Sandy B. at the Far Corners Spiritual Retreat – 2006

What I'd like to do, okay, I want to welcome everybody here and I want to start out by reading the prayer of St. Francis. I think it's a wonderful way to set the stage for the weekend. You can just listen or read along. Lord make me a channel of thy peace, that where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there was wrong, I made bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I'm neighboring harmony, where there's error. I'm maybe in truth that where there is doubt, I mean, bring faith, that where there is despair, I make bring hope that where there are shadows, I may bring light that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted. To understand than to being understood. To love than to loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is dying that one awakens to life eternal. Okay. Now what I wanted to do on this lecture was to get the whole weekend off the ground. This was going to be the catapult shot into the fourth dimension of existence. And we're going to try and get this whole room airborne. And Day Springs has lots of groups that try and do this. and they have this room rigged with a spiritual weight and balance, which any of you pilots know that you have to comply with the weight and balance or you cannot get off the ground. And this is the report that they gave me and we're going to have to get up, leave the room and go out and check the baggage that they have shown is in this room. And this is what's in here. I don't know who brought it in, but it's here. We've got three bags full of worry about our own health. We've Got two bags of anger at the government. We have five bags obsession with financial problems. Two bags worried about children's health and emotional condition Six bags concerned that the future may contain one disaster after another A half a bag, we don't see this often Fear that a rental car will be broken into Four bags resentment that life never seems to straighten out Two bags, fear that things will go out of control without cell phones. Three bags, annoying concern that we may look bad to some stranger. Five bags, that someone else's impotence will rub off. three bags that the past just won't leave us alone and one bag worry that no one will enjoy the far corners weekend. I don't know who that is. So we're actually going to get up walk outside whatever baggage you brought in here Any worry, anything, and check it with your higher power. And see if when you come back in, you feel lighter. In other words, no baggage whatsoever is allowed aboard. And we're just going to quickly go out the doors, every one of us, just say whatever you say to check it, whatever you're going to leave out there, and come right back in. I'm going with you. Let me tell you what I am thinking about this weekend. You've seen the schedule, there's lots of free time and there's four main lectures and a couple little exercises that are not too heavy duty. And what I'm hoping is that by telling stories, which is the only way you can really talk about God, is to tell stories since we can't see God. And so I've got a collection of stories and I just want to share them. And out of stories may come a new way of looking at things. and a new way of looking at things is an awakening. That's what an awakening is. You suddenly are looking at it differently. I remember with my sponsor, he'd get through explaining something, and I would say, well, if you put it that way... And it looked entirely different, and it wasn't as bad as the way I was looking at It. And so there are interesting thought provokers that I remember somebody telling me about. One of them was, you know a chicken is nothing more than an egg's way of reproducing itself. Not the normal way of looking at the chicken and the egg, is it? So you sit back and you just go, whoa, never thought about a chicken that way that he's just the middle man. And the other one was that mankind is a star's way of becoming aware of itself. That's the only function we're serving in the universe. So you go, well, I never would have thought of it that way. And so the point is, hopefully this will enable us to look at things differently. And what I want to start out with is just a few focal points about our program and the principles that we have starting at the end instead of the beginning. Starting with having had a spiritual awakening. In other words, use that as a starting point. Everybody knows where that is. It's in the 12th step, and having had a spiritual awakening. And then right after that it says, as the result of this program. Not one of the results, but the result of this programme. And then it goes on to say we carry this message to alcoholics who are still suffering. So I've just said it out loud, But sometimes we have to go to ourselves, well, what message am I carrying? How to have a spiritual awakening. This message is how to have a spiritual awakening. And so that is the point of our 12-step program is to cause us to see the world as a more comfortable place to live through a process of awakening so that there's nothing for alcohol to fix. That would be one way of looking at the program. I'm just giving you a way that it looks to me today, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. So have I had a spiritual awakening? What does one look like? Well, in the 12 and 12 Bill talks about a spiritual awakening is essentially a gift from our higher power. It's a gift. Could come at any time. But the steps are designed to make us ready to receive this gift. It is very unlikely it is going to arrive while I am on a drunk somewhere, but the odds are much better when I have done the preparation work to be open to receive this, much like you move out in the country and if you want to get mail, you've got to build a mailbox. In accordance with the specifications of the post office, it doesn't guarantee you'll get mail. But you won't get it without