Steps 10 and 11 – Sandy B. – State Line Retreat – Primm, NV – 2006 — Sandy F.

My name is Sandy Beach. I'm an alcoholic. I'm 50 years old, but my knees are 80. And so that's why they were kind enough to have me not stand up for an hour. And besides, this is nice. I feel like I'm just sitting here having a chat with everybody. And there's nothing between me and you. And I'm honored to be here. Been a wonderful weekend. And I'm so happy Stu gave me a chip again this year. I don't know where to start. Because what I want to do is tell you how things look to me. They don't look the same as when I got here. So as you are around... Your perspective on things changes. And so all I can ever share with you is what I see. And what the book looks like today compared to how it looked like 42 years ago. And a lot of times we hear something about the word truth. And there is no such thing as truth. There's no way. I could tell you what the truth is. I can only if you're new. So in other words, we keep looking for an answer. And then that'll be it. We can only show you the way to your truth. We are nothing more than way showers. And you come along, you know, which way is truth? Over there. So we can really just have a sign up here pointing. See those 12 steps? Climb them. And then your truth will be revealed to you. And that'll be it. And next year it may be different. And so all I can tell you is what seems to be true to me today about our program. And if that is helpful then in inspiring you to seek your own truth, then my job... My job has been done. And I will be very happy. So there's a big difference. In other words, we seem to think that knowledge is a very important thing. And it is in the material world. But as we move over here into the spiritual world, it's not a process of learning but rather unlearning. There was a guy back in Washington who used to say, it's not the things you don't know that'll kill you. It's knowing things for sure. That just ain't so. And so when you look at what Chuck used to say, uncover, discover, discard. What else am I wrong about? That's the ticket to freedom. What else should I get rid of? What old idea have I just inventoried? And I go, have I still got that? Zoom. And when we finish the process, and there's no old ideas left, we're there. And that's what I want to talk about today because we're talking about steps 10 and 11. Tom was talking about it last night in terms of service. And I'll give you my take on service and then move on from there. As I look at AA history, I would say that the origin, the origin of service, the center of the energy that provided service occurred in Bill Wilson's spiritual awakening. When that was over, you could not have stopped him from carrying the message. You could have put him in handcuffs and he would have gone out the door trying to share, what had happened to him with every alcoholic in the world. And look at the adversity that he went through. You know what I mean? Being broke and evicted from the house in Brooklyn and no home. People loan him a car. He can't raise any money. What kept him driven to carry this message and to save all the alcoholics in the world? I would submit to you it came, in that awakening, that part of an awakening is the absolute necessity to share it. You can hardly wait to find some other alcoholic. And I think the reason is that we have opened up a stream of spirituality, and if it doesn't get out, it'll become like the Dead Sea. And so there is no... You don't have to encourage someone with a spiritual awakening to go into service. You can't stop them. So one school of thought that I would suggest is the greatest service work you can do is to cause someone to have a spiritual awakening. Which is what I'm talking about in steps 10 and 11. So I just wanted to tie the two together. Now granted, as we're working towards this, I think it's wonderful that we herd ourselves together and go make the coffee and do this and do that, and then you get the joy out of doing it. But eventually, the purpose of the entire program, as our 12 steps says, we only have one result, which is a spiritual awakening. And then we get to the end of the program, and we carry the message of how to have a spiritual awakening to the next alcoholic, and we kind of move on. And that's sort of the whole deal. To cheat somebody out of a spiritual awakening and just have them have 25 years of sobriety would be selling them short. Now that's just my own view. Remember the guy in the cyclone? He comes up out of the wind cellar. Isn't it grand that the wind stopped blowing? And then Bill writes, we think a man who says sobriety is enough is crazy. It's not enough. It's only the starting point. That's how we stay alive in order to have occur to us what I think we were born to have. And what we've been looking for and what makes us so restless, irritable, and discontent is that we know there's something still