". . . Any Lengths"

"His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, in medieval terms: union with God."

Letter from Carl Jung to Bill Wilson, dated January 31, 1961, discussing the recovery of Rolland H. from alcoholic addiction using the Oxford Groups' "word-of-mouth" spiritual program that was passed from Rolland to Ebby T., and on to Bill W.

In the "How It Works" reading, which is customarily read at many A.A. meetings, we hear: "If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps." (Emphasis added.) Reflecting on the early years of sobriety, I ask myself: Was I willing to go to "any lengths?" The answer is quite clearly: "No!" While I didn't drink (or use), joined a group, got a sponsor, did an inventory, shared it and made amends etc., I would not, and did not, pray and meditate on a consistent basis, nor did I give these vital practices any more than a surface trial.

In the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (at pp. 39-40) we read: "More sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism and by attendance at a few meeting is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a contented, useful life." And, how true that ignored warning turned out to be for me! If you knew me at five years sober, you would likely have said: "Yes! He's got it." But by roughly the time I was fifteen years sober, having achieved much in the worldly sense of life - profession, money, prestige, family and home, etc. - not only was I profoundly discontented and virtually useless to friends, family and the community, but my sobriety and my very life were in grave peril. The reason? I had neglected the clear warning in the 'Big Book' (at p. 85) that "(w)e are not cured of our alcoholism" but, rather, "(w)hat we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."

I was an extremely fortunate man, however. A good friend from early sobriety reached out to me when he found out my life had crumbled beneath me due to what was most clearly a case of being "dry" rather than mentally and spiritually "sober." (Only half-jokingly, I refer to it as being a period of "stark raving sobriety.") Additionally, a man who had been fifteen years years sober and then drank, but who was then fifteen years sober once again, saw that I was truly suffering and reached out to sponsor me. Although he was even then dying of cancer, he took me through the Steps and illustrated to me how and what needed to be done if I, too, was to truly recover from, by then, "a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."

Even more importantly, as it turned out, was another old-timer who recognized my suffering and took me once again through the 'Big Book, showing me what it was that I needed - a power greater than my own narrow, egoic "self" - and where to find it. The "how" of establishing such a relationship with "a Power greater than myself" - i.e., "how" to pray and meditate effectively - was, in turn, shown to me, albeit reluctantly at first, by a third old-timer steeped in decades of meditative practice.

It is on the all-important page 55 of the 'Big Book' that we are told where to seek and find a "God of our own understanding."

". . . (D)eep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form it is there. . . . We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis, it is only there that He may be found." (Emphasis added.)

Collectively and individually, these gentlemen showed me how to access that "unsuspected inner resource" which is discussed in the Spiritual Experience appendix to the 'Big Book.' Yet, how difficult it is to establish and maintain an effective practice of meditation and prayer, how difficult to truly practice Step Eleven.

"We are not saints," it is true. But how willing are each of us "to grow along spiritual lines"? What "lengths" are each of willing to go to? Is it, indeed, "any length." (Emphasis added.)

For myself, the question is: Am I seeking enlightenment? For the possibility of attaining an absorbed consciousness anchored in the Ground of Being is spoken of in each of the world's great spiritual traditions, whether it is called liberation, enlightenment, mystic union, moksha, nirvana, or more plainly, as Dr. Jung  phrased it "union with God."

"There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakeable foundation for life, now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God's kingdom."

(Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 98.)

The question thus remains for each of us: Am I truly "willing to go to any lengths" and to endure the rigours of the necessary spiritual disciplines to gain relief and break the bondage of self which is the hallmark of the ordinary human condition? Remember the caution we hear so often: "half measures availed us nothing." I found it to be was so with me.

Journey to Stillness: A Story of Deep Awakening and Self-Realization

The attached video, focused more on the spiritual quest, rather than recovery from drugs and/or alcohol per se, is a must-see for both newcomers, but more particularly for old-timers. The interview of Chris Hebard tells the story of the alcoholic addict from the initial feelings of separation and insufficiency as a child, through the hedonism of addiction, the overwhelming material success that often comes with recovery, and of the ultimate crisis in consciousness after years of sobriety that resulted in the epiphany of a profound and deep spiritual awakening.

