Marshall Vian Summers Speaks on the Journey to a New Life
Watch a Live Broadcast of Marshall Vian Summers speaking on Knowledge & Building a Bridge to a New Life, March 16, 2019.
This communication is part of a series of live, public teachings from Marshall, given to the growing Worldwide Community of students of the New Message. The next one will be broadcast live on May 11, 2019.
8:10
Reed: Good morning everyone here at the Greater Community Sanctuary in Boulder, Colorado. It’s a bright, sunny, yet cold, late winter day. Appreciate everybody coming to be here to be with Marshall and to be a part of this gathering of people, men and women, students of Knowledge who are learning to receive the New Message and apply it in their lives, and are here to be part of a conferral from Marshall to the early community of the New Message, both here in the room and around the world, to all of you all across the globe who are up in the middle of the night in the wee hours, or are watching this after work, or are putting your kids to bed and watching this at the same time.
People everywhere in all situations and circumstances are to be a part of this, this gathering at the side of the road, a long road that the Messenger has walked. And he now feels he’d like to stop and share some things with all of you.
Patricia: You know, I often ask myself: Do I really realize what’s happening here? And so I would encourage all of you to ask yourself that periodically. Go back in time; come forward in time. Look at the situation and say: Do I really realize what’s happening here?
There’s something really almost, even…I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t have the superlative, which is a word that just exclaims in amazement, you know, what one feels.
We’re so fortunate to have this man with us, and we’re so fortunate to have this Revelation here with us because it’s a testament. So much takes up our minds. So much has consumed our lives up until this point, and yet we made it here. And what kind of state of mind are we in most of the time, half of the time? Bewildered? Overwhelmed? Overtaken? Sometimes having a nice moment, too, along the way, right? And yet what we have is this Revelation standing right beside us now, going into this future. So to what extent do we realize what’s happening here? It’s an amazing process.
It’s taken just about everything for Marshall to do this. And to that end, he has required assistance and he has received it. He has, both from beyond, but also from those of us who’ve found this. It is such a relief to him to be able to give this to someone right within his proximity, the way we are right now.
So I want you to know that you are giving a gift to this man so that…He lives with a pressure and intention like you wouldn’t believe, right? This isn’t about belief, right? This is about knowing. It’s difficult for us to know that, to know what is his experience around this Revelation, having it approach him in his life here, having to get into position in this world, having this incredible communication begin to approach him and then begin to rush through him. And he has to just hold on! You know what I mean? And he has needed others to help him hold on. And thank God, they came. And thank God, more are coming.
This is a huge Revelation. And the world needs it now. So thank you so much for making the time to be here, to say nothing of the journey you’ve taken. So this is a wonderful, wonderful moment.
RS: So let’s take a moment in stillness together and bring ourselves here to be here now. Set aside the concerns of our life, preoccupations, our plans for the day or the week or the year and make this rendezvous.
Marshall: I think I need a bigger stage. I’m kind of hanging over the end of this stage. Oh yes…
Just received this editing copy of the new book, The Journey to a New Life, which will be coming soon. So I have to look through it to make sure all the pages are in order and nothing is amiss. Excited to look at it.
So in our wonderful time together, I’m here to talk about Knowledge and building the bridge to a new life.
You know, those who have been touched by the Revelation and have responded to it have reached a turning point, perhaps the first stage of a greater initiation because initiation isn’t one stage alone. It’s a series of stages. But once it begins, something is happening in life that wasn’t happening before. A force is in motion that was not in motion before. An alignment is established to your life, to a Greater Coordination that wasn’t really happening before. It was in a stage of waiting or potential, but it hadn’t really begun.
So knowing that, it’s important to become really connected as fully as you can to the Revelation and to suspend judgment about the beginnings of your new life because you don’t know what it is, and you don’t know where it’s going to take you. And it may not fulfill your expectations or what you thought it would be. In fact, I’m sure it won’t in many ways because it’s new.
And the New Revelation from God is not simply a restatement of what has been said before many times over, but is a New Revelation not only preserving the ancient wisdom from all times, but to provide things for humanity that have never been given before as we stand at the threshold of a declining world and at the threshold of a universe full of intelligent life.
So you have to have a new mind, a fresh mind, not a solid piece of concrete that only seeks to defend its ideas and beliefs, but a mind that is open to the air and the winds of the world.
What’s going to carry you forward is not the strength of your beliefs, but the power of Knowledge that lives within you, which is now stirring and beginning to move, but is still a small voice within you that is likely not even what you think intuition is. And so times can be shaky when you’re entering a new arena of life, a new stage of your life, and a new world reality.
People talk about wanting to know who they are. “I wanna know who I am. I wanna know why I’m in the world. What am I here to do?” But these things can only be answered by taking a journey such as this. You find out by taking a journey that goes beyond your thoughts and beliefs, the norms of society, the expectations of others. You leave the paved highway of life and you enter a simple path that leads into the woods.
And there are not many people there on this path. And there are not big signs telling you where to go and what’s up ahead. It’s where the pavement ends and the mystery begins.
So set aside the question about “Who am I?” Set aside the question of “Why am I in the world?” Those are questions that must be answered by reaching a certain place in life where these things can be experienced more directly. They are not simply an identification or a definition. They’re a moving experience. They’re a moving reality. And even then, to know who you are, well, eventually you have to be beyond the world to know that fully.
But who you are in the world is very important and cannot be defined by social creeds or human philosophies, things of this nature. Even the wisdom of the ancients can only point in a certain direction, and you will have to follow that direction to find out.
The New Message emphasizes the fundamental shift that has to happen in order for us to take a real journey into who we are and why we’re here. And that is a shift from the authority of our ideas, beliefs and assumptions to the authority of the Knowledge that God has put within us to guide us and direct us and to raise us up for a higher purpose.
That’s a monumental thing when you think about how much of your thinking and activity and perception are based upon your ideas, your beliefs and your assumptions, or the ideas, beliefs and assumptions of those who you admire or to whom you’ve given authority in your life. It’s an all inclusive reality. How will you break out of that?
Your mind, which is meant to be a vehicle of communication for Knowledge, has become like a prison house. And there’s a little window up there where you can see blue sky and peer out into the world.
It’s going to take a powerful force to break the chains of the past and of social conditioning and even of the current influences in the world, so many of which seek to dominate all who can respond to them.
So you’re set on a journey, not only to take you to where you need to be in life, to the life you know you must live, but you’re also beginning to undo the chains and the knots and the conundrums of your life that would otherwise prevent you from going forward, and have in the past prevented you from going forward.
So it’s more of an undoing in the beginning, particularly, than it is the acquisition of new ideas, new insights, a new philosophy of life. It’s more of an unravelling to put you into the clear to free you up—a free mind that can now begin to think original thoughts and foresee upon its own rather than simply see as it has been taught to see, or what it’s been shown to see.
This is a big thing. Let us not pretend that a makeover of our life represents a new life because there’s no new life there. You can change your circumstances. You can have a new set of clothes. You can change your talk and your walk. But the unexamined life is still within you; nothing has really changed. The things that really need to change have not yet changed.
So without Knowledge there is no real life, new life. People spend a lot of time and energy trying to build a new life if they have the ability to do that, but they haven’t gone off the super freeway yet into the simple path into the woods.
So this morning I have nine things to ask of you, to recommend for you to support you in building the bridge to a new life. These are not things simply to think about once in a while, but really to adopt or to put into motion—maybe not all at once, but certainly at some point they all have to become in motion. These are things for you to see within your own life: How are you going to practice this?
You know, when I meet people of different faith traditions, if I have an opportunity to speak with them, I always want to find out what they practice, not what they believe. I don’t care what they believe, really. It’s important in the sense that it determines their behavior and their perception to a large extent. But I really want to know what they practice because that’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s what really matters. It’s what people do, not what they think about doing.
So the first thing I ask of you is to be really open to what happens next.
Being open means that you are suspending judgment, expectation, apprehension. Be open to what happens next—not the next big thing in your life, but the next thing you’re doing.
You know, most mistakes are made because people aren’t paying attention.
People are not aware of where they are and what they’re doing. Their mind is not aware of where they are and what they’re doing. Their mind is somewhere else. They may not even know where their mind is, but it’s not there.
Many of the great practices in the New Message are there to teach us how to be really present, to know what we’re doing so eventually we can do what we know. To know what we’re doing: What am I doing right now?
