Spiritual Neutrality – Workshop April – Part 2 of 8 – Sandy B.

Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. I'm going to get a couple of announcements out of the way. One is, I brought along a copy of a DVD of the off-Broadway play Dr. Bob and Bill W. And if you haven't seen that, it's one act will be shown tonight and one act Will Be Shown Tomorrow. it is remarkable the dialogue that these writers came up with it just is so powerful to watch how hard it was for Bill and Bob to keep this thing going and the adversities that they had it's very factually accurate but it's so different to see the story told with dialogue because they're just standing on the stage and so I urge you to take a look at it if you haven't seen it we'll show it right after we finish tonight the other thing is there's a question box up here and this is my favorite part of the weekend if you have a question about the program about spirituality anything like that that you would like to hear Anne answer to, not the answer, but Anne answer, please fill out one of the cards or write it on a piece of paper and stick it in the box. And there's a session tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon, I think, where we'll go through as many of those as we can. And if everybody puts one in, We probably won't get to all of them, obviously. But if you have one that you want answered and it wasn't answered, if you write it out on a piece of paper with your name and address, I'll send you a written answer to it. This is a way of trying to handle where people want to come and talk about things and I'm not going to I don't have the energy to do that I'm going to go to bed right after this but generally in these questions either you can put it in there what you want to talk about or somebody else will put it on and I have found that in general all that stuff gets answered because somebody else asked it so please don't put hard ones in there I'll just hand them to Steve Abrams and let him answer and the other thing is that you should have a handout which I'm going to talk about right now which are pertinent passages from the big book in the 12 and 12 I took about three months And I went through our literature and I looked for what I think are the most powerful spiritual passages in our literature. And I put them all together here. You can use them for whatever you want. But I know when I just start down those, you just realize how powerful each one of those is. Then there's a second page that we're going to talk about tonight called Contemplative AA. And these are a group of sentences that I put together that might cause you to think about things when you look at them and you can reflect on them. I'll just give you some thoughts about them. Then there is a book list. This is just a list of outside reading that you might find interesting. and we have a library of these books at the retreat in Tampa and it's designed to if you haven't started on an individual search to give you something to pick up and take a look at and if you're new at this I would recommend I mean, I got started by going into a new age section in the bookstore and grabbing books off the shelf well, that looks interesting and read a page and go, I don't relate to that. And then I put another one down and I don'T relate to THAT. One day I picked one up and I went, this guy is talking to me. The next guy that picked it up would probably put it back because it's such an individual thing. And these ideas from people who are devoting their life to trying to understand spiritual principles, I found incredibly helpful. mainly in seeing our program a little deeper. It's not designed to get us away from the program. It's designed to give us insight into the principles we have here because spiritual principles are universal. They're the same everywhere. We just got a package here that is wonderfully oriented towards alcoholics and that has been working so powerfully for all these years. So maybe there's something on that book list. And I think that's it. Those are the handouts and the question thing. So anyway, I think I told you that I wanted to come up with just a lecture that would appeal to people's egos. Contemplative A, I like that. I'll go home and I'll tell my sponsor we were involved in contemplation while we were up there and before I get there I wanted to read something during the last lecture but I'm disorganized tonight this is actually it's a paragraph with 13 quotes in it from the big book And it's all designed to pay tribute to Chuck. And so I'll read it to you. As you know, there's a spiritual axiom in the 12 and 12. Whenever we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with us. It's a very powerful sentence. It was of great help to me. Something wrong with me? The thing that is wrong with us is our perception of the cause of the disturbance. That's what's wrong with us. And nothing more. So if I'm disturbed, no matter what the cause, I'm seeing it wrong. Isn't that astounding? now the beauty of that is all I have to do to get undisturbed is to see it correctly to see it as God would have seen it to see it as my spiritual advisor can help me to see it this means we are no longer the victims of the events of the world which we