The Set-Aside Prayer and Emotional Rearrangement – Big Book Twelve Step Workshop – Part 1 of 4 – Herb

My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our official start. We had our orientation last week, both Monday and Tuesday. Last night we had a meeting that discussed the orientation and other kinds of questions. tonight is a very different approach for me it's going to be primarily like a class very much like a class a presentation where i'll do the majority of the talking which is unusual normally i would warm up with 10 or 15 minutes but since we're packaging it at least theoretically we'll see how that works where Tuesday is the class where we get a full and deep unpacking of the big book and then an assignment for you for this following week and then on Monday if you choose to come we'll have a discussion about that different people will choose different styles of the combination, some will come only till Monday because it's a great meeting. Some will come only to Tuesday because they just want to hear the information. And some will mix and match and some will Come to both. And it makes no difference to me. Obviously, you need to have a plan as to what it is you're going to do. I'm going to start with the set aside prayer. But first, I want to get some track with regard to how we're going to start the meeting typically from now on. There will be some PowerPoint involved with the class presentation. And as you know, we're looking at 12-step spirituality. and I've asked you to pray that set-aside prayer. Einstein indicated that the consciousness that created the problem cannot be the consciousness that solves the problem. Last week, I gave you a quote from the big book on page 58, which reinforced that setting aside of old ideas so that you can come to this work with a clean whiteboard, a clean slate. One of the reasons I asked you to have a clean unmarked unhighlighted big book was so that you don't bring the information and knowledge and the experience from yesterday or last year's work or previous work to this workshop that you're willing to have actually a new experience. On page 27 in the big book, there is another quote that reinforces this approach. I go kind of fast, so it's probably not a benefit to you to try to find them in the big book. You're welcome to do that. But you're probably better off making a notice to the page and then finding it later. It's your choice. I have no rules about this. but on page 27 it says ideas emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them and bill calls that an emotional rearrangement so i'm asking you to pray this prayer with me out loud or quietly to yourself or any form of prayer that you choose or no prayer at all, just a moment of quiet so that you get centered with your purpose. Perhaps remembering the answer to the question that you were asked to ask yourself last week. Why am I here? please join me God, please set aside everything that I think I know about myself my brokenness the spiritual path in you for an open mind and a new experience with myself my brokeness my spiritual path and especially you I mentioned last week that in the hospital program that my wife was in in 1984 I learned a whole new approach to having an experience I didn't know it at the time but looking back on it I was able to understand the pedagogy the method of study or the methodology the method of having a new experience and they asked me to ask myself a question joe and charlie have a great sense of humor in unpacking the big book not the least of which was when they said the book is filled with questions and you'll recognize the question i don't know i'm not doing that and you will recognize the questions because there's a question mark at the end of it at the sentence treat it as a stop sign the question treat it as a stop sign the question mark and ask yourself that question they asked me to ask myself what was my relationship with alcohol i have asked you to ask yourself why are you here and what is the primary source of your suffering if you weren't here last week now is a good time to make a note of that those two questions and date it so that sometime toward the end of the workshop november december i will ask you to go back and take a look at what you wrote what was your level of consciousness what was you're a level of awareness of why you had come to the workshop you'll be looking at it 12 months later 11 months later and what was your primary source of suffering i didn't ask you what your primary suffering was that might be all too office obvious but it's a it's usually symptomatic this workshop is a deep dive underneath the underneath the underneath. Literally, in step four, we will be penetrating the unconscious. One of the reasons I asked you to come to read and acknowledge that participant agreement is because of that. That there will be embarrassment, there will be suffering there will be some negative things that are uncovered and discovered and i'm just giving a forewarning so that you're acknowledging that this is the soul surgery that the oxford group promised soul surgery we invite the divine healer to bring the scalpel to dig deep in and remove the cancers in us that block us from the sunlight of the spirit. Those two questions, why am I here? And what is the primary source of my suffering? Now this does that sometimes, let's try this. And then we get some information. We'll be looking at the big book. I'll be sharing my interpretation of the big books. Each of you will be sharing your interpretation, your response, your questions, your understanding, your experience. And all of that will help us address the question that was asked. And you'll be asked to take some action. The action itself will provide a new experience. And when I wrote out my autobiography of my relationship with alcohol, which I had not looked at ever, I looked over the 30 years, age 12 to 43, when I came into the hospital program to support my wife. And it was interesting, I could see that there was a pattern emerging. And in fact, as I wrote it out, I began to connect the dots. But then as I read it out, I got a very full picture of all of the puzzle pieces. But my conclusion was very weak by today's standards. My conclusion was, gee, I think I have a problem with alcohol. I knew nothing about addiction or alcoholism or 12 steps or AA, I knew nothing about that. But looking at that history in the light of that question and being honest with myself and willing to write out in a bullet point summary my 30 years of a relationship with alcohol and then reading it out