Step Two and We Agnostics – Big Book Twelve Step Workshop – Part 4 of 4 – Herb

Good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning. Good day. I have to try a very broad salutation to the demographics of our group. My name is Herb, I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our Tuesday night workshop on the steps a personal application of the steps out of the big book this call is being recorded i'm going to put up the uh set aside prayer so that we can open up with a commitment to an open mind and an open heart Lord. God, please set aside everything that I think I know about myself, my brokenness, my spiritual path and you for an open mind and a new experience with myself, my brokenness, my spiritual path and especially you. So finally, four months later, we're going to enter into step two. Chapter four, We Agnostics is built to follow step one. Now, of course, it was built by Bill to follow steps one in terms of the body and the mind problem because those are the only things he discussed up to that point. i've introduced you to a way a new way of looking at step one that's legitimate in the big book but we had to look at a piece of work in chapter four and a piece of work in chapter five to take a look at unmanageability as bill presents it bill presents it but not in the context of step one i was 10 years sober given the set aside prayer at that point and introduced to a real understanding and an experience of step 1. bill has this literary style of standing still for a minute and pausing when he goes into new territory he looks back over his shoulder as he pauses on page 44 in the preceding chapters well that would be the doctor's opinion chapters one two and three because this is chapter four chapter one is his story chapter two he wants to give us some hope there is a solution but he also wants to get very very clear with us that alcohol is really a problem so he gives us more about alcoholism and now he's about to summarize it in the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism we hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic for our purposes the addict and the on at it listen here it's right here there's only two components to addiction oh there's lots of variations on a theme and there's lots of consequences to addiction myriad un innumerable actually but there's only two according to the big book in bill wilson components for addiction if when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely the mind problem I can stop but I can't stay stopped now notice he says or he doesn't say and I believe that's significant because it's not necessary to have both of these qualities you might have one you might be able to have two you might also have the other if when drinking you have little control oh that's the body problem when i start i cannot stop you are probably an alcoholic you are possibly an addict if you have those either one of those two components now quite frankly i have never met with a lot of scrutiny and a lot conversation i have never met anybody that has just one they may think they have one until we have a conversation and maybe more than one where we start looking at their actual history and inevitably they find that they have both all i'm saying is bill casts a very broad net here either or i think when we get really some experience in delving into our history and some honesty with ourselves we see that we have both components if in fact we're an adding we might just have unhealthy habits and that's worthwhile discovering in the sense of whether you're an addict or not that's worth while knowing some people love the fellowship because of the group therapy some people love the fellowship because of their social components those people don't have to do this work in order to have a happy life they just have to manage their unhealthy habits so it's really important to know whether or not you have a death sentence an addiction an addiction is a death sentence oh it's not the guillotine dropping all at once no no no unfortunately it's a very slow tortuous death if that be the case you may be suffering from an illness which only a spirit spiritual experience will conquer well that's a huge leap um it's not even a logical leap. Because he hasn't given us much information concerning other human resources, but it's the leap that he makes and I'll just accept it. So this chapter is going to be about a spiritual experience. It's interesting that it starts out with the words, we agnostics. He's really right in your face addressing head on the problem of the god word. Even in 1939, there was a lot of negativity around the word. And today, oh my goodness. Because of the unfortunate experiences that many people have had in their family of origin or with their religious tradition it doesn't matter whether you're buddhists or taoist or hindu muslim jew christian i have had so many sad stories tragic stories from people who have had a very distorted experience with organized religion i'm not one of them i started in grammar school in kindergarten catholic schools high school college as you know i went through the seminary and the monastery even graduate school was all catholic and i never once had a bad experience very unusual it's just my life it's just my history. It's just my experience. Many people ask, are you still a Catholic? My answer is, well, once you're a Catholic, you're always a Catholic, it's in your bones, it's the marrow of your cellular structure. I mean, you've just absorbed it. I love the tradition. I loved the history, the philosophy, the theology, the ritual, the rubrics, the liturgy, I love all of that. But I have a little problem as to how it's implemented. So I say, Mike, my religion, excuse me, my tradition is Catholicism, but I am not a traditional Catholic. And I have found the 12 step process is the formula that has allowed me to find what I was looking for. And that's where I've dedicated my life to one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic. Okay, let's