thought were the reason we were disturbed and in order to stay undisturbed you'd have to control the world and get everybody to behave and stop doing that crap and so this is a very powerful sentence if something disturbs us there's something wrong with us we ask for help both from God and from others to help us see the situation from a non self-centered perspective and when the true nature of the situation is quote revealed and then another quote we feel as though the problem has been removed and that's right out of our big book if you're new you find in spirituality the problems are not solved they're removed they simply evaporate and turn into non-problems so you don't see us talking about how to solve a problem it's how to have it removed or how to Have It Dissolved is totally a separate approach than the traditional one of analyzing it and this is the course of action and blah, blah, bla. This is, we're using God here so we can, it's a much simpler process. We are, quote, in a position of neutrality. Tenth step. The problem has slipped away. That's another quote. It, quote, leaves us. It no longer exists for us. These are the words that Bill uses to describe this process. It no long exists for you. It no more exists for me. When you're in a position of neutrality, you just let it be. Just let it go. And it's not something that has to be changed. we have quote entered the world of the spirit that's what a new perception takes us to the tenth step that's the big line as we come off of the promises in the ninth step we have entered the world of the Spirit and then we start into some of the promises our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change just think we don't change it it is changed and we see that in new people that were sponsoring they used to have an attitude now it's disappearing where did the attitude go? they didn't go oh I'm going to change my attitude they just kept following the instructions of their sponsor and this gift of a new attitude arrives. This is a totally different thing than doing it yourself. We're dealing, I mean, I like to think of spirituality as something like magic. The promises are, it sounds like a magician talking. Oh, you got a problem with self-seeking? Don't worry, it'll slip away. Or it'll disappear. I mean, these are all... And the reason those verbs are used, that's the way it appears when things happen spiritually. It just happens. And then we get the result. We get the gift of that happening. Well, there it is. The feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. I mean what a strange verb to use. Can you imagine your psychologist telling you that? You got a problem with self-pity? Don't worry, it'll disappear. In one visit. Okay. Our fears fall from us. We are walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. Our perception has been changed and we have been given a new pair of glasses. You see, this all keeps us focused on spiritual solutions instead of the traditional, well, I'm going to have to go do this and I'm gonna do that. And it's like, I don't know what to do with it. I'm not going to surrender and allow God to do it. That is the hardest thing for alcoholic self-centered people to do is to let go. the first step in any problem if you're new is letting go as soon as you start to wrestle with it and you can feel the disturbance starting let it go like it's a hot coal oh jeez I don't want to mess with that that will clear it up half way right away because we're no longer engaged with it anyway I wanted to get that in And I also, well, I think, did I mention all our Clinton, Vince and Scott, didn't I, at the beginning? Oh, well, one of the real reasons I'm out here is that I was told that Clint had a lot to do with this and I would do anything for him. Oh, I would doing anything for any of those guys. Now you had them all here in Los Angeles. So you got to see Vince and Scott Redman and Clint. The rest of the country got to see him once in a while. Not like you guys had a steady diet of it. And the rest of the country misses them. I just want you to know that. And there are people from New England to Florida and Alaska that are still listening to the wisdom that they have contributed to our spiritual journey. And they were good friends in the long-distance sense that we would see each other, but we had great mutual respect and those are the type of guys that I used to like to ask questions of. I would just wait until I could see them and then go, let me run something by you. That's my favorite sentence. Let me run some things by you and they know that I want to hear their spiritual perspective on something and it generally is very rewarding. Matter of fact, that's a wonderful way to go through life is to have three or four friends including your sponsor and I have three of four and I had them back when I was working and when I called someone up and said can I run something by you they could be at work because I only wanted 45 seconds and they'd go shoot and then I'd go okay this is what happened the boss came in, I wrote this memo and then he did that and then that and they would go you owe him an amend what? or boy your boss is all screwed up forgive him and I'd go okay I got an answer that I wouldn't have