Getting ready to come here this morning, I probably had to follow 20 different steps from where I was when I woke up to being here now—maybe 30 steps, okay? But how often do you not calculate those steps and have to repeat them because they’re out of sequence? “Oops, I forgot that. Oops, I forgot this. Oops, I didn’t do that.” Because your mind is not on what you’re doing, really, sufficiently. Does anyone have this experience? Can’t just be just me. That’s good. I’m relieved.
Everything you do, everywhere you are is an opportunity to practice being there. You don’t have to think of it as a spiritual practice, it’s just being able to be engaged with what’s happening.
The purpose of spiritual practice and study is not to take you out of reality. It’s to teach you how to be in reality with a greater strength and power. So much spiritual teaching out there just takes people away and stimulates their fantasies about themselves and the world, makes them evermore incapable of being in reality, ever less functional, responsive, courageous, effective.
The New Message—we think of it as functional spirituality because it’s totally geared to bring you back, or to bring you here with the strength of Knowledge and with whatever wisdom you have gained to serve you, serve the world, which is the purpose of all this. You can’t be afraid or in avoidance or hiding out or trying to live some kind of alternative reality or create your own reality. This is just another version of being separate. “I have my own reality.”
I’ve heard it said recently that we’re living in an era of “post truth.” I find that very curious, where everyone’s in their own reality and there is no real truth. It’s all about perception and “I’m in my reality and this is my truth. And you’re in your reality and it’s true.”
So what is reality then? I say—this is my current definition of reality—reality is everything that’s happening beyond your thoughts and beliefs. Your thoughts and beliefs are merely interpretive. They either help you see or they hinder you from seeing. They either engage you with reality or they disengage you.
This is very important to understand because the great practices—inner listening, stillness, looking without judgment, learning how to direct your mind at will, always knowing where your mind is going, objectively questioning your assumptions and beliefs, stepping back from who you think you are or what you think life is—are all to reengage you with reality.
I mean better to…instead of creating your own reality, find out the reality that created you that lives within you at this moment and that has brought you in the world and seeks to engage you in the world in a very specific way according to your nature and design, and according to a greater coordination—which is entirely beyond our understanding—with certain people, places and situations. I mean if you can’t engage with reality, then you can’t be guided.
Have you ever seen in a moving river how along the edges, parts of the river get caught in an eddy, what’s called an eddy, a swirl, where the water just goes around and it just circulates? Say this river is your life and you want to move with it, but you get caught in an eddy of confusion or delusion or frustration or pain and you can’t move, or you’re trapped by your circumstances, by the expectations of others, and certainly beyond that, poverty and degradation, which is really a serious matter.
Oh, you’re moving. “My life is moving.” But you’re like this. [index finger in circular motion] You’re not going with where your life is meant to go. And this is the state of probably most people in the world today, either circumstantially or just because they haven’t really made an engagement with life yet that calls something out of them that’s bigger than their ideas.
So we’ve all been shaped by culture, family, friends and by our own…our own ideas and assumptions as a consequence. And this creates a very confining state of consciousness. And from that we look out and we try to understand the world. We’re in our little blockhouse, right? Because a mind is like cement even though cement has to be mixed constantly to be viscous and usable. But if it’s left to sit, it dries and you can’t do anything with it.
The mind is kind of like this. If it isn’t being stirred and activated, rehabilitated, regenerated, it becomes hardened and self-defensive. And you kind of go out of communication with your Source.
Now you become afraid of Knowledge; now you become afraid of freedom; now you become afraid of the Mystery because your whole life is set upon a certain set of notions or ideas.
So when we practice, then, being present, we practice listening, both inside and outside as we’re able to do that, just like I’m listening to myself while I’m watching you. I’m listening to what I say while I speak to you. In that way, I don’t say things I don’t mean to say. I don’t say things that shouldn’t be said. I don’t misrepresent myself.
So we’re in the process now of learning skills. And I’m much more interested in this because without these skills, you just will not be able to do the things the New Message is asking you to do.
You know when we practice inner listening, it’s not to get things: “An answer. I need an answer.” Or to have an insight: “I had an insight!” I don’t think insights are worth very much actually, and I’ll talk a little bit about that later.
We practice the great practices to develop skills to reemploy the mind to develop new neural pathways of how the mind is going to function: a new way of responding to other people, responding to conflict, responding to beauty, responding to degradation. We’re building skills to be able to be in the world in a new way. And we’re doing this in such a way that we become immortal beings in the world to be of service, rather than being in the world with some vague notion of our own that we have a greater life somewhere, somehow, above and beyond this existence.
Instead of being trapped by the world, we are being fed by Heaven.
So our practice now is skill building. And I want you to really think about that. This is not a reward system where every time you practice you get a reward. Every time you do a trick, you get a cookie. Good boy.
No. We’re practicing to become strong and competent. There’s no emphasis on mastery here. The emphasis is on competence and functionality. In fact, the New Message says there are no masters living in the world. Mastery is beyond anything that can be achieved here. So let’s take that out of the picture. Anyone who claims to be a master or appears to be a master is still a student in the world.
So many things have to be taken out of the picture for the way to become clear, you see? Things that people fixate upon or think are very, very important have to be relieved because we’re losing energy to all these things. It’s like the vessel has all kinds of little leaks in it. They’ve got to be plugged up or it can’t hold anything.
So that’s why the journey—much of the journey—is about undoing, about creating openness, space, freeing up energy and allowing your mind to be reshaped and guided by Knowledge. Otherwise, your mind is like a block of cement. You can’t do anything with it. Yeah.
(So can we do the three stages of knowing?)
Said very simply, and this is an oversimplification, but there are three stages of knowing.
One is recognizing the sign or the impulse. The sign may be on the outside; the impulse may be on the inside. You recognize something that really stands out; it’s not ordinary. It’s not your usual thing to recognize.
Many people experience this. They have moments of recognition, but they don’t go any further with it.
Next is to contemplate the sign or impulse, unless action is required in the moment. Your car’s going off the road as we just recently had in this huge storm in Colorado. People’s cars went everywhere. “Oh, my car’s going off the road. I can’t stop and contemplate this. I’ve got to go into action immediately.”
And the third is acting on the sign or the impulse, which may be something that’s needed very shortly or immediately, if not immediately, shortly, or subsequently.
We have this beautiful quote by Wang-Yang-Ming. He was an early 16th century teacher of The Way of Knowledge:
There is no Knowledge which does not lead to action. If one knows but does not act, then one really does not know.
So until we take this thing that you’ve recognized and have been contemplating to action, then it’s not yet really Knowledge because it’s what you do in the end that really matters.
I say three things—there’s what you do, there’s what you serve and why you serve—in the end are the three things that really matter. Awareness that does not lead to action is still circulating in your mind. It has not come into reality yet to be fully effective there.
Contemplating means you’re really being with something, not just for a moment or a day, but you are gonna put this up on your mirror and you’re gonna look at it every day. You’re gonna walk around this mountain because you don’t know what it is yet. And it’s important you not assume you know what it is. “Why, I got this message…and I know what this is.” No, you don’t.
A message is just a doorway. It’s not what’s down the hall. It’s just a doorway. You have to go down that hall. This is a reemployment of the mind. This is what people don’t do, unless you’re a scientist working on an important project or an engineer working on a plan. Most people don’t go very far with their own experience.
Knowledge works through your experience. It can work through ideas, but the ideas have to generate experience. A beautiful idea—what’s that worth if it doesn’t generate real experience, which then generates real action in the world? A change of heart. Doing something you’ve never done before. Shifting gears in how you respond to somebody from the way you used to respond to people like that.
The next is to determine what part of your life you’re not yet willing to have directed by Knowledge.
At any given moment you have limits and boundaries as to what you’re willing to gamble or to bring into this light. And that’s okay, but I want you to be honest about it instead of pretending that you’re really open. “I’m always being guided.” No you’re not. “I’m really open.” No you’re not.
To be really honest about the range of your life that you’re willing to have to be reshaped by Knowledge, really gonna be open about that and know what areas…“Well, I don’t think I can go there quite yet.” Eventually you’re going to have to go there if you want to be free.
But knowing your limits here is very important and you won’t pretend that you’re really more open than you are and it’ll give you a lot of pause and it will also maybe tell you maybe why Knowledge has not been responding to your question. “I can’t get…I’ve been asking this question and I can’t get anything.” Well…why would Knowledge give you a directive that you’re not gonna take? Even if you knew you need to take it but were not able, that would just create more confusion and crisis for you. So know your limits.
Next, follow those things you already know to do.