take a look at that. It's pretty simple. The words come from Greek. Both words come from a Greek word. The agnostics comes from gnosis. This the G silent g n o s i s no cease, which means knowledge. And when you put an A in front of it, it means no. Not knowledge. So an agnostic says, I don't know whether there's a God. In fact, I doubt it. And by the way, it's not knowable. That's what an agnostics says. In contrast to an atheist comes from the Greek word Theos, which is a derivative of the word Zeus. the Greek the father of the Greek gods they had a pantheon of gods many gods but Zeus was the main father figure of the gods and the word developed into Theos and so when you put an a in front of theos a theos it means no god so although a agnostic doubts and says it's doubtful an atheist says absolutely not there is only one reality it's a measurable reality it'S material reality. There is no invisible, there is no immaterial, there is not spiritual. To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience spiritual experience seems impossible but to continue as he is means disaster is the alcoholic especially if it's an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. That's why we spent four months on it to give you an experience with the body and experience with the mind. That addiction, powerless, no choice. No decision, no choice. Addictions a death sentence. Irrevocable, irretrievable, irredeemable. Hopeless. But we also looked at unmanageability in the same context under step one dash that our lives had become unmanable and we saw again hopeless my will on its own natural human willpower doesn't have the power to manage my life and reality and that's not theory that was the experience that we had when we looked at, with an open mind and heart, the bedevilments in relationship to our own personal history even in abstinence. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. Bill gives us the fork in the road many times. Are you going to go to the left? Or are you going to go To the right? This is the road less traveled. This is a pre selected group right here. We have 162 people on this call tonight. This Is a pre selected Group, you already know that there's a lot of work that there's assignments that it's going to feel like school and there's and it's going to be a path of self-discovery with a lot of suffering because of that and embarrassment i have promised you that deflation of the ego at death does not sound like a walk in the tulips and yet here you are knowing that we're going to meet at least once a week some of you have joined us twice a week for a year who does that who does that you do all right but here i am and i'm sad to have to say this 50 of you won't be here at the end of the fourth step i'm very sad it's my experience prove me wrong please the percentage of people who are participating has absolutely improved since um we've gone on to zoom it may not be 50 it was when we were meeting physically last year we had a 20 improvement of the people that survived the uh the rite of passage as i call it to be doomed to an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face you're at the fork in the road you can choose darkness the path from which you have come and you know very well the path of suffering or you can chose life some of you have had an experience with it i promise you a deeper and broader experience and it's going to get very bright but not very soon perhaps it isn't so difficult about half of our original fellowship were exactly of that type atheist or agnostic so please if you have any negativity any resistance to the word god hang in there yeah we're praying to set aside prayer because we're committed to a set-aside attitude release your death grip on your prejudice or at least be willing to have your uh death grip released at first some of us have tried to avoid the issue hoping against hope we were not true alcoholics but after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life or else and and i had you write out and we've discussed are you convinced that was the final assignment on step one are you convinced that your life lived on self-will will not be successful if you've done that you've probably had an experience like um either a kind of a tepid well okay i'm ready to go on or maybe oh my god i'm screwed that was part of your conversation it's not that's not in the big book perhaps it is going to be that way with you but cheer up something like half of us thought we were atheists or agnostics our experience shows that you need not be discouraged all right so now i'm going to go to some of the slides to warm us up to where we've been from a picture standpoint we've seen that we have a problem with the body and the mind we've seen that we have a bigger problem with the spiritual malady a problem of the will some people call it the spirit I call it the will it doesn't matter what you call it it's the function in you that allows you to make a choice and I'm emphasizing that because it's the key to steps two and three the will power the power of choice is the key to steps two and three it's the conundrum of step one not with regard to addiction we've already seen that's a body mind problem but with regard to unmanageability and it's a human problem it's not an addict problem 10 out of 10 humans meaning 100 percent where we addicts are extreme examples of self-will run riot bill says extreme examples meaning that the rest of the human race that aren't addicts are examples of again i'm going to repeat this model with maybe a different picture because it's critical to step one but you've looked at that and now it's going to be critical to step two it's gonna break the code of step two for you and give a lot of depth and vibration to step three not the body issue but the mind issue and the will issue the two things that make us specifically human i have a body but so does a carrot so does a dog what makes me different than vegetables and animals i have an ability to know reflexively and i