As Hebard's story shows - and as many old-timers with years in recovery will attest - there are profound levels of depth in spirit that exist, levels of spiritual experience that may not (and, in most instances, probably do not) manifest immediately. For many and perhaps most, it seems, 'hitting a bottom" in sobriety propels the alcoholic addict to further and deeper levels of spiritual being, levels that always have a deeper level beneath them until the ultimate non-duality of enlightenment is reached.

There is, Hebard notes, a significant difference between mere awakening and the deeper Self-realization that leads to ultimate freedom from the bondage of the small "self," or ego - a difference that has been long experienced by spiritual aspirants of all stripes, and in all ages and cultures, and not just solely by alcoholic addicts in recovery.

The Tavern of Ecstatic Experience

"In the tavern," writes Rumi translator and poet Coleman Barks, "are many wines - the wine of delight in color and form and taste, the wine of the intellect's agility, the fine port of stories, and the cabernet of soul singing. Being human means entering this place where entrancing varieties of desire are served. The grapeskin of ego breaks and a pouring begins. Fermentation is one of the oldest symbols for human transformation. When grapes combine their juice and are closed up together for a time in a dark place, the results are spectacular. This is what lets two drunks meet so that they don't know who is who. Pronouns no longer apply in the tavern's mud-world of excited confusion and half-articulated wantings."

"But after some time in the tavern," Barks observes, "a point comes, a memory of elsewhere, a longing for the source, and the drunks must set off from the tavern and begin the return. The Qur'an says, "We are all returning." The tavern is a kind of glorious hell that human beings enjoy and suffer and then push off from in their search for truth. The tavern is a dangerous region where sometimes disguises are necessary, but never hide your heart, Rumi urges. Keep open there. A breaking apart, a crying out into the street, begins in the tavern, and the human soul turns to find its way home."

"Alcohol in Latin," Carl Jung pointed out to to Bill W., "is 'spiritus" and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum."

In the attached video this recognition of alcohol as a surrogate (or in Barks' case, a symbol) for spiritual awakening is continued. In it Dr. Robert Johnson, a Jungian analyst and author, notes that "if we do not get our ecstasy, which is an archetypal quality, in a legitimate way we will get it in an illegitimate way, which accounts for much of the chaos in our culture now. We have to have an ecstatic dimension of our lives."

The following poem by the great Sufi poet, Rumi, who is often called "the Shakespeare of mysticism," is from the first chapter in Coleman Barks' "The Essential Rumi."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

THE MANY WINES

God has given us a dark wine so potent that,

drinking it, we leave the two worlds.

God has put into the form of hashish a power

to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

God has made sleep so
that it erases every thought.

God made Majnun love Layla so much that

just her dog would cause confusion in him.

There are thousands of wines
that can take over our minds.

Don't think all ecstasies
are the same!

Jesus was lost in his love for God.
His donkey was drunk with barley.

Drink from the presence of saints,
not from those other jars.

Every object, every being,
is a jar full of delight.

Be a connoisseur,
and taste with caution.

Any wine will get you high.
Judge like a king, and choose the purest

the ones unadulterated with fear,
or some urgency of "what's needed."

Drink the wine that moves you
as a camel moves when its untied
and is just ambling about.

Bill W., Spiritual Awakening and Enlightenment

Bill and Lois Wilson

The early 1960's were an especially productive time in Bill Wilson's life. Having divested himself of day-to-day responsibility for 'running' A.A., having completed his last major literary work (the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions) and having cleared his side of the street in acknowledging the crucial role that Carl Jung played in kick-starting A.A., so to speak, Bill had time to reflect on the miracle that had happened not only to him, but to so many others.

In his personal life, Bill was searching widely to deepen his own spiritual experience, and in his public life was reaching out to those in A.A. who had perhaps not had the sudden enlightenment experience that he had experienced at the very beginning of his personal recovery, his so-called 'wind-on-the-mountain' moment.

Richard M. Bucke
(1837-1902)

Bill was undoubtedly aware of the significance of his own sudden spiritual awakening at Townes Hospital. In the library at Stepping Stones, Bill and Lois Wilson's home just outside New York City, was a copy of Richard M. Bucke's study of the enlightenment experience, "Cosmic Consciousness." In his study of  'enlightenment' and exploration of higher states of consciousness, Bucke sets out a dozen or so common symptoms of the 'enlightenment' experience, most of which criteria would describe Bill's experience at Townes Hospital.

