Tag Archives: Step 38

Следовать по заданному пути

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следовать по заданному пути

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Всё, что от меня требуется – это следовать по заданному пути.

Шаг 38. Бог знает путь к Знанию гласит: «вдохновляйся сегодня тем, что Бог знает путь к Знанию, и тебе только надо следовать по заданному пути».

Я поделилась раньше в этом блоге о своих трудностях со словом «Бог». А тут мне говорит, что Бог знает путь к Знанию. Что я должна с этим делать? Как растолковать это заявление? Но Шаги к Знанию – это не интеллектуальное занятие, эта подготовка не призывает к анализам или играм ума. Этот Шаг предлагает мне «ощущать присутствие Бога, молча, в тишине. Не размышлять о Боге, не заниматься домыслами, не задаваться вопросами, не сомневаться, а просто ощущать».

В своих записях к этому Шагу, я написала: «Как хорошо знать, что мне всего лишь надо следовать по заданному пути, а этот путь к Знанию просто проявится во мне, потому что я его признаю – да это правда. Не может быть никакого разочарования. Ведь Бог никуда не денется – вот это да!

Cледовать по заданному пути

Мне только надо следовать по заданному пути. Какая свобода! Ведь больше нет необходимости заниматься домыслами и сомнениями. Даже нет необходимости строить догадки о Боге, ибо Бог никуда не денется, Бог тихий, Бога только нужно ощущать. Не надо себя обременять всякими сложностями, истолковав одно, придумывав второе. Путь к Знанию существует испокон веков. Другие проходили по этому пути, они ощущали и испытывали присутствие Бога и сумели следовать заданному пути. Всё, что от меня требуется, это следовать по заданному пути тоже. Ну это наверно мне по силу, не так ли?

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Follow The Given Way

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follow the given way

All I need to do is follow the given way.

Step 38. God Knows the Way to Knowledge tells me to “take faith today in knowing that God knows the way to Knowledge, and you need only follow the way that is being given.”

I have shared before in this space about the certain amount of difficulty I have had with the word “God.” And here I am told that God knows the way to Knowledge. What do I do with this? How should I interpret it? However, Steps to Knowledge is not an intellectual pursuit, this practice does not call for engaging in analysis or playing mind games. This Step asks me to “practice feeling the presence of God, silently, in stillness. Not thinking about God, not speculating, not wondering, not doubting, but simply feeling.”

My notes for Step 38 say, “Knowing that I need only follow the way that is being given – this way to Knowledge that will simply emerge in me because it is acknowledged – is so very empowering and I know it to be true. There cannot be any disappointment.  God is not going anywhere – yes indeed!”

Follow the given way

I need only follow the given way. This is so freeing, so liberating, because it removes all need for speculation and wondering. I do not even need to speculate about God, God is not going anywhere, God is still, God only needs to be felt, and God knows the way to Knowledge. I do not need to burden myself with all kinds of complications, construing this, conceiving that. The way to Knowledge is as ancient as time itself. Others have passed this way, they have felt and experienced God and been able to follow the given way. All I need to do is follow the given way too. Now that shouldn’t be so hard now, should it?

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

What Am I Being With? Why Am I Being With It?

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I took a brief vacation from blogging about Steps to Knowledge after the lengthy Step 49 review of the first 48 steps.  But I am now refreshed and ready to resume the ascent.  Step 50 is “Today I will be with Knowledge.”  What have we been told about Knowledge so far?  We have been told, among other things…

  • I brought Knowledge with me from my Ancient Home. (Step 1)
  • Knowledge is something I greatly need (Step 7)
  • Knowledge is my True Self, a self that is not apart from life (Step 10)
  • Knowledge must be distinguished from my thoughts (Step 15)
  • The Teachers of God assist my discovery of Knowledge (Step 23)
  • My life up to now is a demonstration of life without Knowledge (Step 28)
  • Reclaiming Knowledge is part of my mission in life (Step 33)
  • There is a particular pathway to Knowledge which works for me (Step 38)
  • Reaching Knowledge, like everything else, is a group effort (Step 45)
  • Knowledge works in the limited context of my individuality (Step 46)

After all the amazing things that have been said about Knowledge, to say that I can be with Knowledge is another amazing thing.  Can that really be so?  There seems to be some awareness that I would wonder things like this, as the step instructs “Do not argue with yourself about the reality of your pursuit, for that is wasteful and meaningless.”

