Sandy B. at the Far Corners Spiritual Retreat – 2011

Okay, we're getting close to what I think is the highlight of the weekend, which is\nthis four, four and a half hours of silence.\nIt generally is the most memorable later on, especially for those of you that haven't done\nit before, so I hope you enjoy it a lot.\nWell, we left off yesterday talking about the fact that all of our life suddenly was\na story, a series of stories, and that we had no idea whether they were true or not\nas we started inventorying them.\nAnd that not only was what we were going through today a story, but our past was a series of\nstories, and the future was a series of stories that was frightening us, and many of them\nwere illusions, delusions, and it all is very confusing.\nSo the problem arises, how do you get out of story land?\nHow do you get, how can we?\nHow can we break through, and the answer is, with stories.\nIt's just amazing that the answer is going to be stories, which is the role of the storyteller.\nAnd one of the great writers about that was Joseph Campbell, and he talked about the importance\nof myths, fables, stories.\nAnd they were designed to enable us to transcend reality and to see beyond into a more mystical\nreality.\nAnd so that all sounds, okay, I guess I'm going to have to go along.\nBut it sounds, I don't know if I'm that familiar with that.\nWell.\nWhen you have the disease of alcoholism and you go to a psychiatrist or a psychologist,\nthey say to you, well, sit down.\nTell me all about yourself.\nTell me all about your problems.\nTell me all about this, and I'll see if I can help you.\nAnd in nine cases out of ten, they are unable to help.\nSo the person calls Alcoholics Anonymous, and the representative, his sponsor, comes\nover to the house, and doesn't ask him one damn thing.\nHe says, hi, son, sit down, I'm going to tell you all about me.\nAnd he tells him his own story about what it was like being an alcoholic, what happened,\netc., etc.\nAnd in the process of telling that story, an identification takes place.\nDr. Bob talks about it.\nHe said, I never was in the presence of anyone who knew how I felt, who knew everything.\nAnd because of that, the entire situation looked different.\nAnd the person was willing...\nto trust this stranger who just arrived two hours earlier\nwith stuff he hadn't told anybody else in his life.\nWhat is that?\nAnd the only reason it happened\nis because this person who called on him\nshared with him his story.\nSo suddenly we're finding\nnow the story has a great healing and transcending power.\nAnd so this is how the spiritual world\nhas to be approached\nbecause it cannot be described in regular terms.\nAnd so we have stories like the prodigal son.\nAnd when you tell that, then you go,\nyeah, that's me.\nSo this mess of a life that we had\nhas been captured.\nIt's been captured all in one little story\nthat he left the father,\nwent out on his own,\ngot to the end of the line,\nhit the bottom, came home,\nand was royally welcomed\ninstead of being chastised.\nAnd if that isn't similar to Alcoholics Anonymous,\neverywhere we went as a drunk,\nthey were looking down at us,\npointing their finger and telling us\nwhat to do.\nWhether it was a doctor, a wife, a father, or a judge.\nIt was this way.\nAnd we came here and it was like\neverybody was so glad to see us.\nRemember what a strange feeling that was?\nWhy are you glad to see me?\nNobody else in the world is glad to see me.\nOh, you're home.\nYou're home.\nIf this isn't the sequel to the prodigal son,\nI don't know what is.\nThis journey out and this journey back.\nAnd let me see.\nMy mind's so tired from those questions.\nI didn't realize how much work that is.\nSo we're trying to break through\nthe problem of being a separate entity,\nwhich is a very powerful story\nthat we're trying to break through.\nWe've been telling ourselves forever.\nAnd the way to do that is to hear about how other people did it and what they saw and to strike a chord inside of us.\nWe had misdiagnosed our problem.\nWe never could diagnose it that we were too far away from God.\nIt was this, it was that, it was this.\nBut if we think about it, we were told that the problem that we have is a spiritual one.