Among the most immediate effects of such an experience, according to Bucke, are an overwhelming presence of light, a diminution of the ego into an expansive state of consciousness in which one feels at one with the world, as well as a moral imperative to share this experience with others. Although Bill does not mention this overwhelming light in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, he more often than not described it in recounting his experience in other forums.

Bill's reluctance to mention the overwhelming light it in the 'Big Book' may have been a prescient knowledge, born of his early unsuccessful work with drunks prior to meeting Dr. Bob, that his sudden and profound spiritual awakening was more than most people could fathom or would experience. Indeed, the 'Spiritual Experience' appendix was added to the second edition of the 'Big Book' in order to assure others that sudden spiritual awakenings such as Bill's were, perhaps, not the norm, and that true spritual insight and acuity could be gained just as readily by an awakening "of the educational variety."

In the July 1962 Grapevine, Bill tackled this issue directly, writing:

"It is the intention of the Grapevine to carry occasional accounts of spiritual experiences. To this interesting project I would like to say a few introductory words. There is a very natural tendency to set apart those experiences or awakenings which happen to be sudden, spectacular or vision-producing. Therefore, any recital of such cases always produces mixed reactions. Some will say, "I wish I could have an experience like that!" Others, feeling that this whole business is too far out on a mystic limb for them, or maybe hallucinatory after all, will say, "I just can't buy this business. I can't understand what these people are talking about."

"As most AA's have heard, I was the recipient in 1934 of a tremendous mystic experience or "illumination." It was accompanied by a sense of intense white light, by a sudden gift of faith in the goodness of God, and by a profound conviction of his presence. At first it was very natural for me to feel that this experience staked me out for somebody very special."

"But as I now look back upon this tremendous event, I can only feel very specially grateful. It now seems clear that the only special feature of my experience was its electric suddenness and the overwhelming and immediate conviction that it carried to me."

"In all other respects, however, I am sure that my own experience was not in the least different from that received by every AA member who has strenuously practiced our recovery program."

Aldous Huxley
(1894-1963)

Bill's non-alcoholic friend, the great polymath writer, spiritual seeker and philosopher, Aldous Huxley, observed that, "the metaphysic that recognizes a divine substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to or even identical with divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being - the thing is immemorial and universal."

Bill, of course, realized that this "Ground of all being" is, indeed, both immanent and universal. On page 55 of the 'Big Book,' when he explains exactly where we might find a God of our own understanding, he writes: "We found this Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that it may be found." (Emphasis added.)

Because Bill came to know that his experience was not exceptional (other than perhaps with respect to its sudden intensity), but that it was in fact a universal potential or reality, he could observe, so many years after his initial enlightenment, that, "we should question no one's transformation - whether it be sudden or gradual. Nor should we demand anyone's special type for our ourselves, because our own experience suggests that we are apt to receive whatever may be the most useful for our needs."

Thus, in his essay on Step Two in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill writes that "A.A.'s tread innumerable paths in their quest for faith. If you don't care for the one I've suggested, you'll be sure to discover one that suits if only you look and listen."

And just so long as we continue to probe the 'deep within' that lies within us all, we too will find "the Great Reality" of our own existence, of our own immanent and transcendental nature.

Radical Non-Duality

At the core of their teachings, all of the world's great religions and wisdom traditions have a message of radical non-duality. . . . As do the Twelve Steps.

The Universe (uni-verse) is 'One,' as are all its constituents 'parts,' including us. At a deep level, that is what the third legacy of "recovery, service and unity" is all about. It is only our individualized "egos," or "selves," that create a seeming sense of 'separateness' with all its constituent suffering. How many alcoholic addicts drink and/or drug, at least at first, for that ephemeral feeling of inclusiveness, 'includedness' and belonging that is the essence of intoxication? Virtually every one of us, I would guess.

It is thus no coincidence that these same feelings of expansiveness, inclusiveness and 'includedness' are the essence of the "spiritual awakening" that is necessary to permanently arrest one's alcoholic addiction. As Carl Jung remarked in his correspondence to Bill Wilson, the alcoholic's thirst for alcohol is, "the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God."

For many alcoholic addicts, or so it seems, it is the progressive nature of the disease that robs them of their ability to once again find this experience of "wholeness" when drinking or drugging, and that drives them - through suffering - to seek help.