Listen to your self-talk. Listen to what you say to yourself. “Oh, I know I need to do this. I know I need to do that.” But you’re not doing it. So why would anything new be given to you if you’re not already doing what you know to do? Already you have lots of work to do. The New Message is full of directives, process, everything. I mean, you couldn’t do it all, possibly. But at any given moment you have a lot of work to do, both on the inside and the outside.
There shouldn’t be any wondering what to do. Look at your physical condition. Look at your mental condition. Look at how and where you live.
Look at the state of your relationships. Then there’s all the particulars of life that need to be managed or maintained. So at any given moment you got lots to do. And if you’re sitting around wondering what to do, you are not present. And if you’re not doing those things, then you can ask for the moon, but…it’s like asking for the moon.
We’re given the idea of the Four Pillars of life: the Pillar of Relationships, the Pillar of Work and Providership, the Pillar of Health and the Pillar of Spiritual Development—all to be built, all to be sustained because your life is only as stable as the weakest Pillar in your life.
And the beauty of that whole balance, that Four Pillars like the legs of a table, is like the antidote to eccentricity and self-obsession. At any given moment, one Pillar’s going to require more effort than the others. But they all have to be maintained, and this takes a lot of work, and this engages your mind, and this keeps you stable in the world.
Steps to Knowledge begins with the Step: Knowledge is with me. Where am I? So incredible. That’s the problem. And the rest of the Steps to Knowledge is about solving that problem.
You should never be waiting for guidance if you’re doing what you know to be doing. The next thing will come to you when you are ready. When you have completed these sets of tasks, brought these things in order, something else will come to you to do, or to undo, or to change, or to repair, or to resolve. There’s no waiting for guidance.
And the things you know you need to do, some of them are not easy—going to take some time. You’re gonna have to get to work and sustain something.
The next is regarding the things that are really important, time is of the essence. It is really important.
In fact, the New Message says that time is nothing to God, but everything to you—the time that you have, the time you’ve been given, how that time is being spent and utilized. And the cost of time is just tremendous. In fact, I’d like you, with me, at this moment to stop and think about the lost time in your life. And don’t reassure yourself and say, “Everything was for a purpose and everything happened as it should.” No. Damn! You have wasted time. Let’s be honest. You were caught in those eddies for a long time until something forced you out of them.
So let’s take a moment and think about lost time in your life, and do this compassionately but honestly.
I’ll let you continue that on your own, but it’s really important. Because this is part of what motivates you to be unwilling to waste time. I mean certain relaxation and being carefree and times for that, certainly. But is your life really engaged? Or are you falling behind, losing connections? Remember, life is about what you do, what you serve and why you serve. It’s not about having realizations and weaving fantasies around them.
The New Message is here to wake us up, not give us a better dream.
You know, if you’re doing what you need to be doing now, you will make this journey. You’ll go on to the next thing. You will do whatever that requires. You’ll go on to the next thing, do whatever that requires. You’ll make the journey. And as you do so, you’ll be increasingly unwilling to waste time.
One of the practices I mentioned above is knowing where your mind is going. You won’t be able to do that all the time, but you start by knowing where your mind is going as much as you can remember it because that’s time.
And if you don’t know where your mind is going then, certainly…“Where’s my mind been for the last four hours? I don’t know. I went to work. I did these things,” but you don’t know where your mind is going. Mindfulness.
And it’s not just to watch your mind, it’s to direct your mind, or to redirect your mind. Otherwise, you’re going wherever it’s going instead of the other way around. You know, the mind is the perfect servant. But if it has nothing to serve, it serves itself, or it serves false gods, or it serves other people, or it serves whatever it can think of to serve because it only knows how to serve. It may even think it’s the master, but it doesn’t know what to serve.
The next thing I ask of you is are you ready to take the next step?
Given all that I’ve said so far, are you ready to take the next step? You don’t know what the next step is, by the way. So being ready is being ready to take it whatever it is, not like, “Oh. Tell me what it is and I’ll think about whether I’m ready.” No. No, I’m going to put the horse in front of the cart now, okay? So are you ready to take the next step?
It’s a strong yes, a weak yes, I don’t know, a strong no or a weak no. That’s the range of your choices. Or you could say, “I don’t want to deal with this.” I could add that to the range: “I’m too busy.”
This isn’t just a decision you make. It’s a position you take. When you realize how hopeless your own management of your life has been, you will want to be open to the next step. If the next step is the only thing you can really do in this journey—you can’t rush ahead and be trying to contemplate where you should be or where you may be or how it may turn out—then are you ready to take the next step? And the truth is you can only take the next step, which is why I don’t take people’s questions very much anymore because so often it’s about things that are not their next step. It’s not functional. It’s not helpful.
Maybe you already know your next step. You’re not sure you want to take it. Or you really don’t know. That’s fine. It’s fine if you don’t know. It’s just are you open to knowing? Do you need to know?
Knowledge arises according to need. I want you to really get this. So the less you are engaged with your real needs, the less you have that’s going to propel a response from Knowledge.
See, Knowledge and action are very connected here. Knowledge rises in proportion to need. Otherwise, it’s just a wish. “Will I ever find someone who will love me?” That’s not a need; that’s a wish. That has nothing to do with whether you’re ready for such a relationship, or if you’re even a worthy candidate. Or if your life is too broken down to even participate in something like that. That’s another story.
The question is: Are you ready to take the next step? Because you can only take the next step. Meanwhile, Knowledge is working around the clock while you sleep, while you eat, while you’re intoxicated, wherever you are, it’s working slowly reshaping you. But it can only do so…it can only activate all that with your participation.
So regarding readiness, do not take too much time to do what is before you now to do. There is a pace that is required. It is not too fast or too slow, but it’s probably not a pace you may be comfortable with because you’re not used to it. It’s not too hard, you’re just not used to it. You’re not used to being that alert, that clear, that determined.
Even little things, you’ll lose energy to them if they’re not resolved. You want to get the little things done so you’re available to the bigger things, or even the intermediate things.
Do not take too much time to do what you know you must do.
Time, again—huge emphasis here. To the person who’s languishing, time is like, “whatever.” To the person who’s on a mission, time is essential. You were meant to be here on a mission, not to languish in time. You’ve already languished in time.
Now I’m going to ask you to do something a little different, to consider something different. This is for your protection, but also the protection of the New Message and this whole community, and that is to be aware of the ambitious person who thinks they know what this is and who seeks to take advantage of being here.
Such a person, or people like this, have already come through here. Such a person will definitely be coming here as this grows in power and recognition. I’ve met so many of these people in my life. It’s amazing. “Oh yes, I’ve studied metaphysics for 20 years. I’ve worked with the masters. I mean, I’m at the third level,” whatever that is. “I meditate for hours everyday.” “Steps to Knowledge—this is nothing. What is this?”
This is a warning given to me, given to all who work with me, but also I want to give this to you because it will help safeguard your life and will safeguard this mission.
And included here is to be aware of your own tendencies to give your power and authority away to people who seem more determined, more certain than you are, to let them just kind of take over. “Lead me.” This is a dangerous thing. And there are many people who will want to take that role, and who do take that role. And they can gather many followers. But these people are not being empowered by doing that.
My intention is to keep you in the driver’s seat, not to put you on the bus. God’s in the backseat, but you gotta be in the driver’s seat, which means you have to be competent, careful, responsible, courageous. I mean, all these qualities that go along with living a new life reality have to come into play here or you just don’t want to take the helm of your own life. “Just give it over.” “They’ll take me there.” “Jesus will take me there.” “This teacher will take me there.”
Here even the student becomes kind of a self-appointed guide to others. And maybe they’re not even ambitious. They just kind of assume a leadership role around others who would just love to have them lead them, or who seem more uncertain than they are. But I would rather have people be uncertain than to be guided by somebody else in this way.
Everybody here has to get themselves up this mountain. I can fill your backpack with useful things, but you have to get yourself up this mountain.
I even think having meetings like this, which are very important, should be very infrequent because what really matters is where you go with yourself in your own time of study and practice. That’s where the real work is happening. If we met every week, it would be kind of a group thing and it would be a group energy and a group momentum and we’d all be moving together with a group, and it’s like No. That goes on…there’s a lot of that going on out there. People are not getting stronger in that environment. They’re not following what they really need to be following.
If you’re really broken down, a group can be helpful at the beginning, but you really have to set out on your own when you’re able. And everyone here is able to do that or you wouldn’t have come this far. You wouldn’t be part of the New Message.
You all with me? (room: yes) Okay, good. This is all part…This all goes together.
The last thing I want to ask of you is to ask Knowledge…pray for Knowledge to show you what you need to be aware of out in the world.
