Certainty

"The quietness of Knowledge is your certainty, the voice of Knowledge is your certainty and the movement of Knowledge is your certainty."

"Knowledge ... is the source of all certainty in the world."

The source of certainty

"Learning The Greater Community Way of Knowledge takes you to a greater certainty within you. You cannot rely upon your ideas or your conclusions, for they may be true in this moment but not true in the next."

"Beyond the beliefs and assumptions which mask your own fear and uncertainty, there exists for you a true foundation in the world."

"Because Knowledge does not vacillate, it is a source of certainty, consistency and stability for you."

"Your fearlessness in the future must not be born of pretense, but born of your certainty in Knowledge."

"As you come closer to Knowledge, you enter certainty, confirmation and a world of reality and purpose."

"It is only Wisdom that will provide a real sense of certainty, true self-respect and the ability to love. ... Wisdom is abiding with a Spiritual Presence and sharing in its perception and understanding of life."

"While you have a self that you need to doubt and that you need to understand, you also have a Self that you can learn to trust—completely and wholeheartedly. This Greater Self is the source of certainty, guidance, strength, courage and Wisdom. It is what we call Knowledge. It represents the immortal part of yourself—the part of you that came into the world fully intact and fully prepared to carry out a mission in life. You carry it like a secret cargo. It is within you at this moment."

Moving with certainty

"People want to have certainty before they act, but it is the action itself that creates the certainty. It is the courage to move and to change one’s thinking and one’s circumstances that creates the certainty."

"With Knowledge you will know what to do, and your certainty will be so strong that it will be difficult for you to doubt it or to argue against it."

Development of certainty

"To be truly honest you must engage with a Greater Power within you. You must be able to consciously have a present state of mind, an open mind. You must be able to consciously deny or withhold judgment until a greater certainty is acquired through new experience."

"If you can discern what to do, then you can do what you know, and you will know what to do, and certainty will be yours."

"Gaining awareness of the mind, controlling its influence on others and controlling what influences it, or at least determining how much this influence can affect you, represents achievement and advancement in education. The result of this will give you greater empowerment, greater certainty and the ability to affect, nurture and support others in ways that are effective and appropriate for them. This is a very great achievement."

"Your ability to follow that which is beyond your comprehension, which is necessary here, will lead you to the greatest possible certainty that life can render to you. Through this certainty, your ideas, your actions and your perceptions will gain a uniformity that will allow them to be a powerful expression in the world, where humanity is confused and lost in the ambivalence of imagination."

"One must make some very difficult decisions, honor these decisions, trust them and abide by them. These decisions can be difficult because one might have to relinquish some degree of love or financial advantage or social acceptance to do something that is recognized to be correct. One must be willing to make these sacrifices and take these risks in order to gain a greater sense of well-being, inner certainty and correctness about life."

"Start with what you know today so that you may know something tomorrow. Already you know things you must do that you are not doing. Already you realize there are changes you must make in your behavior and perhaps in your thinking as well, and you are either not doing them or you have not fully carried them out yet. Do not wait for greater certainty to come. Do not wait for new insights. Carry out what you know to do today."

"How foolish it is to resist or avoid or condemn the needs or the condition of the world when they are actually the very things that can redeem you, show you your strength and give you the foundation of certainty that you so desperately seek in other things that have no promise."

"In becoming a student of Knowledge, you begin to reclaim, slowly and significantly, a real foundation in life. This does not happen all at once. It is not simply an answer or an explanation or something you tell yourself. It does not excuse you from the difficulties of life. It does not raise you above everyone else. It is not about self-importance. Instead, it builds a foundation for certainty— certainty within yourself and certainty within your relationship with life. Over time this certainty begins to permeate all of your thinking and activities, and as it does so, you become stronger and more complete."

"The Greater Community Way of Knowledge takes you beyond idealism and speculation into real engagement and greater certainty. You do not need to have a wonderful set of beliefs and ideas about yourself and others in order to advance in The Way of Knowledge. In fact, The Way of Knowledge will free you from the burden of maintaining and believing in these things."

Expression of certainty

"Stillness ... is a gift because it is an expression of certainty and peace."

"You are either a student of certainty or a student of ambivalence."

False certainty

"You think the world’s problems are complex. You think your future and your destiny are complex. This is because you have lived in imagination and have attempted to resolve questions without certainty."

Further Study

• Steps to Knowledge, Steps 79, 141, 173, 230, 236, 275, 303