loud, I was able to have a new experience. So here's another question for you. Is your life currently today serial suffering? Serial suffering. You might be in a 12 step program, you might be in it for a while or maybe only a few days or a few months or a few years. You see the big book gives us step one, which has two parts. The part in front of the dash is admitted we were powerless over alcohol for our purposes I substitute the word addiction because this is an invitation to anybody who has a problem with any form of addiction will be talking about step one in about six weeks. More about that later. Do I really believe my life can change? These are questions I want you to ask yourself and write out an answer between now and next Monday. This is part of an informal assignment, you have downloaded the way of life document if you followed instructions and you have a hard copy of that you've downloaded the assignments the step assignments from my website if you follow directions and if you haven't done that i really recommend that you do that you'll be very handicapped if you don't have both of those documents in hard copy now some of you have the skill at parking it on your laptop or some other technological device and maybe that works for you i'm of a generation where i do need hard copy it's where my comfort level is so i'm not trying to impose mine on you you figure out what works for taking off from what einstein had said about consciousness many psychologists have have taken a look at human development. A philosopher back in the 1900s, Gurdjieff, a Russian philosopher said most human beings are asleep dreaming that they are awake. I love succinct wisdom sayings and you'll hear me quote different people throughout the year with very pithy wisdom, P-I-T-H-Y, wisdom sayings. And then one psychologist took a deep look at it and looked at the beliefs as lenses. Each of us have glasses through which we look at reality we do not see reality as reality is nobody does nobody can no seriously because there are lenses so we're always seeing reality as we are that it's in itself is a wisdom saying and a spiritual awakening i cannot see reality ever as it is as reality objectively because i'm the subject who is seeing and i always look through my lenses at the very least my biological lenses and of course there's other lenses aren't there there's the perceptions that have been developed in us through our family of origin, many of us delusional. There are the thoughts that develop from those perceptions which have been formed by our education and by our culture for most of us demented. And from all of that comes our feelings. That's what generates our feelings, the perceptions that we have, the processes that we have in our mind and we come to a conclusion from a survival standpoint. And many of us have very negative feelings about reality, about the world, about the communities and about people and about circumstances. in fact addiction has been called a disease in itself not only a biological disease but a psychological disease and there's lots of comorbidity a fancy term for kissing cousins mental illness and and addiction all of this forms our attitude which is very distorted which then it informs our behavior and determines how we behave, our actions, very dysfunctional. Now the one thing the big book does, it looks at behavior so that in fact we can reverse the flow and this is what we'll do in the fourth step is we'll go back through reversing that arrow going up through behavior to attitude to feeling to thought to perception, and we will actually be able to get very clear on what our beliefs are. Our beliefs might be healthy. High probability most of them are not, especially if you haven't done the work of really good therapy, really good religion, really good relationship, or really good step work. And even when you have done any one of those or all of those together, there is still more unpacking that allows us to wake up. The problem is we're asleep dreaming that we're awake. And the big book and this is what we're going talk about tonight talks about waking up doesn't it a spiritual awakening well our culture says that we need to know something feel good about it and do it my boss had on his desk a big sign do not confuse effort with results i grew up with that i adopted that that was my culture I was successful in operating that way in terms of corporate standards. I was a complete failure in terms of social standards. I was a Neanderthal thinking I was a renaissance man. Once I began to wake up I had an experience that it was what I did that gave me knowing and feeling, just the reverse of what our culture says. chuck c said magic is the act it is the uh action is the magic word action is a magic word and now it's been confirmed at ucla in dan siegel's research on the brain he's a medical doctor i believe he's psychiatrist but he's done research on the brain in the last 15 20 years s-i-e-g-e l and he has wonderful books on the implications of that that are published for lay people like ourselves we don't need to have a medical degree or even a college degree to be able to read his works and he is determined that when we do differently we change our biology when we do differently we change our brain it fires differently the synapses new synapsis are created new neuronal paths are created and we know differently we change our habits and then we feel differently we didn't know that 15 years ago he coined a phrase i believe it was him synapses that fire together wire together and now good sponsors and you've heard it in the rooms i'm sure it doesn't matter what you know it doesn t matter what you feel it does matter what you do and when you do differently you will think differently and you will feel differently this is a process i reviewed it a little bit last week it has its own methodology we start with prayer i have recommended that you pray the set aside prayer every morning many of you do not have a daily consistent prayer practice that's okay i am recommending that you begin one very simply with just the use of the set aside prayer. And that you then anytime you sit down to do any of the work assignments, that you pray that set aside prayer. So two times you will be doing it potentially in a day. In the beginning when you begin your day, set aside. When you sit down to do any aspect of the work, pray a form of the set aside." Now, do I pray that formal set aside prayer that was illustrated in one of the PowerPoints earlier? No, I don't do that. And 25 years I've been praying it on my own from a card