There are lots of things to be aware of out in the world, and you don’t want to be aware of them all because the world will consume you. You’ll be the dumbfounded viewer watching a big movie.
But there are certain things that may come to you that you really kind of need—not just look at once in awhile—but really kind of keep track of because they have something to do with you, some contribution you may make in the future which isn’t really clear at this moment.
The New Message prepares you for a role, but doesn’t tell you what it is because if it told you what it is, you’d either run away, or you would think,
“Oh, I can do that,” and you would make it up for yourself when, in fact, that wouldn’t be the thing to do at all. It prepares you for something to be revealed later.
Welcome to The Way of Knowledge.
I’ve been given a list of things I have to keep track of, but that’s just my list; it’s not your list. And I keep track of them. And that way, in terms of looking at the world, I kinda know where my focus should be, rather than on anything and everything that’s sensational or tragic or fantastic or horrific or beautiful or whatever. You just become overwhelmed.
These are the things I need you to do for you, for all of us, because you’re not only working for yourself now, for those who sent you into the world and who are counting on you to make progress here—so thankful that you finally made your rendezvous. But once the rendezvous is made, you have to set out on this journey, a journey not of your own making.
Some things you have to understand before you do, like changing the plumbing in your house, or anything else of that nature. But many other things, the more essential things, you have to do and then understand. They’re both valid. They just have their own realms of application. When fixing something, it’s good to understand or learn how or get the understanding from somewhere before you attempt something like that.
But fixing your life? Well, it’s more the other way around. It’s doing and then understanding. Or not doing, and then understanding.
So I’m going to leave you with these nine things. I’ve given this to you, not only for all of you who are gathered with me this morning, but for all who will hear this in the future, for all who may find this in distant times to come. It’s part of the record of my teaching. This is relevant to people who are on this journey, or a journey similar to this.
So instead of understand only, do and then understand. That is how you will learn.
Okay, the blessing is with you. The Presence is with you. You are not alone.
Nasi Novare Coram
RS: Let’s take a moment if we might to stand and stretch. I think that might feel good, now that our backpacks are loaded with useful tools: pickaxes, crampons, four-season tents. Still at basecamp, but 20 pounds extra weight now. And those at a distance, I invite you to do the healthy thing, which is to stand up and stretch as well. Good. Okay.
So, we’d like to open the floor for you to share what struck you about this teaching, or what felt most important, what rang the bell, what hit you between the eyes. What it’s like to be drinking from the firehose, as Marshall has said in the past. So we have a microphone in the room, and those at a distance, please share your messages on the live broadcast chat, and we will read them in the room.
PS: You know, the context that Marshall set for our time together was, is, Knowledge and building the bridge to a new life. And I don’t know whether you’re participating in the current Free School session, but it is devoted to The Journey to a New Life, amazingly, is a compilation of great revelations that were given and actually many more than could fit into this book here. This is a major theme within the New Message. And I was thinking last night about this invitation and this calling to a new life, and I was thinking, you know, we’re not trying to provoke a fantasy journey for people, nor I’m sure, is the New Message.
I think this new life is about the sheer fact that for the most part in almost every situation, in life, we and too many people to consider are not where they need to be. We’re just where we landed so to speak. And that there’s a journey implied in getting to where one can serve. So it’s not like it’s about a fabulous new life, the fantasy of a fabulous new life. Really, I mean, there’ll be work to get there and probably work when you get there. It’s really about providing the environment that Knowledge would best be able to reach the world through you.
So it’s not about phenomenal new experiences, and upgrading, and even though there are rewards; there are realizations and rewards. And there will be experiences of gratitude that you aren’t where you were. But for the most part, it’s about something much bigger than you, is the truth. It’s an invitation to participate in a Great Coordination. So it just occurred to me the attraction of a new life and all that that might sort of look like, feel like, seem like. But really it’s Knowledge attempting to move you into a new set of circumstances where you can help. So I just thought I’d contribute that. Wanna hear from you.
Student: Hello. I don’t know if this is working. Is it working?
PS: This is Maureen?
Student: This is Maureen. Two things actually stood out for me: the whole concept of the eddy and being in the eddy, and just kind of thinking you’re moving but you’re really not moving, and how can I start that movement? How can I get out of the eddy? And when he talked about “Do what you know,” because if you don’t do what you know, then Knowledge isn’t going to give you the next thing to do, and you’re just going to perpetuate the eddy. So that really stood out for me.
And then also the part about knowing where your mind is going, you can also be in an eddy there, where you just keep…I mean I’ve seen it happen to me, where these thoughts, I’m like where the heck do they come from, just keep replaying over and over in my mind, and the concept of redirecting your mind. And I mean it’s like how do I redirect my mind, what do I tell my mind? And one of the things that I’ve been experimenting in is finding a passage maybe from the New Message or maybe the word “Rahn,” or something that just stops my mind in its tracks, and create new neural pathways or whatever in my mind, by, I’ll catch something in the New Message, a passage or something like that, and I will try to bring that up when I find my mind kind of going off on its own, to get me out of the eddy.
PS: Yeah, that’s good.
RS: You know, it’s amazingly refreshing to get into the driver’s seat after being passed out in the back, mile after mile down the road, unsure who’s driving. That’s a terrible feeling to wake up passed out in the back of the car; but to get into the driver’s seat and like Marshall said realize that all you have is the next step, all you will ever have is the next step, and the new life and the vision of it or the allure of it, or how it should be, what is all that? All you have is the next thing you know to do, and you can actually do it.
And for me, you know, and I’m sure for you, we’ve been in states where we’re highly engaged in that driving activity, the next mile, the next mile, and then states when we’re not. And I think you can share the sentiment that wow, it is very empowering and refreshing and vital to finally be working on the thing that is next and to do it, and then to receive the benefit, the self-confidence, the self-esteem, the sense of connectedness that come simply by doing the next thing you know you need to do, even if it’s, as Marshall said, physical health, mental health, how you live and where you live, the state of your relationships, the particulars of life. So this experience of dreaming, passed out in the back of the car dreaming of a better life, instead of being in the driver’s seat driving in the direction of your future life, are just night and day.
PS: Well Maureen just provided a really powerful example of this. I mean, honestly, that’s a tool that you’re looking to utilize: recognize the need for a tool; go get one, and use it. To redirect your mind, it’s really important, that’s an important practice right there. Very.
RS: A practice I have, similar, Maureen, actually very similar is to envision in my entire field of view, the word Stop, like a gigantic road sign that just hit me in the face, kind of like that level of stop or to shout the word stop.
PS: That’s a redirect.
RS: And it works by the way, your mind actually, my mind stops when I do that. And it’s interesting when you do something or say something to the self you think you are, and the self you think you are responds to what you yourself just did. It’s like “Wow, I’m actually not my mind.” I actually have a will to say stop to myself, and my self responds. So this is this experience of exercising your authority, of establishing a point of reference outside the mind which is consumed and mindlessly just responding and reacting, and directing it, and having it follow your direction. That’s like “Wow, OK, so this is possible,” in many, many moments throughout the day.
PS: That’s good, thank you. Anyone on chat, Will?
Will: Yes. Okay, so Aaron Hamilton writes: “Doing what I already know to do including all those small things that drain your focus and energy, discerning what these are and taking action on them, also beware the person of ambition. When advocating online I’ve backed away from commenting on certain metaphysical videos and channels because I’ve sensed that the person producing the video would use it to their own ambitions, use it for their own ambitions.”
Paul Davis writes, “To determine what part of your life you are not open to have directed by Knowledge; time is of the essence; you must be open. Do not take too much time to do what you need to do now, ask Knowledge to reveal what you must be aware of in the world, what is on your list.”
And Kari H. writes, “Be present to what you do. I am blessed with the work which requires a hundred and ten percent concentration. If my mind floats away only for a minute, many things go wrong. What a great practice for me.”
Student: You know, what Maureen was talking about, I found before I met the New Message I had a problem with…I called it a broken record, like a loop that just doesn’t stop. And I guess I was asking Knowledge because I wanted to know the truth of how I could handle that. And so I created three projects, mini-projects, that I could have at the tip of my fingertips to divert myself when my mind started going in the loop, like “Oh I wanted to clean out some drawers,” or I wanted to plant something. So I would pick one of those three projects when my mind was in a loop and then it got me out of the loop.