come up with on my own that quick they hear okay your boss really that's way out of line forgive him what's it designed for so that I get undisturbed so that I get un-disturbed And if you look at the wisdom in our 10th step, you'll find there's a new game in life. And it's called whoever stays the least disturbed wins. That's the new game. So we put a top priority on nothing except being undisturbed. And if we get disturbed, how fast we can get undisturbed from that. if you go through a day undisturbed your productivity, your creativity and your intuitions will give you one of the most wonderful days you've ever had because it's disturbance that blocks the creativity and the intuitive level thinking that can guide us during the day so the top priority as Bill writes self-restraint you all know there's four things in the 12 and 12 self-restraint an honest analysis of what's wrong you get the honest analysis by running it by someone else a willingness to forgive if the blame lies elsewhere and a willingness to make amends if it's us in a very short order we're back to being undisturbed and the whole situation is over we made the amendment or we forgave the reason this is resisted too simple our minds tell us it can't be that simple I mean for the rest of my life I can just resolve things like that okay I own a man okay I forgive and the answer is yes and in an undisturbed state we are close to doing God's will we're close to being able to hear the guidance and so that's why that's such a big priority so anyway it seems that seekers have engaged in reflection pondering contemplation since the beginning of time and I think we do a little bit of it but I don't think it becomes a habit because we're too busy. Our schedules are too busy to be taking time for something like this. But I would suggest to you that just the pertinent passages, where are they? Out of the big book or the 12 and 12, offer great thoughts. For example, The second one, big book, page 25. We found much of heaven and we've been rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed. Well, now everybody's read that sentence. What is the fourth dimensional of existence? What is rocketing into the forth dimensional of existance? Is that suddenly realizing that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves? Have you had an experience like that? What is Bill talking about? We've been rocketed in to the fourth dimension of existence. One explanation could be we got a glimpse of our home from which we have strayed and are trying to make the journey back. The most comforting way I explain to myself what in the hell I'm doing here. Do you ever wonder why we're here? what's the meaning of life and all those kind of things and so I'll tell you the crazy thoughts this all comes from reflecting these various things your mind will start offering you some thoughts about it then you can share those thoughts with someone else who might like to reflect the same way you do and out of those you might get a glimpse of something that's really true so anyway the way I've made sense out of my own life is by a very simple story that every single person in this room knows and it's the story of the prodigal son I am most comfortable understanding that at one time I was in the arms of my creator and for whatever reason I'm down here on a journey and because everybody else in society told me so and my father gave me clear instructions when I was a young man. Totally contrary to everything in our program. Totally contrary to spirituality. He said, son, it's your life. No one else can live it for you. If you want to make something out of yourself, you have to do it yourself. Self-sufficiency. Here's the deal. You go to school and you study hard. If you study harder, you'll get high grades. If you get high grades, you'll get into a high school or a prep school. If you got high grades you'll go to college, if you get a good job, if you work hard at the good job you will get a lot of money and then with the inference was and then you'll be happy that was the only false part of that plan and so it's almost impossible to not go down the road of self-sufficiency in this country anyway. And it certainly is encouraged every step of the way. Now, I wonder what would have happened had he said what the program suggests when it says turn your will and your life over to the care of God. That doesn't sound like it's your life, does it? What if he'd said as a young man, son, it's not your life. It's God's. Let him make something out of you. Wow, what would that have produced? Well, nobody would have listened because all the rest of the guys are following the other plan. So my feeling is I had no choice but to start down the journey away from my God. Just as the prodigal son told his father, I'm sick and tired of this. I want to go out I'll take care of myself and out he went made a mess we made a miss we weren't going to go back we were never going to ask for help until it got so desperate that we finally said help now we're coming back now we are coming back what Dr. Datcher was writing about the feeling of loneliness, separation all those things is this journey so far away from God that we are in great pain it's just so lonely out here we yell help we