I still struggled with the idea of practicing feeling something when I did this step.  It helped when they said “relax and be present.”  I could do that.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Can I Find The Way To The Power Of God?

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This is the sixth post in a series of seven posts regarding Step 49 of Steps to Knowledge.  In Step 49, I’ve been told to review my practice and experience of the first 48 Steps.  I am sharing what I wrote when I actually did the Step 49 review, and adding commentary as needed.

Step 36 – My life is a mystery to explore – “I remember thinking the phrase ‘going spelunking in my soul.'” I waited from early 2011 to June 2013 to write that phrase in a blog post.  Part of this step was taking the focus off of life as a result to be judged.

Step 37 – There is a way to Knowledge – “I wrote down this Step in this book,  I seem to think that I need to get high to get to Knowledge.” I wrote down 23 different practices, some of which are about development of character, some of which are about alteration of consciousness.

Step 38 – God knows the way to Knowledge – “I did the Step.  Sometime around this day I got there were Christians who found the way to Knowledge, like Joan of Arc.”  I’ve written two posts about Joan of Arc so far.  I will probably write more in the future.

Step 39 – The power of God is with me – “I did the step, recalling the hymn ‘Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.'”  This Christian hymn, written in 1876 to a Welsh melody, talks about God dwelling in inaccessible light.  It talks about God being “unresting, unhasting, and silent as light.”  This hymn had a similar vibration to me as the bit in the next step about the great stillness of God.

Step 40 – Today I will feel the power of God – “I commented on this Step.”  The post about tomato aspic is the commentary I wrote down.

Step 41 – I am not afraid of the power of God – “I commented on this Step.”  In that commentary, among other things, I wrote “The separation is insane, and to maintain it, I must spin a hurtful insane mud world around myself.”  Spinning a mud world around myself is a line from a Robert Bly translation of a Kabir poem.

Step 42 – Review – “I commented on this review.”  In that commentary, I wrote “Another thing I haven’t written down until now is that I’m very briefly scanning through the Steps I’ve done so far, in getting to the Step I’m going to do on a particular day.  That seems to help.”

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Stillness Has Quite A Lot Going For It

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I am writing this post to ponder some more on my understanding of God. In Step 38, I was very drawn to the words “God is very still, for God is not going anywhere.” This sentence is preceded by “In stillness and quiet everything becomes apparent” and followed by “As you become still, you will feel the power of God.” Step 9. In Stillness All Things Can Be Known tells me, “Those who cultivate stillness with a desire for Knowledge will be preparing themselves for greater revelation and true insight to emerge,” and goes on to say, “The insight may emerge during practice or during any normal activity.”

A normal activity for me every summer, and fall too, for the past twenty odd years is fishing. Let me hasten to add that the attraction of this activity is not in the fish as such, I am by no means a fisherman, rather the attraction is in the environment in which these fish are caught. It is very conducive to stillness. Sitting by still waters as they reflect the glory of the elements has a way of evoking a deeper stillness within that allows true insight to emerge and things to be known. And these things are permanent, for God is not going anywhere.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

The Mystery of God

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The mystery of God.

There was a time when I felt very ambivalent about the word “God.” However, Steps to Knowledge often refers to God, and the New Message from God is the source. Shouldn’t this have raised my hackles and if not sent me running from the room, at least made me want to retreat, quietly closing the door behind me?

Perhaps, but I did neither, instead I stayed in the room and decided to examine my ambivalence. What do I have against the word “God?” And I decided it was because I associate it with religion. But I don’t consider myself a religious person, I don’t go to church, and I don’t read the Bible, although there was a time in my life when I did go to church and there was a time in my life when I did read the Bible. I like the Bible, if the word “like” is appropriate in this context, I find it a source of infinite wisdom. I did not particularly like going to church though. It just never felt right, its walls were too confining.