After a while, I learned to…I noticed that I would immediately know if my mind was wandering. And so it became easier to choose not to go down that path. But then after meeting the New Message—that’s a strange way to say it I guess—I realized there was still a lot of mind wandering that I was taking for granted. And so a phrase that—I don’t know if I heard this in the New Message; you could probably tell me—but I just say, What is my next best step? That’s all I do. And it could be doing your laundry, or it could be get up, start making a plan, do this, do that, you know. It just takes all the burden off of trying to decide what you want to do, what you think you should do, what is the right thing to do, or what somebody else wants you to do, and it just goes right there. So I don’t know. But I think I may have heard that somewhere in the New Message: asking what is your next best step. So I’m just really reiterating, but that was major for me. I think I would’ve gone nuts if I didn’t learn to re-divert my mind into another pathway.
PS: Right. Good, thank you.
Will: Alan in India writes, “Knowledge is not a form of behavior of course. If the mind has become like cement and it is often observed by others by saying, ‘Why are you not confident enough, or an introvert?’ should I engage in some kind of skill-building to change the way I behave, or I can continue with utmost sincerity and dedication even when one is an introvert in behavior. Sometimes I associate it with competence with others.”
LaRae in England writes, “I’m really struck by knowing how powerful Knowledge is within the individual. No following others, no joining, follow what is inside me already. This is so empowering.”
And Jim Brennan writes, “I’m finding that the more I, or we, are attached to physical things from ambition, that we think are really what matters, we are bonded to these things, and this, I, or we, become detached to reality and to life and further away from Knowledge. This has been conditioned within us for so long. The work at hand will take as much time as it did to become unclear and unstable. Being present is a practice I have been with my whole life, and for most of it didn’t even know. Now I do.”
RS: I kind of think that a lot of spiritual thinking regarding having a new life is very much like waving a wand at an automobile. It’s neglecting the fact of what the vehicle is, and would be required to make it functional on the road of life. And so, like Lynn, you were saying “having a plan.” That’s huge for me, too; I’m a huge proponent of having a plan. Not making my whole life a plan, but certainly not being plan-less either, and saying whatever’s happening is what I’m with and I’m just opening myself to everybody and I’m in the moment all the time—whoa. That’s waving the wand at the road of life or at the vehicle on the road. Or as Jim said, how much time it would take to make this vehicle roadworthy, given how long it has taken to break the vehicle down and sideline it on the road.
So I feel like Marshall and the New Message are giving us functional spirituality, like grounded, real world spiritual approach and pathway to walk, and embracing that side, the practical, the pragmatic, the plan-based, the active mind, and then the mystery, how Knowledge is directing us, but really it’s like left and right hemisphere of the brain: both go together.
Student: It’s just funny ‘cause you think you know, when you realize you’re wandering and then you go inward to Knowledge and say, “What’s my next best step?,” you’re almost prepared for something really important, but when it says, “Turn around and do your laundry,” it just knocks you for a loop; it makes it real. And then when it’s something like we’re talking about, a plan of some sort, then it just kind of clicks; it goes in sync. It’s simplified but intricate, but loose-fitting as well, so, ‘cause, you know, with every step there’s opening to the next step, and that like you’re saying is the Mystery and that can allow the most intricate maneuvers and keep you on course much better than just big general moves, or giant steps and then you find out you bit off more than you can chew, or you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing.So it’s a totally interesting, new way of living life.
It’s so organic, and the Mystery becomes the knowing, and it’s the reverse of the way I always ran my life: I always made a plan, and followed the plan, and then months down the road, I’m like “What the heck did I do? Where am I? This is going nowhere.” And so when you follow it a little step at a time, then it just opens up and reveals itself to you, and it’s really more rewarding in every way. But I would’ve never thought of doing it that way. Yeah. It’s pretty cool.
PS: You know I have a question about Marshall’s first point was and what you’re speaking to Lynn. He said “Be open to what might be next.” And he said it’s not so much about what might happen, but what you must do. But I have a question about that, because Knowledge often attempts to foresee, and can sense into; it’s got like the “scout quality” of going out and scouting the environment and coming back.
This is actually physiologically how our bodies work. There are hormones in every cell wall of every cell in our body, and they’re scout hormones. And they literally go out and sense into the environment biologically, you know? And then they come back in, and they report, and the cell sets up for what is happening out there, whether insulin is approaching, or another hormone like cortisol is approaching. So, my question is, you know, about this, because I…be open to what might be next.
Think of Marshall’s health. There’s an example right there. Yeah, there will be things we will need to do, most likely. Sure. You don’t want to get into a lot of imaginings either. But the power of foreseeing I think is important, in terms of what might happen.
And I think as stewards of the New Message, this is something the Society is tasked with, not to imagine, but to sense into, for the sake of the New Message. So anyway, I’ll just say that, so that’s my question, which is, Is it just about what you must do next? So I’m sure Marshall’s listening and he’ll probably respond at some point to me. But you can feel things sometimes about your health and it will imply that you need to do something, and you won’t know what to do yet about whatever that is. So that’s all. But that struck me: “Be open to what might be next.” I guess the operative word is open, you know?
RS: There’s a passage from somewhere in the New Message, don’t know where, that has always stayed with me, and it’s that, “How do you make progress as a student of Knowledge? By meeting what life brings.” It’s not that you set out to build a skill specifically or change a certain part of yourself, or implement a high ideal, or a truth, per se. It’s that you meet what life brings with perhaps this willingness to be open to the event itself and what is required and to treat it as a unique occurrence in life, instead of to just react to it as you may have always reacted, you know, a challenging person in your space—you react to them like you always react, instead of being open to what life has put in front of you. A challenging situation: “What must I say? How must I regard this person? Should I engage with them at all?” Like original navigation, but to navigate you kind of have to get on deck and be open, right?, to the winds, to the rain, to the waves, even if they’re not helping you go where you think you need to go.
Like for example, a major illness is not helping Marshall go where he needs to go. But it is an event, and he can navigate it one way or another. He could shut down in the face of it. He could pull away. He could say, “It’s too much for me,” and become smaller, be made smaller by it. Or in a sense, he could use that wind and that wave to still go where he needs to go, perhaps tacking, you know, up the wind, not quite going exactly where he needs to go, but still navigating a new situation, and being open to that, and what’s required. So I think you’re right, I don’t think it’s just be open to the new relationship that’s about to come, or the new insight or the message from your Teachers. I don’t think that’s what he’s saying there.
PS: Right. Thank you.
Will: Kristina Hartley writes, “Marshall said that there is a lot of noise in the world, and the New Message is a pure signal, Knowledge. This is helping my wandering mind. I go to the Revelation to direct my thoughts and my mind.”
Stella writes, “‘First do and then understand.’ I’m relieved for this statement because I always feel that I have to first understand my inclinations or impulse to do something. Many times I blame myself for my delivery because I feel it was not good enough, but I realize that most of the time it generated a result that needed to be done, even though it didn’t look good to me.”
Mohammed Hussain writes, “As I am learning more of the New Message and advancing in the Steps to Knowledge, more work, more difficulties I am facing, but at the same time I am getting stronger, my capacity growing and a kind of peaceful satisfaction develops in me that keeps me going. Nasi Novare Coram.”
And Shrimayi writes, “Looking at the time I lost in my life makes me understand how important time is for me now.”
PS: Krystina, yeah?
Student: What resonated for me the most, I think it’s when Marshall talked about doing the step that’s in front of you, and also not taking too long time to do it. And this has been my experience. And I think when you also mentioned sometimes you can kind of sense the next step, or even foresee it and maybe you even know you’re gonna have to do it at some point, but perhaps at that time, you’re not ready, or even afraid to do it, not like you but your mind is. And in my experience, you know, I had this big step that I had to do, and there were like other steps, but really until I was able to do this big step, then once I did it, then it was almost like a waterfall, you know, of like other steps that I have to do and it felt like so overwhelming. And I realized that if I wasn’t able to do that previous step, then perhaps I would not get to the point where I would do those other things. And right now I’m kind of at the point where I just, like Marshall says, don’t want to take too long to do those steps, it’s almost like I want to get them out of the way, and just get them done.
And he mentioned the pace, you know, that sometimes the pace is uncomfortable. So for me it feels like this pace is uncomfortable, like I’m forced to go faster than I normally would prefer to go, but it’s almost like this pressure like “Get it done, get it done,” because there’s gonna be more things that you’re gonna have to do, but right now those are practical things related to Four Pillars.