have inability to make a decision a completely free decision but we looked in unmanageability at our inability inability our predisposition to no choice with regard to our willpower who am i as a human being these are not rhetorical questions please take them seriously make some notes if you want to and think about it between now and next week who am i as that human being really seriously okay i'm a finite material being absolutely i have the characteristics of a rock i have the characteristics of a carrot i have the characteristics of a gorilla i'm a finite material being i have a body and i have emotions in that body but now i have a mind to know and a will to decide there's lots of other models that will explain who we are This keeps it pretty simple, and it really is going to help you, I believe, have a new experience with steps two and three. Is God necessary? You've seen this diagram before, maybe. The Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo spent years on his back painting that ceiling in Rome. The hand that's reaching down from the right with the straight finger is the hand of God, the creator, inviting human beings out of the earth, out of the dust out of the dirt. The hand reaching up with not quite a straight finger is the designation of a human being. Genesis in the Hebrew Scripture, that first book of the Torah says God made humans in God's image and likeness. God made them man and female, male and female. God made humans. God made them in God's image and likeness God made them male and female out of the earth out of the dirt. In Aramaic, dirt Earth is Adam. Adam is not the name that the author of the poet, the poem in Genesis was giving to the species of human nature, human persons. Adam is earth or dirt. God made humans from earth or dirt? Well, here's the question we're asking now. Coming out of powerlessness, no choice in step one, now we're asked in step two, is God necessary? Well Bill doesn't say God in step too please pay attention bill scrubbed the big book or attempted to of religious words vocabulary and connotation he want he wanted it to be neutralized so that people could approach it from any angle came to believe i've asked you to look up that word and that'll be crucial today we'll look at that word that a power greater than ourselves there it is that step to a power greater than ourself not higher than ourselves not outside of ourselves not other than ourselves please listen to the words bill was a word smith paid real close attention to the words as i do emulating his modeling of precision came to believe that a power i don't know what that is but he gave it a capital letter to signify that it's special greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity all right you've heard lots of stuff in meetings discussing sanity in step two most of it's ignorant and i'm sorry i'm not judging it yes i am i'm judging it because it's unfortunate that people don't really understand the big book and the vocabulary in the big books we looked at sanity and insanity in jim's story on page 37 bill gives us a definition of sanity and insanity it comes from the latin as i mentioned then and i'll re-mention now it comes from the Latin sanus s-a-n-u-s which means health and Bill uses it in the sense of obsession an unhealthy mind on page 37 whatever the precise definition of the word may be we call this plain insanity a lack of proportion a lack of the ability to think straight that's all he means by that he doesn't mean psychiatric or psychological he just means that we have a vulnerability to an obsession that thought that hijacks us that's all it is but that's what it is and step two is a decision please pay attention the the big book doesn't say that as clearly as i do at this point i'll show you where it does imply it. Today, I'll show you that. Step two is a decision. It's very clear about step three, it's right in the step itself made a decision to turn not so much in step two. But stay with me. Step two is the decision about power. Step three is a Decision for our relationship with power. Here the difference. Step two is an invitation for you to have a concept that's it. What is your concept? And I asked you to ask yourself that. That's the first, that's the heart the bullseye of the very first step to assignment. I asked You to ask yourself, what do you believe about God? Not what you've read not what you think, not what you feel, not what you want, not what the parents said, not what the sponsor said, not what the ordained person said in your religious tradition. Nope. What do you? Last week before we got into May, here we are now in May. But now even today, what do you believe about God? Going back to the big book on page 44 if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism oh let's pause what do we mean look at those words those aren't throwaway words code of morals all right that's a code that guides our will, our decisions, morals, values, our code of ethics, our code of behavior. A better philosophy of life. Very different. That's about knowledge. That's about philosophy. That is about knowing better. That is about your interpretation of reality and your theory about living. Again, Bill's catering to us as human beings in that model that I used of will and mind, code of morals connected to our will, better philosophy of life connected to our mind. Believe me, this is not a stretch. This is not bending Bill's and the big books approach to fit my model or my philosophy, I tried to understand the big book and it came out in this way that I'm understanding me as a human being so that I can understand the Big Book and the model of recovery. If this code of morals and better philosophy of life were sufficient, we would have recovered long ago. Oh my God, every one of us has bookshelves of self-help of modes of behavior that promise freedom and enlightenment modes of knowing that promise awakening and spiritual experiences or at least satori transcendence whatever the words are in the various styles