missing in our lives. And that's what keeps pushing us is to try and resolve the separation of ourselves from our own creator. That's my view of what the deal is. You could talk to lots of other psychologists and philosophers and they would tell you that's not what the human situation is. But from my perspective, that's what it looks like to me is that we're trying to solve the separation problem. And of course, in order to talk about that, you have to talk about the human ego, which is not an easy thing to do. You know, you study psychiatry and psychology and there's just a million ways. In a way, the only way you can talk about an ego is through making up a story, you know, or an analogy. And Bill does that in suggesting that we're actors on the stage. And so if we follow that, and let's say that God made me an actor. And in step four, under the fears, he said, he assigns us the role to play. That's God's will. He assigned me to be in this play where I'm the janitor and I sweep the floors. That's it. That's what I was assigned to do. That's God's will. He told me, if I do that, I'll be as happy as can be. I'll be the happiest little sweeper you ever saw. Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep. But I, on the other hand, having the power to observe and to be aware, might look around and go, why the hell am I sweeping? I ought to be the star and get the woman. I wonder what I did to end up sweeping. I must be a piece of crap. Or they would have given me a better role. This whole play sucks. This is stupid. The people don't even know my name. They don't even talk to me. How about cleaning my dressing room too? Ha, ha, ha, ha. You know what? People really would be a much better play than the one I'm in. Would be a play about me having to play the role of a janitor. Now that would be a huge success. The pain that I suffer. I mean, I'm not a janitor. This is amazing. I think it would sell out Broadway if they could just be inside of me and see the drama that's going on. And then I got this lousy place to sleep and you don't get paid much for a little actor doing this. And as time goes on, he honestly believes that the play he's in is the one he wrote. That the real play is about a guy playing the role of a janitor. And when we create this play, this story, the only one in it is me. And God is not in that play. He's not in that story. It's very lonely in that story. And I recognize how lonely I am. And I forget that it's a story. And I forget that it's a play within a play. And that all I have to do is go back to sweeping the floor in the play and I'll be as happy as can be. And so I have to go through the process of dismantling unwriting the story the secondary play. And it's a very complex thing because the whole society has entered into a secondary play. And we're all playing in roles that we made up ourselves. And so we have a collective dysfunction. I read a spiritual writer who described the ego as an imposter pretending to be you. And it's so revolutionary we can't believe that we could have faked ourselves out that way. I couldn't have pulled the wool over my eyes like that. It's impossible. And so the lucky ones like us we come to AA. How many people came to AA and were not an alcoholic when you got here and became an alcoholic after you got here? You know, I was not an alcoholic and then I got here. Oh, maybe I am. Okay, I am an alcoholic. Wow. I just discovered I've been an alcoholic for 30 years. How could I have not been an alcoholic yesterday? I had fooled myself. I had told a story to myself, believed it and reacted to it. And caused myself a number of problems and as Bill says, all of our problems are of our own making, our own creation. We make it up in our head and then emotionally react to it. I didn't understand that the emotional reaction to my telling myself that the gentleman in the back with the sweater doesn't like me is identical to the man in the back with the sweater coming up here and saying the words I don't like you. You follow what I'm talking about? All I have to do is tell myself that he doesn't like me and I react and I sit here just in abject rejection. What happened? The guy back there just rejected me. Feels awful. I'm dying over it. But he didn't come up here and do it. Yes he did. I can feel it. He rejected me. Otherwise I wouldn't feel this way. That's a pretty good trick. Woo! Woo! I mean, it's so simple. There was the movie The Illusionist. I thought it was so cool. I don't know if you saw it. They didn't do the plot that well but the premise is just wonderful. Two illusionists trying to out-duel each other and you got to keep the secret. And I could show you how to create something out of whole cloth, out of thin air. Right here in front of your eyes. I could just sit here and I could tell you watch this. You know, Bob Darrell has a 12-cylinder car. Not bad, huh? Now watch this. I'm not going to move my hands. I'm