get a guide from AA and we suddenly are aware that we're returning to this completion as Dr. Young said the union with our creator. That our thirst for alcohol was really a thirst for this reunion with our Creator. So I just feel like I'm just a typical prodigal son. I got pushed out the door in the wrong direction. I grabbed the reins, made a mess out of everything, finally was driven to my knees where I said help for the first time and now we're on this great journey back. The question is, how close will I get? How close will you get? And St. Francis offers us the great answer that it's by dying that one awakens to life eternal. He doesn't mean our heart stops. he means that our identity stops our ego identity someone once described that ego identity as a resume did you ever think of a resume as an ego identity describe yourself very talented administrator graduated from UCLA honors in this member of the book club you list every damn thing that you think will entitle you to more money I mean it's strictly a list of things that enhance your reputation for consideration for very skilled in this very skilled than that references whatever you can put in there so the resume that the prodigal son would write is an entitlement resume I would call that an entitgment resume when you see this I'm entitled to make 120 grand a year anybody can see that right off the resume now he comes in and has an awakening and we go back and look at the resume and nothing on it has really changed except his perception of it as he talks to the employer he is saying here is a list of all of the God given talents that were given to me that can make me useful to you this is what I think I can contribute to your company this is why I'm delighted to come here and see how I can be useful here same information but an entirely different perspective. It doesn't have anything to do with me anymore. It has to do with how can I be useful using the God-given talents that were given to me. I didn't make them, they were given to me so you see there's a great deal of humility that came out of this transformation and so I just tell myself that that's what life is all about. you've got to tell yourself something because no one knows. And I was talking on the way up here that spirituality really is best explained with stories. We should have stories, fables, myths, whatever it is. And the back of the big book is filled with stories and we have a speaker meeting We're telling our story. And everyone's story is an epic, prodigal son journey. You just listen to every speaker. Well, I was born in Kansas and my father tried to make me grow up. And then I got in high school and I got into it. Then I decided I've got to help with all of them and I'm going out. And then three nut boards later... as they were letting me out of the straitjacket I said, yeah, okay I will talk to those guys from AA and that was our turnaround point that was Our Willingness to surrender Our Kingdom to give up territory that was Ours that we're in charge of and in the beginning we turn it over to this guide whoever the hell he is won't let us alone then we actually add our home group in on it and we're getting advice from them don't take that job, take this job I don't want everybody involved in my life well what kind of results were you getting when you were the only one involved in your life spirituality is very practical It compares results. It doesn't, you know, and I, boy, I'm really going all over the place, but I'm having fun now. So are we. Okay. The, I had about six months, maybe some of you have heard this, and my sponsor called me over and I wasn't trying anything. I was not interested in this stuff. I just needed to get things off my back, and then I was going to leave. And I was resisting the spirituality, so he said, I'd like to have us do a spiritual inventory on you as of you now, right now. What is your spiritual condition? He said, okay, how much do you pray? and I went I don't I know it's you want to be honest I don' t pray I think it's ridiculous I know they pray at meetings and I hear that our father and I go I just Bill, I'm not into that it doesn't make sense okay so prayer zero yes Okay, how about going to church? Churches, it's a great spot. People find a lot of spirit. I said, I don't like churches. I grew up in that church. They ripped me off. It's a terrible place. How do I anything to do with churches? I don' t even tour cathedrals in England. Who wants to see it? A lot of trouble came out of that. Not interested? No, I d'on't go to church. So church was zero. Well, how bout spiritual reading? There's a lot of wonderful spiritual books in New Age. There's this and that. No, I don't. I like mafia books. I like detective stories, politics, all that. But I wouldn't go near the New Age thing. No, nothing. I don' t have a spiritual book in my house. Okay, zero again. All right, finally, how about meditation? This is a chance to really quiet them. I don''t need time for meditation. I'm broke. I've got six kids. If I sit there, I could lose a chance to make a buck. I can't even shut my eyes. I mean, no, none. He said, okay, four questions, four zeros. One more question. So how's it going? What does it feel like to be inside of you? Oh, it's