page 45 but we have found that such codes and philosophies did not save us i left the monastery in 1964 because i didn't find what i was looking for I left psychology in 1969 because I didn't find what I was looking for. I continued with self-help all the way until I got to AA, and I figured it was another self-health program. I didnít find what Iím looking for in self-Help. And in the first four years of being in AA, I did not find what ìIî was looking for. I was not looking for sobriety. i was not looking for freedom from alcohol i found it it was a gift but for those first four years i was restless irritable and discontent because i had not connected to the truth of a spiritual awakening and that's why i'm so committed to this process with all of my waking moments and consciousness to try to help people find a connection to this methodology and this solution because it's so simple and it's so effective. We could wish to be moral, I wanted to be a decent person, we could wish to be philosophically comforted i wanted to know better i have a deep thirst a deep hunger that still drives me today in the best of senses because i was converted from a seeker in 1988 to a finder but i know there's more we could will these things with all our might bill's making a transition here we i've shared this with you when we were looking at unmanageability this is where bill makes the transition from the body and the mind to will to the willpower the needed power wasn't there are human resources body and mind perhaps as marshaled by the will were not sufficient they failed utterly lack of power is our dilemma lack of willpower we had to find a power by which we could live not deal with our addiction effectively but deal with our unmanageability effectively. And it had to be a power greater than ourselves. That's in italics, repeating step to itself, a power, greater than our cells, obviously, but where and how are we going to find that power? This is the first of the second step questions in the big book. Pay attention now on page 45, where and how are we going to find this power bill's going to meander in the next 10 pages in discussion and commentary preparing us for his answer he will give us an answer on page 55. we'll look at it deeply next week be part of the assignment going forward not not tonight but know that he's he's keep he's set us up he's keyed us up here teed us up i guess they would say in the golf sport where and how we're going to find this power listen to his comment about the importance of that question well that's what this book is about its main object this book is to enable me to find a power greater than myself which will solve my problem what's my problem no it's not my addiction no it s not my partner no it is not my parents no it isn't my boss or my work work. What's my problem? He asked us earlier, you might want to even draw a line in the box to it. That first full paragraph starts lack of power is our dilemma. Lack of power is our Dilemma is our problem. That means we have written a book which will be spiritual as well as moral, spiritual meaning talking about the world of spirit, the invisible world, the immaterial world. In contrast to moral, which means value, it's not a contrast moral to immoral. Moral comes from the Latin mores, M-O-R-E-S, which mean value. It also could mean law we're going to talk about god and this is going to be the difficulty with agnostics as he said but in that next paragraph he talks about doubt and prejudice prejudice look at the word pre-judgment i've got knowledge and i've Got experience that i'm holding on to and as i've mentioned to you from the einstein quote and the whole approach to the set-aside attitude the knowledge that i have and the experience that i've had up until the point of 1988 1991 1994 2003 all four times that i worked the steps were the potential impediments to prevent me from having any new knowledge or experience and so it was brilliant of bill on page 58 say we have to let go of our old ideas well let me quote it we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start some of us have tried to hold under our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely I'm talking to you right now who think that you have an adequate and effective relationship and concept with of God and and with God to the extent that you hold on to your satisfaction you're prevented from being taken to a place that you don't even know exist. I'm not saying throw anything away. I m saying be willing to have it set aside. I am not even asking you to set it aside. That s the nature of the prayer. We re inviting the Spirit to come in and set it side, open my heart, open mind so that I can have new information and a new experience we were bothered with the thought page 46 that faith and dependence upon power beyond ourselves was something weak cowardly now this is 1939 it might not be the same right now for you or even for our culture there's been a lot of development evolution and sophistication with regard to people primarily because of the spiritual leaders that have come over from the east that have challenged us with their traditions and with their beliefs and with their consciousness practices. Their emphasis is on consciousness, our emphasis has been on rules. There's nothing wrong with rules. But we squeezed out consciousness back in the Middle Ages. We've squeezed out, consciousness out of our spiritual journey and it became rote religion. And Therefore, it lost its soul. At least that's my interpretation of it. How could a supreme being have anything to do with it at all? Capital S, capital B. Pay attention to the initial capitals of words as you read the big book. I'm going to give you an assignment to reread chapter four. This time with a different color highlighter. Because I want to give you a question. The next assignment asks you to reread chapter four from the viewpoint of negative, from the lens of what do you disagree with? What do you resist? What word or phrase in chapter four brings