Steps to Knowledge: My Practice

Step 182. Review Today marks an important turning point in your preparation. Today marks the completion of the first stage of your preparation and the beginning of a new stage. Review the past week in one long practice period and then take time to think how far you have come and how far you need to go. Recognize your growing power and strength. Think of your outer life and recognize how much needs to be accomplished there, both on your own behalf and for the well-being of others. Recognize how little you know and how much is available to you. Do not let any self-doubt dissuade you in your undertaking, for you need only participate to receive the greatest gift that life can give. Review the past week and think now of what has transpired in your preparation thus far. Observe the development that has occurred within you these past few months—the growing sense of presence, the growing sense of inner certainty, the growing sense of inner power. Allow for the fact that your outer l...

Step 181. Today I Receive The Love Of Knowledge. Knowledge possesses the true seed of love, not love that is a mere sentiment, not love that is a form of intoxication surrounding an urgent desire born of fear. Knowledge is the seed of true love, not the love that seeks to conquer, to possess and to dominate, but the love that seeks to serve, to empower and to free another. Become the recipient of this love today so that it may flow through you to the world, for without your denial it will most surely do this. Upon the hour, repeat this statement and feel its full impact, regardless of the circumstance that you find yourself in. Allow each circumstance to support your practice, and you will find that your practice will have an increasingly potent effect on your external life. In your two deeper practices today, enter into the presence of Knowledge and receive its love. Affirm your worthiness and your receptivity. Relinquish your presumptions about yourself and the world, and ...

Rumi - This is Love Step 180. I Complain Because I Am Lacking Knowledge. When you complain about life, you are asking for Knowledge. Knowledge has its own statement about life, but it is very different from the lament which you hear within yourself and around you. Therefore, as you approach Knowledge today, recognize the nature of complaint—how it emphasizes your weakness and the world’s domination over you and how much it is in contrast to what you are learning now. You are learning now to discover your greatness and your domination over the world. You are in relationship with the world. Let this relationship become healthy and meaningful. Let the world’s contribution be given to you. Let your contribution be given to the world. Therefore, thank the world once again today for what it has given to you. In your deeper meditation practices today, enter stillness and silence. Use the word RAHN to help you enter this deeply. Use the word RAHN to orient your mind and thinking so ...

Painting on the wall in Krakow, Poland Step 179. Today I Will Thank The World For Teaching Me What Is True. The world in its grandeur and in its folly teaches you what to value and to recognize what is true. Contrast must be evident in learning for you to make these distinctions. To distinguish what is true from what is false and what is meaningful from what is meaningless, you must have contrast in learning. You must taste the meaningless to find out its true nature and content, and you must taste the meaningful to find out its true nature and content. The world continuously provides you the opportunity to do both. At this time your need is to taste the true increasingly, and that is why we emphasize this in your daily practice now. You have already indulged yourself in the false so sufficiently that it has dominated your mind and attention. Now we feed you the true, but you must also learn to benefit from what the false has given you. Then you will need to investigate the...

Step 178. I Will Remember Those Who Have Given To Me Today. This is a special day of acknowledging the presence of genuine relationships in your life. It is a special day of acknowledging the gifts that have been given to you. It is a day meant for gratitude. Upon the hour, then, repeat this statement and take a moment to recall those who have given to you. Try to think very carefully of the individuals who have given benefit to you, both by demonstrating their Wisdom and their error. Think of those who have illustrated the way to go and the way not to go. As you inquire further into this in your two longer practice periods today, try to think more carefully and allow any individual who comes to mind to be the subject of your investigation. This is an active practice time in your meditation periods. In your longer practice periods, repeat the statement at the beginning of practice and allow individuals to come to you. Learn to recognize their contribution to the reclamation...

Patriarchs Pond, Moscow, Russia Step 177. I Will Learn To Be Honest Today. There is a greater honesty that is waiting for you to discover. There is a greater honesty that you must utilize on your own behalf. It is not enough merely to know how you feel. It is a greater requirement to feel what you know. This is a greater honesty and an honesty that is in harmony with life itself, an honesty that reflects the true advancement of all beings in the world. This is not merely expressing and demanding that your personal intent be carried out. It is demanding instead that the necessity of life within you may express itself in a way that is genuine to life itself. The form and the manner of this expression will be contained in the messages that you will need to deliver to others when the time comes for that to happen. Learn, then, to feel what you know. This is a greater honesty. It requires both openness and restraint. It requires self-inspection. It requires objectivity about your...

Angel is driving to Boulder, CO for the Encampment (October 2014) Step 176. I Will Follow Knowledge Today. Upon each hour of this day experience yourself following Knowledge. Make small decisions about small things as it is necessary, but make no great decisions without Knowledge. You have a personal mind to make small, insignificant decisions. But greater decisions should be made with Knowledge. Follow Knowledge today upon the hour. Allow its peace and its certainty to abide with you. Allow its overall direction to be discerned by you. Allow its potency to affect you. Allow it to give itself to you as you are now learning to give yourself to it. In your two longer meditation practices today, using the word RAHN, enter deeply into Knowledge. Enter deeply into the presence of life. Enter deeply into this experience. Continue to direct your mind towards this accomplishment. Continue to set aside anything that affects you or holds you back. In this way, you train the mind ...

Step 175. Review In your review of the practices of this week, once again realize the value of giving yourself to practice. Giving yourself to practice, then, is the first step in comprehending the true meaning of giving and the true meaning of purpose in the world. In your one longer practice period, review the week that has just passed. Review your engagement with each day’s practice and consider the meaning of each day’s idea. Give this your total attention during your long practice period today, and realize as you witness your own development that you are preparing yourself to give to others. Practice 175:   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 . July 21, 2013 Round One: This review of the past week of Steps has pinpointed my focus even more, he...

Step 174. My Life Is Necessary. Your life is necessary. It is not a biological accident. It is not a mere chance circumstance that you arrived in this world. Your life is necessary. If you could but recall what you went through to come into this world and the preparation that was required—both within this world and beyond—for you to emerge here, then you would realize the importance of your being here and the importance of the Knowledge that you carry within you. Your life is necessary. There is no form of conceit here. It is simply a recognition of truth. In your evaluation of yourself, your life is either pathetic or grandiose. Yet, the necessity of your life has nothing to do with your evaluations, though your evaluations can bring you closer to or take you farther from this one true recognition. Your life is necessary. Understand this and it will banish your sense of self-judgment and condemnation. Understand this and it will bring humility into your self-grandiose ideas...

Step 173. Today I Will Do What Is Necessary. Doing what is necessary will engage you with vitality in life, for life in the world, in all its forms, is engaged in what is necessary. This at first seems oppressive to human beings, for they are accustomed to living in fantasy, where everything is preferential and nothing is really necessary. Yet, it is when something is really necessary in life, even if it is a dire circumstance, that people are able to liberate themselves momentarily from their fantasies and feel purpose, meaning and direction. This, then, is a gift to humanity, but people usually give themselves this gift only under dire circumstances. It is under happier circumstances that you must now learn to receive this and welcome necessity as a saving grace in your life, for you wish to be needed, you wish to be included, you wish to be vital and you wish to be an essential part of community. This is all necessary. It is not merely a preference on your part. It canno...