A Full Teaching from the Messenger | Night 2, 2020 Steps Vigil

Remember that all you can do is practice. No matter what you do, you are practicing something, you are asserting something, you are confirming something and you are studying something. Given this understanding, give yourself to your true preparation, for this is your gift to yourself and to the world.”

What does that mean, “if you can only practice”? That means that everything you think, everything you do, is reinforcing something in your mind and in your life. You’re practicing it. Some things are totally benign and appropriate—the normal activities we do every day, for example. But other things that are more difficult—attitudes, beliefs, weaknesses, neglect; or things such as confusion and blaming others, not being present with yourself or where you are in life, lack of discipline and focus, inconsistency…

We practice other good things though. We practice kindness and charity and compassion, forgiveness perhaps. But those are things we intend to practice. But many of the things that harm us, we just inadvertently practice because we’ve been practicing them for so long; we don’t even know we’re practicing them. 

So I felt really challenged. I said, “My God, I need to know the content of my mind if I’m reinforcing things I’m not even aware of.” And as I walked around this Step—which is something I encourage you to do, not just see it and think you know what it says, but walk around it, contemplate it, look at it from different angles; don’t try to answer it, just let it inform you as you walk around it—I can see why it is so difficult for people to change. Because to change what you’ve been practicing, introduce a new practice into your life such as Steps to Knowledge, you have to one, is establish a new practice, which takes a lot of focus and consistency and intention. But you also have to overcome, and sometimes oppose, other kinds of practices in you which prevent you from doing that. 

So you have two challenges: establishing a new pathway, a new practice in your life and making that consistent within your circumstances; but then there’s overcoming the tendencies and the beliefs and the habits of thinking and behavior that won’t allow you to do that. For instance, some people say, “Well, I’ll practice Steps on the days I feel like practicing Steps.” Steps says that’s not how to practice Steps. You practice Steps when you feel like it and when you don’t feel like it. You practice Steps when you like the Step, or when you’re not sure you like the Step. Some Steps are very challenging. Some Steps are very confusing. Some Steps are bewildering. You don’t even know what they’re saying, what this Step is really about. 

But Steps to Knowledge says continue to do the Steps. No matter what’s your response initially, just do the Steps. But to do that, you have to overcome lack of discipline. You have to overcome being dominated by your schedule, by other people. You have to find a physical place to practice. You have to find a time of the day when you can fit these practices in. And you have to show up. But if you’re not used to showing up for anything but your job, then that is a challenge. And the challenge is the practices you’ve already been practicing, which determine your behavior and your normal kinds of thinking. 

So I realized that in observing people who talk about change and seem to embrace change but don’t really change, I was wondering why. They can move to a new place, they can have a new set of ideas, they can be into a new thing, they can sound very progressive, but they’re not really changing. It’s only superficial. Why? I want to know why because my life was about change—big time change. My development was about change. I was here to encourage people to change. But if they can’t change, why am I doing this? Or can’t or won’t?

So one of the secrets this Step revealed to me was why people don’t change. It’s because they have been practicing unconsciously—maybe at times consciously—acts of behavior, tendencies, obligations, conformity, attitudes, emotions, beliefs; they don’t even know how fixed these things are in their minds. And here’s this Step opening the door for me to understand these things as I walked around it. And I’ve walked around this Step many times because I’ve done Steps to Knowledge many times. But I always stop at this Step and say, “Oh my God, this Step told me I have to learn what’s in my mind and I have to learn to manage my mind. I cannot let it manage me.” 

So Steps to Knowledge offers us a different kind of practice: a conscious practice, a conscientious practice, a practice for a greater purpose, a practice for an outcome we can’t really see, but which we may feel and know to be important for us. But we have all the practices from our former life that have been established over a long time that seem to make establishing this practice difficult. What are they? “Why is it that I’m committed to practice one day, but not another; I show up one day, but not another? How easily I can forget something I’ve already decided is important to me? Why do I let other people or circumstances change my approach to what I’m setting out to do?” Because these are all problems that people have with starting out to establish a Steps practice, which is what we’re going to be talking about tonight. And some of them are physical and external, and some of them are purely internal. 