up resistance in you? And then highlight that or in some other way mark it. bill tries to argue with us basically as a salesperson who made all this he says as he looks up at the starry night in awe and wonder we found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than ourselves, we commence to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power which is God. Please pay attention to that. Any God that I can understand is not an adequate God because my mind is finite and whatever it is that we're thinking about is greater than ourselves by definition infinite has no beginning and no end you could look up the word that's what infinite means having no beginning end no end and because we're finite we can't even relate to that word. And we have no real adequate words, certainly, that would bring about understanding. And that's why Bill in this chapter says it's okay to not understand or comprehend fully defined. In fact, you're deluding yourself if you think you have an adequate concept of God in the sense of representing objective reality it might be adequate and effective for you and that's great and that's going to be the whole point of the exercise on step two much to our relief page 46 we discovered we did not need to consider any other's conception of god here it is please not the big books bill is really opening up our whole panoramic vision here our own conception however inadequate was sufficient to make the approach and to affect a contact with god as soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence now there's a synonym that was worthy of meditation creative intelligence oh look at that intelligence a function of the mind creative a function of the will a decision to take action this is no accident this model that i'm encouraging you to adopt a spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things next week we'll come into some very poetic mystical conversations about unpacking that term a spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things. If you want a little extra exercise look up the word imminence, look up the word transcendence hundred dollar words from theology that attempt to give us a sense of the awesomeness of this reality this being this it with a capital i we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction oh look at that power and direction direction for my mind guidance so that i know better power for my will so that I'm able to do what I know is better. Provided we take other simple steps. Okay, hold on. I wonder what he means by that. Step two and step three are a prelude to steps four through seven. Well, he said that, didn't he? Willing to go to any lengths if you have decided you want, page 58, if you Have Decided You Want What We Have and are willing to go to any length to get it dash then you are ready to take certain steps this is the warm-up to step three so he's saying that step three is the commitment there's no action in step three it's the commitment to steps four through nine we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction provided we took other simple steps We found that God does not make too hard of terms with those who seek him. To us, the realm of spirit, there it is, capital R, capital S, another synonym. He is trying to give us many different ways of looking at this concept, this reality. To us the realm on spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive. This is the magic silver bullet of the 12-step process, and especially of step two. Never exclusive, never forbidding to those who earnestly seek, to those who earnously see. When therefore we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. Could he be any clearer? Not the big books, not Bill Wilson's, not the 12 Step Fellowship's conception, certainly not your sponsors your own conception do not let any prejudice deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you that's why the dictionary has been a real companion for me and i'm inviting you to have the same experience at the start this will all we needed to commence that means to begin spiritual growth to effect our first conscious relationship with god as we understood god as we understood it all right the only words i would change in the big book are those words because i would say as we don't understand it but his intention here is to say the way you think about it is good enough really seriously even your doubt it's good enough afterward he says we find ourselves accepting many things which then seemed entirely out of reach we used our own conception however limited it is so here's the second of the second step questions on page 47 this is bill's pedagogy this is his style of teaching asking questions and then unpacking it and giving us an answer we needed to ask ourselves but one short question i hope you're taking this literally bill is sitting in front of you saying you need to ask yourself this question i'm about to give you do i now believe pause many of you are going uh no not yet i mean my god we're only on page 47 we started on page 44 we're three pages into a 14 page chapter no i'm not convinced yet okay he handles that because he knows 50 of the people are resisting because they're agnostic or atheist he's already told us that do you now believe okay so you have some resistance he gives us an or oh my god it's such a great strategy oh you don't believe yet okay are you willing to believe that's not subtle if you don t believe are you willing to believe well anybody who s had a first step experience whether it s a mild experience with any of the three parts, you're realizing that there's some inadequacy in your life and in your power and in your approach to your addiction at the very least. There is some inadequacy. I've not been successful with my addiction or I'm certainly not successful with my life so okay i've done the self-help i've done the religion i've done the therapy i've done all of the things that i've even done the 12-step program and i'm still at loose ends with it all i mean we i don't