New Practice and Real Change

So, let me just say that I think we all know we’re entering a new world reality. Day by day we either see it, feel it, or we’re hearing from those who are calibrating the nature of this change and the rate of this change that it’s happening. So we’re living in a new world. And for us, it’s difficult to concede but we’re living in a declining world at this point. Many of us have known this for quite some time. It hasn’t taken the news or the experts or the scientists, even—God bless them all for their attempt to try to speak to this looming reality. But many of us have sensed and experienced this oncoming reality and perhaps even have foreknown, foreknown that this is where humanity was headed in the world.

This New World reality is going to call for change in order for us, humanity, to adapt and hopefully survive. Okay, so I know that sounds grim, but we’re here and this is our time. And so we need to confront this reality. However, I want to honor you who are here. 

And I want, with you, to take a moment to consider your life so far. Just for a moment, just go back in time, come forward in time. And consider, if you will, the changes you have been through, okay? This is, it’s not been a smooth ride. There’s been right, left and all kinds of turns. So the changes you have experienced in life, and with those changes, the adaptation and your learning…So take just one moment to consider that. I’ll do the same. We’re not where we used to be. That’s a true indicator of change and development.

So as we know from our experience, real change requires new learning. Real change requires new learning. Real change has called from us action and doing. So I’m saying all this before going in and delving into spiritual practice. And there’s a reason for this. There’s a reason for this because what we’re about to delve into is an entirely new and significant dimension in our life here, which is this realm of spiritual practice which is consciously taking on those exercises of mind and body and spirit that are going to, hopefully, deliver us to a place of greater service, right? Right? So new learning can lead to change and we’ve already undergone new learning, you know?

And we know that in order to accommodate new learning, we have to create some space, do we not? So we’re going to be talking about spiritual practices, which is new learning. We have to create space. We have to free up space and resources. And in a way, it’s also necessary for us to begin—well, we have been—to shift to a different way of thinking, okay? And the New Message speaks about the knowing Mind within us. This is a Mind. There’s the mind we think with. There’s the Mind we know with.

So we’re in the process, an evolution of sorts, in going from people or individuals who primarily thought and felt about things emotionally to people who potentially are individuals who discern and know things and act accordingly. 

So along the way, in terms of freeing up space, there will be next steps. We’ve taken some of them; we’ll take more. Those next steps imply movement. You’ve already experienced that in your life or you wouldn’t be here. Movement. And also, amazingly, and I know this sounds a little prospective, but the possibility of finding the people, the place and the service you need to give and render in the world. Now, I know that’s a journey. I don’t know how that will bear out for all of us, right? But that’s why the New Message is here. It’s calling for this and it’s here to support that process in us. 

So in this time, I’d like to just sort of set the stage for creating the space for new learning and for these new practices that we are going to be engaging in, okay? And so I think an important dimension of this new learning, believe it or not, is actually self-knowing. What do we know about ourselves? I mean, we’ve been who we are for the duration of time that we’ve been here. It’s important that we know some things about ourselves so that we can begin the process of, in a sense, revising or editing, because we’re preparing for a new life and we need to create space for that.

So this came to mind for me before our time together, which is to say I’ve been spending time looking at even my habits, habits, habits of being, and appraising, oh my goodness, how many of them are unconscious? How many of them…Habits are not necessarily not good. They’re actually…can be very supportive, especially if you choose them—if you choose them. So which habits need to go? Which habits need to stay? And which new habits, so to speak, do I need to adopt that will support me, that would be very supportive of my mind and my body as we go into this future? So habits that can provide consistency, stability.

Habits can also hinder forward motion. So I think at a self-knowledge perspective just at this time of pausing, to just consider—if not now, later—just do a little inventory here and there as you see them come up, and you can decide. You can say, “My goodness, I don’t think I need to do that anymore.” And then consider what you do need to do, what you do need to do. What can be healthy for you? What can be strengthening for you? 

So that’s one aspect of self-knowledge in preparation for spiritual practice, is creating space, looking at those things because we’re very habitual just in terms of how we live in the world.

