to do, for here you have the power of decision. This you can do once you recognize the world’s persuasions and realize how important Knowledge is. This will enable you to exercise the power of decision on your own behalf. Here the world will not claim you, and here you will be a force for good in the world, for this is your purpose.

IN YOUR DEEPER MEDITATION PRACTICES, once again give today’s idea as an invocation to prepare you. In stillness and in silence enter into the sanctuary of Knowledge so that you may rejuvenate and refresh yourself there. Find reprieve there from your own internal conflicts and from the conflicts that rage in the world. When you return from your sanctuary, remind yourself that you will not be claimed by the world’s confusion. Remind yourself that you will not fall prey to the world’s persuasions. Then, you will carry forth the safety that you are now learning to receive into the world around you.

PRACTICE 303: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture:  Hollywood sign, Los Angeles, California.


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. The 1x and 2x links above 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.