but yet believe but i'm i'm willing to be open i'm willing to be willing to be willing it's a little remote but yeah kind of a little bit there's a crack in my door and a little little light is available to come in that there is a power greater than myself bill then jumps on it as soon as a person can say that you do believe or are willing to believe we emphatically assure you that this is you're on your way it has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective structure can be built for the very first time bill introduces an architectural structure here a uh and and a metaphor analogy i'm not sure which one it is um but a picture a mental picture here of a spiritual arch through which we can walk to a new freedom and he says this this answer to this question yes i do believe or yes i'm reluctant but i am willing remotely i'm willing he said that's the cornerstone obviously the foundation has already been laid in bill's mind here that's step one the foundation, the deep excavation of powerlessness and the experience that we've had with that. And now we're laying on it a cornerstone, that first stone placed on the foundation that sets the direction of the entire arch. He mentions it again in step three he calls at the keystone which is the stone at the top of the arch which holds the arch together he mentions it again though and for the last time at the end of step five we've built the arch at the end of Step 5 and we have now at the End of Step Five look at page 75 we've walked through the arch to a new freedom at the END OF STEP FIVE the promises are there wonderful paragraph poetically beautiful paragraph mystical actually promises of walking through this spiritual arch at the end of the fifth step this spiritual arts to freedom great news for us we accept many things on faith which seem to be difficult to believe I'm sure it will work if I only believe but I cannot accept as true many of the articles of faith notice he's using terms that I've asked you to look up faith and belief we'll talk about that when I finish with my comments on the pages faith belief what do they mean how are they different than trust how are they different from one another faith and belief my dictionaries were not very helpful i'm going to give you today i believe some definitions that will be extremely helpful besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy sensitiveness unreasoning prejudice that's why we have to set aside attitude and prayer many of us have been so touchy a casual reference to spiritual things we bristle with antagonism defensiveness this sort of thinking has to be abandoned though some of us resisted we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings notice the set aside attitude faced with alcoholic destruction we were open-minded you see the option is death and darkness or light and freedom and when we really have that experience we have an open mind and an open heart alcohol is a great persuader he says it beats us into a state of reasonableness and so does reality when we look at the bedevilments and unmanageability it beats up our minds into a stage of like oh my god I need help I just can't do this on my own he says it's a tedious process. I was 10 years sober, two spiritual awakenings, and yet those bedevilments were still technicolor in my life, restless, irritable, and discontent. So he's going to give us a bunch of reasons now. He's goingto give us facts. He is going to talk about science and electricity he's going to talk about science and uh molecules on page um 48 and the prosaic steel girder electrons he was a dilettante at science and it still makes sense to us on page 49 he's gonna talk a little bit about poetry and all-powerful guiding creative intelligence beautiful concept poetic mystical he's trying now in his sales role instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agent spearheads of god's ever-advancing creation beautiful concepts coming from i believe pierre de chardon's work at the turn of the century the phenomenon of man if you're interested we agnostic and atheists choose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word the alpha and omega that comes right out of Pierre Desjardins the beginning in the end rather vain of us at all so he's going to now shame us and guilt us oh Bill's a manipulator we have to travel this if we are traveling this path of doubt he says here in the next paragraph we beg of you to lay aside prejudice so now he's down on his knees saying please open up your mind and heart look at the faiths now he is going to appeal to evidence eighty percent of the world's population believes in some kind of faith it doesn't does don't you see they have stability happiness and usefulness his salesmanship again page 50. we never gave the spiritual side a fair hearing whether we agree with a particular approach or conception seems to make little difference experience has taught us that these matters for our purpose we need not be worried they are questions for each individual to settle for himself boy i hope you're hearing the theme here on one proposition however everybody's agreed everybody seems to believe that they have gained an access to and believe in a power greater than themselves this power in each case accomplished the miracle they flatly declared that since they have come to believe that's the first that'sthe second step isn't it came to believe do you hear the process there See, this is not a light switch. This is a dimmer switch came to believe. I was 10 years sober thinking that I had done steps two and three because I did it on the basis of my religious tradition. All my thoughts and my feelings up to that point, all my vocabulary, all My words were all coming from my religious tradition and later on after i finished the work that third time in 10 years of sobriety i realized that my concept of god was the very impediment to my relationship with the mystery it's powerful all my theology all my understanding was the everything that got in my way