There Is a Solution – Part 5 – Sandy B. – 2004

Rejection of what is. When something happens, we're just confident that it should not have happened. Flat tire, tuxedo getting screwed up, not getting a check in the mail. We're just confident that that shouldn't happen. The person who has some spiritual development, who has advanced, it is the way it is. It just is the way it is. It isn't personal. It's just the way it is. And my job is to be with that. They told me when I came in the AA, there's two ways for you to be at peace. Get everything you want or change the way you react to whatever happens in your life. The second thing is not contingent upon anything. When you can be comfortable with whatever is happening around you, you can have peace regardless of the circumstances. And so when you say to yourself, all I really want to do is be happy, I've been changing that word. All I want to really do is be at peace. I just want to be here now. There's nothing wrong. Most of us, we've had this busted sense inside of us, the sense of what Sandy talks about, this deep longing for God. It shows up as a sense of separation because the ego is the separator. Chuck used to talk about the ego as the sense of conscious separation from. And that is what makes you over there, me over here. It makes me different, puts us in opposition, wants me to be right, you wrong, wants me to dominate, wants you to be dominated. That is the business of God. That is the business of the ego. When our fundamental spiritual business is to be loving. This is a soul school. The subject is love. You want to know if your life is moving in the right direction? If it's moving towards love, it's moving in the right direction. So rather than happiness, rather than trying to keep assembling the circumstances of our life, what if we remain undisturbed? What if we just trusted that it is the way it is supposed to be? It's just the way it is. And became lovers of reality. And allowed ourselves to simply be in that process. Because when we, right now, there's nothing wrong with us. Because we've had a busted sense, we've always had a sense that it's not okay and I am not okay. That busted sense came from the sense of separation. When we start taking the spiritual journey, we get reconnected. When we are reconnected, we are not separate. It is okay. And I am not okay. I am okay. And then you can be in the present. You're not running from the past to some salvation in the future and never being in the now. And what I think that is, is a different sense of consciousness. It's a different, it's an elevated awareness. It is an elevated awakening. And as you are more awake, many of the things that you did that don't work in your life, you just no longer do. You see through them. They don't work. They don't work. Thank you. Okay, two more little stories and then we'll do questions. And you better have some. Bob made me think of something. A lot of us knew Dr. Paul. What a wonderful man. And Dr. Paul. used to cause some controversy. People used to write in the central office not about Dr. Alcoholic Addict, but about acceptance is the key to everything. Acceptance is the key to everything. Now when you see that, you would go, what about the serenity prayer? There are things you accept and then there are things that you change. And I have to get the wisdom to know the difference. So you don't accept everything. So Dr. Paul is wrong. And that was the, am I making my point that it's like you can't accept everything if the serenity prayer says no. When things come along, they're in two categories. They're those you accept and those you change. They're both right. They're both right. We have to accept everything in order to return to undisturbedness so that we can make any evaluation at all about the serenity prayer. So everything does have to be accepted because that's what happened. Then from an undisturbed point of view, we can in fact decide if something needs to be changed. Now, if we're not disturbed, if we're not disturbed, we may just not change it. Because what was driving us to want to change it in the first place? Something happened that. Now there's going to be categories of things where you would absolutely calm as can be, decide to get a lawyer and sue somebody. But it wouldn't be, it would be because it was the right thing. You talked it over with people and they say, yeah, this is the right thing. And you say, no, it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. This is the right step to take. I'm using that. It could be many other things. But it's being done from a calm point of view and undisturbed. So if we're going to get the wisdom from our higher power, he can't communicate to us while we're disturbed. Because we can't hear him. There's too much noise. The still small voice can't get through the rage. So you see that they're both right. I just, I just wanted to make that point that acceptance is the key to everything. And from that, you can move into that. Now, the thing I was going to talk about was mercy because you brought this up and I just love it. You said we don't want justice. We want mercy. And I think mercy is a very powerful thing. And there's someone who needs a lot of mercy. And I'm going to ask you all to be especially merciful. And this person is you. It's you. Get off your back. Get off of it. Who the heck are you to be beating up you? You deserve the love from you. So let's, let me show you where the dilemma comes. And this is the last point I want to make. It's in the sixth step. And it's called the riddle of our existence. And it's going to get better. And it's going to get back to this coexistence in spiritual and material worlds. In the sixth step, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. We find out that the implication of that step is perfection. It doesn't say some of our character defects. It says all. Have you ever seen anybody with all their character defects gone? Nobody ever made it. Nobody ever made it. So, so what does that mean? See, Bill, Bill sees that this could create a mental problem. Why do you put a step up there that can't be done? I mean, why would we have that step? And he goes, and he goes to explain it. And, and I'm going to try to see if I can get this clear. First, he says, we have to say to ourselves, well, what proof do we have that if I