The Riddle of Ego, Self, and Innermost Self

To borrow the oft-quoted line from Winston Churchill, the 'secret' of Alcoholics Anonymous (and its sister organizations) is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Those who have solved this "riddle" often smile mysteriously and enigmatically - like the slight and knowing smile of the Sphinx - when trying to explain it. The "riddle" goes something like this: "You have to find a Power greater than yourself, but you have to find this Power deep down within yourself."

 What??? If you are like I was, perhaps it is at this stage that you shut down and start asking others what God is, what they use as their Higher Power, or just what the heck 'It' is that we are supposed to rely on.

The answer to this seemingly inevitable question given to me by my first sponsor was "Good Orderly Direction." Others have been told, "Group of Drunks," or a variety of other responses. In my case, this answer combined with my close-mindedness and fierce "will to win" led me on a nearly 15-year wild goose chase to "wrest happiness and success out of this world" by managing life well, that is by getting me some of that 'Good Orderly Direction' in my thinking. (See, page 61 of Alcoholics Anonymous.)

However, there is, I believe, a very straightforward 'key' to solving this "riddle" and discovering just what the 'secret' (so to speak) of A.A. is -  i.e., exactly where and how to access "a Power" greater than oneself that will solve the alcohol problem and render the alcoholic addict "happily and usefully whole." That 'key' is (or was in my case) understanding the relationship between (i) one's "ego" (ii) one's "self" and (iii) one's "innermost self".

"Ego" is variously defined in metaphysics as "a conscious thinking subject," in psychology as "the part of the mind that reacts to reality and has a sense of individuality," and in popular usage as "a sense of self esteem" or pride: (Oxford English Dictionary). "Self" - in its turn - is defined as "a person's or things own individuality or essence" and "a person or thing as the object of introspection or reflective action." One's "innermost self" is undefined (although "one's better self" - defined as "one's nobler instincts" - comes close.)

The 'key' to the 'riddle' lies in these definitions and, most importantly, in understanding that ego does NOT mean pride in A.A. literature. Almost invariably, "ego" is used interchangeably with "self". ("Our actor," we read on page 61 of the 'Big Book', "is self centered -- ego-centric, as people like to call it today.") A working definition of both "ego" and "self" for our purposes, therefore, may be something like: "the thinking part of the mind that reacts to reality and has, or gives us, a sense of our own identity and individuality."

It is this constant inner stream or commentary of thoughts, images and ideas - "the thinking part of the mind that reacts to reality" - together with their bodies, that the vast majority of people (alcoholic addict and non-addict alike) take themselves to be. It is 'who' they 'are '- or so it seems to them. (Interestingly, Bill W. in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions variously calls this constant inner stream of ego/self a "painful inner dialogue" and "terrifying ghosts.")

If one can understand that the ego/self is not who we are, but that "ego" or "self" is but a fraction of our mind - an attitude or way of relating to the world that is learned - and that underneath that small but loud and unceasing fraction lies "an innermost self" that is the "essence" of who we are, then he or she can productively begin to work the 12 Steps, the first of which is: "to fully concede to (his or her) innermost self that (he or she is) alcoholic" or an addict. (Admitting to one's "innermost self" that one's life has become, is, and will continue to be "unmanageable" comes next.)

Consider these points from the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous:

• "The problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than his body." (Page 23)
• "We alcoholics . . . have lost the ability to control our drinking." (Page 30)
• "Whether such a person can quit upon a non-spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not." (Page 34)
• "(T)he actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception. will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge." (Page 39)
•  "The alcoholic at certain times has no effective defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power." (Page 42)
• "If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how hard we tried." (Pages 44-45)
• "Our human resources, as marshalled by the will . . .  failed utterly." (Page 45)
• "Lack of power . . . was our dilemma." (Page 45)
• "We had to find a power by which we could live (free of alcohol, drugs, etc.), and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves." (Page 45)
• "(W)here and how were we to find this Power?" (Page 45)
• "(The) main object (of the 'Big Book') is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem." (Page 45)
• "We found the Great Reality deep down within us." (Page 55)
• "(L)iquor is but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions." (Page 64)

So the alcoholic addict learns that the loss of control over liquor, drugs, etc., is not the problem but is symptomatic of a deeper problem that centers in her mind, and that she needs to find a Power that is greater than her 'self'. Self-knowledge will not cut it. How and where, then, is she to find such a Power that will relieve her symptoms, particularly if she doesn't believe in a quasi-mythic Old Testament God 'out there' somewhere? That, we learn, is the "main object" of the process.

"How" to find such a Power is quite clear: Do the 12 Steps! But  the "how" of doing the Steps if you do not believe in a "God" or "Divinity" which most cultures teach is 'out there' is exceedingly difficult, indeed. Fortunately, the "where" of finding a Higher Power is set out on Page 55 of the 'Big Book'. Here we find a concise rebuttal to the cultural norm that God, Yahweh, Ishwara, Allah, Buddha-mind, the Divine, one's Depth, the Ground of Being - whatever one chooses to call It - is exterior to us.