\nAnd we said, no, it's a material one.\nNo, it's a physical one.\nNo, your problem is a spiritual one.\nYou really miss God.\nIt's inside of you.\nChuck was talking about that, that law that's inside of us.\nThe thing that is, that was placed there that forces us to move in a different direction.\nAnd now we're going to acknowledge its existence.\nThat the yearning for God has been there all along and we mischaracterized it.\nAnd we start looking to see.\nSee if it is there.\nAnd all of a sudden, we realize, yeah, it is there.\nAnd this little bit of spirituality that we start getting in Alcoholics Anonymous in the beginning as people tell their stories.\nAnd I'll tell you when it hit me.\nI could not believe this when this hit me.\nI was five months old.\nYou know, shaken.\nAnd it's all about me.\nI go, I got these kids.\nI don't think they can feel it.\nAnd I just, you know, I was totally obsessed.\nIf you ask me, what did the speaker just say?\nI don't know.\nI was very busy.\nI'm sorry.\nI couldn't hear what he said.\nRemember that condition?\nYou just.\nSomehow, I noticed a new guy coming in.\nSomething caught my attention.\nI saw him coming in.\nAnd I guess he reminded me of me.\nFive months earlier, he was so scared.\nAnd I could just see the way he was looking.\nAnd whoever was with him showed him the coffee pot.\nSo he went over to the thing.\nAnd he got the cup.\nAnd it started shaking.\nAnd the cup was spilling.\nAnd so he put it down.\nAnd he went and didn't have coffee during the meeting.\nHe just sat there.\nAnd I could see his face getting red.\nAnd I knew that.\nI just said, oh, yeah, I know that.\nAnd then he was gone.\nAnd I never, you know.\nWell, the next week, I'm there.\nAnd I cannot believe it.\nI'm looking for this guy.\nI'm looking for this guy.\nAnd he isn't there.\nAnd I'm feeling some strange thing inside of me.\nLike, I wish he was here.\nWhat the hell is that?\nWhat do I care about that jerk?\nBut he wasn't there.\nAnd about 10.5.\n10 minutes into the meeting, he comes in.\nAnd I remember just a feeling, a little feeling of some kind of strange happiness that this guy was there.\nAnd then he went over to the coffee pot again with the cup.\nAnd I saw how shaky he was.\nSo he only took half.\nAnd then he got.\nAnd he's given this little routine.\nAnd he gets it over.\nAnd he sits down.\nAnd he was so proud of himself.\nThat he got the cup.\nAnd he didn't spill it.\nAnd inside of me came, yay!\nLike I was his biggest fan for getting that cup of coffee over to his table.\nAnd the question was, what the hell just happened?\nWhat the hell is this?\nAnd that was my first glimpse of that part of me.\nThat everybody had.\nThat everybody told me existed.\nAnd it was, I'll never forget the feeling.\nIt was the first time I started giving a damn about anyone else in the world was that guy.\nAnd then you know how it happened.\nYou all had that happen.\nNow, maybe not with that guy, but with somebody in AA.\nAnd then it slowly started to expand.\nAnd you heard that somebody lost a child.\nShe didn't.\nShe didn't give birth.\nAnd you just started feeling that pain for that person.\nYou didn't even know her name.\nAnd you started seeing, miraculously, before your own eyes,\nthe old story dissolving about who you are.\nAnd this thing being revealed.\nWhat are you?\nSome kind of softy?\nThat was the first feeling I had.\nWhat are you?\nLosing your edge?\nYou're not the tough guy anymore?\nI was so confused to find out that I was another child of God.\nAnd it slowly got revealed here.\nI just think that was one of the greatest things that ever happened.\nBill Wilson.\nBill Wilson came up with a name for AA that I've, and you may have heard this.\nHe said, AA is an utter simplicity which contains a complete mystery.\nNow, there's a mouthful.\nBut it is.\nWhat transformed me?\nOne guy coming to my house telling me about himself\nto the extent that I trusted him within two hours\nand became willing to do what was suggested to me.\nAt the first meeting, I started feeling rebellious\nand that it was the old feeling.\nAnd I started to leave.\nAnd I stood out on the damn porch of this old odd fella's hall.\nAnd it was sleeting a little bit.\nAnd there were no streetlights.