got entirely ready, God would remove entirely a character defect? He said, unfortunately, my friends, we have to remove a character defect. Unfortunately, my friends, we have perfect proof. You're drinking. The biggest problem you ever had, you became entirely willing to have this problem removed. And it was removed after you humbly asked. So we already know that this principle works. And if you get entirely willing, well, why don't we get entirely willing on all the rest of them? And Bill calls that the riddle of our existence. And he says the answer, the true answer may be only in the mind of God, but he speculates on what it might be. And what he speculates is that the rest of the character defects are not fatal like alcohol is. They're annoying. They are definitely blocking us from a closer contact with a higher power. And they are controlled by our ego. And so when someone comes up to us and says, okay, I've got this. See, everybody has the same character defects. They were issued to us at birth. So you didn't create any of them. So you can't take credit. Well, I made myself lustful. No. We put that in when you came out to shoot. That's just part of the deal. But we have the power here. And we know. We just saw what we did with alcohol. And so here's your chance. That's really kind of ruining your life, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm doing things. I'm embarrassed. And, you know, dah, dah, dah. Well, come here. We have a step for that. How would you like 100% of your lust removed? 100%? . What would that be? What is that? Like you joined a nunnery? What is 100%? What I'd like is to be, I like 80% removed. That's what I'd like. I might get lucky once in a while. All right, all right. So you want 80% with the lust. Okay, fine. What about greed? Stop wanting stuff and getting all this stuff. What about greed, you know? It made you cheat in business and it made you lie on your income. Wouldn't you like to get rid of all greed? Well, I would, yeah, I'd like to get rid of most of the greed. I would really like to get rid of most greed. You see what we're saying? Most, most greed. Put me down for 70% greed. Well, how about gossip? Dr. Bob said gossip is one of the worst problems we have in Alcoholics Anonymous. Watch that erring member of the tongue. Gossip, gossip. Don't you see the harm it does? Yeah, yeah, it does. I really hate gossip. I hate gossip. I would like to stop originating gossip. . Now, if somebody else originated it, and I'm just the conduit, it's technically not my gossip. I am, I'm simply reporting on, so I'd like to no longer originate gossip. And as we go through this step, we find nobody wants to write down all. And so, why? This is the riddle. This is the problem. And it was, that's the way the system was set up. And it was set up because we're spiritual beings in a material world. And we have our instinctual drives, and no one's been able to ever get rid of all of them. And we have our quest to become closer to our higher power in opposition to the spiritual, to the instinctual drives. That's our challenge. And we're never going to get there. I forget exactly, it might be in the fourth step. It says, Desires will always exist that oppose the grace of God. So what we have to do is accept that this is the deal. That this conflict is built into our system. And that we will strive towards perfection knowing we will never get there. So, you can't beat yourself up because there, it wasn't set up that you can become perfect. It wasn't set up that you're not going to screw up. And so, get off your backs. You're doing the best that you can. And this is the, a very important point, or we have no fun in the journey. Because the journey is it. And if there wasn't this conflict, we wouldn't keep on going. And so, we have to enjoy the fact that we're on the journey and we never get there. And as soon as you can get happy with the conflict, you have peace of mind. So, I don't know if that made any sense, but I wanted to throw it out on the table. And going along with the mercy sort of thing, the lack of mercy means we're judgmental. Many of us are judgmental. We have the right answer. Some of us, and what happens if you're too judgmental, forgive me my trespasses as I forgive others. You turn the blade on yourself. In order to get deeper and deeper into what we have to take a look at in our lives, you need compassion. Compassion for yourself. You have to be able to be gentle in the examination of your life, or you will not be up to examine it. You will suppress it and deny it and be not able to deal with it. You need a gentleness in that process, and I couldn't be more supportive of that. So now, I want to thank you. This has been a very nice experience to be with you. And are there questions that we're going to... Oh my God. There's one. Yes. I don't know how to ask this. Okay, right before you talk about acceptance... Can I please close the mic? I'll repeat the question if you... Okay, I know that you talked about acceptance, but with acceptance there's expectations that we have of other people and, you know, or places, things, situations. And then there's also attitude about all that. What are your views on that? Do you want to start or do you want me to start? No, no, no. All right. Question. All right. Repeat the question so they can understand. It was suggested that with acceptance, we have to deal with expectations and that that causes a conflict because this is how other people are supposed to behave and they aren't behaving or whatever. And how does that tie in with acceptance? This is something that I have found very helpful. Somewhere we came up with the word fair. And we love to say that. And sometimes that has to do with expectations. You know, it wasn't fair what happened to me. Wasn't fair. I expect to be treated fairly. I expect, I expect. This is a setup. Here's a suggestion. Here's a spiritual rule. Fairness is a one-way street. It only goes out from me. End of fairness. My record, I want to be fair to everyone that I encounter. And then when I go to bed at night, I look at my side of the street and I was fair and I don't have any amends to make. If something happened and someone behaved in a way maybe they're having a bad day. I don't know. It's none of my business. Their behavior is between and I don't know. It's between.