Although it is often obscured by "the calamity, pomp, and worship of other things" characteristic of the "self" or "ego" (i.e., "the thinking part of the mind that reacts to reality and has, or gives us, a sense of our own identity and individuality"), we find that there exists within us "an Innermost Self" that is the "Essence" of our "Being." It is this "Inner Self" that all the world's great religious and wisdom traditions seek to activate and develop.

Page 55 sets out, in clear and precise language, that:

"We (find) that Great Reality," i.e., our 'Inner Self' or 'Essence', "deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He (or She, or It) may be found."

In a letter to Bill W., the great psychologist, Dr. Carl Jung, pointed out that: "(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: union with God."

Although he was much concerned that he would be misunderstood when using such culturally freighted words and concepts, he nonetheless elaborated further on such an "experience" - that is, the psychological and spiritual "union with God" at the heart of all the world's great wisdom traditions.

"The only right and legitimate way to such an experience," Jung notes, "is, that it happens to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding." That is, one must follow a spiritual path without aid of drugs or booze, a path or methodology (like the 12 Steps) that leads you to a "higher understanding" and "experience" of one's mind beyond the ordinary, ego-centric perspective and narrative of "self."

"You might be led to that goal," - i.e., to a "spiritual awakening" of one's 'Inner Self' or 'Essence' - Jung points out, "by an act of grace or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond the confines or mere rationalism." Fortunately for the alcoholic addict, "the path" laid out in the 12 Steps, the work we do, and the fellowship we find in A.A. (or any of its sister organizations) offers all three.

But the key to realizing grace, receiving meaningful friendship, and transcending the mind to a level "beyond the confines of mere rationalism" is in solving the "riddle" presented by the "ego" or "self" in which we are seemingly confined. In finding our 'Innermost Self', in experiencing our 'Essence' in consciousness, we access the "mysteries" at the heart of the world's great religions and esoteric traditions. In working our way through the seeming "paradox" of finding a "Power" that is at once greater than one's "self" but which is ultimately found "deep down within" one's 'Innermost Self', we begin to solve our alcohol problem and we open up to the potential and experience of what Bill W. calls "a new state of consciousness and being."

Our collective experience is that: "With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped into an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it "God-consciousness."" (Alcoholics Anonymous, Appendix II, pages 567-568.)

As Jung succinctly points out in his letter to Bill W., "(A)lcohol in Latin is 'spiritus' and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: "spiritus contra spiritum."

Suffering and Spiritual Awakening

"As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a Higher Power was out of the question. That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God's will, was missing."

"For us, the process of gaining a new perspective was unbelievably painful."

". . . In every case (however), pain (has) been the price of admission into a new life. But this admission price has purchased more than we expected. It brought a measure of humility, which we soon discovered to be a healer of pain. We began to fear pain less, and desire humility more than ever."

". . . We saw we needn't always be bludgeoned and beaten into humility. It  could come quite as much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering." (Emphasis added.)

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 72 & 76

Arctic explorer, Knud Rasmussen, (1879-1933), returned to Europe with stories of the suffering endured by Inuit shamans, the "medicine men" of the High Arctic, in their ritual initiations. One such shaman, Igjugarjuk, told Rasmussen how as a young adolescent he had been taken out on the ice-floes by an elder shaman. There, in the constant dark and cold of a polar winter, he had been left by himself in a snow shelter for forty days with minimal contact in order that he might meditate upon "the Great Spirit," and thereby attain a spiritual awakening.

"Sometimes I died a little," Igjugarjuk said. But, then, he told Rasmussen, "a helping spirit" arrived "in the form of a woman who seemed to hover in the air above (me)." After this, he was taken home by the elder shaman, there to diet and fast for an additional five months under the elder shaman's guidance. Such ordeals, he told Rasmussen, are "the best means of attaining a knowledge of hidden things."

"The only true wisdom," lgjugarjuk said, "lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others."

Najagneq, circa 1922

Another shaman, Najagneq, told Rasmussen of his "venture into the silence," an ordeal in which he met the spirit he called Sila - a spirit, according to Najabneq, that "cannot be explained in so many words." "Sila," he told Rasmussen, is "a very strong spirit, the upholder of the universe, of the weather, in fact of all life on earth. (A spirit) so mighty that his speech to man comes not through ordinary words, but through storms, snowfall, rain showers, the tempests of the sea, all the forces that man fears, or through sunshine, calm seas, or small, innocent, playing children who understand nothing."

"When times are good," Najagneq told Rasmussen, "Sila has nothing to say to mankind. He has disappeared into his infinite nothingness and remains away as long as people do not abuse life but have respect for their daily food. No one has ever seen Sila," he said. "His place of sojourn is so mysterious that he is with us and infinitely far away at the same time."

"The inhabitant or soul of the universe," Najagneq said, "is never seen; its voice alone is heard. All we know is that it has a gentle voice, like a woman, a voice so fine and gentle that even children cannot become afraid. And what it says is: 'Sila ersinarsinivdluge,'" i.e., "There is nothing to be afraid of in the universe."

