Steps to Knowledge Study Group
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Step 309 – The world I see is attempting to become one community.
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Step 309 – The world I see is attempting to become one community.
THE WORLD YOU SEE IS ATTEMPTING TO BECOME one community, for this is its evolution. How can the world evolve when it is fragmented? How can humanity advance when it is opposing itself? How can the world be at peace when one faction competes with another? The world you see is like the mind that you experience within yourself—warring with itself, yet without purpose or meaning. The world you see is attempting to become one community, for all worlds where intelligent life has evolved must become one community.
HOW THIS WILL BE ACHIEVED AND WHEN IT WILL BE ACHIEVED is beyond your present scope, but as you look upon the world without judgment you will see the yearning in each person to join. You will see the desire for separation to be ended. The world’s pressing problems merely exemplify its predicament and call for the creation of one community in the world. This is so obvious if you but look. As you yourself are becoming one person and healing all wounds within yourself as a student of Knowledge, so is the world attempting to become one world and to heal all of its wounds and all of its internal conflicts and separation. Why is this? Because Knowledge is in the world.
AS YOU ARE DISCOVERING KNOWLEDGE WITHIN YOURSELF, remember that Knowledge is latent within each person, and even in its latency it is casting its influence and extending its direction. The world contains Knowledge, too. It is a larger representation of yourself that you look upon. Thus, as you become a student of Knowledge and are able to objectively recognize your preparation, you will begin to have a true view of the evolution of the world. Here your viewpoint will not be distorted by personal preferences or fears, for the evolution of the world will simply be obvious to you. The evolution of the world is obvious to your Teachers, who look upon the world from beyond its constraints. But you who are within the world, who feel the influence of the world and who share the world’s doubt and uncertainty, must learn to look upon the world without these restraints as well.
THE WORLD IS ATTEMPTING TO BECOME ONE COMMUNITY. Remind yourself of this upon the hour, and in your two deeper practice periods engage your mind actively in attempting to understand today’s idea. Think of the problems of the world and the solutions that they call for. Think of the conflicts in the world and the requirement that they be settled. Realize that if any individual or group of individuals opposes these resolutions and requirements, this will induce them to wage war against the world and one another. The conflicts you perceive are merely the attempt to preserve separation. But the world is attempting to become one community and regardless of the resistance to this, it will relentlessly attempt to do this, for this is its evolution. This is the true desire of all who dwell here, for all separation must be ended and all contribution must be given. This is your purpose and the purpose of all who have come here.
REMEMBER, YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED and you are responding to your one true purpose. In time, others will be called and they will respond. This is inevitable. You are accomplishing the inevitable, which will take a great deal of time and many steps. Knowledge is your source and Knowledge is the result. Therefore, you can be certain of the final outcome of your actions. Regardless of how the world will proceed in its preparation and its difficulties, it must accomplish this one true goal. Thus, you can proceed with certainty.
IN YOUR LONGER MEDITATIONS ATTEMPT TO PENETRATE today’s idea. Do not be complacent here, but actively engage your mind as your mind was meant to be engaged. Try to recognize your own ambivalence about the world becoming one community. Try to recognize your fears and concerns about this. Try to recognize as well your desire for one community and your understanding that this is necessary. Once you take inventory of your own thoughts and feelings concerning today’s idea, you will further understand why the world is in its current predicament. The world has a certain destiny and a certain course to follow, yet it is ambivalent about everything. Thus, the world itself must unlearn ambivalence, as you are now learning to do, and your accomplishments will assist it in its great undertaking, for this is your contribution to the world.
Practice 309: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.
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2 Replies
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April 21, 2014 Round One: I have long wished for the world to be one community, joining together and sharing all its resources among everyone, without borders, without division into nations and nationalities, but living as one united human family on this beautiful planet. It is difficult to look on the world today and see that it wishes to be one community. This is very hard to glimpse in all the warring and opposing opinions, lack of integrity, inability, or unwillingness, to see the truth what is going on in the world today. To me, it looks as though the world still has a very long way to go in its efforts to become one community. This Step asks me not to ponder on how this will be achieved and when it will be achieved, since this is beyond the present scope of my understanding. I do have faith, however, that it will happen eventually, and I am happy to be living in a country that wishes to live in peace, harmony, and community with everyone else.