You know, our bodies take care of so much. Our minds take care of so much that it’s almost subliminal, or below the level of our awareness. And to that degree, we’re grateful. But we need to intervene and look at that to create some space. 

The next thing that came up for me just in preparation for spiritual practice and creating some space actually is opinions, the opinions we may hold, we may have, we may have more or less I don’t want to say collected or developed. But over time often through experience, these are positions we’ve taken regarding our experience of the world. And so I think it’s important to look again. Because when I reconsult the New Message, it said something very interesting about these positions, these fixed, if you would, opinions.

The New Message counsels us, 

Have few opinions. Make no opinions about any problem unless you have spent considerable time studying the problem and its many conceived interpretations and solutions. Ask yourself if you are really certain about something or are only guessing.

[Recommendations for Living In a Great Waves World]

So that’s an interesting…it’s an interesting process to look at those because they have weight. Carrying an opinion through life actually has weight. 

So if we’re trying to get somewhere—and for many of us this is the truth; we are, and not just to a certain place or destination but to a place of service—we have to look at what may be weighing us down. And so in place of holding an opinion…perhaps opinions often come into being because of a problem, something we’re seeing that really irks us, something that we know is problematic, something we know we have to be careful about. So this is noteworthy, right? 

So in place of an opinion, perhaps, as we go forward as we prepare for a new life, we can consider acknowledging problems as we encounter them, okay? And this is a new process that I’ve just I would say in the last year, year or two, I’ve been implementing for myself, which is to acknowledge a problem, to walk around that problem, to look at it, to acknowledge, This is a problem. This could be a definite problem for me. Consult those, let’s say, experts that you have confidence in that you feel can more or less elucidate the nature of the problem. Consider the level of risk or need in your life in terms of encountering this problem. What is that for you? And then formulate a position regarding that problem.

Because you’re going to live, you’re going to go forward in life with that problem, either at a world level or at the level of your life. At some level, it’s an acknowledged problem. And I think it’s very important to acknowledge problems. That’s part of our self-knowing. 

So we do this, take a position, go on with our lives and then periodically look again, re-evaluate, see if our position can duly hold, yes or no, revise or continue on. And so that’s one way to maintain, more or less, a lighter approach to being real about life in terms of problems, but not being so weighted by an opinion necessarily. 

So that’s one thing that stood out for me. So it’s identifying habits, spending some time looking at any opinions that may come up for you, considering how else you might engage with those opinions, okay? And then, the last, believe it or not, I mean I know, is our mistakes. Mistakes. And the beauty of mistakes, I think, I found in my life, is that they call for new learning. If you can acknowledge a mistake as being a mistake, it’s like, it opens the door to another way, like, I don’t want that to happen again. Right? So I think it’s important. Mistakes do lead to new learning, can lead to a new life.

And early in our broadcast, I spoke about the power of what I call the “never again moment”, which is the line in the sand you find yourself drawing around a mistake you may have made in life. But the power of this self-knowledge, the power of this acknowledgement, of seeing this error and knowing never, never…it’s almost like pulling back a rubber band, you know, or an arrow. Never, never, never—I will never do that again!

And it’s a powerful message all the way across your life, your mind, your emotions. It’s at the level of certainty and self-knowledge, which is self-knowing, that that happened. I’ve looked at what happened and why, and I’m going on and I will not do that again, you know what I mean? You pray. 

So mistakes can be very powerful in terms of preparing us for a new life and a new approach to life. So I want to invite you to consider how to begin to prepare and make a place for the New Message from God and your relationship with it and the practices that it puts before you. 

So let me just [unclear] here. Thank you for considering these things with me. One second. Wonderful. Wonderful. So now, oh wonderful. So, oh great. We’ve brought forward a page from NewMessage.org that speaks to Real Change. And this is a revelation that was given many years ago, but absolutely rings with truth.

So I invite you to consider—if you need support in actually approaching the changes that are in front of you to make—consider spending time with this revelation. It’s very powerful. It’s very powerful. Wonderful. 