(From Schizophrenia: The Inward Journey, by Joseph Campbell)

The alcoholic addict, in recovery, knows much about suffering - both the untreated suffering of addiction, and the suffering that is frequently endured in sobriety as he or she awakens to to the spiritual power that resides "deep down in every man woman and child." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.)

"Faith is a dark night for man," St. John of the Cross wrote in The Dark Night of the Soul, "but in this very way it gives him light. . . . Like a blind man he must lean on dark faith, accept it for his guide and light, and rest on nothing of what he understands, tastes, feels, or imagines. . . . To reach the supernatural bounds a person must depart from his natural bounds and leave self far off in respect to his interior and exterior limits in order to mount from a low state to the highest."

"When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or avoid," writes Bill W. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 53), "we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else he is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?"

Painful as it may be, for every alcoholic addict has a lower or higher pride - be it pride of intellect, pride of independence, pride of person, pride of strength, or even pride of faith - each such person, on attaining true humility, will have passed his or her 'Dark Night of the Soul' and will have attained to a quiet consciousness of the Spirit, or God, that pervades their being and the world around them.

The Practice of Spiritual Awakening

"Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer."

Alcoholics Anonymous, page 87.

WARNING: This blog entry (and the attached video by Rev. Ted Nottingham) may be somewhat confusing to those readers who may not have completed the Twelve Steps, or those among us who do not seriously seek, or have let up on our efforts, to "improve our conscious contact with God." 

Please remember: "Keep an Open Mind."

"Do not conform any longer to the world," St. Paul advised, "but be transformed by the renewal of your mind." (Rom. 12:2) And what is "renewal" if it is not "recovery" - a "recovery" which is at the heart of A.A's program of action and, indeed, which is at the heart of all the world's great religious and wisdom traditions?

"Religion," notes Rev. Nottingham  (real 'inner religious' transformation, as opposed to the too-often insignificant and superficial trappings and practices of a mere 'outer religion'), "means to relink or reconnect with Spirit." In the following video, in which he introduces "a perennial teaching, timeless and universal, of spiritual transformation," Nottingham surveys a number of little known spiritual teachings and teachers - everything from Orthodox Christianity to Zen Buddhism - with an emphasis on "The Fourth Way" teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky.

These teachings may prove invaluable to those of us in recovery who are constantly trying to expand and deepen our spiritual recovery - even though, perhaps, there are few enough amongst us who wish or are willing to go to the deeper depths which may be available through outside traditions. But, "keep an open mind", as there are hidden, esoteric depths to every tradition, and with each new depth we experience, a new and further depth awaits just beyond.

As Ouspensky observed:

"The evolution of human consciousness is a question of personal efforts and is therefore a rare exception amongst human beings. . . . Most people simply do not want to awaken. To become a different being we must want it greatly, and over many years. Without the necessary efforts we will not evolve. Moreover, we must acquire qualities we may believe we already possess, but in fact do not."

"The attainment of higher levels of consciousness," says Nottingham, "is closely related to certain religious practices which we find in all cultures, such as meditation and contemplation. Yet," he notes, "(t)hese are difficult paths to tread because our attention is always being caught by the ceaseless chattering going on in our heads." Nonetheless, he points out, "(i)t is possible to become receptive to a state of pure consciousness without thought, where truth is revealed to us directly without words."




"Awakening from the sleep of a carnal life, an externally-driven life, does not happen automatically," Nottingham observes, "it requires directed attention and sincere, repeated efforts. . . . You will not (however) make the effort to awaken," he notes, "if you do not know you are asleep. We have to realize our captivity before it can occur to us to escape from it."


Further helpful videos are available on Ted Nottingham's Youtube channel, and his books (as well as those of his wife, Rebecca Nottingham, and certain of their valuable translations) are available online. Rev. Nottingham also publishes a free weekly podcast available on PodOmatic.com.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the end of the above video, Rev. Nottingham recommends the following practices as tools for attaining spiritual awakening and deepening our spiritual experience:

Tools and Practices for Spiritual Development

• Recognize the sleep of unawareness. These things keep us asleep:
• Being unaware that we are asleep.
• Being unaware that we can choose to be awake.
• Not choosing it.
• Presuming that we are already fully aware.
• Believing that we are already good.
• Negative emotions and our attachment to them.
• Justifying our negative emotions.
• Automatic habits.
• Constant inner talking.
• Fear of change.
• Spiritual laziness.
• Allowing ourselves to be swept up in the current of our responses to life.
• Fearful emotions:
• insecurity,
• embarrassment,
• impatience,
• self-pity,
• dread, anxiety, worry, nervousness,
• criticizing,
• hopelessness,
• depression, despair, and jealousy.

• Discipline your mind to be aware.

• Stop and silence negative thoughts and negative emotions.

• Silence justifications. Never accept your justifications for your negative emotions.

• Don't believe fear. Fear opposes faith.

• Don't consent to anger. Angry emotions have violence in them.