Some of us only want to practice things we are sure that we know what they’re for or what they’re going to deliver to us. Or we only practice if we only have to practice a little and get a big reward. Steps doesn’t give you a big reward, not yet—not for quite a while, actually. So our intention, our motivations, our determination are very much shaped by what we have been practicing up until this point. 

So here is the problem with practice: Practice does not make perfect, as the old saying goes. Practice makes permanent—not irrevocably permanent, but so permanent that it seems almost impenetrable. And it takes a lot of intention and determination to change those old habits and tendencies and ways of being. You almost have to bring a force to do it. Otherwise, your brain has been shaped a certain way and it’s just going to run itself, and you try to add something new or redirect that mind and it will seem very hard at first. 

So I found this to be very important for my work and so forth because when we’re born, our mind is like clay, even though we have a certain nature individually. And our impact with our environment then begins to determine how we may develop. But as we add things on to this mind and as it gets shaped by our environment and our influences early on and ongoing, then it becomes more solid, more fixed, less adaptable, less open, less changeable. 

Now if we were to take that to an extreme, I would say our mind turns to stone. It’s a fixed object and can only think one way and will resist or attack anything that threatens to change it, such as you would find in an adamant person—adamant ideology, adamant perspective, adamant emotions—who literally cannot even listen to anything else without defending themselves or defending their faith in religion, for example a fundamentalist, so different than a saint who lives with the Spirit and the movement of Spirit. The fundamentalist lives to defend and uphold a set of rigid beliefs and requirements. Both religious, but worlds apart. 

So Steps to Knowledge is here to make us spontaneous, adaptable, so that our minds now become shaped according to a greater purpose. They become able to respond to different circumstances, different kinds of people appropriately. We understand our tendencies and our weaknesses, and we’re able to manage them effectively. But this requires then that you get in the driver’s seat of your life, that your mind is no longer driving you; you’re learning to guide it. And the you…Who is you if you’re not your mind? you may ask. That’s a mystery to explore. 

So you can only practice. So what will you practice? If you practice only what you think is a good practice, it will not produce much change or new opportunity for you. If you practice something that was made for you that you did not invent, that can really take you somewhere you could never take yourself. 

So if I’m practicing confusion, irresponsibility; if I’m practicing distraction; if I’m practicing judgment; if I’m practicing blame; if I’m practicing self-recrimination—these are all practices, you see?—then you can see that if you indulge in these things just habitually, they become more solid, harder to change. 

So Steps to Knowledge is taking us into a greater journey, the journey back to who we are, to take you from the surface of your mind where we all live, our worldly mind, through the levels of the mind into a deeper realm within us where our Greater Intelligence resides—Intelligence beyond our intellect, an Intelligence we had before we came into the world, an Intelligence we’ll have after we leave this place. Knowledge. It’s not our Knowledge. It’s not my Knowledge. It’s Knowledge working in me. It’s working in my life, so it’s unique in that way, but it’s connected to Knowledge everywhere. 

How are you going to get to it? You have layers and layers of habit and belief. Your whole life is set up to support certain kinds of beliefs and attitudes and assumptions, and we’re going to get down to this deeper realm, which holds for us our purpose and our destiny in the world? That’s really something. That requires a new practice or set of practices. And it requires that we have a set of practices that we did not invent for ourselves, for those kind of practices usually only validate what we already believe or fortify what we already think. So there’s no new territory there. 

So I realized back in 1990-91 when I was doing Steps to Knowledge for the second time, that I had to understand the content of my mind. And I had to learn how to listen to my mind and direct it and be present for it—to be self-aware, but not self-obsessed—listening to what I say, not just saying things; watching what I think, not just thinking things; paying attention to my feelings, not just having them; observing other people rather than simply being swayed by them or impressed by them or repulsed by them. Do you see the difference here? 