\nI didn't know which way to run.\nBut I was going.\nI just, this was too much all at once.\nAnd I felt a hand on my shoulder.\nIt was an Al-Anon lady named Betsy Lynch.\nAnd I turned around and she said,\nCome on back in.\nEverything's going to be fine.\nAnd I knew it.\nI turned around and went back in.\nAnd it's been fine ever since.\nJust the human touch on my shoulder.\nKurtz's second book after Not God is AA the Story.\nI just love that.\nIt keeps showing up everywhere.\nAnd it's really,\nit's really the history book that's contained in Not God\nplus ten more years of AA history.\nI think it goes from the 70s to the 80s.\nAnd Ernie makes a wonderful description of Alcoholics Anonymous.\nAnd I've almost got it committed to memory,\nso I'll see if I can get it.\nHe makes this statement.\nI think it's, and I've said it a few times,\nso some of you have heard it.\nHe said,\nIn an almost magical manner,\nAlcoholics Anonymous was able to provide\nto its religious and non-religious members alike\na view of the universe and their place in it,\nwhich is both comforting and exciting.\nIn doing so,\nthey borrowed from religion everything,\nwhich is powerful and uniting,\nwhile politely declining\neverything that is divisive and self-serving.\nYou could almost call it\nthe spiritual heist of the century.\nAnd they did it all unconsciously without realizing it.\nNow,\nthat is an explanation\nof how AA came to be.\nThey did it all unconsciously without realizing it.\nIn that statement,\nyou realize that something was guiding the whole damn thing.\nIt's just impossible\nto see it any other way.\nAnd as you get sober longer and longer,\nand get more and more sober,\nand get more and more sober,\ninterested in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, you start realizing that AA was a happening.\nHow did AA get started? It just happened. A lot of groups get started that way. I don't\nknow. We were sitting around. He said this. It just happened. It just happened. It just\nhappened. And yet it all fits together perfectly. And the message has been strong enough to\nbe carried all over the world. It's just happening. So suppose somebody came up to\nme and said, I want you to prove in a court of law that the 12 steps work. You think you\ncould do that? I'd say, oh, yeah, that'd be a piece of cake. All right, well, let's go\nin the courtroom. So I'm sitting in there. We got a jury. We got a judge. And the judge\nsays, OK, make your case. We're all listening.\nI said, OK. I'm going to call as my first witness Jim Sherman from Los Angeles. Jim comes\nup. Do you swear to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth, to help you out? Yes,\nsir, I do. And he sits down. And I go, Jim, tell us how it was, what happened, and what\nit's like now. And Jim goes, thank you, Jim. You want to cross-examine? Yep. He could ask\nhim every damn question in the world.\nEvery trick question. And all he'd get is honest answers. There'd be nothing to hide.\nIt would be the piece of cake to take cross-examination on your own story. And then he'd sit down.\nAnd then I'd call all 60 witnesses up. And then I'd rest my case. And I think we'd get\na unanimous jury that the 12 steps work, based on just hearing these stories of recovery.\nThat's a very powerful happening. And I think it shows us the power of story to transcend\nthe reality that the self-made stories created for us.\nLet me see.\nThe...\nOne of the things that I think is very important to me is that I think that I'm a little bit\nthe great stories that we tell ourselves that causes us the most problem and prevents us from\nreally getting comfortable with our lives is the story of dying. This is the ego's ultimate weapon.\nDon't forget you're going to die. You're going to die. Dying is bad. Dying, dying.\nAnd so it has to be dealt with. I remember writing one time, they used the term, life is precious.\nAnd I wrote after that, well, if that's true, then death is beyond precious.\nThis is the fourth dimension. This is way beyond.\nAnd stories enable us to see the eternal nature of ourselves and come to the realization that we don't die.\nThat the ego dies, the body may die, but the spirit, there is this main part of ourselves, this spirit that is not affected by this material world at all.