• Remember why you are choosing to overcome your anger. 
• It is unhealthy physically, mentally and spiritually.
• It wastes your energy and life force.
• It never produces goodness.
• To not allow yourself to be under the dominion of changing circumstances.
• To choose to act, not just react to life.
• To become more than only the result of what has done to you.

• Practice not criticizing, not objecting, not exerting or expressing your opinions and attitudes.

• Silence negative inner talking.

• Think of scale and relativity, your universal significance and what is really important.

• For a moment, stand outside of the stream of events and your responses.
• Sense your real self above them and outside them.
• Become aware of your unique individuality and become aware of your relative insignificance.
• Become aware of your connectedness with all things.

• Quiet your mind by thinking about what is good and worthy and beautiful.

• Stop thinking about yourself and how you feel, and what you like and what you don't like, and  whether you approve or not of every person and event.

• Consciously give your attention and time to whatever good things inspire you.

• Realize and accept that you alone are responsible for all of your actions and their consequences in the world.

• Accept not being understood.

• Accept injustice, judgment, condemnation, slander, gossip, and your insufficiency . . . and return good for evil, forgiveness for offense.

• Stop complaining. It is noisy and there is no "Thy will be done" in it.

• Stop taking offense. Humility is not offendable.

• Release your requirements that other people be how you think they should be.

• Release your expectations of life and circumstances and your need to be satisfied by them.

•  Live the fruits of the spirit whether you are satisfied or not.

• Stop thinking that you deserve better. No one deserves anything.

•  Give up having to have the last word.

• Don't worry about the impression you make on others.

• Sacrifice your need to be right.

• Don't speak negatively about any other person.

• Refuse to listen to, believe, or participate in gossip.

• Give up being impatient. It is the vanity of wanting your will now over God's timing.

• Stop thinking about what other people are thinking about you.

• Refuse to accept your justifications for acting badly.

•  Practice being scrupulously honest with yourself and other people.

• Whatever you do, do it to please God. Who else do you have to impress?

• Strive for purity of heart. 
• In purity you will find peace and humility. 
• In humility you will find freedom, authenticity, and serenity.

Process for Spiritual Development

• Aim: Loving God, goodness, purity, servanthood.

• Acquire knowledge to know what you must do to live out your aim.
• Know thyself and know what to do about thyself.

• Direct your attention to  become aware of what is going on inside you, in your thoughts and emotions.

• Observe yourself with:
• scathing honesty,
• perseverance,
• integrity and patience.

• Use discernment to recognize how and when  you are outside God's will which is always good.

• Practice STOP toward your negative thoughts and feelings.
• Practice silence toward them one at a time.

• Create a separation between your authentic self and your automatic habits of thoughts, feelings, attitudes and opinions.

•  Choose what you consent to think, feel and do.

• Choose goodness before gratification -- what you know to be good rather than what feels good.

• Sacrifice, give up, your negative emotions. Don't condemn yourself for them. Change them.

• Do not allow yourself to express negative emotions out loud.

• Make yourself passive to your automatic reactions.

• Make your internal responses quiet so that you can act with intentionality.

• Release your requirements of life, people and circumstances.

• Release your desire for satisfaction.

• Willingly bear your necessary suffering, including all the efforts you must make to develop spiritual maturity and obedience.

Remember that God's nature is one thing and that is perfect Goodness.

". . . 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.

Higher Consciousness, the Perennial Philosophy, and the Divine Ground of Being

It was the writer and pioneering New Age philosopher, Aldous Huxley, who called Bill W. "the greatest social architect of the twentieth century," in recognition of the unique A.A. service structure that Bill worked so tirelessly to forge: ("Pass It On," pp. 368-369). Yet, Bill's affinity for, and friendship with, Huxley was based on their mutual dedication to exploring matters of spirituality, metaphysics, mysticism and higher consciousness. One wonders, in light of this, whether Huxley was not as much (or even moreso) impressed by the wholesale awakenings to a greater consciousness beyond the ego which were occurring among the early membership of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Like Gerald Heard, the polymath philosopher who brought Huxley and Bill together, Huxley viewed humankind's awakening to higher consciousness as an evolutionary imperative. In the same time frame in which he met Bill, Huxley wrote extensively on what he called the "perennial philosophy" underlying the world's sundry religions and wisdom traditions. In his introduction to a translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda (titled "Song of God"), Huxley wrote:

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

"First: the phenomenal world of matter and of 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 being, 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 and the 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."

 Reading over these points, it is easy to see why there was such an affinity between Huxley and Wilson. By dint of his remarkable spiritual awakening at Townes Hospital - an awakening that left him initially questioning his very sanity - Bill had attained (albeit for a limited time) what Huxley would call "unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground" that lies within and yet surrounds each of us: that Divine Ground in which "we live, and move, and have our being."

Bill was obviously acutely aware of the very specific and non-dualistic "unitive knowledge" at the heart of true religious/mystic/spiritual experience, an awareness confirmed both by his personal experience and from his reading of William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, which is repeatedly cited in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. "When we became alcoholics," he wrote, "crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What," he asked, "was our choice to be?" ('Big Book,' page 53.)