going to keep them stationary at all times. I'm going to cause a resentment that I'm not going to to appear before your very eyes. My car only has six cylinders. Can you feel it? Can you feel it out there? Is it present in this room? Can you feel the power? There it is. We just make them and make them and make them. So why would we make them? In order to keep the illusion going. In order to keep the separate play going. The one where there's no God. The one where it's a huge tragedy that I'm sweeping the floor in the play. And spirituality, the steps, oh, thanks, are the disassembly of that play. Our story. That's the illusion. For my next illusion, I'm going to tell you my story. The reason I call it an illusion is I believe it. It has total power over me. So what's that got to do with the tenth step? Well, Tom led off last night by quoting the sentence in the tenth step that I was going to quote. He just walked right up and said the very words. So I'm going to say them again. It's about two sentences, maybe three sentences into the sentence. He said to the tenth step in the big book. He says, we have entered the world of the spirit. I wonder what that means. It's sitting there, isn't it? He says, we've entered the world of the spirit. So if anybody asks you, well, what is the tenth step? Well, it means you've entered the world of the spirit. Yeah, I know, but what's the world of the spirit? How do you know if you've entered the world of the spirit? Is there a sign? A little doorway? World of the spirit. Right here. Well, let's see. Is there something that might give us a clue that we've entered the world of the spirit? Something that we've entered the world of the spirit. something um perhaps extravagant something that might to use magic materialize something like fear of people and economic insecurity leaving us. Where'd it go? What was I doing when they left? I was making coffee if I recall. Turned up at the bar and I turned around and they were gone. Then I was cleaning up afterwards and self-seeking slipped away. That's not much of a psychological term, is it? Like slip away? Is that out the back jack? Fifty ways to leave your character defects. What kind of story is that? Self-seeking will slip away. Okay, so I'm real smart now. I got lots of knowledge. No, I don't. But I intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle me. Baffle, baffle, baffle, baffle. Oh, I see it. Oh my God, I don't know anything about that. I don't know anything. Oh, it's perfectly clear. Right there. This is an absolute mess. I don't know. Possibly how... Oh, it's all straightened out. There it is. Done. Intuitive, intuitive, intuitive, intuitive. Wow, that's amazing. That is just amazing. Well, I wonder what a spiritual awakening would look like. They talk about them in here all the time. Do they hand them out at the meetings? The light go on? I don't know. They say they... Two types. One that happens, boom, Bill Wilson's and then the educational variety. Remember that? They explain it that way, William James. Varieties of religious experience. That's a book that's mentioned in the big book. Here's a joke. Is that conference approved? Is that conference approved? That could be a topic at a heated discussion meeting. The devil made me do that. The only worst topic would be... What would be the best way to stay sober if there was no AA? But we won't go into that. Anyway, what would a spiritual way... Imagine, what would it look like? Now, here's the funny thing. The sudden spiritual awakening occurs suddenly. And the gradual educational spiritual awakening occurs suddenly. It occurs later. But when it happens, we suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. Suddenly, suddenly, God is no longer a theory. We just were contacted. We just became aware. We just awakened to the truth for us. That there is indeed a creator that has touched us. So it's no longer that we have to rely on hoping or rely on the fact that our sponsor had a spiritual breakthrough. I just had it. And that is entering the world of the spirit. You know, you had personal proof that this world exists. And as Bill writes, we have a glimpse of the kingdom of God. A glimpse. And the glimpse itself starts serving as our motivation to see more. Wow! I wonder what else is in there. I wonder what else is in there. And it would be so simple if we didn't have an arch rival that doesn't want us to see what's in there. Our ego. Because our ego knows if we get in there, it disappears. The story's over. We're back to sweeping the stage happy as can be. And its whole show has been exposed to the world. It's a fraud. And it is not going to die easily. It is not just going to roll over. Because it holds the key to your mind. It knows how to trick you at every turn. Let me give you an example. Somebody's been around a long time. And I find myself almost being taken over by my ego to say an ego prayer. You didn't know