them. And so the self-centered guy said, screw that, throw it on the lawn. which is not how the post office operates, so he never gets any mail and concludes that no one ever writes him. So we conclude there is no higher power. I didn't put the mailbox out. I didn' t see any spiritual awakening. I didn''t prepare so that it could arrive. So as we look at this, the key to this is awakening That's the key word in the whole deal. And so as we go back through the steps, there's a time when I think the awakening occurs. And the awakening would occur when you are using, you know, spiritual things are almost like miracles. And we wouldn't use the normal verbs in describing an intellectual process. We would have something magical, like self-seeking slipping away. That doesn't happen in a psychiatrist's office. It doesn't happened anywhere except in the spiritual world. Well, I thought about myself, thought about myself, though about myself. Now, I don't know where the hell it went. What do you mean, slipped away? I don' t know. I just am not obsessed with it anymore. I used to be obsessed with alcohol and it slipped away. I was placed in a position of neutrality. Now, you're not going to hear a therapist say that. 20 visits, 200 bucks each, you will be in a condition of neutrility where you will have to pay for it. You will be safe and secure. So what I'm saying is right there at the end of the promises is the awakening it's as clear as a bell it's been there all those years I don't think I thought of eight years ago that's where it is I just thought it came in the middle of 12 steps somewhere in some vague place that you know we had it as a result of these but then in the 11th step it said we improve our conscious contact so it must have been established somewhere so I'm taking a shot that this is the place. And we look at that and it's just amazing. Fear of people, economic insecurity will leave us. You got it one day it's gone the next and nobody gave you any money. There's something has happened that is protecting us and causing us to see our situation differently than we were seeing it before and that's where the comfort came from. And then you know Bill talks about the gradual spiritual awakening and the sudden one that he had I think he quoted William James with the educational variety and he had his hot flash in the town's hospital just sitting there well if there is a God show him to me boom out of the blue And the rest of us, as William James says, we have to be content with patient improvement. Which would lead us to believe that maybe you don't get this boom like that. But I would submit to you that the garden variety one, it takes longer, but when it arrives, it arrives suddenly. And so there's the sentence. we suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. There is a moment in each of our lives when we just go, whoa! And everybody has a story about that. I had one in the third month and then probably about five years. And then in the last three years more things have happened than the other 39 combined. So there's good news for the rest of our time in this realm, this spiritual realm. It's unbelievable what can be seen. And it came about when by accident I was reading somebody and suggested that you focus on seeking. Period. I think in one of the later lectures, I'm going to start it off with did you ever say to somebody, you know, pal, you're just looking for trouble. You know that sentence? Why are we cautioning him? Because if he's looking for it, what's going to happen? He's going to find it. You know what I mean? He goes into the first bar. Hey, I am looking for trouble. Trouble isn't there. He goes to the second bar. I'm looking for trouble. Truble isn't there. The third bar. Hey, I'm looking for trouble over here, pal. And he just found trouble. You follow what I'm saying? How did he find it? He went looking for it. That was what he did. So if you look for something, you're going to get it. If we look for a closer contact with our higher power, we're goingto get it, it's not complicated, it'snot vague where I sit around wondering if something is going to happen, it's very focused, I'm going to focus on finding so seek and we'll find, that's what we ended up with the motto for this particular weekend. And so what is standing in the way? We don't talk enough about this, in my opinion, which is the ego. And to have a firmer picture of what the dynamics of this is by making up stories. That's all you can do. Can't see an ego. All kinds of books, you know, psychiatric books. Well, the ego is. And you read it and you go, yeah, that's good. It's like me, not doctors, somebody explaining an appendix to me. That's good, where is it? Oh, it's right there. Good, I hope it works. I don't understand all that stuff. So I heard a speaker talk years ago and I just loved it, it was so clever. And I've been using this a little bit lately. And he got up and he went, hi, my name's Joe. I'm an alcoholic, and my story is divided into two parts. What happened during the years that I drank and what I thought happened during the years than I drank. Oh! Funny, funny, funny. Little did we know how profound that was. Little did we know how profound that was, the difference between what happened and what we thought happened. What we thought happened is what we told ourselves happened. We told ourselves what happened. So the same sentence could be made about your childhood, your marriage, your job, anything. My childhood is divided into two parts. What happened when I was a child and what I thought happened when I Was a Child. You can see there's, I never separated those. I just had, it happened. And I've recorded it in here. What is it called when you record it in there? My story. That's why when we get up to the podium, we tell our story. Where does a story come from? You make it up. you just announce it to yourself the facts are you were born on December 10th 1943 your story is I was born