10/3/16

My ideas are small, but Knowledge is great. Step 277 - Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing ~ Spiritual Practices


Greetings All –

My ideas are small, but Knowledge is great. Step 277 (MP3) [Open in Drive or copy to your Drive – Download folder or play from Drive – Step PDF also.]
My ideas are small, but Knowledge is great. Step 277
REALIZING THE TRUTH OF THIS STATEMENT will allow you to align yourself with the source of all Knowledge. Then you can escape the darkness of the world of imagination. Imagination is unstable, and even its brightest moments can turn to darkness in a second. Even  its greatest inspirations can be bitterly discouraged with the slightest provocation. Here there is no certainty. Here there is no reality. Here nothing is trustworthy, for only change can be expected. That which is gifted and valued will most certainly be lost. That which is grim and destructive will most certainly pursue you.

SUCH IS A LIFE LIVED IN IMAGINATION. Such is a life lived in the isolation of your own thinking. Do not underestimate the power of Knowledge to liberate you from this hopeless situation where nothing genuine can be discerned, where no true meaning can be acquired and where nothing that is permanent and real can be realized and established. It is your salvation out of the darkness of your separate imagination that will lead you into the reality of life and will redeem you there.

REALIZE HERE THAT EVEN YOUR GREATEST IDEAS, even those ideas born of Knowledge, are small in contrast to Knowledge itself. Knowledge is the great source of your being as it is expressing itself in your individual life. Therefore, honor what is great and realize what is small. Realize that in time as Knowledge begins to emerge within you and as you allow it to express itself ever more freely, you will begin to recognize those thoughts that emanate from Knowledge and those thoughts that are merely imagined. Yet, even thoughts from Knowledge, which are far more powerful and effective than any other thought that you can imagine, even these thoughts which are the seeds of true understanding in the world are small in contrast to Knowledge.

REMEMBER UPON THE HOUR THE POWER OF THIS IDEA, for it is given to liberate you from your own confusion and false assumptions. In your deeper practice periods today, apply your mind actively. Attempt to look at every idea that you hold dear, whether it be positive or negative. Look at any idea that you believe in or adhere to. Examine your relationship to the primary ideas that govern your life. Then, remind yourself after you look at each one that Knowledge is far greater than that idea. Here you will realize that there is a means for you to escape the world of ideas and enter the world of relationship, where everything is viable, real and based upon a foundation that can never change.

PRACTICE 277: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Picture:  Front Range, Boulder, Colorado.


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.