PS: That point was “Regarding important things that must be done in your life, understand that time is of the essence.” It’s one of the points that Marshall…
RS: You know, one thing Marshall spoke of today that really is a conundrum, it’s like a mystery, is how we know things we need to do but do not do them. There’s a secret in Secrets of Heaven that says exactly that: “You already know much that you must do, and yet you have not yet been willing or able to do them.” And why is that, you know, because I think that’s so ubiquitous in our experience. You know something about, it could be anything—your health—it could be just behavioral, time management and it’s so hard to do it.
And Shrimayi, your comment there of looking at time wasted, it makes you really not want to waste time. I feel that willingness to be honest is a huge kicker for the conviction and the courage to actually take these steps because there’s like a will that’s missing, that’s the problem. It’s not that you don’t know. It’s that for some reason, there’s not enough chips on one side of the scale perhaps that you would do it. So why would you do it? Where is the intention, anyway?
And in large part, it’s believe it or not and I hate to say it, it’s in the negative. It’s that “I do not want to have the experience I had back there. I don’t want to make that mistake again that I know I made.” But if you can’t be honest about the mistake, if you’re covering that in a veil of importance, or “I learned a lesson,” or it was, “It brought me here,” then you’re probably not going to be able to gain the conviction, “the courage and the will to prepare,” from it, that you would need. So I’ve found that that honesty, being able to stop and say, “Where have I wasted time? Where has it been?” Not self-critically, but “Show me. Show me what happened so I know what to do now and have the will to do it.” Because if you know you’ve lost something major back there, part of you is probably already stuck and lost in that situation. Part of your soul is back there. But if you can see it for what it was, and then look into your present life, I think there’s a huge resource of willpower to be discovered to actually then do. And that’s what may tip the scale.
PS: Well I think one of the great practices—I don’t know whether it’s been endorsed or brought forward as such—is intention, gathering intention. So there’s utilizing the time wasted and lost from the past to motivate you, to get your act together, so to speak. But what about in the moment now? It’s almost an active practice to gather your intention, even when you sit down to do a stillness practice, you know, do you just sit there? And we do, and I do, or as you’ve often recommended, Reed, gather your intention: “What is my intention around this very thing? What is my intention?” Maybe my intention is actually not with this thing I’m about to do, but I’m all about the automaticity of getting, I’m checking stuff off my to-do list, right, but is there intention there for that or what? So that can help, especially when there’s so much to do in life, and it’s like “My God,” right?
So it can help guide you, like, is there intention for me to do this. Is there a real need and an intention. And if so, how can I gather enough intention to do it, to just do it, and that can help, I think.
RS: But for me, in that practice right before meditation, it’s often not “Yeah, I really want Knowledge right now.” It’s more often “I am really tired. I am overwhelmed. I feel alone, in my life or in the situation, I feel at odds with myself.” I’m drawing my cards regarding where I need to be putting my focus. So again it’s in what you could call the negative, which is the problem. And there’s a statement from deep in the ancient Teaching that says, “Much of your life will be about solving problems.”
So welcome to the problem of life. Not “Behold! I invite you into the glory of life, into the utopia that is possible if you but enter.” That is not what the Teaching is preparing us for. It’s preparing us to deal with problems. And often if you stop and realize, “Do I want to be practicing stillness right now? No, I want to be checking things off the list.” Well, why would you want to be checking things off the list? Why are you so exuberant about your efficiency, and about accomplishing things, and making things manifest, and if you investigate a little, or take Marshall’s call to have an examined life, the life that is examined, to examine your motivations, you find a problem, which is, “I don’t trust the Mystery, therefore I want the manifest.” Or “I feel overwhelmed and checking things off the list is my way of attacking that problem.”
But again, it’s the problem underneath the behavior. And the problem, if seen, once again, if you can be honest about it, it, I don’t know, for me takes me into the real solution, which is: “Wow, I really need to practice stillness today. I need to get off the surface, off this desperate edge of life, that I have acclimated myself to, to call it normal, to call it good, to call it efficient and engaged and productive.” No, that’s a crisis. That’s a desperate edge, actually, in my experience, not because someone’s telling me it is. In my experience, it is. And so at that level, then stillness becomes desirable, but it’s because of the problem. The problem helped me, so.
PS: But sometimes your condition will keep you up on that surface. So without the intention and the recognition of the need that you’re speaking to, Reed, without that, I mean that’s gathering your intention to say, “I really do need to rest. That’s what I really need now. Do I realize how much I need to rest? Yes, let’s go rest. Let’s go rest now.”
RS: Because in all truth, there are major dilemmas we are all facing individually. Maybe we have a substance abuse problem. Or maybe we have habits of thought that are really unhealthy for us. Or maybe there’s problems in relationship. These are like, these aren’t just like, “Oh yeah, it’s okay; I’m doing what I know. I’m in the light.” No, these are dilemmas that we cannot resolve at the level at which they were created. And so, if seen, it’s like, “Wow, now you know why you want to move beyond step one, or step two, or why am I doing this anyway?” You know why you’re doing this, Steps to Knowledge. So, just that honest reckoning of the dilemmas facing us, is really now cause to start to do what we know to do, because that’s the ladder out of the hole.
MVS: I’d like to respond to one thing that came up on the chat. This is from Alexandra regarding “reality is everything beyond your beliefs.” And I appreciate this posting. She said, “I see it as an important statement not to deny Separation or beliefs, but to see that there is more beyond it. I feel it’s very important to be aware of this nuance because I can see that the sentence may be misinterpreted and create a denial or a chasm to the exclusion of beliefs, the surface mind, which the New Message is teaching us to being valuable too. They have their place too. I would appreciate MVS’ feedback here.” So I’ll give some feedback here.
I think the way that I’m positioning reality here is that this is happening no matter what you think. Our thoughts do affect reality, but to a very miniscule level. So the problem of trying to create your own reality as an individual emphasis is that you live in a world whose reality is being created by everyone.
So creating our reality is valuable in terms of establishing a position from which you can see yourself clearly, getting out of the effects of the mental environment, sufficiently, that you have a position from which you can see things more clearly. In that sense, creating our reality is entirely valid and necessary. So like so many things, it is dependent upon the application and the condition of one’s life, to where these things become active.
Now the mind is obviously very valuable because it’s determining so much of our experience, so much of our attitudes, what we accept, what we deny, what we choose, where we go, how we assess our relationships and so forth. So I look at the mind as something to be evaluated very objectively, like a scientist working on a project, even though there’s pain associated with certain kinds of things you will find within your own mind, but that’s part of creating the self-examined life.
And of course, when you begin to really examine your life, you will realize how difficult it would be to be in close relationship with anyone who has an unexamined life because they really don’t know what they’re doing or where they’re coming from. They’re just acting, reacting, they’re going on established responses and behaviors. They have no reference point within themselves upon which to look upon these things more objectively, except perhaps in moments of discouragement or suffering where they really step back. So the mind is really important. But what goes on in our mind is not what is going on out there. And we’re here to participate in the world, not to try to get out of the world. That’s a very important point.
So I’m going to read to you a little story. It’s very short. I’ve read this before, but I think it’s very important here about being connected to reality. This was written by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He’s a sociologist University of Chicago, wrote an important book called Flow. This is an interview where the interviewer asked him, “Did the war create a sense of chaos for you?”
Definitely. That sense came very clearly when we left Hungary in September of 1944, when I was 10. Thirty or 40 relatives, all of whom were well educated and high up in the government, came to the railroad station to say goodbye, and they all said, “Why are you going to Venice in September when the theatre season is over, and there are mosquitoes this time of year? You should stay here.” And all around the Russians were circling the city. We got on the train and after it passed over the Danube, the bridge exploded. That was the last train that left Budapest. In the next few months, most of the people who had been at the station died, and I realized that all these adults who were worldly wise and well educated had absolutely no idea what was coming. They had deluded themselves into a sense of security, so at 12 or 13 I was already looking for ways of understanding why people acted against their own interests.
I mean, we are heading into incredibly consequential times, and…no matter what we think. And if we are aware of that and can interpret that accurately, that’s a real benefit. If we can’t, then we’re in jeopardy as individuals. And clearly most of the world is in jeopardy in this sense. They are unaware either because they’ve just never been informed, or they don’t want to be aware, or they’re overwhelmed and oppressed by their circumstances.
So our mind is like the dashboard of our car. I mean, it’s going to direct how we navigate in an increasingly turbulent world. So I put a high value on our thoughts, beliefs, and associations. But I do distinguish our inner reality from the outer reality until those two things can become functionally and meaningfully engaged. See?