on a freezing cold night that could penetrate the heart on December 20th December 10, 1947 well where did that part come from what was the freezing cold break your heart gloomy ghostly which infected my life for years to come where did all that come from the ghostly sounding pretty good everybody got to have a story I might as well have one better than the neighbor we're forming an ego we're giving it life where it's appearing out of whole cloth, out of nothing, magic a writer said the ego is an imposter pretending to be you imagine that, an impuster pretending to be you. So what does it look like? well the life has been given different analogies and Shakespeare said that it was the world's a stage and we're all actors on it okay so let's go with that one let's say you're an actor that's real God made you an actor and it came to pass that you got auditioned And you've got a part in a pretty good play. And your part in the play is to sweep the floor in this stock brokerage firm. And you open the play, you're busy sweeping the floor. And from time to time during the play as the drama's going on, this guy gets the girl and this guy commits suicide, etc., People drop by and talk to you, and then the play ends with you sweeping the floor as the curtain comes down. And it's a wonderful role, and the person who wanted to be an actor could just get into that role and play it for all it was worth and be happy, joyous, and free that he had this role. Or, on the other hand, he could be playing the role and saying, why did I get the part of the janitor? I should have the lead in this play. I should get the girl in this play. Look at me, freaking broom. Every night I'm up on the stage and here's all the audience and they're looking up. Look at that jerk with a broom. Broom, broom, broom. This is, what is going on here is a tragedy of gigantic proportions. The situation that's happening to me is a bigger drama than this play. What I ought to do is market the play where I am a suffering actor who has to sweep the floor. Wouldn't it be fun to be relating to that type of dynamics? I'm sweeping the floor and thinking of suicide later. I turn to drinking because of sweeping the floor. And we go on and create a play of magnificent proportions. It's just huge. When the only play that's really going on is, I got a role sweeping the floor. That's the only place that I got. The problem is we do it long enough and we believe it. We believe the hoax that was perpetrated by ourselves on ourselves. And we're in the middle of a reality that we can't get out of. And not only are we doing it, the whole world is. It is an amazing hoodwinking when you look at it from a spiritual point of view. That we reinforce each other's. And I come over and I say, let me tell you about my play. And you go, oh man, that's a tough one. But let me talk to you about the one I'm in. And the stories that we weave about some mere facts are astounding. That it is just amazing, the ability that we have to do this. and in our literature I believe that this is discussed in three or four places where Bill writes we believe that our problems are of our own making they arise out of us. I think that's the quote in the big book the problems are of their own making they arise out of us. So how do I make a problem? I'm sweeping the floor and I say, isn't it a tragedy that I'm sweeping the floor? And then I react to it. I react to the tragedy by feeling sad, left out, everything's unfair. Why is it unfair. I just wrote an unfair story and believed it. And I'm sitting there just having the worst time in the middle of this horrible thing that's going on while I'm sweeping the floor. And of course you go to you read a lot about this in the Tibetan monks and everything. Just sweep the floor, just drink the tea. Don't make up a story about sweeping the floor. Just sweep the floor and if you know you go yeah that's good that's good but this hoodwinking is so pervasive that it's almost impossible to believe it that I could have pulled that kind of a stunt on myself and yet we got to take a look at what happened when we came into AA. How many people came in here and weren't alcoholics and became alcoholics after you got here? There's several people. Jerry, there's one. You were forced in here and then you suddenly realized that not only were you an alcoholic but you had been one for 30 years. How could you suddenly become an alcoholic for 30 years. Holy cow! That's pretty big. Well, I had to get rid of the story that I wasn't an alcoholic and I'm substituting the one now that's being explained to me that is being revealed to me now. And of course we use that throughout our literature. More will be revealed it doesn't say we will learn more we will know more we could study more no you just keep showing up seeking and then when it's appropriate it gets revealed and I was listening to some talks I gave when I had 10 years compared to the talks I give now I had a much better childhood now than I used to what is that how could you have a better childhood how could you have a better childhood it was revealed to me that I was wrong I saw things differently I saw my parents differently I saw them trying as hard as they could I saw them loving me and I never saw it before I was the kid left out no they didn't care about me well that's how it looked and that's what I reacted to at the time it's very important to understand that and we'll cover this a couple other times. An emotion is the body's reaction to a thought. That makes thinking pretty powerful, doesn't it? In other words, if Bob, if I looked over and saw the look on his face in a certain way and I said to myself, God, Bob can't stand me anymore. I would have a reaction to that like, oh my God, we've been friends all this time and now he can't stand me any more. It would be a terrible reaction. It wouldbe the same reaction as if he came up and said, I can't stand you anymore. That's how powerful thinking