The alcohol or drugs no longer gives the seemingly irretrievable alcoholic addict what they need the most, the evermore elusive feelings of wholeness, 'includedness' and well-being.

This "thirst for wholeness" is why (as it says on page 53 of Alcoholics Anonymous):

"When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we (have) to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What (is) our choice to be? [Emphasis added.]

In itself, this is a teaching of radical, ego-less, non-duality. ("God is either everything, or He is nothing.") Yet, we see this same teaching of ultimate non-duality further on, both on page 55 of Alcoholics Anonymous (where we read 'where' to find "a God of our own understanding"), as well as in the "How it Works" passage that so many AA groups read at the beginning of their meetings.

On page 55, we read the following:

"We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found." [Emphasis added.]

Note that this passage is written with a singular pronoun "the Great Reality," rather than with the plural "a Great Reality."

Further, in the "How it Works" passage we read that, "there is One who has all power - that One is God. May you find him now!" [Emphasis added.]

Sages, seers and spiritual teachers of all ages and continents teach the essential lesson of 'non-duality;' that is, that every seemingly separate thing or individual is but one inseparable part of an all-inclusive and indivisible 'Unity' or 'Wholeness;' and that it is the delusion of seeming separateness of the human "ego" that causes suffering in the mind of humankind, as in the world.

(Even the great theoretical physicist, Einstein, an agnostic at best, called this ego-driven sense of duality, and individuality, a "cosmic delusion of separateness" - i.e., something that we believe is true, but which is, in fact, false.)

This 'Wholeness' has been called by many "the Ground of Being" and it lies at the center of a "perennial philosophy" found at the heart of all wisdom teachings, as well as (I would argue) the wisdom tradition that is witnessed in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Perhaps Aldous Huxley, a non-alcoholic friend of Bill W., best describes this lesson of "Wholeness" and a unitive "Ground of Being" when he writes:

"At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines.

First: the phenomenal world of matter and individualized consciousness - the world of things and animals and men and even gods - is the manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their beginning, and apart from which they would be non-existent.

Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition, superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower with that which is known.

Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit.

Fourth: man's life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self and so come to unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground."

It is these four ideas - known by most cultures, but forgotten by most - that are at the heart of the Western spiritual renewal that the astute observer can see rising all around us; and they are also, in spirit, the heart of the miracle of non-duality that may be found in AA and its sister 12 Step fellowships.

What Was Bill's Spiritual Experience? Did He Experience Satori?

What was the nature of the sudden spiritual awakening that Bill W. underwent in Towns hospital? What propelled this particular low-bottom alcoholic not only into a lifetime of continuous sobriety but to single-handedly envision a network of recovering alcoholics; and then, after six months futile effort, to build Alcoholics Anonymous into what it is today with the help of Doctor Bob?

In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous Bill describes it as if he were on a mountain and the with the wind seemingly blow through him, he remarked, "So this is the God of my forefathers." In his autobiography, My Name is Bill W. (Hazelden Press) he also describes the presence of an all encompassing lights. All these symptoms fall into what Richard M. Bucke calls "cosmic consciousness." Bucke's book, Cosmic Consciousness, is among the collection of spiritual books in Bills library at Stepping Stones, Bill's residence in his later sobriety. (He undoubtedly referred to Cosmic Consciousness in coming to understand what happened to him, and to write the Big Book, as it is a reference in Wm. James' Varieties of Religious Experience with respect to alcoholism.)

In Pass It On: The story of Bil Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world (at page 302), one of Bill's close friends, Bill P. discusses what happened to Bill in the moment of his "hot flash" at Townes Hospital. "The thing Bill had was a perfectly clear case of satori or somate," he says. "You know by the fruits. The guy goes out and starts to act like an enlightened man. No one ever went further to prove it than that man did - he led a life of total service."

[Note: "satori" is the term for the moment of achieving enlightenment in Buddhism, particularly Zen Vuddhism, while "somate" - or, more commonly, "samadhi" - is the state of enlightenment on Hinduism, most particularly in the Shankya and Advaita Vedanta schools of Hinduism.]

So what about it? Did Bill Wilson achieve enlightenment, or cosmic consciousness as Bucke termed it,
in that moment at Townes Hospital when Bill first felt the presence of God? Did he experience satori?