they flatly declared that since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves to take a certain attitude toward that power you'll see he talks about attitude in step two we'll see it next week and do certain simple things steps four through nine there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking thinking of the mind living of the will spiritual awakening a change in the way we think and feel and behave and it's done to us not by us but not without us I introduced that in the second meeting that we had in January appendix two he refers to it a couple times in this chapter to go back to it take a look at it. In the face of collapse and despair, step one, in the face Of total failure of our human resources unmanageability, they found that a new power peace and happiness and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. I wonder what that means in my wondering i came to a conclusion based on my experience it means that i finished step nine do you notice he says wholeheartedly to the best of my ability met a few simple requirements not suggestions here if you want a spiritual awakening these are the requirements that you take these actions once confused and baffled i'm on page 51. they are seeming futility of existence they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going leaving aside the drink question hello addiction's not the problem they tell us why living was so unsatisfactory unmanageability is the problem they show how the change came over them when hundreds of people now thousands now hundreds of thousands of people millions of people actually are able to say the consciousness of the presence of god is today the most important fact of their lives completely confirming what he says in appendix 2 read it again it's a page and a half awareness of the presence of god is the essence of a spiritual experience awareness awareness is the conscious contact step two is a confirmation that we're in constant contact step 2 is an invitation to become conscious of that content step 3 is a invitation to turn that conscious contact into a relationship and steps four through nine are the steps that remove the obstacles to that relationship step 10 continues removing those obstacles so that relationship and step 11 is sitting in meditation to improve that conscious contact oh my god that's how it works again though he's going to go back to some cajoling here we're fettered by superstition tradition and all sorts of fixed ideas he talks about columbus and galileo perhaps in our discussion we'll talk about colombus and Galileo and what it means here i'm not going to take our time to do that right now but fettered he's got a great command of the english language maybe some of you looked it up when i looked it up in a dictionary that gave me a little bit of historical background it said a fetter is an ankle chain in a spanish dungeon that's pretty graphic fettered by our presuppositions by our prejudices by our knowledge and our experience that we're too attached to and that prevent us from seeing the truth it says aren't some of us as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as people were about columbus time the world is flat therefore i can't sail out and discover the truth i have when i believe a lie i can't discover the truth and the wright brothers you can't fly birds can fly but people can't flight at the same time the wrights brothers were at kitty hawk flying their plane there was a phd astrophysicist in washington delivering a paper saying man will never be able to have a flight in an airplane at the very same time amazing stuff so we looked at page 52 of course the bedevilments we're not going to take a look at that again the next paragraph says a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe we had to stop doubting the power of god Our ideas did not work, but the God idea did. Notice his subtle word game here. Our ideas about God don't work, but the reality of God does. The God idea, not our idea of God. Pay attention to the words and the use of them. He's not saying the idea of god or our idea of god he's saying the reality of it whatever it is on page 53 and we'll end with this page we're given the power to reason to examine evidence of our senses and to draw conclusions that's the function of the mind this is one of man's magnificent attributes we why we think more sane and logical to believe than not to believe why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt that agnostic that atheist we don't know here it is i'm bringing it home kids pay particular attention this is the whole point of tonight when we became alcoholics crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade step one we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either god is everything or god is nothing binary this mystery that we're looking at this infinite spiritual reality has no beginning and has no end I don't understand what it means but if there is this reality that's what it mean is everything or there is no God and then he says God either is or isn't here it is The next question, the third question in the second step. What is your choice? Oh my God. We spent four months looking at no choice. No choice in the body, no choice inthe mind, and actually no choice in our will. And now he is saying we have to use our will to make a choice. and so i'm saying here interpreting bill's invitation we're not making a decision about our addiction and we're not making it to a decision about our life we're making a decision about god or no god the proper use of the will as he says in step 10 god either is or god isn't what is your choice i'm going to stop with this next line arrived at this point we were squarely confronted with the question of faith and i had to stop 1994. i had been asked the question that you were asked what do i believe I was then asked that second question which is in the next assignment for you going forward and I'll review it again before we leave tonight and that is I hope you've written