that egos pray, did you? This is what an ego prayer looks like. We get down on our knees, just like we're regular praying. Looks exactly the same. And here goes an ego prayer. God, I want to thank you for taking me out of the world of fear and being lost. And being resentful. And transforming me to this wonderful world of peace and serenity. And transforming me into a person who is now filled with love and who now sees the world as it really is. I am so grateful that you have placed me in a position where I no longer need your sorry ass. I have tears coming down my cheeks. I never thought I would be returned to a state of entire self-sufficiency. And for that I will be eternally grateful. Amen. Amen. And you, don't even know you said it. And you get up off your knees taking credit for your own sobriety. And you walk out and have the worst damn day you've ever had. It's awful. Absolutely awful. So we engage now in the real struggle to see the whole deal. And Bill talks about spiritual goals. I've had more things happen in the last three years than I have in the other 39. More things, more, I've seen more things differently. I don't know why. I think I decided to seek harder. I started thinking, I said, what would be the most important thing? What is the most important thing? This is for me. This is what I see right now. What is the most important thing? Most important thing would be to entirely awaken. And find out what am I really? What am I? What is the mystery of life? Well, the mystery of life is the mystery of me. Once I got that one, I'll see everything. You know, what is this creature that's sitting here? So I began making that a priority. I began seeking. You know what I'm saying? Well, do we have any where words said to do this? Make that a priority? Let's see. Chapter 5. Read it every meeting. What's the last word? Sought. God could and would if he were sought. Seeking. So seeking becomes, I want to become a God-seeking missile. You know what I mean? That's all I'm aimed at. And everything else becomes secondary. Well then, if I do that, if I focus just on that, who's going to take care of the world? Who's going to manage my business, my relationships, my finances, this, who's going to manage all of that? Turns out, the person who's supposed to manage it, God. I was taking away things from him. God, I'll handle that. I'll take on what the world should do. I've got it. Don't worry. This is a way of surrendering. So the world of the spirit, what does it say about entering the world of the spirit? We have a, what it's saying is, you arrived here with your way of handling things. We have now, in those promises, proved to you the existence of your own personal, loving, higher power. You experienced it yourself. So what do you do once you experience that? All right, so now we're going to, the tenth step is how to live in the now. Right? It's a day at a time. This is where day at a time is. This is where day at a time is. This is where day at a time is. This is where day at a time is. This is where day at a time is. This is where day at a time arrives. How to go through a day after we've entered the world of the spirit. That's how we went before we entered. Now, how do we go through a day now we've entered the world of the spirit? I mean, here's the problem. It's so simple that we don't like it. Alcoholics don't like simple things. Remember when you first came in? Well, you know, my carb just broke down and I go over here. What am I going to do? Don't drink. Oh, well, my girlfriend left me and then my boss said that don't drink. Well, it's got to be more complicated than that. No, just don't drink. That's it. Two words. Don't drink. So now we come in here and it says, what does it say when it says when we get frustrated, angry, upset, irritable, et cetera, et cetera. This is what it says and this is what we do all the time. We ask God at once to remove them. Any questions? Any questions? Anybody do that? No, when I do, I try to exercise a little understanding of my fellow man. I try to be more patient under all conditions. I see you leave God out. Yes, that's what I do. I basically, I like to leave God out. I leave God out and I'll handle it. Well, it didn't say to do that. It said, no matter what happens, ask God to remove it. You know, I just don't like that. When do I, I get to do something? When do I get a little creative problem solving going here? No, just ask God to remove it. I want to do this one. Give me that. Here, God. I got nothing to play with. Ego only plays with problems. There's no such thing as a grateful ego. There's no such thing as a loving ego. There's no such thing as a happy ego. It's a problem ego. Problem ego. Your uncle leaves you a million dollars and your ego goes, somebody will steal it. Well, there went that joy. Watch out. They'll be taking it away from you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the tenth step is trying