So I’d like to spend some time now in preparing to consider the purpose of spiritual practice, which is a very significant emphasis in this New Message from God Revelation. The spiritual practices that have been given in the New Message Revelation are a calling to greater development in preparation for the future, our future, the world’s future. So I’d like to spend some time with those, see if we can, we have a slide.

The purposes of spiritual practice:

To stay connected to yourself versus disconnected

To know how you are feeling

To recognize and respond to the experience of insight

To engage with what you value

This could be stillness. This could be nature. This could be healthy movement. To engage with what you value. Can you imagine, spiritual practice?

To concentrate the mind

To gather up the resources of the mind and focus them

To rest the mind

To connect with what you most deeply know

and

To act according to what you know

These are almost hidden secrets with regard to spiritual practice, not often brought forward in this way. I thought it was important for us to spend time. Spiritual practice. Spiritual practice is important because it can actually reform us, re-form us. It can change our physical chemistry. It can redevelop our minds. Spiritual practice. It can open portals of awareness and experience. Spiritual practice. So this is a major invitation put forth by the New Message from God. 

So with that said, having hopefully taken some time to consider how to create space in our life as we’ve been living it to make room for a new way of going forward, a new way, which is to incorporate and engage with these spiritual practices as we live life, as we live life, to create an environment where what we most deeply know may come forward, okay? And where that will take us, we’ll have to wait to see.

We’re almost like an instrument that’s being played by forces from beyond this world, you know? So it’s really precious that you’re submitting yourself just through this natural inclination towards spiritual practice and the Mystery. It’s really amazing. So I want to say that to you. It’s more or less been a part of my existence since childhood. And if you look back in time, I’m sure you’ll find those moments, even in childhood, where you were beginning to respond to a mystery, to the Mystery, in a sense. So here we are. 

So with regard to the New Message from God, there is a pathway and there is a way of Living The Way of Knowledge, Knowledge meaning our deeper Intelligence, okay, our deeper Intelligence which is attempting to be in direct relationship with part of us that thinks.

There’s a part of us that thinks. There’s a part of us that knows. We need greater intelligence. The calling of the New Message is that we need greater intelligence to confront the future that is here now; collectively we need this. So, and to that end, amazingly, this pathway has been revealed through the New Message, okay? And the pathway consists, at least very primarily, of Steps to Knowledge–The Book of Inner Knowing. 

And I don’t know if you’ve had the opportunity to engage with Steps to Knowledge. I hope you’ll feel compelled to do so, even if you just open the book and read the very first pages—the introduction of Steps To Knowledge is actually very moving, actually beautifully written—and to hear what it’s calling to, and then go through and actually look at the Steps in Steps To Knowledge. There’s 365 Steps. This is a journey book. It’s a map book designed to take you deeper and deeper into the places and the spaces within yourself where you know things and where you have always known things. Steps to Knowledge—pathway of learning. 

Steps to Knowledge engages us in a practice of contemplation every day, sometimes every day. The invitation to Stillness. You know, before our time together here, I asked Marshall if he had something to say about Steps to Knowledge and he said, “You cannot find a way by yourself. God has provided a way.” And that’s what he said about Steps to Knowledge: “God has provided a way.” Wonderful. 

Along with Steps to Knowledge, there’s a practice put forth in the New Message from God called the Four Pillars practice. And what this is, this is an invitation and a calling for us to look at our lives, the condition of our lives, from these four perspectives.

From the perspective of our relationships [Pillar of Relationships, link], what are those relationships? What is the health or the lack of health of those relationships? Do they have a future? How do they contribute now? 

The Pillar of our Health [link]. What’s the condition of our mental, our physical and our emotional health? How is that? Is anything needed? With each of these Pillars, as we engage with them, the question is, what does this Pillar need? Is there anything I need to do? So the Pillar of Health—very, very important. 

And then there’s The Pillar of Work and Providership [link], an enormous Pillar unto itself. What’s the condition of that Pillar? What do we need to do with regard to that Pillar? What kind of environments and settings will that Pillar place us in? Are those appropriate for us? Do they have a future? Very important. 

