"The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion."
-- Eckhart Tolle --
("A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose")
The Twelve Steps are designed to bring about "ego deflation at depth" and, thereby, a spiritual awakening which will solve the alcoholic addict's problem - "self" - in all its manifestations, selfishness, self-centeredness, egocentrism etc. One of the first concrete steps we take in this process of ego deflation is to list all of our lingering resentments, the lingering anger that we hold against people, ideas and even circumstances.
Why the importance in reconciling our resentments? The answer is that unless we do so they fester as an underlying anger that blocks us off from the spiritual resources that are buried within us. It is impossible for us to be honest, patient, understanding and loving while we harbour the lingering coals of the grievances we have towards others.
"Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labeling of people and adds even more energy to the ego," notes Eckhart Tolle, a renowned spiritual teacher. "Resentment," he observes, "means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved or offended. You resent other people's greed, their dishonesty, their lack of integrity, what they are doing, what they did in the past, what they said, what they failed to do, what they should or shouldn't have done."
"The ego loves it," he points out. "Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who," he asks rhetorically, "is doing that?"
"The unconscious in you," he answers, "the ego."
"Sometimes the "fault" that you perceive in another isn't even there," he notes. "It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At ohter time, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometines to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it, and what you react to in another, he cautions, you strengthen in yourself."
...WOW...this is 'IT'..you've nailed it for me..and very precisely i might add..im going to ponder this today and take your advice about writing down a list of "the lingering anger that we hold against people, ideas and even circumstances."..i want to note that the WAY you said this..the wording and detail..has impacted me as never before..i've never had it confirmed that i could have lingering anger not only against people but even IDEAS and CIRCUMSTANCES as well..i've always held on dearly to some of these 'angers' and viewed them rather as a biblically condoned/justified "Righteous Indignation" in a manner of speaking.....thank you for this post..it may be a turning point for me...
ReplyDeleteSo glad this helped. Do yourself a favour and write it down in columns like the Big Book sets out. Write down what it is you resent, the cause, how it affects you, and then in a fourth column what part (if any) you played in it. I find the thrid columsn ("how it affects me") most helpfule, because there I get at what thoughts drive me. Its always the same things, I notice.
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