I have to agree with Aaron and Tony. Your best bet is to use a sharpening jig to hold the plane iron at a consistant angle. The Veritas one is one of the better quality jigs but even cheap knock-offs will give good results. As for the abrasive - you could use oil stones, water stones, diamond paste, or my preference - sandpaper stuck on a 12" square of 1/4" plate glass. All of these will work just fine and should produce nearly equally good results. Its just a matter of preference.

The reason I use the sandpaper is that it is all done dry (no oil/water) so it creates less of a mess, and it is cheap. I got 2 squares of glass for about $10.
I use silicone carbide (wet/dry) sandpaper in 220/400/600/1500 grits and get a mirror shine on the iron.

To stress what Aaron said, with any new plane you will need to lap (flatten) both the sole of the plane and the back of the iron (there are some expensive exceptions). This takes time but only needs to be done once.

-Rich