out what it is you believe now I want you to write out an answer to this question how do you behave in light of what you believe you believe I didn't just stutter how do you behave in light of what you believe you believe because that's what you wrote now you're going to write out how you behave arrived at this point we were squarely confronted with the question of faith and I had to ask myself so what is faith what is faith what is this god it are is it healthy steps is it higher self is it human spirit is it the holy spirit what are the words that i want to use what is the life force that brings this acorn to that oak tree dr alan berger if you were on the workshop with us on saturday introduced the concept of an organismic life force i love that concept an organismic light force that acorn doesn't need to be trained to become an oak tree when you plant it in the ground and the circumstances are favorable it will become a sapling and then it'll become that oak tree on its own bill asks us the question in step two a decision about my concept what is faith i looked it up in the dictionary faith and belief and trust and my dictionary unfortunately was very inadequate i used more than one some of them were a little bit more adequate but it said faith is belief and then i looked at belief and it said belief is trust and i looked up the word trust, and it said, trust is faith and belief. I went in a complete circle. Bill says, faith, we're confronting right now. I'm asking you to confront it. He said, willingness on page 47. That's the cornerstone. I hope you're looking at the PowerPoints because I'm now progressively going to take you through something that's a little complicated and it really is important for you to pay attention to the words as well as the powerpoint because i'm going to unpack an approach to step two that changed my life what is faith is faith a function of the body and emotion if i feel god is present god is present is faith a function of the mind if i know and think and describe god i'll have some certitude about it is faith the function of the will i make decisions what is faith those are the three components of the human being i stress today as i've stressed all the time we've been together well no it's not a function of the mind faith by definition is the acceptance of that for which there is no evidence there's no certitude with faith it's not about knowledge faith is in fact diametrically opposed to science of the mine is it a feeling of the body well if i feel god's presence god's presence is if i don't feel god's presence god's app well that doesn't even make any sense um if you're logical poets and mystics might have some different responses but if you are logical it's not about feeling emotions that emerge out of the body well what is faith then bill gave us the hint on page 47 are you willing to believe it wasn't as clear there and now on page 53 he said god is or god isn't what is your choice oh wow faith is a decision faith is merely my decision god is and then when my mind says well it's a pretty good idea because if it isn't real I'm screwed based on my first step experience so my mind accepts that decision and that's my belief the acceptance of the faith decision and my body says well now I'm going to put it into action and my behavior and action based on my belief and based on my faith is my trust i'll go over that again next week because it's such an important concept this is how i came to believe in step two that faith is empty it's invisible there's no substance it's thin it's dark there's no reality to faith it's merely this empty decision God is and then I base my life on it it's the gambler's decision I'm making a decision with all the hope that it's real because i'm in the bondage of the addiction and i'm in the bandage of self unmanageability and i want freedom i want freedom now i still don't have freedom here because i am looking through the bars but step 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 are going to take care of that but right now i want to know is god necessary that's up to you it's your decision this is step two came to believe a process a process of a decision a process of a decision about my concept what is your concept that's the question what do you want and and please do not answer it hold the question what do you want in need as qualities and attributes what do you want and need as qualities and attributes at this time at this time in your life what do you need and want as qualities i'm looking at the assignments now assignment seven read and highlight after you answer the question how do you behave in light of your First answer about what you believe, then reread chapter four, highlighting the negative, highlighting the resistance, highlighting the doubt. Next week we'll cover pages 53 to 55. they're every bit as dense as at least I hope you have a sense of my approach to the material that we looked at tonight it's and I didn't even unpack some of it I thought maybe we'd do that as we're talking about your perceptions your highlights up through page 53 and perhaps your dictionary work and your review of faith and belief and trust in terms of definitions and anything else that struck you. I hope that was helpful. As I say, it was the key that unlocked the door to step both steps two and three. Step two is a decision of my will about god about this power and it changes as i do gandhi said that our concept of god will change as we do and it's changed for five years in the last five years i was using the term mystery in the past year i've used the term flow with a capital f and we'll talk more about that as we unpack both your knowledge your experience and your questions that we can bring it to closure with the serenity prayer for right now god grant me the serendipity to accept the things that cannot change furries to change the things i can and wisdom to know the difference wonderful session and we're not done by any stretch. We have just opened the can of worms, by the way.