Steps to KnowledgeThe Book of Inner Knowing

Step 173

Today I will do what is necessary.


DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY WILL ENGAGE YOU with vitality in life, for life in the world, in all its forms, is engaged in what is necessary. This at first seems oppressive to human beings, for they are accustomed to living in fantasy, where everything is preferential and nothing is really necessary.

YET, IT IS WHEN SOMETHING IS REALLY NECESSARY IN LIFE, even if it is a dire circumstance, that people are able to liberate themselves momentarily from their fantasies and feel purpose, meaning and direction. This, then, is a gift to humanity, but people usually give themselves this gift only under dire circumstances.

IT IS UNDER HAPPIER CIRCUMSTANCES that you must now learn to receive this and welcome necessity as a saving grace in your life, for you wish to be needed, you wish to be included, you wish to be vital and you wish to be an essential part of community. This is all necessary. It is not merely a preference on your part. It cannot be born of a casual choice but of a deep conviction, for your greater giving must be born of a deep conviction if it is to be great and complete. Otherwise, at the sight of the first adversity or disappointment, you will be cast away and will withdraw back into fantasy and illusion.

WELCOME, THEN, THE NECESSITIES OF THIS DAY. Do small tasks without complaint, for they are small. Follow your procedure today in preparation, for it is necessary and it is great. Do not confuse the great and the small, for the small is only to express the great. Do not try to make the small great or the great small. Understand their true relationship with one another, for within you is both the great and the small. Within you, the great wishes to express itself through the small.

THEREFORE, CARRY OUT YOUR MUNDANE ACTIVITIES TODAY. Do what is necessary today. Remind yourself upon the hour of our idea for today, and give yourself to your practice so that your day may be a day of giving and receiving. In your deeper meditation practices, enter into stillness using the word RAHN to take you deep into meditation. Do this because it is necessary. Do this with necessity and you will feel the power of your own will.

Practice 173: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

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