to get us to stop living in the confusion of the world and move back into the now. And the now becomes smaller and smaller until it's the moment. And when you think about where is the power? Where did they find the greatest power that they ever used in a bomb? By splitting an atom. That's pretty tiny. When you think of big power, you think, well, they've got to get a great big whatever. No. It's down in the tiniest, tiniest is where all the power is. The power of God only exists in this, this fraction of a second. And in that fraction of a second is everything. All of the power we could ever possibly want is in that second. In order to not be in that second, we have to make up a story that we're not in that second. And we make up a story about the past. I'm really not in this second. I'm thinking about the teacher that flunked me in college. And what it felt like to flunk. And I, instead of staying right here where all the power is, I make up a story that I'm not right here, but I'm back there in that resentment. And that gives my ego full power to run the show and keep it going. And if that's if that doesn't work and I put all that to rest and I've made my amends and I've got that down and boy, now I'm ready to sit in the moment, I hear a warning sound. Caution, caution, dangerous future up ahead. Holy cow. I haven't checked on my future in a long time. I'll be right back now. And I'm out there for about a week and I come back. Oh God. Oh, I don't even want to live any longer. It's going to be awful. Wait. Wait till I tell you guys what's going to happen out there. Really. Yeah. It's the scariest damn thing you can imagine. And that's where we hang out. We hang out in these two manufactured neighborhoods. The past and the future. Hey. Hey. Hey. Because right here, right in this moment, in this blissful moment of gratitude, there's no room for the ego and it starts to die and it starts to shrink and it's threatened and it starts raising hell and it makes us very uncomfortable. There's a price that's paid for spiritual growth. It's really funny the irony of that as we move on. But as we move on, as we move on, as we move on, as we move on, as we move on, as we move on, as we move on, as we move along, there's this part of us that's going to block this thing at all costs. So if we know that, we just get used to it and eventually we don't pay any attention to it. I saw a situation comedy thing. It just was perfect. And there was a brother and a sister. They were both married. They both had a couple of kids and they both had a mother who was the controller from heaven. And they had a daughter who was the controller from hell. And they have one episode where she visits the son and one episode where she visits the daughter. And she comes in the son's house and just immediately, you still got those drapes? God, I thought I told you to tell your wife to get rid of them. They don't match. Geez, I don't even believe you still have that carpeting. What are you having for supper? That's the wrong stuff. It'll make the kids sick. By the time she leaves, the son is ready for the nut ward. He is just lost it. And you've all seen scenes like that. You've all seen scenes like that. So the next episode, she's visiting the daughter. Same thing. You still got those drapes? I can't believe it. What are we having for supper? Oops. And the daughter goes, Oh, Mom. That's her whole reaction to it. Oh, Mom. That's just Mom being Mom. Totally free from all of the alleged problem. Totally free from it. Immune. The problem's over here. Oh, Mom. Mom. So somehow there must be a way of doing that to our ego's antics. You're in trouble. You're going to die. Watch out for this. Oh, ego. Oh, shut up. Oh, go away. We will never stop the noise. But we can stop paying attention to it. We can stop paying attention to it. So, we have in the 10th and 11th step a whole technique for doing this. And it all centers on a few things. The 12 and 12, it really hits the jackpot when it's describing the situation I was just describing. When it says, if something disturbs us no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with us. Oh. He said that and I just reacted to it. So it's clearly his fault. So why is it, what is wrong with me? If something disturbs me, there's something, what's wrong with me? I'm disturbed. That's what's wrong with me. So I come to the realization that the secret to all this is to get undisturbed. No matter what. Well, how are you going to get undisturbed? How do you, we're always going to get disturbed. Because it would be hard to be so perfect that nothing ever disturbed us. But we'll try and get as close as we can. I mean, when I first got sober, there were a million things that disturbed me. Now there's only a hundred thousand. So, we are definitely moving in the right direction. So what does Bill write about this? Four things. They're right there in the 12 and 12. Self-restraint. I