or with you in a group, and I've never memorized it. I've Never Attempted to Memorize It. But I have my own that came to me when I wanted an easier, more, a prayer that I could remember. Holy Spirit, that's my address to the power in the universe that I don't know what it is. I just hope that it is, and when I look over my shoulder, I get confirmation that it might be true. Holy Spirit, release me from up till now. Detach me from after now and allow me to be fully present in the now. For some reason, that prayer came to me and I've never had to memorize it. It's just part of me because it makes total sense. prayer is not about words it's about my intention and my intention is to be a clean white slate every morning so that the energy of the universe when i'm in alignment with that flow can ride on me for the day can give me the invitation can give me the guidance can give me the confirmation as to who i am and what i'm to do today not that i'm thinking about it but that's my intention that i start out and in the evening when i'm reviewing quite casually my day i i get i check it all out how did that go today of course part of our journey is reading reading the big book that's our textbook that's your primary textbook you may choose to supplement it with anything that you want I have some recommendations obviously the 12 and 12 Bill wrote that 12 years after he published the big book. The big book was published in April of 1939. The 12 and 12 was published in 1951. Bill had 12 years there where he had experience with the big book and people's experience with it and him helping other people with the steps as he had articulated them in the big boat. Prior to that, there were no 12 steps. There were only the six steps of the Oxford group. I think one of the stories, I know one of the stories has the list of steps as they probably were. Page 263. Make a note of that. It says in the story written by an alcoholic for the big book but had been exposed to the six step process prior to the publication of the big book number one complete defation number two dependence and guidance from a higher power number three moral inventory number four confession number five restitution number six continued work with others now the text here says continued work with other alcoholics but that of course was not the sixth step in the oxford group they actually didn't like alcoholics it was an accommodation to roland hazard that they allowed him because he was a christian and a millionaire they wanted people of influence in the group so they said well why don't you join us and it might help you with your alcoholism and he got sober and he's the one Roland Hazard that reached out to Abby Thatcher another millionaire who came to the Oxford group and got sober and when he met Bill in that oft-repeated story about his kitchen table he was two months sober in the Oxford Group because he had worked those six steps out of the of the Oxford group and been released from his addiction. And that's what he did with Bill in the hospital. Bill went to the Oxford Group meetings drunk every week whenever he went, most of the time he had had a few drinks and sometimes he was even quite inebriated. So he didn't work any steps before he went into the hospital And on, let's see, December 11th, 1934, he went into the hospital. On December 12th, Ebi shows up the next day. Bill's still detoxing. Bill was drunk when he went in the hospital a prior day. And Ebi went over those Oxford Group steps and you can see that in Bill's story on page 13. just a summary of it, but it gives you the complete confirmation that Bill did those steps in the hospital in his second day of hospitalization. And then on page 14, the very next day, December 13th, I think, Bill had his powerful mountaintop experience illustrated in a paragraph there and in other AA literature described in about a page, page and a half he had his spiritual experience that's what it was and that's what he called it the very first printing of the very big book april of 1939 step 12 read having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps well when the book got distributed to people and they said well gee bill do we have to have your experience that mountaintop mystical experience you were you felt like the room filled with white light you were drawn to the top of a mountain a clean wind blew through you and you knew immediately after it was over it lasted about 20 minutes the room field was light you had a complete sense of oneness with the creator and at the end of that 20-minute period, you knew absolutely that your alcohol problem had been taken away forever and that your life's mission, your destiny was to carry that message to other suffering alcoholics. Do we have to have that, Bill? And Bill goes, oh my goodness. He had read by then William James's variety of religious experiences. So he knew that his was a very exceptional experience that the majority of people have something that's quite less dramatic no white lights no sudden noise no voices no in fact most people don't even know they've had it until down the road when somebody says hey you've been changed and so bill in the second printing of the first edition in 1941 changed step 12 it's the only substance of change in the words in the big book pages 1 through 164 that have ever been made substantive they've changed numbers and dates but they've not changed the substance of pages 1 through 164 they've changed the stories after 164 but not the material between 1 and 164. But they change step 12 to what it currently reads having had a spiritual awakening and then he put in appendix 2 which we're going to look at in a minute appendix to an unpack what is a spiritual experience what is a spiritual awakening how are they the same and how are they different this is the reading that we will do and it'll sort of demonstrate a model for you how the rest of the year will go on a week after week basis as we unpack the big book i'll be asking you to reflect regularly between our gatherings asking you ask yourself questions asking you to create a prayer practice at least with the set aside prayer if in fact after next week you'll be motivated to to try to have a consistent daily meditation practice, which I'll be teaching next week. Then you might even reflect for a full minute every morning if you don't have a meditation practice at this time. More about that next week, there'll be lots of writing as i experienced in that hospital program they asked me to ask myself the question to reflect on that question and then to write out my answer and