\nThe trick is to see it. And it's the same as these holograms.\nWhen you see it, it's a whole different ballgame.\nWhen we can sense the connection to God improving, the eternal nature of things is part of what we see and what we actually feel.\nAnd boy, as far as I'm concerned, I've done my 80 years.\nMan, let somebody else hang around down here.\nI want to hit the jackpot. I'm not going to do anything, but I'm ready.\nThere was a story about, if there is a heaven or whatever you call it, but the two new arrivals are up there and they're chatting.\nAnd one of them said, how long were you down there?\nHe said, 91 years.\nAnd the last 30 sucked.\nI was in pain. I was this. I was that.\nI am so glad to be, I just, it's just the most, wow.\nThat was fun. I had this and that.\nHow about you?\nWell, actually, I died at two and a half months with crib death.\nSomehow I got the blanket twisted around and cut off oxygen.\nAnd so that's why I'm here.\nAnd the first one said, you did that on purpose, didn't you?\nDeath has to be made into a non-entity.\nIt has to be seen for what it is.\nIt is the opposite end of birth.\nIt is just the opposite side of the same thing.\nWhat was, if birth was the start, what was there before that?\nThe only thing that is afraid of dying is the ego.\nBecause it's really gone.\nThat storyteller is gone.\nBut your eternal nature, and as we get comfortable in seeing this,\nit changes life.\nIt's such a life-changing thing.\nto stop even having death be a word that can frighten us.\nIn my own case, I was so afraid of the word that when my sponsor was ill,\nno, not my sponsor, it was a very close friend of both of us,\nI was afraid to go in the hospital and visit him because the hospital reminded me of dying.\nThat's where people go to die.\nI would just be terrified to go in.\nAnd so my sponsors went with me.\nAnd I started feeling a little more comfortable, a little more comfortable.\nThen I was around somebody while they were dying.\nAnd then people started dying all over the place.\nAnd pretty soon I just was comfortable with it.\nI just said, oh, yeah, this is how it happens.\nAnd finally I volunteered in hospice.\nAnd I'd go sit with people and talk to them and ask them,\nwell, how are you feeling, this and that?\nAnd I broke a lot of hospice rules.\nI used to take people for drives in my car.\nYou're not supposed to put them in your car and all that.\nAnd so it became normal.\nThis is just normal.\nWhereas before, I had given it so much power.\nOver me that I couldn't even entertain the idea of addressing it.\nAnd so I just urge any of you that are still struggling with that\nto put that ghost to rest.\nIt is essential to have peace of mind\nbecause it's just, until we examine it,\nit's given inordinate power in our lives,\nthe thought of our own death.\nAnd it can be a very joyful force.\nI thought, boy, at the end of this thing, there's a jackpot.\nThat's when the jackpot comes.\nAnd it's a whole different way of looking at it.\nAnd so I would put that on your list of things to overcome,\nthings to erase.\nWhatever story you have,\nthis is the time to erase that\nbecause it will play such great dividends.\nOh, let's see.\nSome of the things that help us\nbreak through the illusions and the stories\nare meditation, as we talked about,\nthinking about things that we never thought of before,\nwhen you describe yourself,\nit always has an adjective or an adverb\nattached to it.\nAnd what's going on?\nI'm anxious these days.\nWell, I'm a little worried about this.\nWell, I'm hanging around.\nI'm waiting to do this.\nAnd the spiritual writers suggest that you take that sentence\nand take all the adverbs and adjectives off\nand just...\nJust think about the sentence without any modification.\nThe pure essence.\nSo the sentence reads, I am.\nDo you feel how uncomfortable you are when it feels like the sentence isn't finished?\nYou are what?\nYou're waiting for the modifier to go on there.\nBut we don't need a modifier.\nWhen you sit back and allow those two words, what is that, that you are?\nAnd it doesn't take long to see that there's a lot of truth hidden in those two words\nthat hasn't been sufficiently revealed to us.