awful in here. I can stand this terrible. I'm angry, I can't sleep my wife hates me oh it's a mess in there so we know what zero produces those results so now we're going to conduct a new experiment which is called the 12 steps and you're just going to follow my instructions but your job is to keep track of the results that's your job so we're really conducting a spiritual experiment and the only laboratory that a spiritual experiment can be conducted in is inside of you. And therefore we have to trust you as the scientist to keep accurate results. And isn't it funny that there's a resistance to this idea? And Bill writes about this in our literature. He's talking about recoiling from prayer. We recoil as a scientist who refuses to perform a certain experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong. Part of me didn't want to try prayer because what if it worked? What if it did make me feel wonderful? I'd look like a jerk. I've been bad-mouthing prayer all my life. I don't wantto look likea jerk, so I'm not gonna pray. I'll pretend that I'm praying and tell them nothing's happening. That's how stupid we are. That's that, would you rather be happy or right? And so here we conduct the new spiritual experiment and you are the laboratory. And you follow this and then every three months, what's going on inside the lab lately? Well, I'm sleeping a little better. I'm getting along better with my kids and things are looking up at work. Yeah, I've got most of the charges are taken care of. So what is that? Coincidence? And even the most cynical of us can't say that. Maybe we'd say, I don't know. But we know that something new is happening that cannot be explained in human material terms. And we reluctantly have to admit that maybe, just maybe, there might be something to this after all, even though we judge it as crap. That's the beginning. And it really is. Well, that's quite a long talk on one little sentence. But these things do remind me of things. Page 56 on that hand. He stood in the presence of infinite power and love. What a great sentence. He stood in the presents of infinite power and love. He had stepped from the bridge to shore for the first time he lived in conscious companionship with his creator. Page 56. Boy, that's in the first third of the book. We're getting a sentence like that. So I can just stand there. What did it feel like to cross the bridge? What are we talking about the bridge The bridge generally is the bridge of reason to faith. Where we're going to step away from reason into this unknown land that faith takes us to. And it's done by making a decision. Isn't that funny that spirituality is a decision? Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over? So we make the decision. I remember when I made the decision, I decided that AA was going to be it. I just said, I'm throwing my... Just like I joined the Marine Corps. I mean, you know, you don't just join the Marine Corp and if you don' t like it, you leave. I mean they got you. It's a total commitment. And I remember the day I joined AA. I suddenly went, I' m in. I don' d know if you remember that. It was like, I'm attending, but now I'm a member. There's a big difference. I just said, I mean, I've been doing this for a long time. I'm in. I'm going with these guys all the way. And everything changed. I stepped ashore on that day when I went from attending to being a member, I'm-going-to-do-the-deal. Count me in. Your hand goes up when they look for a volunteer. I couldn't believe my hand went up. I never volunteer. Do I need somebody to go down? Okay. Geez, I almost wanted to pull it down. What the hell am I doing volunteering? But it was up. Page 57. But he has come to all who have honestly sought him. Isn't that, what a marvelous sentence that is. He has come for me. He has came to all who have honest thought. When we drew near to him He disclosed Himself to us. So you can see our part is really rather simple. I want to move towards God. That's all it takes. Whatever moving towards. I start out the door, I forgot to pray. I go back and pray. What a change that is. I was late for work and I turned around and prayed. No, it's more important to pray than anything else. I took a step closer, a step close to God. And then, as it says, he disclosed himself to us. That doesn't mean he stands up in front of us and says, Hi, I'm here. Something happens inside and we're very glad that we went back and said that prayer. Maybe it doesn't happen the first time. Maybe it's the tenth time. Bill writes the only scoffers at prayer are those that haven't tried it enough enough so if praying for 10 minutes a day is not getting great results try 20 in other words we decide this is it when you throw your lot in this is where we're going to mine we're going to mind spirituality until we get the results and these are all sentences I think that I like page 63 we're reborn we are new people an awakening is that I am a new person you might as well give me a new name and that's what it feels like I'm not the guy that I came here I can't believe I was that guy I mean, I remember the story and I did all those things, but I don't feel like that guy anymore. I've been reborn. I've being transformed. I've awakened, whatever