get up in the morning, I pray for, I pray for, I pray for, 10 second cushion between me and everything that happens so that I don't have to do anything about it for 10 seconds. So the guy cuts me off. I start to feel this. I don't do anything. I just self-restraint. And the temperature goes up to here and then it comes back down to here. So I don't have any mess to clean up that might have happened during the initial explosion. Number two, an honest analysis of what happened. A lot of times I have to run it by my friends and sponsor and advisors. Joe, and I do it in the following way. I have a secret password and what I mean by that is can I have 45 seconds of your time because I'm calling them at work a lot of the times. And I go, Frank, it's Sandy. Can I run something by you? Yeah. He knows even if it's somebody at his desk, I'm only going to talk about the whole conversation is 45 seconds. Let me run something by you. Okay. My boss came in. He read this memo letter I wrote. He said these words and I have this feeling. How do you see it? Oh, it's clear. Your boss must have had the night from hell back at his house. He's completely out of line. Forgive him. Oh, good. Thanks. Or, he may say, your boss is right. Apologize. Oh, thanks. I'm so sorry. You're absolutely right. End of disturbance. There it is. Either forgive or make amends and move on. Well, what's the point of all of that? To stay undisturbed. Undisturbed means contact with our higher power. Any disturbance will not be undisturbed. We're not going to We're on our own, baby. We're on our own. And so, out of the tenth step comes a package of constantly inventorying when we're upset and getting un-upset. Back when I used to and this is how you navigate spiritually is by making that's why pain is how we stay on course. Little pain back going along Oh, that little fear. Back. And we just keep getting rid of the disturbances and move back to the beam or the undisturbed area. When I first started flying, we flew the radio range where you listened in your headset for the beam, the A or the N. Dit-da-da-dit or dee. And you'll be flying the beam to the area. You'll be flying to the airport. All you had was your ears. And if you're on the beam, you would hear bee. And then if you went over to the right, you'd hear bee-dit-da-bee-dit-da. Oh, make a correction to the back to the beam. And if you went over here, the wind blew you a little this way. So you make constant corrections by hearing when you were off course. The only way you knew if you were on course was to correct back from being off course. If you just heard the beam, you knew your radio was broken. Nobody flew that perfect. So we go through life going disturbed back, disturbed back, and now we're following the beam or God's will. God's will for us is to be happy, joyous, and free. Imagine, we always say, you have to deal the cards that were played to you. You ever hear that? You just have to deal the cards that were played to you. Okay, let's do that. Let's live by that. Come on up. I'm going to hand you your hand. You ready? Here's your hand. Be happy, joyous, and free. Five cards. Put them on the table. Something happens and you're all resentful. And I'm going, sorry, you don't have a resentment card. You have to play the hand that was dealt to you. You made the rules. I did. I didn't. You said you have to play the hand that was dealt to you. That's the hand that was dealt to you. You're playing somebody else's hand. That card isn't in your hand. You made up the fact that you have a resentment card. You can't play that one. You follow what I'm saying? In other words, this takes us through the day. And as the tenth step kicks in, we start seeing the truth about the roles that we made up and the roles we were assigned to play. And little by little, we can uncover, discover, and discard pieces about ourselves until we realize that we are simply to play the role of the janitor and sweep the floor. And that's the point. That's the point. That's the point. That's the point. That's the point. That's the point. That's the point. That's the point. That's the point. But then Bill writes, we did get a glimpse of this kingdom and everybody's had one. And now we'd like to see it more clearly. Is there something we can do to see it more clearly? And we get to prayer and meditation. What are my observations about that? I'm going to say, I'm going to tell you something that's in the 12 and 12 and the big book. It is essentially an individual adventure. It doesn't say we. It says an individual adventure. No one can pray or meditate for you. No one can seek for you. We are simply inspired to do that. Then he goes on to say, our libraries are filled with books. Check with your ministers, your rabbis, spiritual advisors. Seek and you will find. Now, and he says, meditation has no limit, either of height, width, or depth. No limit to what could be there. So what could