There will always be times when doubt clouds the horizon and I am not a true student.

I have already posted on my practice regarding Step 19. “Today I Wish To See.” I shared in that post my journal entry for that day, November 20, 2013. I have to admit that I was rather lackadaisical about picking an object to look at. I was thrown off course by having to pick an object that has little meaning for me. The objects on my desk and immediately before me all have some special meaning, so I did not know what to choose. I don’t recall actually choosing anything, I only thought about what might go through my head if I did gaze on some object for 15 minutes. Like it’s going to miraculously turn into something else before my eyes if I look at it long enough. Huh?

Step 20. “I Will Not Let Doubt and Confusion Slow My Progress” asks me to practice the same practice that I attempted the previous day. I don’t think I did as asked on this day either, I have no record of the object I picked to gaze at. Nor was I feeling doubt and confusion, since my journal entry is too flippant, implying that I have this “doubt and confusion” thing nailed.

I wrote: Doubt and confusion are natural every now and again, and I have certainly allowed them to slow my progress in the past. The trick is, however, to recognize them as precisely that – doubt and confusion – which come from somewhere else other than Knowledge. When I see this, I have the strength to go on, always certain that Knowledge is leading me precisely where I need to go.

When doubt clouds the horizon

Recently, however, doubt and confusion have been looming large and ominously in my life. This week I did Step 271 and wrote in my journal and on the Free School Forum about how I was doubting my ability to get with Knowledge. Another student responded by pointing me directly back to Step 20. I was blessed with some clarity and made aware of the empowerment that is inherent in Steps to Knowledge.

I did not give myself truly to my practice the day I did Step 20, I was not a true student, but today, as I move forward in my Steps practice, I am brought around once more to what I failed to grasp that day and given the opportunity to contemplate my doubt and confusion again. I find this ultimately encouraging.

The same student also pointed me to a passage from Wisdom from the Greater Community. Volume 2 Chapter 27: Self-Doubt

“While you have a self that you need to doubt and that you need to understand, you also have a Self that you can learn to trust—completely and wholeheartedly. This Greater Self is the source of certainty, guidance, strength, courage and Wisdom. It is what we call Knowledge. It represents the immortal part of yourself—the part of you that came into the world fully intact and fully prepared to carry out a mission in life. You carry it like a secret cargo. It is within you at this moment. You can doubt its existence. You can doubt its value. You can doubt the depth of its Wisdom and the limits of its strength, but until you know it, you will not understand what it can do or what it is for.

You are not in a position to doubt it.”

At this point, I am recalling Marshall Vian Summers’ words “never doubt what you have always known.”

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