How to Keep Moving as a Student of Knowledge

So I’ll start, and this will be very brief and we’ll summarize this at the end for you all onscreen as well. But these felt important to us as to the question: Why would someone engage in this pathway but not actually get down the road? Why would they get in their car, turn it on and four years, later be in the same spot? Why would that have happened? So in thinking about that question so that doesn’t become you and your story and so that you are moving, we wanted to bring forward these four things. 

Attitude. I feel having the right attitude is very important. It’s spoken of in Greater Community Spirituality, Chapter 10: How Do You Prepare? section on:

What do you need? You need the right attitude. You need the right curriculum. You need the right companions. You need instruction.”

Right? So attitude was in there. 

And for me, that is the attitude of a beginner. It’s the attitude that is open, humble, desiring to learn something that you have not learned before and willing to set aside what you think you know or have learned. I’ve used the analogy of being willing to put yourself up like an x-ray on the lightbox for the surgeon to look in. You’re that open; you’re that revealing. You’re willing to expose yourself to the process versus control the process so that parts of yourself are never exposed. Or as someone said a week or two ago, to adapt to Steps instead of make Steps adapt to you, right? “Steps is gonna work in my life. It’s gonna help me with my life.” No, no, no. 

You’re leaving the old life, maybe you are, I’m not sure. And Steps is going to help you. You’re going to allow Steps to work with you versus you’re going to work with Steps, you know, taking what you want and kind of passing over those Steps that are, “I don’t do that,” you know? No, you have to engage with this mind of someone who’s open and available for the process to work with you and in you. So attitude I think is really important here. And stability, right? Huge one. 

Patricia: Thank you for that Reed. I mean, I could do a life review just on attitude. You know, just get a feeling for “What was my attitude as I walked this road? How was I? Why was I?” There’s a lot of legitimate reasons for why we have presented the way we have and some that aren’t so legitimate but to just sort of reacquaint yourself with your journey and then be with yourself now. How are you being now? And you know, it’s important. So to stay self-honest to keep your personal side with you. It’s going to walk this road with you; it has so far, you know? It’s lobbied. It’s had its tantrums, you know, et cetera. It’s wanted to take and has taken you down some side roads, but still, it’s with you; your personal side is with you. So do check-in and read your own attitude. So thank you, Reedy. And others…

RS: I mean…Thank God our personal side, however conditioned, has gotten us here, right? It’s been willing to get this far. So what’s next? Well, you’re going to have to open every room in the house, you know? You can’t have that beautiful showcase living room, “Don’t go upstairs, don’t open the second door on the left. It’s terrible. It’s full of evil things.” No, you got to open that door. It’s not evil; it’s not wrong. It just needs to be flushed out. And you’d have to have an attitude that enables that. 

If your attitude is: “What does this Step mean? What are they saying here? I don’t get this. This doesn’t make any sense.” That’s not the right attitude. Or “I have to be able to do this Step. Why can’t I do this? Oh my God, I can’t do this Step. Should I go on tomorrow? Should I stay on it? What if I stay too long?” Not the right attitude, right? Or, “Wow, I definitely wasn’t…didn’t practice my Step at all today. Jesus. What’s wrong with me?” Not the right attitude. 

None of those attitudes allow you to move through your house, open the doors, see what’s inside, clear out, move in, break down a wall, make a window. They’re restrictive. You walk down hallways, right? No, no, no, no, no. You need to do things you don’t know how to do. You need to totally fall flat on your face, but learn to get up—that was the learning moment. And if you don’t let yourself fall flat on your face, you’ll never learn to get up. 

So these things…it’s like corridor approach, it’s like, “I go straight and then I go left. And then I go straight.” It’s like Siri dictating your spiritual directional process, you know, go straight and then, go straight. We’ve all heard that before, right? 

So we don’t want that. You have to be able to dynamically move inside your own home, question why does that room…why is that a bedroom? “Nobody else is living here with me. Why is that full of junk? Why is that full of what I think are dark things?” So this attitude is important. Otherwise, you get to these Steps and you can’t really keep moving. 