The mind is meant to be our servant. It’s meant to serve Knowledge, ultimately. It is not designed to be the master. It works perfectly as a servant; it’s disastrous if it pretends to be a master. This is part of the gift of the New Message teaching us. 

So the important thing is to decide what you want to achieve, what do you want to change, what you can no longer tolerate in your life, what you seek, generally, even if you don’t know your ultimate destination, and accept this will take new practices to enable me to go down that road and stay on that road, and not merely be taken out by beauty, love, wealth or charm. What’s going to get me up this mountain, the mountain that the New Message talks about, Steps to Knowledge talks about? It says if you stop taking these Steps, you don’t get up the mountain. 

So how are you going to take these Steps? Our life is already full; it’s over full perhaps. Where are we going to create the time and the space and the focus to do this? But that is why Steps starts out very simply. It begins to build an environment and understanding of practice for you. It’s perfectly designed to do this. 

Steps to Knowledge is a journey you take that was given to you to take. It is not the journey you make for yourself. We have made journeys for ourselves, and it’s never going to take us anywhere, really. So I invite you then to take this journey and to accept the levels of learning and awareness it’s going to require and develop for you. 

I’ll give you one more example before I stop. When I was recovering from head and neck cancer—major surgery, very hard to get through—all I could do for the first four months was sit in bed or sit in a chair and just be with myself. Couldn’t read a book, watch movies. You know, people often do that when you’re recovering from cancer, serious cancer surgery. I just sat there being with myself for weeks and months—great training, but not the kind of training any of us would ever want to ask for. And you get to see and know things you never saw before. And you realize your mind is just doing what it’s always done and it’s learned to do. It’s not evil; it’s not good, not bad. It’s just this is what it does. Unless it’s trained to do something differently, this is what it does. And this is what it will do unless some other force or direction is given to it. 

So I encourage you to take on this journey, a journey of many steps, many because it takes time and there’s much to learn and unlearn along the way, a journey you cannot control, you can only participate in and bring your mind and heart to this.

* * *

This in Steps and Knowledge. It’s between Steps 9 and 10: “Why am I doing this anyway? 

Very good question!, exclamation. Why are you doing this anyway? Why are you asking such questions? Why do you seek for greater things? Why are you exerting the effort? These questions are inevitable. We anticipate them. Why are you doing this? You are doing this because it is essential. If you wish to live anything greater than a purely superficial and unstable life, you must penetrate deeper and not be confident based only upon weak assumptions and hopeful expectations. There is a greater gift awaiting you, but you must prepare yourself mentally, emotionally and physically. Without Knowledge, you are unaware of your purpose. You are unaware of your origin and your destiny, and you will pass through this life as if it were a troubled dream and no more.”

* * *

About 25 years ago, I was given a directive to always know where your mind is going. Well, I must confess, I don’t always know where it’s going, but I know where it’s going much of the time. And I remember…so vividly early in practice, I realized that hours would go by and I had no idea where my mind was. I had no idea where I was, except that I know I went from here to there and I did certain things, but I had no self-awareness whatsoever. We practice an hourly to get back in touch with our experience, to become more present within ourselves, and to discern our environment, if necessary.

And hours would go by and I wouldn’t practice an hourly. It’s like other than the things that I know I did, I had no idea where my mind was. And that began to trouble me. I said, “You know, this can’t be. I don’t need to know where my mind is every minute, but I need to generally know what it’s doing. Is it doing things I want it to do? Or is it just doing things that it does? Or that it’s influenced to do by other people?”

So the need became very, very prevalent, and to the point where now I can still my mind in most circumstances and not just momentarily. I can just stop—couldn’t do that before—stop to feel something, stop to see something, stop to be present with someone, stop to consider something, stop to recall something. Or just stop. Then your mind becomes less of a tyrant, less of a dominating factor in your life, and something that really is there to serve you, as it was meant to do.