Then I found that if I substituted the word “God” for “Higher Power,” my ambivalence lessened. In a forest grove with its majesty, air and light, I felt the closer presence of a Higher Power, so I substituted church for the forest and embraced the power I felt there.

The mystery of God.

And by the time I embarked on Steps to Knowledge, I was ready to acknowledge that “you find God in a pure impulse, in a timeless moment of recognition, in the desire to act beyond the sphere of your own personal interests and motives, in the recognition of another, in the motive to give, in the inexplicable experience of affinity. These are translatable. This is God in action. For you, this is God.”

Step 38 says that God knows the way to Knowledge, Step 39 reminds me that the power of God is with me, Step 40 tells me to feel the power of God today, and Step 41 asks me to affirm that I am not afraid of the power of God. With these tools in my arsenal and additionally armed with the affirmation “the power of God represents the mystery of [my] life” (Step 39), all ambivalence flew out the window for good.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

What Is The Power Of God In The World?

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Does God micromanage the world?  Or does he merely set the ground rules and let nature take its course?  What do you think of when you think of the power of God?  Moses parting the Red Sea?  The walls of Jericho falling flat before Joshua?  The miracles of Jesus, with the resurrection being the exclamation point?

Step 39 of Steps to Knowledge (“The power of God is with me”) opens up another angle as to the power of God in the world.  It says “The power of God is with you.  It is within your Knowledge.”  At first, I found this less than satisfactory.  What’s the connection between experiencing things as self-evident, and healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, casting out devils?  As I pondered this further, I considered the idea that the power of God in the world is the conviction of the person who knows something.  Joan of Arc knew something.  The founders of America knew something.  And what they knew has had a lasting impact.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

St. Joan of Arc and Knowledge

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During the time I studied step 37 of Steps to Knowledge (“There is a way to Knowledge”) and step 38 (“God knows the way to Knowledge”), I entertained some thoughts as working hypotheses: 1) There have been Christians from time to time who have reached Knowledge, the great mystery of a person’s life, their True Self which is not apart from life, 2) those who did so considered their Teachers as saints and angels, and 3) St. Joan of Arc is an instance of one of those individuals.

The story of St. Joan of Arc is told in many places, and has touched the hearts of many people.  But there are certain aspects of particular interest to me. It has an instance of inexplicable knowing (Joan asking for the sword her voices told her was buried behind the altar at the church of St. Catherine).  It has an instance of someone declaring the mission in their life (Joan declaring as she embarked on her mission “I am not afraid, for God is with me.  I was born for this!”)  I realize someone is going to read this and think “Well, maybe France deserved to be divided and subjugated by foreign powers.”  I consider that a conversation for another time.

No one remembers Bishop Pierre Cauchon, the leader of the ecclesiastical kangaroo court which sentenced Joan to death.  No one remembers the person who lit the flames.  I believe that Joan would be pleased at the long-lasting peace between England and France, the Entente Cordiale of 1904.  I believe Joan would be pleased to see a unified France.  One day there will be a saint of whom someone will say “I believe St. So-and-so would be pleased to see a unified world.”

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Better Yet, There Is A Way To Knowledge For Me

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Step 38 of Steps to Knowledge “God knows the way to Knowledge” inspired a similar response in me to the one inspired by step 37 “There is a way to Knowledge.” God had darn well better know the way to Knowledge!  But step 38 added something in which I took comfort; the idea that other people had found and taken a successful way to Knowledge for them.

The Kabir poem “Music” gives the idea that there are people who undertake certain sets of practices because someone else did in some time and some place, and were successful. Are they engaging in something that is necessary, but not sufficient, or is the whole enterprise doomed from the beginning because they are imitating someone else instead of exploring the mystery of their own life?

Someone reading this just thought “Well, what about atheists?  Are they just out of luck with this Knowledge thing?”  Atheists can experience things as self-evident, in a way that inspires consistent action.

Thinking about step 38 encourages me to think that one inner meaning of step 37 is “There is a way to Knowledge for me.”  Thinking about step 38 encourages me to think that one inner meaning of step 38 is “God knows the way to Knowledge for me (and He’s not hiding it from me, either.)”

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.