Certainly, in Appendix II of the Big Book (the Spiritual Experience Appendix) the point is made that not all of the spiritual awakenings experienced by AA's early members were of the same sudden and momentous type of awakening that Bill experienced, and that many such experiences were of "the educational variety" described in Varieties of Religious Experience; nonetheless, many early AA's, including Bill, did experience an abrupt awakening. Many experienced an abrupt and "entire psychic change" brought about by the sudden deflation of the ego structure - the spontaneous collapse of what James termed the "stream of consciousness, what Bill called the "painful inner dialogue." Such spontaneous collapse and silencing of egoic thinking are the primary hallmark of satori.

D.T. Suzuki, the Japanes Zen Master who was the principle teacher who introduced Zen Buddhism to the United States, had the following to say about the nature and experience of satori:

D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966)

"As for satori itself, it will turn into an act or a form of intuition. Zen does not propose this kind of miracle. In satori the continuum [of consciousness and time] is not subjected to the process of intellection and differentiation; it is not a concept here, though we have to speak of it as if it were. Satori is the continuum [of consciousness and time] becoming aware of itself. When it perceives itself as it is in itself there is a satori. There is in satori no differentiation of subject and object What is perceived is the percipient itself, and percipient is no other body that the perceived; the two are in a perfect state of identification; even to speak of identification is apt to mislead us to the assumption of two objects which are identified by an act of intuition." (Suzuki, Living by Zen, p. 50.)

When Ebby Thatcher visited Bill at Townes Hospital and suggested that he surrender and rely on a 'God of his own conception, Bill describes how this "melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow [he] had lived and shivered many years." [Emphasis added.] It was at this point that he "stood in the sunlight at last."

Bill's satori moment is perfectly congruent with how Carl Jung described such an awakening or "vital spiritual experience" to that "certain American businessman," Roland Hazzard, who relayed that infomation to Ebby, and an thus, to Bill. At page 27 of the Big Book, Bill narrates how Jung described the "huge emotional displacements and rearrangements," or mental "phenomena," that had periodically acted as an antidote to alcoholism, in the following terms:

"Ideas, emotions and attitudes that were once the guiding force of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them."

While, as the Spiritual Experience Appendix notes, the thoughts, feelings and intellectual processes ("ideas, emotions and attitudes") that dominate the alcoholic mind are not always "suddenly cast to one side" or overcome in the spontaneous manner that Bill describes, often they are. This was my experience, as well as the experience of many AAs who have shared their experiences of spiritual awakening with me.

Sometimes such spontaneous awakenings come at the outset of an AA's sobriety, sometimes after years of practicing the Steps, particularly Step 11. Very often there are multiple distinct spiritual awakenings of the satori variety, and almost universally the beneficiary falls back from the spiritual heights of the experience of God-consciousness nd back to the ordinary and widespread ego-consciousness.

Bill, like St. John of the Cross and so many other individuals who have experienced satori and samadhi (what Christians call "mystic union"), suffered after it from "the dark night of the soul." In Bill's instance this period of depression lasted for almost a full decade after he fell from the spiritual heights he had achieved. And, yet, even then his actions, life, purposes and intent remained radically different  from what they were before his last admittance to Townes Hospital. It is because of this radical change in thinking and actions that what is important is the state of consciousness achieved; for it is in that state of "God-consciousness" (as the "more religious members" of A.A. call such a higher state of consciousness) that the alcoholic finds what will restore him or her to sanity, what will restore him or her to life. As D.T. Suzuki expresses it (at page 68 in Living By Zen):

The mind or consciousness, serially divided and developed in time, always escapes our prehension, is never 'attainable' as to its reality. It is only when our unconscious consciousness, or what might to called super-consciousness, comes to itself [and] is awakened to itself, that our eyes open to the timelessness of the present in which and from which divisible time unfolds itself and reveals its true nature. [Emphasis added.]

It is only in this "timelessness" and in reliance upon "intuition" and this "super-consciousness," "cosmic consciousness or "God-consciousness," that we can truly surrender and turn our will and lives over to a Higher Power, in which we can truly "Let Go and Let God," in which we can truly accept life moment-to-moment, and in which we can truly be "restored to sanity."