* * *

One of the things that Steps to Knowledge does is, it sort of deflates your false objectives, like it says, “There’s no masters living in the world.” [ Step 106 ] So you can’t do this for mastery. That’s ambition. Ambition is not what takes you to Knowledge. 

And the amazing thing is—I didn’t realize this ‘til later—what takes you to Knowledge is Knowledge. What gets you into these Steps is Knowledge. The very thing you keep looking for but we can’t find is the thing that’s actually moving you. 

It’s like people will say, who come to be with us, “I’m not really sure what Knowledge is in me.” And I say: Well, Knowledge brought you here, or Knowledge is taking you through Steps to Knowledge.

It’s like what I said last evening about different levels of our mind. We have an executive function, which plans our days and keeps a schedule and makes sure our to-do list gets accomplished. But then there’s a higher executive level that doesn’t debate, doesn’t whine, doesn’t compare, doesn’t go on and off. It’s like, “I’m doing this. I’m doing this.”

There’s no debate. There’s no like, “Do I really want to? Do I really have to do this?” No. “Today I’m doing this.” You see the difference, how powerful one is and how weak the other is? You could be talked out of almost anything by a persuasive person, but not at this level. If you’re worrying your life about manipulation and all that, become strong with Knowledge. That’s the only way out of that dilemma.

Knowledge is taking us to Knowledge. “So why am I doing this anyway? I need to do this.” Now you may only have that feeling for a brief time, but it will come back because you’ll be making your connection to it as you go forward. Every step in this is like a thing to explore. I mean, you can do Steps ten times and you’ll never exhaust what’s within these simple passages. So it’s not just walking through steps, dutifully. It’s like, “What does this mean for me? Why is this important? How can I experience this? How does this relate to how I function in the world? How is this different than the way I’ve been? What could this do for me? What could this do for others?” See, you’re really exploring the message that’s being given to you. 

Remember, Steps to Knowledge is not a human creation. This is a gift from God through the Angelic Assembly for humanity, for this time. It has the power of Heaven in it. I’ll be the first to tell you, I did not write this. I could not write this. It is so perfect. I…not in a thousand years could I write this. 

So like any great endeavor, it will have its difficulties. It will have its moments of doubt. It will have its moments of hopelessness. It will bring you to thresholds where you have to choose again. That’s learning anything of any significance and depth—anything. You will have to bring yourself back online, like Reed was saying.

There’s no punishment. There’s no damnation if you should fail; you just don’t get where you need to get in life. Many people choose that. They choose the easy way. They fall back into the shadows. They just want to be comfortable and not aim too high. But that’s not who you are. That’s not who I am. It’s just the world of compromise, that’s all. There’s no compromise in Steps to Knowledge.

* * *

What I’ve learned about doing Reviews in Steps to Knowledge is you must keep a journal. And in your journal, you write down what you did in practice, what you did not do in practice, what happened to you that day—just anything that seems relevant to your study of Steps to Knowledge. It can be very simple. I used to…my journal used to be just one page and I did it for years. Then when you have a Review, you have something to review, other than just reading the Steps over again because you need to keep track of your own development. We don’t really develop day-to-day. We develop in the space of weeks and months and years. That’s where the real evidence of change becomes quite apparent to us. When you look at where you are today, how you feel today, and where you were six months ago or a year ago, two years ago, you can see the movement, okay?

The movement of Steps to Knowledge is both obvious and in many ways very subtle. So keeping a practice journal, I think, to do Reviews is really necessary. Otherwise, you’re just reviewing the Steps. You’re not reviewing the steps in your life. You’re not reviewing your life or what’s important in relationship to this practice. 

And when you look at those things, like a year or two from now—say when you’re doing Steps to Knowledge again or you go back and you see, “Wow, where was I in Step 20 when I first went through this?”—and you see, “Oh man, I’m not there anymore. I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t have that problem anymore.”