In retrospect, it seems eminently clear that Bill indeed experienced God as "everything" in his flash of spiritual insight, and it was this experience alone that arrested his slide into drunken oblivion and insanity. "The thing Bill had was a perfectly clear case of satori or somate," noted his friend Tom P. "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." ("Pass It On," page 302.)

The effectiveness of such a non-dualistic unitive experience in overcoming chronic alcoholism was confirmed by Carl Jung in his later correspondence with Bill. "(The) craving for alcohol," Jung observed, "(is) on a low level the thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: union with God."

"The only right and legitimate way to such an experience," Jung pointed out, "is that it happen to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. You may be led to that goal," he observed, "by an act of grace, or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond mere rationalism."

It was Bill's good fortune (and ours) - although Jung might call it a series of synchronicities - that he was introduced to the Oxford Group's methodology and was shown by Ebby (who was remarkably sober at that time) its effectiveness in overcoming acute alcoholism. The Oxford Group's "program" (from which Bill would derive A.A.'s Twelve Steps) was clearly "a path that leads . . . to higher understanding" beyond the confines of the limited and self-conscious duality of the human ego, a path that led Bill, Dr. Bob, and now millions of other sufferers, to a "unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground."

That a path to "a higher understanding of the mind beyond mere rationality" had been established, a path that had already brought about wholesale spiritual awakenings for tens of thousands of individuals, was undoubtedly a matter of the greatest interest to non-alcoholic spiritual seekers such as Huxley and Heard. In the 1940's and 1950's, these men (and their associates) were busy exploring the various means by which individuals could move from shallow, self-conscious, ego-centricity to higher consciousness, an exploration that would lay the foundations for widespread explorations of higher consciousness that would occur in the 1960's. It was this spiritual  "discovery" more so than the development of A.A.'s traditional service structure, one suspects, that led Huxley to call Bill "the greatest social architect of the twentieth century."

Spiritual Experience a.k.a Religious Experience

"Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer."

Alcoholics Anonymous, page 87

"The terms "spiritual experience" and "spiritual awakening" are used many times in this book which, upon careful examination, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested among us in many different forms."

"Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes, or religious experiences, must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous."

". . . Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial." (Emphasis added.)

Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 567-568

Neither Alcoholics Anonymous nor its sister organizations is "allied with any sect (or) denomination." Indeed, the Foreword to the Second Edition of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, first published in 1955, makes clear that A.A. at that time in its history included "Catholics, Protestant, Jew, Hindus, and a sprinkling of Moslems and Buddhists." Moreover, the "We Agnostics" chapter is devoted to those who may have no particular faith or belief in "a Power greater than (them)selves," let alone "a God of (their) own understanding." Why, then, in the "Spiritual Experience" Appendix does the 'Big Book' talk of "religious experience"? And, are people that stress that A.A. is "a spiritual not a religious program" wholly right?

The answer to that last question, it seems to me, is both yes and no. While we may respect the validity and usefulness of all creeds and denominations - being "quick to see where religious people are right" - we embrace none in particular. What William James termed "outer religion" -  steeples, bells, incense, liturgies, vestments and ceremonies, etc. - has no part whatsoever to play in A.A. However, what James termed "inner religion" in his masterwork, "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (the only outside reference in the 'Big Book'), has everything to do with the spiritual solution which we seek.

Religion - from the Latin re ligare, meaning to 're-tie' or 'reunite' - in its "outer sense" means to tie or unite a group of individuals in a congregation, or communion. In its "inner sense," however, it means to reunite our highest and self-less consciousness with a greater consciousness or Being, perhaps with the "God-consciousness" referenced in the "Spiritual Experience" appendix.

In Eastern traditions, which tend to stress meditation even more so than prayer, the word that is used for this "inner sense" or practice of religion is "yoga." Derived from the same Sanskrit term for the English word "yoke" - i.e., that which ties the ox to the cart - it, too, means to 're-tie' or 'reunite' our deepest consciousness and being with a greater consciousness and Being, itself.  Thus, in A.A., from its very start, individuals have knowingly or unknowingly sought the  inner "religious experience" which is the very same "spiritual experience" (or "spiritual awakening") we are, more or less, comfortable and familiar with

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:29-30     

Bill W., in his belated correspondence thanking Carl Jung for the unknowing initial impetus he gave to what would become A.A., acknowledged the insights that Jung had passed on to Rowland H., the "certain American business man" whose experience is described at pages 26-28 of the 'Big Book.' Citing the advice Jung gave to Rowland, Bill wrote:

"First of all you told of his hopelessness, so far as any further medical or psychiatric treatment might be concerned. . . . When he then asked you if there was any other hope, you told him there might be, provided he could become the subject of a spiritual or religious experience - in short, a genuine conversion. "  ("Pass It On," page 382.)