is. And so when we are experiencing these huge problems, they really are of our own making and we make them by thinking so that when we took and just went outside I dropped two things just and felt much lighter. I'm going to take them back. You know I'm gonna take them back I got no story without them and you can't be walking around with no story Who the hell would you be with no story? You know what I mean? Who would you be? Yeah, the hole in the donut. I'd be no one. And so with that sort of an establishment of this, we might start looking at the power that stories have in order to talk about the past which really doesn't exist you have to make up a story about it now I'll tell you what happened last year they really screwed me over at work and they really did this and they didn't do that and they did that let's say there was an automobile accident down here and 10 of us watched it and the cops come a half hour later are they going to get the same story from 10 people they're going to get 10 different versions of what happened out there oh no the lady swung out a little bit and then came back oh no no no there's 10 people eyewitness 10 versions of the past so you can see there is no past there's no official version of the past why it's just a story wow Okay, well then, what about the future? What is your future? Just give me an example of your future. Well, wait a minute. I've got to make it up first. I'll be right back. I'm going to go out and check on my future. And you're out there for about 15 minutes thinking carefully about the future, and you come back in and say, oh, man, I don't even want to get up tomorrow. It sucks up there. That's going to be bad, bad news. What is? And I feel terrible. Why do you feel terrible? I just told myself a terrible story and I bought it. I bought the damn story and I feel horrible. So where can one hide from all of this. Where's the only safe place to go? How about the now? This present moment is really the only place that is valid. There's no other place to go. So how do we stay in the now. Well like the violin. Oh, what's the playhouse in New York? Not the Kennedy Center. Carnegie Hall. How do you get into Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. That's how we get in the now, is practice, practice, practice. Why is it so hard? Because there's a great deal of us that does not want us to spend a second in the now. And that's our ego. The ego will be destroyed. The story will shrink down to the present moment. And it's going to feel like dying. It's goingto feel like the end. I remember my friend Hal Marley, He was telling a story about a discussion meeting about the ego. And people going around the room were saying, yeah, we just got to kill that ego. We got to killed that ego and somebody came in late and sat next to a newcomer and he said, what's the topic? And the newcomer said suicide. because that's what it feels like if it just comes down where total reality is I just am right here and that's all that's the end of my story the end OF MY STORY IS I AM a complete sentence how often do we use it? How often do you ever see I am unmodified? It's very rare. It always is, I'm exhausted. I'm ashamed. I'm angry. And then in order to really get ourselves to believe it we go, I am really angry. meaning this is reality. This is for real. And so just look at the sentences we could use almost every word there is. I'm getting old guess how I feel when I say that. Oh boy. I am goes on and on modified modified modified modified. But what if we just use the sentence with no modifier? You ever think about that? What would that sentence mean to you? I am. I think years ago there was the philosopher, I think it was Descartes, he says, I think therefore I am and then 300 years later Sartre came along and said he's wrong that the consciousness that says I think isn't the consciousness that realizes I am and that I think therefore I am was a description of the ego if I think it, it's real you see what I'm saying? if I understand that that's why it's so important that we focus on conscious contact and awakening because that is the only place that we will have a path towards our own truth. That isn't a story that we made up where we're thinking. So I am so for if we're this weekend and you're sitting as you go around the prayer of St. Francis and you just try to just sit there and go, I am and figure out who is it that's saying that? What is am? What is I am? And feel the stripping off of all the adjectives that you would put with the qualifiers you would put with that sentence and see what's left. What's that? What is that part of us, the I am? There was a character who really had this down pat. And he uttered one of the simplest spiritual sentences that's ever been uttered. And he's made fun of to this day. They ridiculed him, absolutely ridiculed him. He got up there and he said me Tarzan you Jane. That's pretty powerful. Me Tarzan, you Jane. Felt so good that he went and then he got a vine and just went boom fortunately some sociologists and some social workers saw his plight and rescued him from this backward existence and brought him to New York where they could tutor him and educate him about the real world. And pretty soon he had gone through school and he was getting smart and he was understanding how that whole deal operated. And they told him he couldn't have that name. That just wasn't going to work in New York City. and you remember Mr. T years ago he was such a cool character we're going to reduce that to T we're gonna call you T Jungle what a name that was he would show up in one of the clubs at night with that big body and that handsome look hey I'm T Jungle I'm ready to rumble it was really amazing and he got into drugs and alcohol and found himself in a lot of pain fit right in wanted to be like everybody else all screwed up and after a while he just was thinking of suicide it was just awful and he went to a shrink and he said well