I mean, that’s the evidence of movement in your life and you have written it down. There it is. It’s honest. As long as you…your entries in this journal are honest, not like who you think you should be, how you think you should be, or you trying to model yourself after some ideal. No, just how you are. If you had a terrible day, if you could barely experience the Step, fine; write it down.

Honesty here is more important than looking good or trying to prove something to yourself. And that way, you begin to stay more current with your own experience. And these Reviews become really rich. And instead of avoiding them or anticipating them with regret, you see, “Wow, this is an opportunity to really see where I’ve been” because knowing where you’ve been is so important. And as long as you don’t go into a long, subjective things—just what happened, how you felt…Simple. Basic.

So I recommend that in doing Steps, to have a practice journal, and to have it in a special place and written in a booklet or a book that you will keep on going because when you look back into this thing five years from now, you will be amazed. Oh yeah, there are certain parts of you that still are like that. Sure, of course; that’s not going to change. But how you feel and what you’re doing and the questions that concern you now, compared to then…I think you’ll be amazed.

* * *

I think it is appropriate to take several days to do a Review because you really want to get the richness out of…you want to be able to observe yourself more objectively going through Steps and how you have good days and not-so-good days and days you’re really with it and days you’re not really with it. And you can see how inconsistent you are and how you go hot and cold. It’s like that centerline. You go into the centerline, away from…You can see how vacillating you really are. And this is really important to know about yourself because in the moment we don’t see that we’re doing that. We have no reference point to tell us we’re doing that. 

So I think this is very important. This is called self-knowledge, understanding yourself. There’s Knowledge, which is the reality that lives within us. And then there’s self-knowledge, which is: do I understand myself, my thinking, my behavior—where that comes from, how what shaped me, how it can work with myself effectively? That all goes along with the Steps to Knowledge process. It’s a process of self-knowledge and connecting to Knowledge, to the greater Intelligence within you.

* * *

You don’t have to do a Step a day as long as you stay in Steps every day. But you don’t want to stay in a Step too long either because you do want forward movement. Steps are there to take you to what comes in Steps to Knowledge. They’re very brilliant that way. So you don’t want to spend a month on a Step just because you found it intriguing.

* * *

Absolutely do them [the Steps] in sequence. They’re meant to be done in sequence. Do not jump ahead. Do not skip over anything. Never think you understand a Step and you can skip it because I can assure you that you don’t. This thing that we have before us is so deep. So definitely in sequence…One Step leads to another Step. It’s designed that way. So please, follow each Step one Step at a time.

* * *

You may have to ask your spouse, tell her that you need that to be accepted, and even if she doesn’t share it with you, that this is just very important to you and it’s good. You feel it’s going to bring out greater qualities in you. And you have to say: “I feel I must have the freedom to do this.” 

So it’s a request, but it’s also establishing an intention. You must be able to practice your own faith or your own approach in your own home, and everybody else, just step back. And I think that’s very important to do that. And to do it in a positive, constructive way, if possible, but in the end to claim that space, that opportunity. It’s a thing in marriage, you know, not both people are called at any one time. It’s rare that that happens. 

This is your journey to take. This is your calling. And the people around you need to allow and support you to do that. And if they can’t, or if your spouse can’t or won’t, then you’ve got a problem in your marriage that you’ll have to work out.

* * *

It’s such a beautiful book… The pages feel so wonderful in this book to touch. It’s wonderful.

May the blessing be with us. May we be with the blessing. Let us have confidence in ourselves as those who have sent us seek to have confidence in us. Let us know that we serve them and others as well as ourselves. May we have the courage to go further than we would go for ourselves alone. Our journey is great and time is of the essence and we have been so fortunate to find our pathway. Let us then take these Steps together, knowing that we journey together, knowing that we are not alone and knowing that our purpose awaits us. 

Nasi Novare Coram.