it is. Page 68, we're in the world to play the role he assigns. Now go back and read that one eight or nine times. Why are you in the word? To play the roll that he assigned. Just look at that. yeah but if I play that role I may not get promoted to president of the company well so what this will be better oh no I don't think it could be better and then we do that and we end up I don' t know what it is we end and we are in a whole other area where all we do is help people and we're not present of anything and we go well I guess you're sad you didn't make it to be president of the company. Oh no, I wouldn't give this up for anything. This is priceless. No salary. We don't even mention the salary. It's priceless I don't know I could go through a lot of these I really want to get over on the other page 12 and 12 I'll just hit this one because nobody likes to read it 12 and 12 page 74 it's on page 3 we never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering we don't like that 7th step and nobody likes to read that 7 step in the 12 and the 12 it said this step is very painful do you want to keep reading escape via the bottle was always our solution character building through suffering might be alright for saints but it certainly didn't appeal to us and shortly after that well right on the same page and this is a monumental moment and Bill calls it a great turning point came in our lives when we sought for humility as something we wanted rather than something we must have that's when we decide that we're willing to sacrifice all our ideas in favor of God's. That's a real act of humility. While I'm on humility, in case I don't talk about this or forget to talk about it later, we have a thing in AA, and it's very common. People will go, well, if you say you're humble, you lost it, or words to that effect. It's almost like you better be careful even saying the darn word. and I think we should make very close friends with humility I think it should be part of our vocabulary all the time it's an essential part of spirituality so let's think of some of the things that we do that are acts of humility attending this weekend when you say you're an alcoholic I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic what are you saying when you Say that I'm a person who needs a lot of help I'm a person who can't make it by myself Let's see, what else is humble? Go to a meeting. That's an act of humility. You're making a statement to yourself and to others that I, in order to get through life, I need to go to these things. That's unactive humility. It's an art of saying, I need help. Praying is an act of humility, sponsoring people is an active humility, reading the big book is an actor of humility reading the 12 of 12 is an action of humility humility is such a part of us that we have to own up to it it's perfectly alright to say that doing humble acts greatly enhances your life and you're not losing your humility by saying that so I would encourage everybody to make friends with humility so what I'm doing here is to just say what happens when you just spend time reflecting or contemplating lines out of the big book now the second page are just thought provokers such as the second one abandon all hope and find God now now that's for those that are great advocates of hope this sounds like a put down hope can lead us to something but then we have to let go you're going to step into the unknown and you can't be in the unknown you can not be with God there is only one place that you can be with god And that's in the present moment. Does everybody know where I am? It's a single sheet called Contemplative AA. All right. Don't you hate people with handouts? So let's reflect on this just a couple more seconds. if the only place that we can be with God is in the present moment and I am hoping to be in that present moment I'm hoping to be there in the future I've already moved myself to the future in the traditional sense of hope and there's nothing in the future for me there's only in the now so the best this is just my own thinking over these years the best use of hope I can have is to stay in the know and to stop using it to tell myself things are going to get better when I tell myself things are gonna get better I have overlooked the fact that they already are fine I'm racing ahead we spend our whole time racing ahead that author Eckhart Tolle really captures it when he said people are always in a hurry and when we ask them where they're going they're doing it they're not going to the next moment and why are they going there because it's going to be better than this moment and everything is going to get better boy when I get promoted when I got that bonus when I get this, when I get that, then, then then, I'll be happy. And we don't stop long enough to see that God's right here we can have total union with him right now don't go anywhere so letting go that's why I have there abandon all hope and find God now, is that the now contains everything then the next one if life is precious then death is beyond precious the greatest weapon that the ego uses against us is death it just loves to go and then you might die you might Die you might Die you Might Die well St. Francis said it's by dying that we awaken life eternal and so our attitude about death has to be changed it has to been seen as the most normal thing there is. What do we know for sure? There's 6.7 billion people on this planet that are all going to be dead. All 6.6 billion. Holy cow, who set up that system? Boy, you talk about life being unfair. 