Recommendations for the Study of Steps

And I think also for Steps for me, it was a real turning point because I knew even at that time that I would be responsible for this book and everything that would follow for the rest of my life. Steps to Knowledge would be the center of the wheel, be the grounding rod for everything that would follow. And many things followed immediately as if I had crossed some unrecognizable marker in the road that indicated that I was ready and they were ready, and maybe the Great Coordination was established where this would be the time. 

Of course, you know when you’re stumbling and bumbling through great change, it’s hard to see these, the greater magnitude of what you’re doing, the greater association that is associated with you. You’re just stumbling and bumbling and trying to stay afloat and keep going. But I was ready for this. I had really prepared a long time to be able to spend three and a half hours in the Presence, receiving something that was completely beyond me—and to be present for it. 

I can’t quite describe what that is like. It’s like you’re…you’ve stepped aside in your own mind and now your mind is a platform for something much greater. It’s hard to describe. But I’m so moved hearing these Steps read aloud like this, and how much time I spent with them because literally within days, I began the Steps to Knowledge and practiced it every day for 14 months, and then did it again for around 14 months. In later years, I would go through Steps and take a lot more time because I wanted more time with the Steps themselves. So if it’s taking you all some time to get through this, it’s fine, as long as you can develop some consistency with your practice. 

And the other thing about Steps to Knowledge is the mystery of Steps to Knowledge. There’s no master of Steps to Knowledge. You can’t master something like this. This comes from the master. You can witness the master, you can receive from the master, you can honor the master and you can benefit from the master. But this book in its simplicity, its plainness, its depth is like a well—you can’t see the bottom. You could go through it 100 times and you would never probably completely exhaust the wisdom that it provides, because by that time, or even if you’ve gone through it several times as many of you may know, you’re seeing things you never saw before, or it’s speaking to you more deeply. So you’re seeing things in yourself you never saw before. Or somehow, it holds greater meaning and value or resonance with you that just wasn’t really there yet in the first time through. So… 

So tonight I’d like to talk about the mystery of Steps, but a little bit of practical matters, I’d like to go through first, is just go through some of the recommendations for the study of Steps to Knowledge, and you can find these in the Introduction to Steps to Knowledge. I’m aware that many people do not read Introductions, do not read manuals and things like this before launching into something. So I’d like to just go through these and I’m paraphrasing these as I go. And we have a slide to help us. There it is, good. These are recommendations for the study of Steps to Knowledge and I’ve refined them down to simple sentences. 

Be determined to go the whole way. Which means don’t dabble, don’t try it on. Don’t play with it. Don’t see how it goes. You can do that, but you’re not really showing up in an honest state of mind. It’s like you’re dabbling with a relationship that you have no business being in, or which really has your destiny written all over it. 

Study the Steps in the order they are given. Do not jump ahead with things that look more enticing or things that you are more excited about. The Steps were ordered in a way for a reason. They are moving your life in ways for a reason. So do not step, do not jump ahead. Next:

Do not alter the steps in any way. Do not put them in the first person, for example, as some people tend to do. Do not personalize them. Because Steps to Knowledge is really to take you beyond personalization into the deeper panorama of who you are, why you are here and so forth.

Do not skip ahead. Some Steps will be wonderful for you, others will be strange, some you just won’t resonate with—doesn’t matter. Don’t skip ahead. It recommends that you:

Read your Step both in the morning and later in the day. And of course, practice it whenever you can, and:

Develop effective study habits. Which includes: 

Setting aside practice times each day. So don’t leave your practice time left to chance; you may never get to it. And this enables you to begin to reorder your life and time and to make room for Steps to Knowledge because Steps to Knowledge is going to take some real-time. 

Keep a private journal to log your experiences and to do the Reviews. We’re putting a lot of emphasis on this, and you will need it to do the Reviews because the purpose of the Reviews isn’t simply to reread the previous Steps. It’s actually to review your experiences. This book is about your experiences. To read it and just read it again isn’t really what it’s calling for. So in order to know your experiences, you have to keep a log, I think, because memory is way too fallible and unreliable to try to recall something specific that you did on a day, a year ago, or five years ago. So a private log, which means you’re not sharing this with other people. This is not public. Don’t go off and show your friends what you wrote down. And be very careful even revealing anything you wrote down would be my recommendation. There’s a reason for this which you will learn as you proceed. 

If you miss a day or more than a day, return to practice. If you’ve missed a long time, you may have to start again. You’ll have…it’ll be up to you. 

So those are the simple recommendations from the Introduction to Steps to Knowledge. But of course, there’s a lot of other important things about doing Steps to Knowledge that is not mentioned here that we’ll be referring to as we go through the Steps to Knowledge Vigil.