PS: I mean some of the people I think of and feel for the most are those people in the world who are foreseeing events, conditions, developing and they need to move, but they can’t. What is that like? I mean, we can, and therefore we need to, for all the people who can’t, you see? So the power of our ability to foresee and foresense, you know, and foreknow to a degree, enough to feel provoked to act and then one can’t?
The eddying experience Maureen brought up earlier, a student at I believe the Messenger’s Vigil came and spent some time with Marshall, and it was so…they were describing this very situation…well they’re not exactly that person in some situation, geopolitical situation across the globe who can’t avoid the coming tragedy and terror. But she was describing a situation that was she could see a life beyond it, but it was very difficult to leave the life she was living. And I could so see that, and that’s very difficult.
So this, our ability to foresee and foresense does create a pressure for us. So for all those people in the world today who are foreseeing, sensing, knowing they must act, but are constrained from being able to act or change the circumstances and it has great complications and implications for them, I think of them. Michael.
Student: Related to this, one of the things that really jumped out at me this morning was, if you’re not engaged with reality, you cannot be guided. And we see this with the kind of people that you’re speaking of, who can feel and sense what’s coming, but they want to exclude the extraterrestrial issue; they don’t want to consider it. And you can almost see the dynamic in their life, they’re brought up to this threshold, and they’re saying, “No I don’t want to look at the extraterrestrial issue, or the extraterrestrial Intervention.” Then they cannot be guided, because they’re excluding whole parts of a reality in their being.
PS: That’s an important point. Just not only with regard to the extraterrestrial reality, but anything related to reality that’s relevant to you now, or soon. A health challenge, for example, that’s right around the corner. Some of these just show up. They do, truly, and often we’re on the way to them, too.
RS: Yeah. We talked a few months back, at some gathering, about the problem of Knowledge is indicating something for you to do here, but you’re facing this way, and it’s simply a matter of facing the wrong direction, because Knowledge is related to the 360 environment of reality. And of course the GC [Greater Community] is in the world. That may be affecting you; you may be connected to it; you may have a purpose with it. But if you’re completely facing this way, and your range is this much of the circle of life, you’re simply not accounting for what’s around you.
But like Patricia said, a major health event—how often has that been the defining issue to end a life, to change a life, to end someone’s participation? And they simply were facing this way. They were thinking about relationships, and they were thinking about the next thing for them to experience out in the world of life and love, and here’s this. So this problem of just not facing the right way, or having whole parts of the panorama blacked out, just by maybe an assumption: “Oh yeah, I need to be in this place. I’ve always lived in this place; I need to be here.” I mean that’s a huge assumption that could just be wiping over, kind of with a Sharpie pen, tons of lines of text of your life.
PS: I often, I have a practice that I call the lighthouse practice. There’s the watchtower, right, but there’s the lighthouse. And the light is always circling, looking out, so, exactly, for what you’re saying, Reedy, for this.
MVS: I’d like to share one of my practices. I’ve been given many practices that are specific for my role and development. These are things I work on. And the practice is having no fantasies, unless I decide that I need to imagine myself being in a situation, or being around a certain person, or being in a certain place, you know, to see what I can see or to see how I would respond.
It’s projecting your mind into something that requires imagination, and it has some aspects of reality but it’s not really reality itself, but it can give you a feeling or a sense of a person, place or a situation that you wouldn’t be able to see with your eyes or see with your senses.
A lot of time gets caught up in our mind freely associating, or going into fantasy. Fantasies often are very either desire based or fear based, actually all desire is fear based, in my opinion, or random desire, reckless desire is all fear based, based on the fear of not having.
But whenever I find myself going there I just, I stop, you know. And it’s a deep habit. And many people live in this whirlwind of fantasy and speculation. They’re not present to where they are, and they’re either excited or unnerved by what these things can reveal. And these things show up in our dreams, certainly, as the mind is trying to organize our experiences for long term memory, which is what’s happening in dreams. And dreams are actually a good thing to have for that purpose. But it’s the practice: no fantasy.
You won’t even know how much you go into fantasy until you start catching yourself and say, “Okay, I’m not going to do that.” It’s alluring. The mind is like, it’s stimulating itself now, okay? It’s been so overstimulated by the world, it’s so overstimulated by things that don’t matter, overstimulated by tragedy and desire and fantasy, more fantasy, that it just becomes its own little fantasy factory. And this is one of the things that keeps us from being aware of ourselves and connected, both internally and to what’s going on around us. So I will just share that with you. Very helpful in relationship to the things that I presented this morning.
RS: Marshall, you said earlier today, “This is not about having insights and weaving fantasies around them,” which I think in spirituality and religion is very common.
MVS: Yeah, well, at the bottom of the mountain are many people who have been collecting spiritual truths and insights for a long time, but they’ve never really gone anywhere. Knowledge is trying to move your life, both internally and externally. So when it can’t move your life, it waits. But you don’t just move because you always are moving. In this case, the movement has to be really appropriate to what you’re doing and where you are and what your next step is, what your current step is.
And certainly at the beginning…God’s first purpose is to unburden us, which also includes bringing our affairs into order, so we’re able to then become engaged in a larger reality, and take on the potential of greater responsibilities. And unburdening is not all at once, done and over; it continues at various stages.
That’s why I love how the Teaching describes as we progress, our definitions begin to change and our awareness begins to change, and using the mountain analogy we see more of the landscape, so our sense of where we are begins to change, and we can see where we’ve been more clearly and why we couldn’t see anything down below in those valleys full of trees. But we still can’t see the whole thing because we’re only part way up this mountain. It’s a really beautiful analogy. Particularly if you’ve ever done mountain climbing, or been in the mountains very much, it’s very helpful. Yeah.
What being a student means changes. There’s one revelation that begins with this, what is that? Where your understanding of this changes as you…I just reviewed it recently.
RS: The Return? [The Soul]
MVS: No, no. I’ve got so many revelations in my mind, preparing for future books and things like that. But our understanding and our definitions will change, so they have to be useful for where we are, but don’t cast them in stone. Because while they won’t be disproven, the emphasis will shift regarding them as we make progress.
PS: You know, Marshall, you speak about the ability to see the landscape. Well one of the biggest landscapes there are in front of us is the human landscape. And as we increasingly rework and in a sense rehabilitate and remodel our minds, our bodies so to speak, in preparation for a greater service, there’s a world in front of us; there’s people in front of us. And for far too long in this world, not only we, but everyone has been unknown, unrecognized. So as we go about our affairs, we have unlimited opportunities to just look at and experience the people in front of us. How are they? How do they seem? How are they? And this problem of lack of recognition is so huge. I mean, do you have to die and go beyond this life to finally be amidst those who know you?
I mean, I had this described to me and I’ve told that story before and I won’t go into it again about this gentleman, a balloon salesman in Boston, on the Boston Garden, right, Guido Narducci, and his experience of his death experience and being known finally, and how difficult it was to be brought back.
Well here we live in a world where so many are completely unknown. You know? So, anyway, that’s part of the landscape before us, that says we come to know ourselves increasingly for who we really are. Hopefully we can participate in the opportunity to experience other people for how they are, where they may be, and where Knowledge may be in them.
It’s a huge power, huge resonant sleeping power in humanity, right? This Knowledge. And that’s part of our mission, is to help create an environment where this Knowledge can come forward between us and others, however incrementally, right?
RS: This is our mission. To call forth Knowledge in the human family.
MVS: Any other questions?
RS: We’ll take one or two more comments before we close.
Student: I love the eddy paradigm. I spent a lot of my life along rivers and climbing mountains and how do you get out of the eddy, I don’t know, maybe it’s all…I just love, I’ve been thinking about it, one of my things I did my whole life was sit by, as I’m hiking, stop and throw a stick in an eddy and see if it could get out. And then watch it. And sometimes throw a stick in a serious eddy, like a pool, and then keep hiking and come back later and check on it. So it’s really fun to think of, “How do you get out of a place you’re stuck?” I mean someone asked that, and when you’re stuck in the eddy.
Often it took like later in the afternoon when the sun came out and the water was a little more, bigger flow, and I would spend hours watching this, always the stick had to get to the edge of the eddy to get loose. And then sometimes there was like downpours and it was just, I think of that as like huge changes in society, I guess, that everyone’s out of the eddy, and it’s intense. It’s like rapids rushing; you might not survive that. But, and of course a lot of times my dog would jump in and wreck my experiment, and go and get the stick out of the eddy and bring it to me. But it’s just fun thing to…how do you get out of the eddy? And as you say, you get older and you have different things to let go of, it’s just a change. And anyway thank you for the eddy, thinking, examining where I’m still stuck in my own little eddies.