be there? See, we're in the world of the spirit now. We're not worried about money. We're not worried about, oh, that's going to be taken care of. Chuck talked about that all the time. First time I heard him, I almost died. What are you talking about, Chuck? He said, Sandy, it's not your job to take care of you. Oh, what? What are you talking about? He said, that's God's job. Your job is to just do good. God's work. In this example that I'm giving, sweep the floor. Oh, and I'll be taken care, you will be taken care of in a way that you cannot imagine. You're going to sweep, sweep, and be handed the keys to the kingdom. What are the keys to the kingdom? Awakening to the kingdom. We can't see it. It's not there. We can't see it. We can't see it. We can't see it. We can't see it. Sweep, sweep, awaken. Sweep, sweep. Wow. Pretty soon, we're the happiest sweeper and we're sweeping the golden streets. Now, I don't think I'm exaggerating. I'm saying that this is in store for us. And so we go on our individual adventure. Oh, I'm going to read this guy. I remember, you know, I went and read William James. That was the only book in there. That was the hardest. I tried when I had about five years. I almost died. It's so hard to read. Oh, good. But later on, I read it. And I'll tell you, he gave a series of lectures at Edinburgh University about religions. Nineteen lectures. Guy was a genius. He had never given talks on religions before. He just studied them and then gave these brilliant talks. And he said, religions all were designed to solve something. He said, there's a problem that humanity has that at their very best, they still sense that something's missing. At their very best, they still sense that something's missing. And each religion in its own way says, hey, you know that situation inside of you? Come on in. We can fix it. Kind of like AA. Come on in. We'll fix it. We'll fix that thing that made you drink. Come on in. We can fix that. Now, there are AA groups that are really screwed up and you wouldn't want AA judged by them. There's lots of churches that have gone off the deep end and there's this and that. And he kind of said, well, all of the hierarchy and all of the ceremony and pomp and circumstances probably haven't contributed too much. But, out of the all of this religious stuff has occurred the most valuable thing that has ever been given to mankind. Enlightened individuals. Individuals who have had profound spiritual experiences who then show others the way. So we could go back to Gandhi and the saints. Bill Wilson. One guy. Has a flash in 140 countries. People are coming out of the dark caves of alcoholism. That's pretty powerful. And that came out of Christian movement, the Oxford and all of that. Boom. So it gave us that. There's something about listening to an awakened person that you, when Martin Luther King, gave his talk, I cried. Because I heard him say that he wanted to save white people as much as black people. I heard him feeling my pain of being the prejudiced one. Of being the, of having hatred. And he knew that I was the one who was in pain. And he knew that I was the one who was in pain. And he knew that I was suffering just as much as the people being held back. And he wanted to free us all. You remember his speech? And I loved him. An unenlightened person giving the same speech sounds like it's them against me. And it divides. So there's something special that comes from this awakening. And then we're attracted. And so that's the gift that William James said the religions have contributed are the awakened people. I mean Gandhi. I mean the Dalai Lama. You know what I cried? Stu and I were talking about this. I literally cried with joy when I read the story about the Amish and the murder. And they went right over to the family of the murderer and said, can we comfort you? It's better to comfort than to be comforted. I didn't know anywhere in the world that that could possibly still exist. And I just was moved to tears with happiness over that story. You talk about a good news story. Jeez. That touched me about as deep as anything in the last ten years. That that is still available. Wouldn't it be nice to see the world that way so that that's what happened? So how do we get there? We're running out of time. We get there by staying on our individual journey. By getting teachers. By getting books. By persisting in trying to awaken. By getting the knowledge that we need. I talked Thursday night and I compared it to a hologram. And how hard I had... I never did see the one at my son's house in Baltimore 15, 20 years ago. My grandchildren... Everybody saw it except me during Thanksgiving. And I'd eat part of my meal and I'd go back out and I'd stare at the damn thing. And the little grandson, Granddad, look up in the upper left hand corner. I'm looking. What do you see? It pops out. It's third dimension. You'll see the whole fish just sitting