that was really an important part of pulling those puzzle pieces together as i mentioned but the most important part quite frankly was the discussion where i said it out loud to the men in that room that they had they they were all inpatient alcoholics. I didn't know that at the time. They were all there for their own drinking problem, and the hospital staff had the good sense to put me in there so that I could get their feedback, get their questions, get their challenges. I don't know why I was open to all of that, but I was willing. But that's our process. There it is right there. You can take a look at that in the way of life document, I have it listed there as the process that we go through. I've mentioned that though up to that point I had done an awful lot of studies in academics and human development, graduate education in philosophy, a graduate education in theology i had been a monk for seven years seven years from 17 to 24 i was cloistered in a monastery of silence i loved it i did determine that i wasn't going to be much of a monk by the age of 24 so i left but i had a lot of information i studied psychology and did all the therapy stuff that you do in order to become a therapist and i never became a therapist but i had that background and that information and it didn't help me become a better person i was an informed person on the outside but i was a deformed person on the inside and i didn't know that i didn it no and i couldn't see that i didn't see and this man who helped me with the step said you have a lot of information here but you have very little transformation four years sober having a sponsor that i called every day going to a meeting every day being in step studies and book studies but never really applying them to myself because i didn t know that that's what you did i thought you just got information and you sounded good and you shared it with people to help them understand also i didn't understand that we applied it after our discussion to our personal behavior that we take responsibility for our thinking that we taking responsibility for are thinking and most especially in life changing a spiritual awakening we take responsibility 100 for our behavior and this man said let the information go from your head through your heart to your feet and that way you'll have an experience i didn't know what he meant but i was willing to make the effort And when I was given later on the set-aside prayer, it made all the difference in the world because, in fact, I couldn't set aside my knowledge and my information and my experience. Even though I wanted to be a clean whiteboard, I could not. But when I prayed the prayer, I was giving the gift of a whiteboard and new experience being taken to places that I actually did not know existed. so here I am again asking you to reflect where is your life not working these are questions that are in the way of life document I'm not asking you do answer them tonight I'm asking you to consider them now between now and next Monday between now and next monday if you're going to join us on monday that's great if you not that sort of the rhythm that we all have I give an assignment on Tuesday you have all weekend weekend and then Monday if you choose to you can come and you can share it or you can hear other people sharing on their reflections and their experiences with these questions where is my life not working How effective have I been? My suspicion is because you're here, even though you know that there's been some improvement, there's a lot more that's available to you. Do I really want my life to change? That echoes the question that was asked a little bit earlier. Do I believe my life can change? Do I want my wife to change different questions? And specifically, what would I like to change? It would be really good if you got that on paper. What thoughts would you like to changed? Negative to positive? What feelings would I like to changes? Hopeful versus depressed? What behavior would I like to changing? Maybe I'd like to be a person of integrity. A person who says what they'll do, and then they do what they said. That's my layman's definition of integrity. What is the invitation is my most favorite question. I ask it every morning as I complete my morning practice, my morning meditation. I call it intentional consciousness because it's much broader than just meditation what is the invitation today this coming weekend i'll be looking at this whole year actually what is The Invitation for the Year I've been asking myself that question once a month for the last three months making notes hopefully i'll bring it together by the end of this month what is the invitation the 12-step methodology is the best methodology for human development and human change i've ever come across i've been exposed to most of the human development methods and disciplines and schools and theories i've made i'm a student of human development i was a seeker even in aa for the first four years i didn't realize i wasn't a finder and in 1988 when this man took me through the steps and i finished step nine and i look back over my shoulder at the journey that i'd had with those steps and the experience that i've had and the shift in my consciousness i knew that i had been changed for the very first time i was aware of and could in fact describe as i will over time throughout our journey the specific processes and the specific experiences and the absolute measurability of the changes. There is no doubt about the evidence from my standpoint and then anybody who knows me or knew me, and especially my family. One of the wise men in the program when I first came in, Frank, he said, you know there's only two sides to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. there's only two sides he kept it really simple he was a very bright man and but a very and a very articulate man and a very crazy man but it all gave him such a charisma so that you could really hear him and want to listen to him I went to meetings if I knew he was there because that's the kind of person that number one entertained me certainly but really impressed me and informed me and help me and he said to the group that day there's only two sides to the program of alcoholics anonymous the spiritual side and the outside there's no spiritual side to the 12-step program it's all spiritual because it's about a process that brings us to power you get to define what power means but that's the point from my standpoint spirituality means a relationship that's why it's on the slide here the steps look like they're linear steps and