June 15, 2015 Round Two: This time I have a deeper understanding of myself as part of the whole. I am zooming in on the comparisons this Step makes about the warring and ambivalence in myself as being a reflection of the warring and ambivalence in the world. I am seeing that the more I work toward reclaiming Knowledge and attempting to find unity within myself, the more I can effect change in the world at large. My small part in completing the return to Knowledge and unity will cause a ripple in the world and join with the other ripples to affect the world and help it to become one community. I am attempting to overcome my separated mind within myself, so it stands to reason that the world is attempting to do the same thing. The world does not consciously understand this yet, by the world I mean the individual people and nations in it, but the more people who become conscious of it and do their small part to find unity in themselves, the greater will be the impact throughout the world and even beyond.
May 13, 2019 Round Three: The world is a larger representation of myself that I look upon – the world is like the conflicted mind, warring with itself. As I am becoming one person and healing all the wounds within myself, so is the world attempting to become one world and to heal all of its wounds, conflict and separation. This is because Knowledge is in the world. It is inevitable that everyone will eventually respond and make their contribution sooner or later. This is my purpose and the purpose of all who have come here. I am accomplishing the inevitable, which will take a great deal of time and many steps. I am not ambivalent about the world becoming one community. The world has a certain destiny and a certain course to follow, yet it is ambivalent about everything. I am learning to overcome my ambivalence and as I do I am contributing to the world overcoming its ambivalence. I understand this – me becoming one person free of conflict and ambivalence and the world becoming one community free of conflict and ambivalence.
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309
The world I see is attempting to become one community.
The key to this Step is in the first paragraph. “The world you see is like the mind that you experience within yourself—warring with itself, yet without purpose or meaning.”
And I would add to this: It is because of your mind, warring with itself, that you see the world you see.
“Perception is a mirror, not a fact. It is your state of mind reflected outward.” (A Course in Miracles) This is the Law of the Mind and this Step is pointing to this very directly. You are the Cause of the world you see. (The Way of Mastery) And, by the way, this idea is as old as the universe. “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes)But the Step stops short. The Step then brings our attention outward into the physical world. It speaks of the world as if it were real; as if it mattered at all to the Truth that resides in each of us. It could make me feel as if I need to strive to attain something; to save something. Personally, I feel that ideas of striving and saving should be avoided. Just do the work. Awaken.
“…as you look upon the world without judgment you will see the yearning in each person to join. You will see the desire for separation to be ended.” This is very good, for this is a statement of correct perception. This is the view from Knowledge. The yearning I see in each of my brothers is my own yearning to join in Creation. Unity, Atonement, Oneness.
“The world’s pressing problems merely exemplify its predicament and call for the creation of one community in the world.”
What need be understood here is “predicament.” What is the predicament? The predicament is that we are believing in a separated self concept. Correct the separation in your mind and only then can we possibly hope to correct the world “out there.” The Step comments on this at the end of the second paragraph.Third paragraph:
Correct your perception through the practice of the Steps and entering stillness. Heal the split in your mind, and so on.Fourth paragraph:
“THE WORLD IS ATTEMPTING TO BECOME ONE COMMUNITY.”
I find this interesting for the Step is placing the looking and healing outside of yourself and onto the world.
I can only see this making the student look without instead of looking within. Perhaps I misunderstand.
It speaks of the separation, which is in fact, our only problem. And there is this line, “The conflicts you perceive are merely the attempt to preserve separation.”
Yes! And you perceive those conflicts because you perceive conflict or separation within yourself. So what am I to do? I think the Step, in this instance, is speaking about the world out there, not your interior world.
For me it always comes back to myself. Heal the split in my mind. Allow Knowledge to flow because I am healing the separation in my mind. Anything that happens from me out into the world is only possible because Knowledge is able to flow through this body / mind.Fifth paragraph:
I really like it. Makes us feel good with all that Certainty of God stuff. Also makes it easy. Nothing to worry about. But I must do my part.Enjoy
D.
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