 Bill then told Jung of his own spiritual awakening and those of "many of thousands" other A.A. members. "As you will now see clearly," he wrote, "this astonishing chain of events actually started long ago in your consulting room, and it was directly founded upon your own humility and deep perception. . . . Because of your conviction that man is something more than intellect, emotion, and two dollars' worth of chemicals, you have especially endeared yourself to us. . . ."

In response, Jung noted that (at least as it was in Rowland's case) the "craving for alcohol" is "the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval terms: the union with God."

Carl G. Jung
1875-1961

"Jung is considered to be the

first modern psychiatrist to view

the human psyche as"by nature 

religious" and make it the focus 

of exploration." See: wikipedia

"The only right and legitimate way to such an experience," Jung continued, "is that it happens to you in reality, and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. You might be led to that goal by an act of grace or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond mere rationalism."

"Alcohol in Latin is spiritus," he concluded, "and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as you do for the most depraving poison. The helpful formulas therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum."

In a further letter responding to Jung's correspondence, Bill wrote:

"Your observation that drinking motivation often includes that of a quest for spiritual values caught our special interest. I am sure that, on reflection, thousands of our members could testify that this had been true of them, despite the fact that they often drank for oblivion, for grandiosity, and other undesirable emotions. Sometimes, it seems unfortunate that alcohol used in excess, turns out to be a deformer of consciousness, as well as an addictive poison."  ("Pass It On," page 385.)

Additionally, acknowledging the help that many A.A. pioneers had received from reading Jung's "Modern Man in Search of a Soul," he praised Jung's observation that: "(M)ost persons having arrived at age 40 and having acquired no conclusions or faith as to who they were, or where they were, or where they were going next in the cosmos, would be bound to encounter increasing neurotic difficulties; and that this would be likely to occur whether their youthful aspirations for sex union, security, and a satisfactory place in society had been satisfied or not. In short, they could not continue to fly blind toward no destination at all, in a universe seemingly having little purpose or meaning. Neither could any amount of resolution, philosophical speculation, or superficial religious conditioning save them from the dilemma in which they found themselves. So long as they lacked any direct spiritual awakening and therefore awareness, their conflict simply had to increase."

Acknowledging that these views had had "an immense impact" on some early members, Bill acknowledged that "(w)e saw that you had perfectly described the impasse in which we had once been, but from which we had been delivered through our several spiritual awakenings. This 'spiritual experience' had to be our key to survival and growth. We saw that an alcoholic's helplessness could be turned to vital advantage. By the admission of this, he could be deflated at depth, thus fulfilling the first condition of a remotivating conversion experience." ("Pass It On," pages 385-386)

Bill's "conversion experience" is, of course, the same as a "spiritual awakening," as a "spiritual experience," or as a "religious experience." It can be found through "outer" religious practice, but mere religious beliefs, knowledge and/or practice are not necessarily sufficient to bring it about. It must be found "in reality" beyond mere self-consciousness, or ego-consciousness.

Awakenings to  such "higher understanding" or "higher consciousness" (a.k.a. "God-consciousness" as many A.A.'s refer to it) are reported in all religious traditions, but such a "spiritual experience" or "religious experience" is wholly an "inner phenomenon." It is, as it describes, first and foremost experiential. In this sense, and this sense only, the Twelve Steps are indeed, and in fact, just as much a "religious" as a "spiritual" program.

* * * * *

Jung's letter to Bill W., dated January 30, 1961:

Jung died on June 6th, 1961, before he could return Bill W.'s second letter.

* * * * *

"Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you. When you are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and MAKING IT STRONGER. As we share this goal, we increase its power to attract the whole Sonship, and to bring it back into the Oneness in which it was created."

"Remember that "yoke" means "join together" and "burden" means message. Let us reconsider the biblical statement "my yoke is easy and my burden light" in this way. Let us join together, for my message is Light. I came to your minds because you had grown vaguely aware of the fact that there is another way, or another voice. Having given this invitation to the Holy Spirit, I could come to provide the model for HOW TO THINK."

"Psychology has become the study of BEHAVIOR, but no-one denies the basic law that behavior is a response to MOTIVATION, and motivation is will. I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same mind to do this. This mind is the Holy Spirit, whose will is for God always. It teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and behave like me as a result."

"The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief, but NOT beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together has no limits, because the call for God IS the call to the unlimited. Child of God, my message is for YOU, to hear and give away as you answer the Holy Spirit within you."

From "A Course In Miracles," Chapter V ("The Voice for God")

Two Different Paths

"More sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism and by attendance at a few meetings is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a contented, useful life."

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pp. 39-40

In writing the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill W. used much the same method he had used in writing the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. He circulated drafts of the essays to friends and editors for suggestions and critiques, and he then revised the transcript and made certain editorial changes - except, in doing so, this time he was assisted by his nonalcoholic secretary, Nell Wing (see "Pass It On," pp. 354-357). I often wonder, however, if during one of these revisions or transcriptions the words "(m)ore sobriety" leading off the above-quote (from his essay on Step Three) were not changed from "(m)ere sobriety."