many people describe them and you see little staircases going up and it's a wonderful picture but now that i've done the steps three or four times over a 20-year period and i look back over my shoulder i notice that it's not linear at all it's a spiral staircase because i keep meeting myself again and going deeper each time like the drill of an oil well our relationship with power that did not happen to me to me until i was 10 years sober I had a spiritual awakening in 1988, four years sober, but not because of steps two and three. It was because of step four. And the spiritual awakening consisted not in any new relationship with power or God or understanding of either of those. But it was more an understanding of myself, embarrassingly so, and a willingness to change my behavior and an ability to actually change my behavior. But now I know that the first three steps are intended to give us a new relationship with power. Bill uses the metaphor of a rocket launch on page 25. I referred in a very informal throwaway line in the last couple of meetings that we've had together that we're on board and we need to strap up, buckle up. Many of you will need shoulder straps because this is going to be a rocket launch. Now the metaphor is so powerful because we have to get into the rocket but then the rocket is going to take us to where the rocket is destined to take us. We have very little control over that we might be able to manage the levers a little bit and influence the trajectory. But the rockets going to determine where we end up. That second stage of the rocket, is our relationship with myself steps four through seven, identifying all of the clouds in us that are obstacles to my relationship with my true self all those things i described in the belief the problem asleep the perception the delusions the demented the the deformities those were all survival mechanisms on our part that worked for a little while but not long term we built a cinder block wall as a wall to protect us for our survival and safety and most of us today if you've answered that question about suffering have come to begin to realize that that wall is not a safety wall behind which we are safe and secure it's a prison wall that binds us to ourselves and isolates us from humanity and reality and the final stage of the rocket launch steps eight and nine to identify and then dissipate the clouds in us that block us from our relationship with others a three-stage rocket launch i'll be defining them and holding that metaphor throughout the year because it's so powerful we'll spend most of the time on steps four through seven although we'll at least a couple months on step one when we get there and we won't get there until six weeks from now i'll tell you about that in a minute I'll give short shrift toward the end of the workshop to steps 10, 11 and 12. I'm going to give you an overview of those at the beginning. In fact, we're going to start with step 12. A couple years ago, I was asked by Hazelton to write a book on meditation and as part of the discussion as to another book on meditation what's going to make it different what's gonna make it helpful to people and not redundant to what's already in the marketplace and as a result we decided that chapter one would be an overview of the entire area of prayer and meditation and contemplation transcendental meditation mindfulness i call it now the the grab a bag of intentional consciousness and then each chapter thereafter we would look at each step through the lens of power chapter one is about power and how to find it in the practice of intentional Consciousness and then once we've got those lenses to look at step one powerlessness through the lens of power and that's when i had a shift in my meditation concerning my approach to making the workshop more effective a couple years ago we began implementing looking at spiritual awakening and step 12 first then and we'll do that today Then next week, we'll unpack the assignment on meditation, step 11. And the following week, we'll unpack the assignment on step 10, inventory. All of those steps Bill calls our way of living, our way of life. The daily reprieve that allows us to stay in relationship with power. Those first three stages are the trajectory that puts us in orbit around the light. Once we're in orbit, around the light, how do we stay in orbit? Around the line, we have some levers in the satellite. And as long as we daily manipulate those leather uh levers we will stay in orbit because the we otherwise gravity in one direction or another will move the satellite off the trajectory of being in orbit around the light step 10 a spot check inventory to see what the obstacles are to staying in orbit step 11 is the guidance that we need in order to have the power and the light and the source to continue the journey and to know where we're going and to have any type of effective action and step 12 of course is the practice of principles primarily helping other people not just in a program not just in our fellowship. Chapter 7 in the book is about helping people in your fellowship. It's a blueprint for action. It is a blueprint of sponsorship. Chapter 8, however, is principles in your relationship? To the wives. Today it would be to your significant other. Chapter 9, the family afterwards. How do you maintain principles in your family community? Chapter 10, how do you maintaining principles in the workplace to the employer? Chapter 11, how do you maintain principles in your community and in your fellowship it has a poetic title of vision for you but when you read it it's about practicing principles in your Community and in Your Fellowship this brings us to step 12 having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps What does it mean? Well, that's where we come to unpack the spiritual experience. Appendix 2. The terms spiritual experience, if you have your book, it probably would be handy for you to be following it. I'm going to read it literally every word, every phrase, every sentence, and I'm gonna read it to you. And I'm also going to comment on it. the spiritual terms is that the terms spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book recall what i said spiritual experience was the phrase he used in the first printing and in the second printing first edition second printing 1941 he changed step 12 that's a pretty significant change from spiritual experience to spiritual awakening upon careful reading they show the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery there's the common definition they are both the same spiritual