Mr. Jungle I'll see what I can do I don't know. This is a tough one. He said, I'll tell you what I'll do. Because the T didn't relate to paying somebody to talk. And he said, I won't charge you anything unless I fix your problem. Is that a deal? But it's $200 an hour, but I won' t charge you anything unless I completely fix your problem. So he went there year after year sitting in a chair instead of running around in the jungle. Now he's sitting more sophisticated in a chair and he's talking about how I don't understand what's going on. Everybody seems to be treating me unfairly. I don' t know. I'm at work. I can't figure out. It's all so confusing. And he worked and worked and worked and at the end of three years the psychiatrist and he agreed that he indeed felt much better. And the psychiatrist said to him, this is what you have to do. And it's absolutely essential. You just have to be yourself. Really? Yeah. Just be yourself! And he walked out and he felt damn good. Cost him $163,000 but he felt damn good and he got out in front of that psychiatrist's office and he just didn't even give a damn about the people around he just stood there and he went and he came back and he changed his name went down there and said I'm going to legally change my name I don't like that T-Jungle what do you want? I want Tarzan Tarzan what? Tarzan, nothing. Just Tarzan. That's what I want to be known as. And he came back to work and I'll tell you that it was amazing. He started closing one deal after another. He was always happy. He'd be going in and out of there and the people in the firm were just going, boy, this is amazing. This guy has really been transformed. and whenever he'd come in to the lobby and the people at their desks could hear this they'd all go well Tarzan just closed another big deal and the firm's doing a lot better and there was a lot of joy going around and he stopped hanging around in the joints that he was in he started meeting a different crowd of people and he met a very nice woman and they started dating and a few years went by and they got engaged and a lot of people to a wedding and they had about 300 people in the church and the minister stood up there and performed these wonderful ceremonies. There was singing, there was a great deal of happiness and finally at the proper moment he just raised his hand and he said, by the power that is vested in me by the creator of the universe, I now pronounce you Tarzan and Jane. And they turned around and faced the congregation and everybody stood up and raised their hands and in unison they went, oh! and somewhere nowhere and everywhere a creator looked down and smiled as a matter of fact he laughed he was so happy he laughed and the people who attended that church swear to this day that after they all gave that roar at the end a couple seconds later there was an echo from the ceiling of the church and there'd never been an echo in that church and there's never been one since. The simplicity of just being is all we're looking for. There's nothing more to it. Part of us thinks that it's important that we contribute to the unfolding of life and all we can ever do is editorialize on it report on it it unfolds as it's supposed to unfold in exactly the fashion it's suppose to be what I need to stop doing is making up a story about it like a reporter you follow what I'm saying My boss came in. He said that. That's the line in the play. My boss said this. I said that I'm the reporter reporting on my life. I said, my boss just said mean words to me. No, he said these words. I determined they were mean. And then I became very upset at my reporting of the words. And so what I'm hoping we get out of this is an ability to separate the story that we keep telling ourselves with the simplicity of who we really are. And let's use that this weekend as you go around just enjoying whatever it is that you really are I decided about three years ago that that was my top goal. I thought about what are all the things that a human being could try and do? And I decided that I wanted to find out what I am. Behind the story, what is there? And I want to see how much I can awaken. when Bill writes the answer is in more spiritual growth that's what I think he wrote the answer isn't awakening more that's what growth is it isn't some that's just my opinion that's my view as I see it today it is placing myself so that more can be revealed how do I do that I look for signposts to follow. I'm looking for signs. In other words, I go along and nobody can tell me the truth about myself. They can only point me over there, over there. Might be an author. It might be whatever. In our 11th step in both the big book and the 12 and 12, it suggests, It says the world is full of books, rabbis, preachers, advisors. Go seek and see where that takes you. And so we're here now try and become a focused seeker or not. If when you contemplate what is the most important thing for me and you come up with that, you can become your own seeker and eliminate all the other goals. You know what it says? Seek you first knowing yourself and everything else will straighten out. It's the old thing about the father who's trying to make the kid busy, tears up the map of the world and says, let me see you put it together. And he comes back in a minute and it's all together. And he said, how did he know where all those countries were? And then the kid said, oh, on the other side of the picture was a picture of a man. I put the man together and the world came together. It is very hard for us to go past our own ego and realize that if we did focus on that one purpose, that everything would straighten out. Let's see if it happens this weekend. We're at the end of 630, is that when we stop? I forgot. It is? Okay, let's take a break and have some coffee, visit. Let's get to know each other. We'll be at dinner at 7 and then be back over here I think at 830. Okay, thank you for your attention. Thank you.