Many (and perhaps most) of us have, it seems, suffered from the "mere sobriety" of just not drinking at one point or another in our recovery. Looking back, I spent most of my earliest sobriety in the state of being "stark raving sober," although, of course, I was not aware of it at the time. Indeed, it was not until after I had been institutionalized for the increasing insanity resulting from being "merely sober" that I clued into their being a wholly different and entirely new depth of experience available through the rigorous practice of the Twelve Steps.

As in all spiritual or religious practices and teachings, there are different paths and depths to the practice of the AA program - and different realizations and results to be experienced and achieved. Bill undoubtedly was aware of this, even to the extent that he wondered about the usefulness of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. "At first," he wrote in correspondence dated October 5, 1953, "I was dubious whether anyone would care for it, save oldtimers who had begun to run into life's lumps in areas other than alcohol. But apparently," he observed, "the book is being used to good effect even upon newcomers."

The different depths of practice and result are apparent throughout the Twelve and Twelve, although perhaps nowhere more explicitly noted than above (from the Step Three essay),  and in the following observations (at page 98) made in regard to the practice of Step 11:

"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."

"(M)uch relief and benefit" is, of course, available through prayer, meditation and self-examination, as is "(m)ore sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism and attendance at a few meetings." The question thus becomes whether one is satisfied with the mere relief the program provides for the symptoms of active alcoholic addiction, or whether one truly seeks the "new state of consciousness and being" that Bill describes in his Step 12 essay (at page 107). For the mere relief of alcoholic addiction's symptoms (though such relief may well prove to be impermanent) there is one depth to the application of the 12 Steps; for inner transformation, however, a much greater depth must be explored. Such is the nature, per force, of all spiritual teachings.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. "

Matthew 7:13-14

"Buddhas became enlightened because of realizing their essence. Sentient beings became confused because of not realizing their essence. Thus there is one basis or ground, and two different paths. . . . There are two choices, two paths. One is the path of knowing, the wakefulness that knows its own nature. One is the path of unknowing, of not recognizing our own nature, and being caught up in what is being thought of . . . "
(Emphasis added.)

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
"As It Is," vol. II, pp. 43-47

The first step on both paths is to admit our alcoholism. This admission of alcoholism and attendance at a few meetings will lead to "more sobriety," but not necessarily "permanent sobriety and a contented, useful life." Sadly, many, perhaps most (at least for a time), settle for the "mere sobriety" that this gives. No longer in active addiction, their material life usually improves, and they may "settle" for the conventional aspirations that most people embrace as life's purpose - family, making money, success, etc. This is, perhaps, taking the lesser path, or, if you like, going through "the wide gate."

The next step on the inner path, however, is the admission that life was, is and will remain "unmanageable" by one's self-conscious and unaided will, not merely "unmanageable" when one was drinking and/or drugging. With this comes an understanding and - through understanding - a "belief" that there is a power greater than one's "self" or "ego" that will restore the sufferer to the "sanity" (i.e., "wholeness") of one's authentic Being. Such belief turns into a prayer and aspiration to be relieved of "the bondage of self." These are the first tenuous steps that mark the beginning of "the narrow path."

For those who choose or settle for "mere sobriety," Steps Four through Step Nine merely get the heat off them for past misconduct when they were in their active addiction, while Step 10 keeps the heat off. For the spiritual aspirant, though, Steps Four through Nine identify and remove the old "ideas, emotions and attitudes" that separate them in consciousness from their Being, while Step Ten becomes a "continuous" moral inventory, or self-examination, that alerts them when they have once again slipped back into ordinary egoic self-consciousness.

Few are those on "the wide path" who effectively practice Step 11, even those who do meditate and/or pray. For, as Bill notes, above in his Step 11 essay, it is only when we logically interrelate and interweave the practices of "self-examination, meditation, and prayer" that we are afforded, however briefly, spiritual awakening and true insight into the very nature of our Being, call it nirvana, mystic union, samadhi, enlightenment, God's kingdom, or what you will.

It is as a result of the "spiritual awakening" afforded by the inner path that we are enabled to truly and effectively carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous to the alcoholic who still suffers, rather than merely "suggesting" that he or she "join a group, get a sponsor, go to meetings, and work the 12 Steps" etc. It is only through enlargement of our "new state of consciousness and being" that we enabled "to practice these principles in all our affairs."

We Atheists

On the night of November 11, 1989, I experienced what many alcoholic addicts describe as "a moment of clarity." Alcohol and drugs had not been working for me the way they used to. They could no longer alleviate the punishing, self-conscious thoughts in my mind, and they only added to the fear and emotional turmoil I was regularly experiencing, particularly when I was "in my cups." Thankfully, I acted upon that brief moment of quiet acceptance and I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a fixed desire to quit drinking and drugging.

From the start I had great difficulties with the program's spirituality. Raised in a scientific household and community (my father was a nuclear scientist, though my mother was a Christian Scientist), I had no belief in God or a Higher Power. For religion, or religionists, I had no time. Fortunately I quickly got myself a sponsor. I made my first and most crucial mistake in sobriety, however, on that first day we talked (the significance of which will be described below). Knowing me from the time I was out "performing" - his description, not mine - he told me point blank that I would have to take Step Two.

