Step Two Hundred and Thirty-Two

Step 232. My Calling In Life Requires The Development Of Others.

For your calling to emerge in your life, it is not merely your own development that is essential, but the development of others with whom you will be directly engaged. Because your purpose in life involves your engagement with others, it is not a singular pursuit. It is not an individual fulfillment. In reality, there is no individual who is completely separate from other individuals because individuality has meaning only in terms of expressing that which binds and joins all life.

Therefore, this day develop the wisdom and the understanding that your true accomplishment is dependent upon the accomplishment of others as well. Think not that you know who all these others are, for you have not met them all yet. Some are in this world, and some are beyond the world. They may not be in your personal sphere at all.

How, then, can you proceed when your accomplishment is partially dependent upon others? You proceed by giving yourself to your preparation. The power of doing this will strengthen those with whom you will be engaged in your life’s calling. Because your application strengthens one another, you are already in relationship; you are already influencing one another. The closer you come to that point where Knowledge emerges, the closer they will come as well. The more you hold yourself back, the more you hold them back. You cannot see the mechanism for this while you are in the world, for you must be beyond the world to see how this works. But you can understand the idea that all minds influence each other, particularly those minds that are meant to be engaged specifically with one another in life.

Therefore, your advancement is dependent upon your own efforts and the efforts of others. Yet, the efforts of others are supplemented and strengthened by your own efforts. Therefore, your achievement is very much given to you to accomplish, and yet your achievement will join you with life and will deepen the content and experience of relationship beyond what you were formerly able to experience.

In your hourly remembrances and in your longer meditations in stillness today, allow your efforts to supplement the efforts of others, which will supplement your efforts. Allow the combination of your mutual dedication, then, to be a source of strength which you will experience this day and which will be experienced by those whom you have not yet met in this life.

Practice 232: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.

Here you will find the entire book free for download http://stepstoknowledge.com/

Here you will find pointers for getting started if this is your first encounter with this practice: Taking the Steps to Knowledge. 

December 24, 2013 Round One: Steps very often tells me not to draw conclusions and not to try to figure things out. I think this is a challenge for most people, it is certainly a challenge for me. I feel as though I am groping in the dark or walking around with a blindfold on, trusting that I will not bang into anything. It is very difficult when you are told that you have specific people to meet in this world not to speculate, wonder, draw conclusions and try to figure it out, try to figure out just who they might be. And when I am told they may not even be in this world….well!

What I have understood from this Step, however, is that I need to take a different view of my individuality, understand that I have something that is unique to me, but this something contributes to the whole, like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle. A piece of the jigsaw is nothing when it is lying on the table separate from the other pieces, it only takes on meaning when it is joined with the other pieces to create a whole and integrated picture.

If I take this analogy further, does this mean I need to find the other pieces of the jigsaw that fit next to mine, have the same or similar patterns to form my part of the bigger picture? I think I may be stretching the point, and this jigsaw analogy came to me literally right now as I am writing this, it is not something I have ever pondered before.

To return to firmer ground, I will focus instead on this part of the Step.

"You proceed by giving yourself to your preparation."

I will leave my questions and fantasies behind and trust that as I continue my preparation more shall be revealed. And I truly hope I will know the people I am supposed to meet when I meet them. I keep having this discomfiting thought that when I get to the end of my life and the reckoning occurs, I will be told – remember so-and-so, the one you ignored and brushed off? He/she was one of those you were supposed to meet! Wouldn’t that be just awful!??

Douglas, I see we are in the same boat with our unanswered questions. Give us some numbers! Give us some names! Oh go on, someone give us some hint about who these mysterious others are and how will we know when we meet them!

Okay fine, I get it, keep on preparing and just maybe some light will (eventually) dawn (I'm laughing, winking, and gathering my strength for the next ascent). Ah! and by doing this I am strengthening the others going along with me.

March 24, 2015 Round Two: "You cannot see the mechanism for this while you are in the world, for you must be beyond the world to see how this works."

So I need to be content with feeling my way in the dark and only gaining glimpses now and again of the Power and the Presence, of my Spiritual Family, of an understanding about these others on whom my development depends. Like birds of a feather we will flock together.

February 25, 2019 Round Three: This is a pithy step with much food for thought. I am to be dedicated in my preparation and allow my efforts to supplement the efforts of others. But I may not know these people and they may even be beyond this world. The emphasis, I see, is just to do it anyway, make the effort, and these efforts will bear fruit in some mysterious way eventually.

Today I am going with the flow. Nearing the end of another month and still no work. But this time has been a time of deeper experience, deeper immersion into the gist of the New Message and a deeper experience of my own life to date and how I fit into the bigger picture. I have more insight, more balance, more harmony both inside and out, more self-love, more patience, more joy.