Welcome.  Vitvan’s writings provide excellent maps describing the cosmic process and one’s unfoldment within it.  But “the map is not the territory” and unfoldment also requires skill in experiencing energy patterns, gaining control of them, and aligning them with your field (your basic state of consciousness).   

 

Also, Vitvan persistently warned that intellectual understanding was not the same as self-development.  Although clear thinking represents progress on the path, the journey requires many skills on many levels of functioning.  Emotional balance, calm reactions, awareness of subtle forces or activity, patience and persistence all come into play.  It usually takes decades of sincere application to strongly develop one’s true nature.  (As he said if that seems too long, what do you plan to do with your time, attention and energy during the next twenty years?) 

 

We all begin unfoldment with a sense-based view of the universe.  That start‑point deceives and deludes.  Here are dozens of practices, drills, exercises, mental reminders and so forth that help orient you to reality - nature’s dynamic forces within your consciousness.

 

Suggested Practices for Treading the Path 

 

Mental/Verbal Reminder  

Say, think or write: “There is a Power.”  This simple statement orients attention to the Power with which you are conscious.  We label that Power the “true self” or the “I Am.”  SNO’s basic teachings start here, extending and expanding on this truism.  (If you deny there is a Power, with what Power do you deny?)

 

Consider what these words refer to.  Silently ponder, consider and work your awareness into feeling that which we call Power or its apparent movement.  Sense and feel the Power with which your blood flows; the Power with which your breath cycles; or the Power with which you focus your attention.  That Power is you.