PS: So you have to hear yourself out. And one of the reasons—and this is interesting and I’ve been with this week in preparing for our time together—and what it has to do is this issue of instability versus stability, right? And I know that for most of us in our mind the priority is stability. And yet as I look back through the journey that we’ve undertaken to get here with this Revelation, there’s been so much that’s been unknown. In fact, there’s been so much not knowing, not knowing and then, you know—amazing as I look back—not really understanding and knowing what’s happening. Instability. Instability. Not knowing. Then knowing and feeling compelled to go beyond where you’ve been. That could present you with new instabilities. 

So I think it’s important to become a friend of both this instability factor and this building foundation and becoming more stable. There will be periods of instability. And it’s a time…it’s a need to know time, often. And so we have to endure and contend with the insecurities of those times because Knowledge may compel us beyond our circumstances. And I know this has been true for us. It’s been periods of intense foundation building and stability building, alternating with tremendous periods of not knowing, or not knowing yet. So… 

RS: So it’s kind of like a seesaw, right? 

PS: Yes. 

RS: You progress and change—which is inherent in the pathway—makes us unstable; it destabilizes us so that we can move. So movement is destabilizing. But then we need times of stabilization. And so what we’d like you to consider is get used to going from movement and change to stability, and [from] excess stability to movement and change. Don’t just be about stability: “a stable person.” Or change: “I’m always moving. I’m always learning.” You have to be able to move and then stabilize. And so it’s more about the process in between. It’s the see-sawing action then arriving in a state of stability or being in a state of all of constant change. But this is definitely a part of the experience. Yeah. 

PS: Definitely, because we’re submitting ourselves to this process with Knowledge in hand of agreeing, consenting, acknowledging when we don’t know, still feeling the need to know…still feeling the need to know. So there’s not knowing. There’s those times when we know acutely we need to know. We need to wait to know. Will we ever know? What will we know? And then those times that begin to emerge where we begin to see or realize what it is, what the nature of the change is, what we must do. 

So there’s not knowing. There’s beginning to feel the need to know. There’s beginning to seeing and realize. And then there’s beginning to contend with what you must do…what you must do. And out of that, take action. And from that, change, movement, and eventually adaptation. So not knowing, needing to know, eventually realizing or seeing or foreseeing that which you needed to know, and now you do. Oh God, you do. Then knowing what to do, how to do, when to do, whether you will do…Will you do? And then you’re taking action. 

RS: Most important part. That’s what moves you through that cycle of Steps. You know just looking at this, I can see how very much the New Message is process spirituality instead of destination spirituality. I mean, some people would say, “Wait a minute. After I take action, I’m there, right? Like, I’ve arrived, like I’m in that state of mind; I’ve reached nirvana, enlightenment, ascension, awakening.” This is all destination spirituality. An event happened and there you now are. 

This is process spirituality. So…and that’s because it’s movement-based, not belief-based. It’s literally based on moving versus just adopting and then attaining something through your adoption. 

PS: Yeah. 

RS: Christhood, love in the eyes of God, you know, going to Heaven—a lot of attainment-grounded spirituality instead of movement-grounded. So get used to moving. Get used to going through a cycle like this; maybe you experience it slightly differently. And then after taking action, you’ve made something occur, right? Stability. Too much stability. Not knowing. A new need to know. And so it begins again. 

And you don’t look good through this process. You don’t…Hey, the more you take on and the more you move, the more challenged you are. So who, what is an advanced student? What do they look like? What are they?

PS: Right.

RS: Show me one.

PS: Right.

RS: I mean, someone who says, “Well, I feel stable and grounded and I’m connected to Knowledge and I don’t have any anxieties,” I would ask them, “Have you done anything in the last two or three years? Or are you just somewhere you’ve always been, thinking about the journey?” So it’s not about looking good or attaining a state that makes others see you and think: “Wow, look at him; look at her.” 

PS: You know, this could be most uncomfortable for the people closest to us because it’s difficult for us to account for the process, you know, and so… 

RS: Right. And last on this—it’s hinted at in the last word adaptation—I just wanted to contribute this to your understanding. In the early days, I remember when I was maybe 18 or 19—that was really the mid-days, not really the early days for me—we talked a lot about doing the deeper, inner work. We talked about the concrete under the house, so to speak, and questioning where we are coming from, what compels us to believe, to say, to do what we believe, say and do. 