awakening spiritual experience they are exactly the same thing in terms of the product what do they do They create a personality change. We're talking about a radical coming from the Latin radix at the root, a radical change in personality sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism. that's the promise of the first nine steps articulated on page 84 and 85 we are placed in a position of neutrality i'm quoting we are pleased to hear that it's a grace it's a gift we can't earn it we can grab it we get it and we can lose it more about that as we go forward we can't lose it if we stay in relationship with power but that's where he says we have a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition the best kept secret in the 12-step rooms most people do not understand unmanageability they connect it to addiction well of course if you are practicing your addiction, your life is going to be unmanageable. But that's not the intent as I interpret it of the big book. That's why there's a dash and not an and. Admitted we were powerless over alcohol, dash! That our life had become unmanangeable. The doctor's opinion uses the phrase restless, irritable, and discontent. that's not addiction necessarily i know people with one year and 10 years and 20 years in the program sober continuously and you wouldn't want to strike a match next to them because they're dry brush bill talks about recovery in terms of the first half of the first step. In fact, it uses the term recovered. We'll look at that later on. It's in the title page. How many thousands of men and women have recovered? Past tense. Page 84 and 85 have been placed in a position of neutrality. For my interpretation, that's about the body and the mind. The body that's subject to the allergy and the mind that's subject to the obsession once you have a relationship with power you live behind a spiritual shield that's the orbit around the light but you can't stay in orbit around the light unless you do daily inventory daily meditation and daily helping of other people more about that later a nature of a sudden and spectacular upheaval that's what bill had implied in the first printing because that was his mountaintop mystical experience a sudden revolutionary change i'm reading in the third paragraph now an immediate and overwhelming god consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook and most of us want that in fact some of us think that's what it is and that's the only thing there is and if i don't have that i didn't get it that's not true that's what this appendix 2 says and that'S why the words were changed from spiritual experience to spiritual awakening among our rapidly growing membership such transformations as this spiritual experience though frequent are by no means the rule they're not the norm it's an exception most of our experiences are what william james calls the educational variety i use the dimmer switch analogy and you'll hear throughout the year spiritual experience is like a light switch you hit the switch boom the lights are on you hit the switch bum the lights off black and white well a dimmer switch is quite different when you press the button on a dimer switch or flip the switch on a Dimmer switch and the dimmer switches at the very lowest voltage there's very little light that will come out of the bulb because there's very little power or electricity that goes in to the current into the wire but as you turn the dimmer switch up a notch at a time and every one of you have had that experience with a dimmer which actual physical light in a room it goes up just a little bit and if you want dim lights because you want to create a mood terrific if you wanted a little brighter because you wanna see where you're going great if you if you're reading and you really want a really bright light you turn it all the way up and get full power the dimmer switch is the spiritual awakening the dimer switch is what most of us have in terms of the change i did not know i was being changed in 1988 as i look back over my shoulder i could see that the change began in step four in the fourth column of the resentment inventory That's where I began to take a look at becoming responsible for my behavior for the very first time. And step six and seven brought that over the goal line. But I didn't know any of that was happening while it was happening. I was finished with my ninth step before I looked back over my shoulder to evaluate. I had just been keeping my nose to the grindstand or my shoulder to the dimmer switch moving forward a day at a time a step at a time taking directions and getting my assignments and doing my assignments reporting in and having those kind of dialogues it was pretty intense but it did take 12 months to finish those steps but i didn't take the time to look over my shoulder during that time i just did the work but after i was through and i was practicing 10 11 and 12 and i was in my meditation looking back like wow i'm no longer a neanderthal most of the time i'm a considerate sensitive person and i want to be and i really do want to be helpful i want reduce suffering and i don't want to create pain whereas before that people who got wounded in my path were just collateral damage Four years sober, I was acting like that. A completely clueless narcissist in the DSM diagnosable category. It doesn't go away, but it gets better. The healing has taken a long time and a lot of work. work and thank you for all your input that's helped me become aware of what i'm not aware of in terms of what I radiate when I'm not spiritually awake one of my teachers is Richard Rohr and he says we either transform it or we transmit it and when you're living in the spiritual malady you're transmitting that and you don't know that You don't know. You just wonder why people's feelings get hurt so often. I'm not taking responsibility for their feelings, but I am responsible for the actions I take to create the chaos in my life. I have undergone a profound alteration in my reaction to life that such a change could hardly have been brought about myself alone. What often takes place in a few months could seldom have. Now, notice he says in a few months. He's talking about working the steps here. A few months here, my experience is that it's anywhere from six months to two years where you're diligent and consistent if you're going to do the deep dive that I've learned to do in the big book. you can do the steps in a weekend you can do the Steps in the day you can do the step in a week absolutely and I encourage that for newcomers absolutely get a