\nWhat is the full meaning and impact of I am?\nIf you don't know, you don't know.\nIf you don't know, you don't know.\nIf you take time on that, you're going to be amazed what starts coming into view.\nYou start realizing what an integral part of the universe you are.\nAnd how important you are in the scheme of things.\nYou are someone who is aware of yourself.\nAnd that's enough.\nAnd that's enough to sustain our attention forever and ever.\nIf we stay there.\nThe other thing that is our great friend is something we're going to engage in soon.\nAnd that is silence.\nThere's silence is, it's almost like where everything is stored.\nWhere all the stories that transcend are filed away.\nWaiting for us to spend some time there.\nSilence is the great space between thoughts.\nIt is, it is just, I think one of those books back there is the thunder of silence.\nWhat a nice term that is.\nWhat is in there?\nHow much time have we spent checking out?\nWhat do they keep in the silence?\nWhat's in there?\nWell, here's a chance to start experiencing that.\nAnd then the final word that is a very transcending word is the present.\nThe present moment.\nRight now.\nThere is so much contained in the present moment.\nThat you could have all the mysteries of life just revealed.\nRight there.\nBut we don't know how to stay there.\nWe're just so preoccupied with stories about other places.\nThat we've never fully checked out the present moment.\nIt's almost like going out in your own backyard and seeing how much spiritual energy is out there.\nJust sit there on a chair and look over at this corner and look over there.\nYeah, that's where the dog sleeps.\nAnd you could be transcended by your own backyard.\nJust looking to see what can be revealed.\nJust by sitting there.\nAnd taking it all in.\nI don't know if you've done that.\nIt's amazing.\nYou don't need to go to India or Tibet or anywhere.\nThe sacred ground is where you are.\nAnd maybe you'll experience some of that.\nDuring this silence.\nAnd realize.\nThat you've been created.\nAs the only living creature that can fully be aware of our universe.\nAnd this creator that created it.\nAnd there must be a reason.\nThat we were put in this position.\nAnd it wasn't to endure something.\nIt was because it was all intended for us.\nI believe that this whole thing was so that we could see it and be part of it.\nAnd take it all in.\nAppreciate it.\nLove it.\nAnd wonder at the magnificence.\nOf everything that is in existence.\nFrom a blade of grass.\nTo a sound.\nTo music.\nTo smell of your favorite food.\nTo the people around you here.\nYou just.\nAwareness lifts.\nAnd you just realize everything is God.\nAnd you are an integral part of that.\nEverything else is an integral part.\nBut it isn't aware of it.\nSo that's our special connection.\nSo when we enter this.\nAnd we're going to do that very shortly.\nTry to take some of these thoughts.\nAnd ideas with you.\nAnd.\nSee your place in the universe.\nAnd see everybody else's.\nAnd see if you don't.\nAs Chuck.\nI mean boy when he started talking about.\nTo those college kids.\nAnd he said well the most important part of that prayer.\nAre the first two words.\nOur father.\nThat wouldn't be a bad thing to take into the silence.\nAnd look around.\nAnd realize we all in this room have a common father.\nWhat does that make us.\nTo each other.\nIt's breathtaking.\nIt's breathtaking.\nTo see beyond those old stories.\nIt's.\nOh God is it exciting.\nAnd it's.\nYou're this close.\nThis is the.\nThis is the best part.\nYou're this freaking close.\nSo just keep at it.\nSo we'll.\nWe'll just take a moment to.\nAsk for some guidance going into the silence.\nAnd then we'll all be on our own until after dinner.\nAnd we come back here and assemble.\nAnd then.\nThere'll be a few.\nPeople here to help with flashlights to move us around where we're going.\nAnd.\nSo let's just take a moment and ask God to.\nBe with us in this very very special silence.\nGod we.\nWe're going to spend some very special time with you.\nAnd with all your creation.\nPlease bless our endeavors.\nAnd enable us.\nTo hear things in silence that we've never ever heard before.\nPlease help us become aware.\nOf your presence everywhere.\nAmen.