RS: You know, one thing that breaks up an eddy is when a big old log comes down the river and blows the eddy apart, and that is the same statement of, are you open to what might be next? Are you open to being diagnosed with cancer? That could be the log that enters your eddy and blows you right out of it, a traumatic event.
And as Marshall, another analogy he gave is that of the concrete, the mind is like concrete. And I thought to myself, thus, Knowledge has the power to stir the concrete, and also Knowledge has the power to crush the concrete, because if the mind has become totally cemented, events do happen. Knowledge does come through periodically, or maybe your own soul comes through to destroy that piece of concrete. You know?
And so there’s that, the destructive side of the movement of life. And so it’s hard to look out on the world and say, “Oh this is bad, and that shouldn’t happen, and those people just need to stop doing that.” And it’s hard to say.
MVS: Cancer is a good agent of change. Cancer: the very thing we don’t want to have happen. If you can survive it, it can really change your life. But, you know, that’s pretty radical, so…
RS: But, you know, the world is stuck in eddies, people of the world, we’re all stuck in eddies. I think that eddying is such a, that’s just ubiquitous across the world. Religions stuck in eddies, political systems, families, eddying, eddying, eddying. So, you know, the New Message brings power into the world. The Messenger has said, “I bring not peace but change.” And change is the power to break those eddies.
PS: I have a great quote here, but first I want to know, Will, is there any other comments from online?
Will: There are lots of excellent comments here. I actually recommend everyone to take a look afterwards. But I’d like to read one from Debbie Rabotnik, who writes, “This week I was thinking about the issue of where I wasted time and lost opportunities that happened as a result of not doing certain things I was thinking of doing some years ago that I am just starting to do now. What a difference it makes when you do the things you know you need to do and don’t delay unless you really must. Also, I am seeing how important my attitude or frame of mind is in how I approach an issue, because there’s always potentially a time management dilemma every day, due to so many things that need to be done and figuring out priorities. I’m finding focusing on the very next step without getting caught up in the possible outcomes, and stillness practice really helps. All of this is so very dynamic.”
PS: Thank you, Debbie. So perhaps we can conclude with this passage from Building the Bridge to a New Life.
Perhaps in this earlier stage you will feel there is a Presence watching over you at times. You will sense that there is a Presence with you, and you will think from time to time that there probably is something greater for you to do in your life, but the realization has not really struck yet. It has not really rocked your foundation. It is only something you think about at the level of your intellect. It has not really penetrated your heart.
There are many people for whom this experience is happening and they are beginning in their journey. They’re already on their journey, and experiences like this are very confirming and continue to compel them, steps further.
MVS: We have The Journey to a New Life, which will be available in a few weeks, and certainly the current School Session is studying part of the book, which is already up online. And I encourage you to study this material. It will speak to a deeper part of you for sure. And we all need that nourishment and that stimulation.
PS: I think of the zillions and zillions of people who are feeling the need to undertake this journey. They’re just primed; they just can’t take it anymore. They just can’t take the way life has been anymore, you know they’re there; they’re starting; they’re going. They don’t totally know why, just as this passage says, that I just read.
RS: So The Journey to a New Life will be available to the world on April 1st, 2019. And it will be free online as text, the original text and audio of the Revelation. It will be in book form; eBook form. It will be on Spotify and podcasts and elsewhere. And so please, help us bring that book to those zillions of people who are ready for the journey to a new life.
This is Volume I: Book 5. And so Marshall and others here are working diligently on bringing forth the remainder of Volume I, so it’s a very exciting time for the New Message moving in the world. And I believe there are six revelations in this, five or six, can’t remember, that have not yet been released, so these are new to the world: The Prison, The Revolution, Your Purpose and Destiny, You Are Here for a Greater Purpose, The Great Truth. These are all new revelations, to you and to others. So please help us share them, take them everywhere they can go.
A few other reminders and upcoming opportunities: Marshall’s next teaching will be on May 11th at 9 AM, same place, same time. Come be with him and us in the room or online as he brings forward his next teaching for the Worldwide Community of students on May 11th.
And then soon thereafter, a couple weeks later, the Steps to Knowledge Vigil begins May 26th. And the Vigil, for many who have been there, I’m sure you know, but if you don’t, it’s your first Vigil, it’s an opportunity to really go on a spiritual retreat within your own life and come back to that clearing in the forest, getting out of the thick weeds and trees and back to a place where you can see and feel the movement of your life and share that clarity with others and with Marshall, and to experience the Presence that is with us night after night during the Steps Vigil.
PS: And come help celebrate with us Steps to Knowledge’s 30th year of being in the world. So 30 years. Wonderful.
RS: Wonderful. Well thank you all for being with us today, and at afar, I think we have an open Sanctuary and some wonderful food and other things to share together here in the room. So we will do that. And we will see you all soon.
Just sat in peace and watched this. I deserve a medal for time wasting without realising it was time wasting. Looking back, as Marshall requested, I can see an oceanic divide between myself and saving and using time wisely. In the early years I wasted time prancing and preening with no direct motives of anything really. For years I was directed by money, romance, party times, getting anything I wanted one way or the other. Since starting Steps to Knowledge I will not lie and say I have not wasted another ship load of time with all the ‘to do’ things list, as long as the street that my mind is giving me and telling me is so very important and I have been listening to it daily. Time to take a stand and use gifts I have been given and never hardly use to couple to what I can give to a life with Knowledge in it. A life that has been given such a miracle but a life that has not really understood the meaning of the word. With great meaning, greater meaning than at any other time in the last 7yrs I can write NNC and really sincerely mean it.
I wish I understood better the use of the word “process” where Marshall says “Already you have lots of work to do. The New Message is full of directives, process, everything.” I perceive it might have something to do with procedures. I have a particular need to understand precisely what is meant by “process” as applied to New Message teachings.
Thank you, Marshall, Patricia, and Reed. This opportunity to hear teachings ‘on line’ and directly from you is such a privilege. This opportunity would, of course, be increased tenfold if I could be there in person, but this way is just as well.
I understand that the Journey is a personal one that we each climb up this mountain, but having moments of gatherings and hearing the Messenger makes this effort so much easier and does decrease the ‘eddies’ of our life. So thankful.
Something that Reed said here; it reminds me that ‘I am not my mind’ is something that everyone at some stage momentarily experiences, or perceives. But mostly, we do not stay with that realisation, explore it, contemplate it, or dismantle its meaning sufficiently for it to be of benefit. We just drift back into the eddy… If more people could contemplate just this one thing, I think that many more people would further along in their most important journey than they are now, including myself. So it is an important think to keep in the spotlight, for me at least.
I completely agree with you, Wolf. I recently realized the same thing too, that if we could not only understand intellectually but also experience these simple yet profound teachings deep in our heart and soul, then half the battle is done.
Important teachings I find are: “I am sent here for a purpose” “Knowledge is with me, where am I?”, Knowledge is my True Self etc. I haven’t been able to fully experience these truths yet, but I think as long as we have the desire and keep practicing Steps and learning the New Message, then we will advance up the mountain.
You said so much of value here Marshal, even down to the notion of NOT wanting regular group meetings. I would not have thought about group meetings as yet another place where it is possible to give over ones power or even responsibility but, of course it is correct that such happens if one thinks about this carefully. The example of the ‘Level-2 or 3’ Guru is a fine example. I am happy to admit I am a Level-0 after a considerable period of time living this confusion.
Reality – Everything that is happening beyond our thoughts and beliefs..
The analogy of the state of our lives with an eddy current in a river a river is brilliant. Yes, I’m moving but where have I been going? Nowhere really!
Thank you Marshall for these valuable tools to take out into the world with us and also hold them within as we live a life Knowledge is calling us to live. It has invigorated me as well on the path up this great mountain and has given me more of a sense of what to follow and what not to in the mind and to be aware of where the mind goes and practice not to fantasize. As God has given this to you and humanity out of great love I feel you have given this to us out of great love and hope. I thank you for that and am so grateful for what has been given and pray in time we may be able to apply its great wisdom and give it back to those who will need it. Nasi Novare Coram
I think the firehose analogy is apt. As is perhaps a cascading waterfall…
Truly, @carolyn-rc, as I listen again there are things I did not hear as deeply as necessary during Marshall’s teaching yesterday. There is much to be with here, drinking from the firehose, calling us to go further than we’ve gone so far.
Thank you Marshall for this important teaching for all of us. The nine questions presented will be added and considered going forward as part of my continuing practices in the Way of Knowledge.