Step Sixty-Three

NewMessage.org/Steps

Step 63. Review
As before, in your review review the past week of practice and learn the extent of your involvement and how it can be increased and enhanced. This week your practice has been expanded. It has been taken into the world with you to be applied in all manner of situations, regardless of your emotional states, regardless of the emotional states of those who influence you and regardless of where you are and what you are doing. In this way, everything becomes part of your practice. The world, then, instead of being a fearful place that oppresses you, becomes a useful place to cultivate Knowledge.

Realize the strength that you are given when you are able to practice regardless of your emotional states, for you are greater than your emotions, and you need not repress them to realize this. To become objective with your own internal states, you must operate from a position where you can observe them and where you are not dominated by them. This will allow you to become present to yourself and will give you true compassion and understanding. Then you will not be a tyrant with yourself, and tyranny in your life will come to an end.

In your one long practice period, evaluate this prior week as carefully as possible without condemnation. Remember that you are learning how to practice. Remember that you are learning to develop your skills. Remember that you are a student. Be a beginning student, for a beginning student makes few assumptions and wishes to learn everything.

Practice 63:
 
One long practice period.

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.


January 23, 2012 Round One: This is my experience, that the world is a useful place to cultivate Knowledge, and it is indeed very empowering to feel that I can practice regardless of my emotional state. Also I find I am able to observe these states, which helps me not to be dominated by them. This is not always easy, since emotions have the tendency to sweep over me and carry me away in their path, preventing any objectivity. However, I am practicing this objectivity as best I can and developing my skills. All in all I am pleased with my progress.

September 12, 2014 Round Two: This review has confirmed for me how Steps are becoming integrated into my life as a whole. They are not something I practice separately at specific times of the day, but are part and parcel of my general being. I feel as though I am able to be present to myself, observe myself objectively and not be totally swept away by my emotions. I do have the tendency, however, to allow emotions to get the better of me, but I am able to stand back and observe myself, conscious of the fact that it is my emotions taking hold. Then I can take another step back and correct them, meaning adjust my state.

I am appreciating the opportunity to cultivate listening, non-judgment, love and self-acceptance, patience, the reclamation of Knowledge, and the freedom to follow what I know in my heart to be true.
August 25, 2018 Round Three: I am happy to say that I am getting even better at not letting my emotions get the better of me. I am able to be much more objective and let things ride. Today while out on our walk, Sasha and I were going on again for the umpteenth time about our feelings towards Volodya and how he is disrupting our lives. Sasha does not want to put up with it any more and is threatening to go back to Moscow. I will not. I am prepared to stay here and see it out. And I am not fazed by Sasha’s feelings. He likes to huff and puff a lot, but does not follow through on his words. I am greater than my emotions and need not repress them to realize this. I need to be present to observe my internal states in order to be objective about them. I have been observing my begrudging attitude toward Volodya and want to be free of it. But perhaps I should not neb into things that are none of my business? Why did I need to know if Volodya had paid gas money or not? Is it really my business? Only from the standpoint that Sasha complains to me about what Volodya is doing, says he will confront him, but then doesn’t. But I probably should not be doing my own investigating into Volodya’s motives. However, I do want clarity.
Step 57. Freedom is with me. I can be free of Sasha’s influence and pressure on me. I can claim and accept it, live and apply it, no longer live under the weight of my own imagination. I can honor and follow the freedom that is with me. I will not allow him to oppress and repress me, for I am at a different level up the mountain, and I have a better view. He tells me now to do what I want, and I will. I am moving away from fear and the darkness of my own imagination. I no longer wish to be held back by my own thoughts and the thoughts of my own inadequacy that Sasha imposes on me. Nor do I wish to impose on him thoughts of his own inadequacy. I need to allow him to find his own way.
Step 58. Knowledge is with me. I can experience the presence of Knowledge in all circumstances. I have the power to govern my own experience to meet my true inclinations. This is empowering indeed!
Step 59. Today I will learn patience. I am learning patience and I am becoming observant of my life rather than critical of my life. I am living the life I have always dreamed of and although there is a temporary ripple in the aspic jelly that is upsetting the balance, I am not critical but accepting things as they are and doing the best I can. That doesn’t mean I can’t voice my opinion and clear the air. That doesn’t mean I have to hold negative feelings inside and allow them to fester.
Step 60. I will not judge the world today. Knowledge represents a greater judgment that does not possess anger, that is meant to serve and nourish, that gives true recognition to every person’s current state without belittling their meaning or their destiny. I am applying this to Volodya. Even though he is incorrigible, I can rise above him and retain my inner freedom.
Step 61. Love gives of itself through me. So I don’t have to try to be loving toward Volodya if I don’t feel it. But with Knowledge I will be a vehicle of expression of love and it will flow naturally through me. I do not need to contrive anything, I just need to be myself. But there is still so much I don’t know. I can only take each situation as it comes and try to go with it as my heart prompts. The outcome will not be known until later.
Step 62. Today I will learn to listen to life. I think I am getting better at listening and catching nuances. I am able to be present and observe my internal states. I am able to listen to others and feel their internal states. Sasha is often tense and talks off the top of his head without thinking things through. Michael and Lera are present to each other and form a tight bond. Michael is much more at peace with himself and with his world.
I am happy with my progress this week. I feel I am able to control my emotions much more, be observant, know that things will happen in their own good time and take things in my stride. I am not happy with the situation here with Volodya, I am not happy with the wedge it is driving between me and Sasha, but I believe it is negotiable and resolvable. I have faith and am confident in a positive outcome. There is no way that we have come this far to face defeat. If only Sasha could see it that way.

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