taste of it get a full picture of the full road map I did the steps my very first time out of the big book and it took 10 to 12 months the second time three years later it was six months because I was in a hurry more about that later the third time I went through the steps I wasn't pressed by any pain I was coming to deepen my relationship with power I knew it was available that there was more not from an addictive standpoint but from just a there's more light and I'm a seeker and now I'm finder and I want more and it took two years a very contemplative process so it depends on where you're coming from and your level of emotional and spiritual development as to how long it will take and what kind of work you've done before what kind of work in the program what kind of work in religion what kind of work in human development so what kind of work you've done in therapy etc etc and what you had to work with in the beginning I was a pretty damaged person what often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline i told you a synopsis of my background i'm not an easy does it person i'm a heavy does it person with myself especially with few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource what a great phrase unsuspected I didn't know that power was deep inside me inner that this light this power is always available to me step 11 doesn't say that we establish a conscious contact it says we improve our conscious contact. Step two is that first point where we become conscious of the contact. And step three is where we've become very conscious of the decision to have a relationship with that, that is deep inside ourselves. we become conscious of the constant contact and then we foster that conscious contact by removing the obstacles to that conscious content in myself four through seven and the obstacles in me because of my relationships with other people steps eight nine and ten quite frankly step 10 is that tool that keeps the obstacles identified and removed on a daily basis in terms of my relationships with reality and my relationships without other people which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves unsuspected inner resource resource power the power god's not coming god is not coming if there is this reality we call god that's the symbol that's the synonym for this reality that we can't name. If there is this reality, it's already here. I just need to wake up because I'm asleep. And I don't know that I don t know and I can't see that I d n't see. And this is a process that wakes me up. I did not wake up in the monastery. In 1964 after seven years of silence, I hung up my black robe and walked out and didn't meditate for another 25 years. and i became an alley cat with all the implications you don't need to know the details you can fill in the blanks most of us think this awareness of a power greater than ourselves is the essence of a spiritual experience please use that line as a meditation prompter springboard awareness of the power greater than myself is the essence of a spiritual experience this is the power that is in me that is available to me that i can have a relationship with and that will take me into the flow and keep me in the flow and allow my life to flourish instead of flounder bill uses the term god consciousness here most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems that's the prelude to chapter five how it works isn't it he spends a lot of time talking about rigorous honesty and of course i wasn't rigorously honest but when i heard it and was invited to it I was willing to be it even though I didn't know what it meant I was willing my sponsor asked me to call him every day which I did for 10 years in that call he asked me to tell him what I was thinking and feeling and doing I didn t know what he meant he said I want you to be transparent I didn d know what He meant he says I want your insides and your outsides to match. I didn't know what he meant. But every time I didn t know what he meant, I said yes, Lloyd. I did n have to understand it. I just had to attempt to comply with it, to not resist it, to take directions that I didn d believe in, that I didn t even understand and that I certainly didn t feel like I wanted to do. But I did it. And I don t actually know why but willingness was the key as bill says also in step 2 on page 47 he says it's the cornerstone the corner stone that gets laid on the foundation of powerless no choice that cornerstone that sets the direction for the entire spiritual arch through which we walk to freedom that's his architectural analogy and in step three he says the keystone step three is the keystone i use the word alignment it's not in the big book but for me step three isn't alignment with reality with power with the flow with the evolution of god consciousness in me honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts again the echo the resonance of spirit of set aside here he can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial lots of us are there and we're not even aware of our resistance but when we pray the prayer with the intention of praying it and meaning it, even though we don't understand it and we don t feel like doing it. But we do it anyway because we re asked to, and we want to get to a place that we ve never experienced. And that s the promise. No one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program willingness honesty and open-mindedness now many people turn that into the order of words that gives them the acronym how h-o-w honesty open-mindedness and willingness that's how this works there are essentials this is in italics the big book way of highlighting are essentials of recovery and indispensable. Indispensable. There is a principle, which is the bar against all information. The principle is that primary source from which all things flow. Practice these principles in all your affairs. Bill doesn't give us a list of those principles. in the way of life document i've stood on the shoulders of other people in the program and in spiritual lives and i've developed a list of principles changed actually this year in print in step 10 because i've had a new insight to it it changed just a little bit that's another point i want to make that the assignments this year and the way of life document this year are for 2021 if you've got those documents from prior years they're dated you can welcome to keep them for historical reasons but please download a new set some of the changes are not insignificant some of them are very typos or rewording that are not significant but some of dem