Imperatives in Steps to Knowledge

What Must Come Before

"There must be a starting point at any juncture of development.

You must start from where you are, not from where you want to be."

"You must have a very sound understanding that the approach to any resolution and to any constructive establishment must begin with current reality.

What you are and what you have today must be your starting point."

"Ask yourself, 'What do I really know?' You must continuously examine whatever answers you give to this question to see if they represent your beliefs or assumptions or the beliefs or assumptions of other people or perhaps even of humanity at large."

What Will Be Reliable

"[Consider] what your true foundation may be.... You must realize your great need for this to ask this question with sincerity and with penetrating depth. You are listening for something deeper than the mind, but you must go through the mind to get there."

"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."

Listening for What Is Really True

"You must listen carefully

and in time realize the difference between the true content of your mind and its messages for you

and all the other impulses and wishes that you feel."

"Even if the content of your thoughts is disagreeable, you must listen without judgment to allow your mind to open."

"You must listen without judgment. You must not edit anything. You must listen deeply so that you may learn to hear."

"The truth is utterly beneficial to you, but at first it can be quite shocking and disappointing to your other plans and goals. This you must risk if you wish to have the certainty and the empowerment that the truth will bring to you."

"The truth must be fully experienced.... It is something you must feel. To have a feeling orientation, your mind must be still."

A Preparation

"Your individual power and ability ... must be developed in order for you to follow a program of this nature."

"Beginning students are not in a position to judge their curriculum. This right must be earned and comes later if you wish for your judgments to have true effect and to be wise."

"Do not give in to doubt or confusion, for you must prepare to have the reward that you seek, and you must know that you are not alone in the world to have the strength, the confidence and the resource of Wisdom necessary to achieve that which you were sent here to achieve."

A Blessing

"Feel the presence of the Teachers of God."

"Feel this love, support and direction.

It is a feeling.

It is not ideas.

It is a feeling.

It is something you must feel.

Love is something you must feel to know."

"The greatest truth of life ... is something that must be experienced,

for no great truth can be contained in an idea alone."

"You must experience the source of your great relationship in its true establishment."

"You must receive this to give it.

To share a great love honestly means you must be experiencing it."

A Warning

"The pain of error and the tribulation of error must be accepted, for this will teach you what is real and what is not, what to value and what not to value."

"This point of view of being served by your experience is something you must cultivate."

"You must understand how people learn and how people develop. This must come from your own experience and must represent the love and compassion that are the natural emanations of your Knowledge."

A Map

"Observe yourself throughout the day, maintaining awareness of your thoughts and behavior as much as possible. To develop this quality of self-observation, you must be as free of judgment as possible, for judgment disables you from being observant. You must study yourself as if you were someone else with whom you can be far more objective."

"Knowledge knows what you need and knows how to serve you, but you must learn how to receive. In time, you must learn how to give as well so that you may receive more.... But you cannot give from an impoverished state. Therefore, your giving must be genuine, born of the overflowing receptivity that you have cultivated within yourself, within your relationships with others and with life."

"Ask yourself, 'How do I feel?' and 'What am I doing now?' That is all. Then feel if there is something you must do that you are not doing. If there are no corrections to be made, continue on with what you are doing. If there are corrections to be made, make them as expediently as possible. Allow your inner guidance to influence you, which it will do if you are not governed by impulses, fear or ambition."