Step Seven

Step 7. Review

In today’s two practice periods, review all that we have covered thus far, beginning with the first step and continuing on up to include the preceding day’s step. Then consider the entire sequence of the steps together. It is very important at this juncture that you not require that you have any conclusions, but that you ask questions and realize the extent to which you need true Knowledge. If you undertake this practice today sincerely, it will be most evident that you have this great need. You are vulnerable without your assumptions, but you are also in a position to receive truth and certainty in life. 

Take two practice periods today, 30 minutes each, to consider these things.

Practice 7: Two 30-minute practice periods.

Here you will find the entire book free for download http://stepstoknowledge.com/

Here you will find pointers for getting started if this is your first encounter with this practice: Taking the Steps to Knowledge

November 12, 2012 Round One: This review has revealed some interesting things for me. A new perspective has opened up.

Yes, Steps 4 and 5 are really very discomfiting when it is suggested that I want what I think I know and believe what I want to believe - while doing these steps I became flummoxed and started to doubt. However, upon reflecting on my life to this point, I realize that I got to where I am not through analysis and conditioning, but through going with my gut feeling, as though I were being guided by something deeper, more mysterious. If I had allowed my analytical mind to make the decisions, I would not be where I am today, since it really defies all logic. So I must have been guided by something else. I can say "I wanted to do what I did because I thought it was the right thing, it suited my preferences," but perhaps what was really happening was "I needed to do what I did" and unwittingly followed guidance from the Godforce (Knowledge) within me without even being consciously aware of it. In other words, if I substitute "I want" for "I need" in many situations, this puts things in a very different perspective, and I am thinking perhaps it is in fact Knowledge that has brought me to where I am today and not my personal beliefs and preferences.

This all crystallized clearly in mind while I was out for my morning jog just now, but now that I am back in front of the computer trying to express it in words, a coherent way of putting it escapes me. All I can say is my doubts are leaving me, and I totally agree with what another student wrote:

"Knowledge is COMPLETELY with you and it is a great blessing even if it is unknown to you."

What is my true foundation? My source in God, where I came from, my Ancient Home. I understand that the spiritual part of me is what counts - not my physical body, not my thoughts, ideas and beliefs, not my hopes and desires, but the part of me that is beyond definition.

July 1, 2014 Round Two: Again, I seemed to have had a better grasp on things the first time around. I felt when I did this review that it was probably Knowledge that brought me to where I am today and not my personal beliefs and preferences. Today I still feel the same way, I feel I am guided at some subconscious level by Knowledge, but when examining what has occurred during this past week, I find that things can still get confusing and befuddled. I feel as if I have a blank page before me on which to start again. I think this is probably a good thing.

First practice – I still feel my great need for true Knowledge. I am willing to give up my assumptions, turn over a new leaf and start from a place that allows me to receive truth and certainty in life. It has been my experience in life so far, even before I began practicing Steps to Knowledge, that everything falls into place, turns in the right direction, and perfect solutions transpire if I don’t push it, if I allow the mystery of my life to unfold.

Second practice – I feel encouraged, because I am beginning to feel something solid and lasting beneath all the rubble, I do have some firm and true foundation. If I gently sweep away all my assumptions, doubts, confusion, fears, false beliefs, inflated desires, unreasonable demands, I am left with something pure and lasting. If I sweep away the cobwebs in my mind that seek to ensnare me, I see a blank page (bright and beckoning) on which to build something true and certain. My need for true Knowledge is indeed great, of this I have no doubt.

June 23, 2018 Round Three: First practice period (4.30-5.00)

I am to review the first six steps and see the flow between them, their connection - consider the entire sequence, drawing no conclusions, only asking questions and realizing my true need for Knowledge. If I realize how compelling my assumptions are, but how flimsy they are in reality, I will be in a position to receive truth and certainty.

Step 1 - I am without Knowledge now.

Step 2 - Knowledge is with me. Where am I?

Step 3 - What do I really know?

Step 4 - I want what I think I know.

Step 5 - I believe what I want to believe.

Step 6 - I have a true foundation in the world.

First, there is what these steps imply, and second, there is the reality of my experience.

1.These steps imply that I am without Knowledge, however, Knowledge is with me, it’s just I have not gained access to it yet, because I am bogged down in my surface, personal mind where I think I know things (based on assumptions, hopes, fears, preferences, speculations, etc.), but really I know nothing, or I know very little for sure. So I want what I think I know, which has no basis in reality. And I believe what I want to believe, which is also based on illusion and wishful thinking, so really I have no true foundation in the world, and my life is a sham.

2. However, my experience has proven different. I am with Knowledge now and always have been, although unconsciously until I found the NM and could put a name to it. Knowledge is with me (certainly) and I am with Knowledge, because I follow its prompts without hesitation. I really know things I can’t prove, but which ring true at a deeper level. I want what I think I know because it is not based on what I see and hear, but on what I feel at a deeper level, at the level of my inner knowing. I don’t want what I think I know based on assumptions, I want the truth and I can see past what I think I know. I do believe what I want to believe, because my experience is that it has proven true. And I do have a true foundation in the world based on my inner knowing and past experience, the memory of my Ancient Home, my knowing that I have done the Steps to Knowledge before in another world. I still do have assumptions that prove to be untrue, but I see them for what they are and do not take them very far. So I would say that I am with Knowledge, I really know quite a lot, I don’t want what I think I know, and I believe what I want to believe because it has proven true and forms my true foundation in the world based on past, empirical and remembered experience.

Nevertheless, I am still open to being shown that I am wrong, I am open to new learning, new insights and new experience. Nothing is set in stone. I am open to being proven wrong.