are very significant please have a current hard copy of the way-of-life document and the step assignments. Otherwise, you won't be dealing with my current consciousness in terms of what I understand will be effective. There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a person in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. contempt prior to investigation again the on the adoption of the set aside attitude the set-aside prayer so a spiritual awakening as i've defined it is a change in the way we think and feel and behave this diagram is in the way of life document it's done to us not by us but notice this was added just a couple three years ago with a new insight but not without us that's why i like the word co-creation or collaboration step five has a promise in it on page 75 at the end of the fifth step at the end of the fifth step there are some promises here i'm not going to read them all but the final line in that set of promises is we feel we are on the broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe a poetic mystical insight on bill's part walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe but notice capital b capital h broad highway you see there's no place to go we're already there the journey is the destination that's not an insignificant phrase it came to me as i was constructing my book on meditation the journey is the destination that's our invitation to be on the path of waking up most teachers in any type of human development or spiritual realm talk about three ingredients three primary ingredients one is a path of course we happen to have the 12 steps which is a pot i've indicated it's not linear it's spiral depending on your view it could be going up or it could be going deeper and deeper either way it amplifies the evolution of our human development we need a path we need a teacher in the rooms we call it a sponsor we avoid the word teacher because we don't want to elevate anybody to a one up one down relationship and I'm not trying to do that my role here is like a lantern I use the term teacher I use the term class I hope you're okay with that deal with if you're not that's part of my direct this you'll get used to um as a lantern the light on the path that i walked so that you can walk the path in the light of my experience to have your own experience i'm not one bit interested in you being a mini herb or even a maxi herb that's that's not my goal my goal is to shine the light on that path that i walk to unpack the big book and the step process through the assignments so that you can walk it apply the information to your life in the way that you will and have your own experience your own fingerprint your own tailor-made awakening i'm a lantern standing by the road shining the light of my experience on the path that i walk so that you can walk that path with security and confidence and have your own experience and then do so for others that's implicit in my invitation that's implicit in my commitment to you is that at the end of this journey that you will do the same for others and quite frankly if you have an authentic spiritual awakening it's organic you won't be able to help yourself it flows out in a natural way like apples on a branch of an apple tree we just want to provide the reduction in suffering to other people because we finally found something that actually works for us but there's lots more to step 12 notice we started with step 12 your assignment for next week is assignment two and part of assignment two it has number one and number two number one is to do some reading of the four words and the preface all the roman numerals other than the doctor's opinion it's in writing there i'm not going to repeat it that's why i have the step assignments in writing. And take your time with that using the set aside prayer. Take your time With that? What does it mean? What's my experience with what it says? How does it apply to me? What changes is in my concepts, in my feelings or in my behavior? Is it inviting me to and what's the overall implications of this material read with those questions as with a highlighter and you will get a lot out of that material because there's wonderful history but there's also wonderful spirituality as part of that history and then at the end of the period of reading which i'm going to unpack on february 2nd so you got plenty of time um we will take a look at your answers to those questions there's four of them there is this what i want to do at this time why am i willing to go to any lengths and what does that mean in what areas am i being dishonest with myself and others i want you to ask those questions as you're reading that material, I'm hoping that the reading will take you a couple weeks to do gently, gradually, thoughtfully reflectively. And that you'll be asking yourself those questions each time you sit down to do the reading. And you'll highlighting from those questions. And then at the end of the reading, you'll write out some reflection on each of those questions. It might be a sentence or two, it might be page or two for each question. That's really up to you. It's not about getting a high mark, a grade, or passing a test. There are no tests here. There are new grades here. This is just for your experience. But what I want you to finish by next Tuesday when we get back together is item number two, the instructions on prayer and meditation. Step 11. It really the heart of it is to read pages 85 and 88 in the big book, two and a half pages, read and highlight. But before you do that, look up the word meditation in a dictionary and write out the several definitions. No, I really mean that. I know you have a meditation practice. I know, you've gone to many meditation courses, I know that you've read many meditation books, that's fine. Look up the word. This was the first instruction this man gave me in 1988 on step 11, look up the Word Meditation. I told you I was a monk for seven years. I was reluctant to do that. But I found out what I that I did not understand what meditation was. And when I understood what meditation was, and then he explained how Bill gave us his instructions in this 85 to 88. It cracked, opened the door to the room on intentional consciousness for the very first time. More about that later. And I have not had a problem with meditation on a consistent daily basis since 1988 because I understand what meditation is and I understand what the value is and understand how to do it. Which by the end of next week you will That's the assignment for next week. We needed every bit of tonight, didn't we?