And in that time, we came upon this truth that we are largely driven by unconscious belief, identity and adaptations that arose in the past in our conditioning, maybe as a child or in our traumatic experiences throughout life or just through influence from culture and friends, family. We’ve adapted to those experiences of the past without Knowledge as our guide. And so we’ve built in these adaptations. 

So in stressful situations, we accommodate. In arguments, we don’t confront; or we do confront—both adaptations. This is what we do, right? If a situation arises, we do this. And it’s not very adaptive, right? You don’t make a choice in that moment. You just do a certain thing. You’re always nice, you know? You’re always driven. You’re always a perfectionist, you know? All of these things…some of them are aspects potentially of nature and design, right, which is purposeful, but some are adaptations that we developed to life.

And I would like to contribute to you that if you do not question these adaptations, these deep beliefs, deep identity, deep behaviors that are centered around belonging, fulfillment and survival—those three things: belonging, fulfillment and survival; these are the things that drive us and it’s so deep you can’t see it; it’s so big because it’s the elephant in your face, right, dominating your view…and if those things are not questioned, if you can’t stand apart from them and begin to look at them, they’ll drive you right into Steps to Knowledge. And you’ll do Steps to Knowledge just like you’ve done everything in your life. You’ll be the perfectionist. You’ll be looking for another to show you how, a strong student, someone who really knows, and you’ll follow what they do. You’ll defer to them, follow the crowd. 

So all of these are old adaptations in a new setting. And the important thing is to re-adapt in new settings. So you want to…this is potentially the attitude again. That attitude clears away the old adaptation so that you can react, and now you’re adapting with Knowledge as your guide. 

You’re adapting with the tools and practices of the New Message. And through doing that, you are building a whole new mind, a new way of responding to life. And that will be very important and that will lead to real change, instead of thinking anew, but behaving the same old way, living the same old life. And then five years later, you’re still thinking in new ways but nothing has changed. It’s the journey in the mind. 

So in summary, what we want you to know—and there’s a lot of text here, and I’ll read this and we’ll also share this maybe in the Chat and on the Community Site, as well: 

“Understand that there is a pathway of development in The Way of Knowledge and you make progress by working in the stage of this process that you are actually in.” 

PS:

“Focus yourself on seeing, knowing, taking action within that stage on the problems and opportunities that are there in front of you to work on. More important than realization is taking action. You have to move.”

RS:

“Know that there is undoing work for you to do and it is really, really important that you do it.”

PS:

“Understand the need for both progress and stabilization and that you need to learn to move between these repeatedly, instead of living in one only.”

RS:

“Adopt the mind of a beginner: openness, humility, desiring to learn (and re-learn) and willing to question what you think you know.”

PS:

“Understand that your adaptation to past experiences is influencing how you engage in the present. This old adaptation will not lead to success when applied to The Way of Knowledge. The old you is not going to work.”

RS:

“Allow yourself to develop new adaptations to the experiences that life and studenthood are bringing to you. You need a new mind, a new way of thinking, behaving and responding to life, otherwise, your past conditioning and adaptations will drive your participation in Steps and in the New Message, and this will not lead to real change.” 

And all of this, we feel, leads to real inner and outer change. 

So this is the pathway and these are our recommendations on how to move in that pathway—some things to be careful of and some things to embrace. So we will leave you with that. And I hope this is helpful to you and clarifying and helps you locate the next step for you. Where are you now? What comes next? And if you do that, a sense of rightness and calm will enter your life. And many of these impediments, these psychological impediments—ambivalence, low self-esteem, all of these things some of which you mentioned today—they won’t even exist because they existed in the first place because there was something you knew you needed to do and you weren’t doing it for a long time. 

So a lot of the inner stuff that becomes the problem isn’t really the problem. It’s what arises when we can’t actually move in life, and we’re stuck. And then we’re vulnerable to all the kind of sequela of secondary effects in the mind that arise. So perhaps get out of the mind and get into action.