6.5 billion people are going to freaking die. What the hell? What kind of a place is this? It's God's place we're here on the journey we're back we come back in another one we're not back it's the most normal thing I used to think about breathing I think that the when you take a breath in that's the birth of a breath when you breathe it out that's it that breath is dead but what happens the second it dies under one gets born and this is the entire cyclical nature of this and so anything we can do to change our perception of death and take that away from the ego it just warns us the only thing the ego is worried about is the ego dying I won't be running a world anymore and that's the very thing we want to have happen is for that ego to die. This one, about halfway down. To get an answer to a pressing question, form it, then drop it into the stillness and wait. The answer will come or your question will disappear. This is the power of letting go. in other words we're connected to God and so I can say you know I really need an answer to this and then I'll wait and then as time goes on I'll find out I really don't need the answer to that it's not even bothering me anymore wasn't important at all or the answer will come where would the answer come from maybe it'll come from intuition maybe it will come at a speaker meeting when somebody goes and then I went into this and then it came up with that and I go, yeah, that's it. Or our sponsor or somebody sharing a discussion meeting. It's not necessary that I think it up. It's superior if I let it go and wait for it to be revealed in one form or another. A little further down is the fourth and we're going to wrap up in a second Is the fourth dimension of existence in the silence? If not, where? This is just, we use the term fourth dimensionofexistence. What could that mean? Okay, we'll put down the silence. And then we go, why would it exist in the science? What is silence? We talked about it's the space between the thoughts. It's where all intuition comes from. It's were all guidance comes from, all of the spirituality comes from the silence and so the more we can get away from the racket of our own thinking the morewe can exist in that area then the bottom line of life is that everything is most wonderfully inexplicable it can't be explained God's a mystery if I would change anything this is just my own self if I would change anything in our literature I would changed God as I understand him to God as experience him and stop trying to understand anything there isn't anything to know there isn' t anything to understand there is only things to experience and as we experience them then we know more about them but it's not a knowledge thing oh and then Bill W it was the fourth one down this is a quote that Bill wrote in a letter he was describing AA to somebody in his latter years of sobriety and he wrote to his friend as I think about it AA is an utter simplicity which encases a complete mystery what a remarkable way to describe our spiritual fellowship it is simple I mean how simple is it you know what I mean you get a spazzi you walk through the steps so boy isn't it simple an utter simplicity we've reduced everything down to the real essence of everything and in this absolute simplicity is a complete mystery a complete mystery which is the universe and which is God and which we'll talk about in the last lecture is what to do with a complete mystery I just found that remarkable that this is what our co-founder thought about our entire fellowship with that simple little sentence another simplicity which encases is a complete mystery. And we start getting comfortable with things being a mystery. We accept that it's a mystery You might accept it's an mystery where your compulsion to drink went. It really is. You can't scientifically document where it went, but we're happy that it went there and that we don't have to understand it. down near the bottom and experiences no beginning and an ending and then I'll give you one and then we'll wrap it up these are just here so you could take and spend some time thinking about them and this is the last one that's not on there the answer to all questions that begin with why is the Big Bang I'll let you contemplate that and I think you may get it and that is if someone asks you why you can't give a limited answer why was I born well because your mother and father got together yeah but why were they born well then why were because they're on planet earth well why is there a planet earth because it's in the solar system. Why is there a solar system? The answer to all questions that begin with why, the complete answer is the Big Bang. That's the reason. So you can see how silly it is to ask questions that beginning with why. And that's the answer that we came up with. Gentlemen, we're at the end of the time. I'm going to go to bed. There's a movie available and thank you all very much for your attention. Thank you.