there. It's like three inches in front. I never saw it. You all know the answer. What do I have to do? I have to go back and look until I see it. Sometimes quickly. Sometimes slowly. Only the hologram that we're looking for in the... in the 11th step has a warning label on it. And it says, warning, if you successfully see this hologram, you will cease to exist. Whoa. Do I want to cease to exist? Do I want to cease to exist? Do you ever hear an actor say he completely lost himself in the part? How would you like to lose yourself in something? How would you like to have no resentments, no prejudice, no opinions, no past, no future? There'd be nothing left of you except that part of you that's aware of you. Like when you meditate and you're aware that all these thoughts are bothering you. And you're aware that you are a man or a woman. And you're aware of the world that you're living in. So there's you thinking all these thoughts and driving yourself crazy and then there's somebody watching that. Maybe it would be worth getting to know that observer better. So how do we get there? We get rid of everything that isn't that observer. The analogy of the block of marble that the sculptor chips away into the beautiful statue of the woman with the long flowing robe. Chip, chip, chip, chip, chip. And they say, well, how do you do that? He says, I just take away everything that isn't the beautiful woman. So what is it about you that isn't the beautiful essence of you? Your story, your character defects. What do we do with them? Chip, chip. Is it a little bit painful? Yeah. There goes another piece. I don't know if the block of marble goes ouch, ouch, ouch. I'm tired of this transformation. But when it sees what's evolving, we go, speed it up, speed it up. This is looking good. When you get a first glimpse of yourself with drinking removed and maybe a couple of your big character defects have finally been, ooh, looking better. I think I'm liking where this process is taking me. I think I'd like to see the whole picture. That's when humility comes in and we eagerly seek the pain of changing. And so we start a very unusual process. A lot of times, this year I just saw something for the first time. Let's say, like right now, I'm 10 pounds over what I want to be. And I'm angry at myself for that. And every time, every time I pick up two extra desserts, I go, God damn you, Sandy, look at that. Go look in the mirror. Look at that. Look at that. And my previous perspective on this was, you'll just have to suffer until you're finally willing to do something about it. Now, this is what I think now. I think that the problem, it's not that I had three pieces of cake. The problem is, I gave myself a hard time for having the three pieces of cake. What do you think God does to someone who's gaining a lot of weight? You think he reduces his love for that person based on the pounds? Or does he forgive them as they're eating the cake? Well, if that's God's will, maybe I should forgive myself as I'm eating the cake. And then the eating of the cake will not separate me from God. And I will not be in the pain that the separation causes, which causes me to eat more cake. That's a whole different way of looking at it. Why can't I forgive myself? Why do I have to be myself up when I'm doing that? Because I want to create a story that keeps me separate. So I'm going to just start going, have a fourth piece. Have a fifth piece. I love you just the way you are. And then I'll be going, my ego will go, well, the eating isn't working. Let's attack him from another side. And the weight will probably fall off. You see what I'm talking? About it will not cause the disturbance. And the only problem is the disturbance in the middle of the 11th step. And then I'm going to stop is the prayer of St. Francis. Thank God for the 12 and 12. That's my favorite prayer. I love it. And so let me tell you what I see now when I look at it. It says, make me a channel by peace. I see the channel not coming into me. I see the channel going out. I want, God opens up a channel. There's unlimited supply of peace in here that he put there that goes out. And I just go and spread this. I'm a channel of thy peace. And then it starts out and it says where there's hatred, I'm going to bring love. And I go, where am I going to get love? You are love. That's where love comes from. You are love. That's who you are. Your ego created hatred. There's no such thing as hatred. You're just love. Well, it says where there's discord, I'm going to bring harmony. Yeah, you are harmony. You are harmony. Wake up, pal. You're harmony. You made up discord. Oh, and our eyes start opening. I am forgiveness. I am love. I am the light. I am eternal life. My ego made up death. That's a nice picture, isn't it? You got to look at it till you see it. Why not keep looking? What if that popped up? I hope it does. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.