And then, The Pillar of Spiritual Development [link], which is what we’re about to go into in a moment. Very important. 

So what’s really significant about this Four Pillars process is it puts these Four Pillars on an even platform so that…not that they’re even necessarily in our life, you know, it’s…balance is elusive for all of us, correct? But the mere act of checking in to look to see our relative health or lack of health in these environments and what we may need to do can help—I can’t say restore balance—but help, because like I said, balance is very, very elusive. But it’s amazing that the New Message respects the power of balance.

And one of the things that the New Message cautions against is bypassing Pillars for greater things, even for life calling. It cautions against that. So it continues to traction us back to reality in the face of a great calling, a great spiritual calling for us in our lives, to consider the condition of our Pillars and if there’s anything we need to do, quite humbly, to stay healthy and capable. So that’s the Four Pillars practice and that is part of the pathway, the major pathway. Wonderful.

So as you engage with the New Message, you will encounter the opportunity and invitation to engage in these practices. And we’ve pulled them forward for you to look at and see. And some of them you may be familiar with. You may have already been engaging in. Some of them you may have had spontaneous experiences of. These are powerful, each and every one of them, in terms of expanding our range of awareness.

So there’s the great practice of Stillness and Meditation—very important—creating the space for insight and for rest. 

You will encounter this practice called The Hourly practice. This is found in Steps to Knowledge–the Book of Inner Knowing. This is stopping on the hour—the hourly practice. Resting our minds, recognizing where we are, what we’re doing, if there’s anything we need to see, to know. It’s an hourly practice. What’s going on in the world around us? Hourly practice. Wonderful.

The Seeing practice. This state of mind can spontaneously sort of onset for us at times sometimes through gazing. But it’s an opportunity, or it’s…I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a state of mind where we can look somewhat beyond circumstance, either in the environment that we’re in or even beyond it. So seeing. Seeing the condition of another. Seeing. Seeing the compromises of a situation. Seeing.

Another of the great practices in Steps to Knowledge and the New Message is the opportunity to engage in Contemplation, you know, which is not just superficial thinking and problem solving and input and stimulation, of which we’re all exposed amazingly, hugely, gigantically—a lot of stimulation. But then, is there something we need to really consider and to be with? So how does one do that? How does one do that? In the New Message you’ll find the indications of when and how this is needed.

And then these other great practices of Discernment and Discretion. There are revelations in the New Message. You can go to newmessage.org and just search these terms and it will bring forward to you whole revelations given on these. Discernment, which is knowing what you’re looking at. Discretion, which is care in your communication—all this to save energy and to be more effective in life.

The importance of Decision Making. And then an interesting practice called The Watchtower [link], which is actually looking into the distance, wise understanding of the future, potentially, and the past. And you may find yourself dropping into these states of mind just quite naturally.

And then this emphasis on Self-Knowledge, or self-knowing.

So these are the great practices of the New Message. Decision making is very important, bringing many of our questions and decisions in life to Knowledge, to this deeper Intelligence, like, What do we really feel about this? What do we really know? Is it really time? 

So I want you to keep an eye out for looking for these practices. This is an incredible work, Living the Way of Knowledge, given to help us engage with these pillars in greater depth. And as Chapter One indicates, we’re preparing to live in—we are living in—an emerging world and new skills and capabilities will be needed. So wonderful.

So going forward in the future, we will have the opportunity in certain settings to engage with each other around these practices around our experience. Keep a journal. Perhaps document what I call student documents devoted to each of these things. And just as things come up, put them there. This is your precious experience that’s accruing. 

And so these are the new practices set before us by the New Message from God. And hopefully as time goes on, we’ll continue to optimize our lives so that we have space. Because life tends to grow and expand in its dimensions and detail, and so spiritual practice can get pushed to the side when it’s, as the Mew Message says, it’s the central power building facility within us, which is our ability to engage with these practices and to build power.

So I look forward to engaging with you in the future regarding your experience of this work. It’s great work.