Having been in A.A. a number of weeks before we hooked up, and knowing that this "Power" greater than myself referred to the God of my understanding from Step Three, I asked him what his idea of God was. He told me he viewed God as "Good Orderly Direction," and I adopted this, believing that without the booze and drugs I would sure be able to able to turn around my thinking into some semblance of "Good Orderly Direction." This I tried with a vengeance. I returned to university and then law school, where I graduated at the top of my classes. Surely this was a sign of "Good Orderly Direction?"

Nonetheless, and needless to say, the material success I had in sobriety did not suffice to deepen my spiritual experience, even though I went through the Twelve Steps several times and went to many, many meetings in the first nine years of my sobriety. (I am, I know now, an alcoholic addict that needs more than a handful of meetings a week to maintain my sobriety.)

With life's success taking me to a future I could not have imagined, working long hours as a lawyer at one of Canada's oldest and most reputable law firms in order to support my family and give them the luxuries I thought they wanted and deserved, I turned my back on A.A. I could not imagine taking myself away from my family during the admittedly few family hours my professional responsibilities afforded me. Thus, I made a conscious decision not to attend A.A. in the community we had just moved to. (My second great mistake in A.A.)

For the next 4 and 1/2 years, I held it together as best I could before falling into a profound depression that cost me all that I had worked for, and which nearly cost me my life. In and out of psychiatric wards for the next eighteen months of this tortured sobriety, my life, my family and my career fell apart. All without taking a drink or drugs.

(In his Step Three essay in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill W. writes: "More sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism and attendance at a few meetings is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a happy and contented life.") (Emphasis added.)

Fortunately, in October of 2003 the best-friend of my first sponsor (who had passed away when I was only 5 years sober) heard I was in trouble and left me a telephone message. I would not return that message until January of 2004 (after a botched suicide attempt), but when I did my sponsor's friend hit the nail on the head: I had become a dry drunk. He took me to an unforgettable A.A. meeting, and forthwith I got a new sponsor and joined a group in the community I was living in, having been separated from my wife and my role as a full-time father

I attended A.A. on a daily basis thereafter. Fourteen-and-a-half years clean and sober, but without a clue as to how the program of Alcoholics Anonymous worked though, as I mentioned, I had gone through the entire Twelve Steps several times in my early, ineffective years in the Fellowship. I had been held back by the prejudice and contempt I had for all matters religious or spiritual.

My new sponsor -  a man who drank at 15 years of sobriety, but had once again reached that threshold - took me through the Steps once more, getting me all the way to Step Seven before he succumbed to cancer. Little did I know that there were other old-timers watching me, and watching me continue to suffer because I did not have a God of my own understanding. (Although I wished to believe in a Higher Power, I could not find one of my own understanding, prejudiced as my thinking was by my understanding of science. I needed a Higher Power that was compatible with what I knew of both psychology and science.)

Fourteen years clean and sober, with my life in shreds and acutely feeling the demise of both my marriage and a brief fling with a very lovely woman, my best A.A. friend and I were out looking for a new apartment for me to live in. On finding and renting the perfect apartment for me, my friend and I went to celebrate by having lunch on a nearby patio. My friend is an interesting and talkative man, so I just listened to him talk as I basked in the incredible feeling of peace, ease of mind and well-being I was enjoying as a result of our morning's work.

Suddenly, however, I stopped listening to my friend and my thoughts turned I know not where, likely to my family or my recent failed relationship. It does not matter, for what I felt as soon as I turned my mind from what my buddy was saying to my own thoughts a wave of great fear washed over me from head to toe. I knew then that my problem was an inside problem, and that the solution to it must somehow also be an inside job.

Several days later, one of the old-timers who had been watching me saw that I was through suffering. (He had been urged by another friend to talk to me, but his reply was, "No. He hasn't done suffering yet.") Approaching me, he offered to lend me a book: Eric Butterworth's "Discover the Power Within You." It was the first book of a spiritual nature (including all the books A.A. had published) that I read with an entirely open mind and new perspective. It was the first book of a spiritual bent in which I did not throw away the 'baby' of those things I could understand and believe with the 'bathwater' of concepts that were beyond my understandings and belief.

A day later, this old-timer and I spent about four hours going through the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous and discussing our mutual experiences. It was not a thorough dissection of the 'Big Book.' Rather, it was an exposition of some of the principle parts of our basic text that I would need to understand if I were to progress spiritually. The main sections he discussed with me were:

• Page 23: "(T)he main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind

• Page 55: "We found that Great Reality (i.e., the God of our own understanding) deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that it can be found." 

• Page 567: "With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. . . . Most of us think that this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. . . . Our more religious members call it God-consciousness." (Emphasis added.)

True sobriety, I was shown, is a matter of replacing the self-conscious stream of thinking in our minds ('self' or the human 'ego') with a greater awareness and higher consciousness - one unaffected by the seeming duality and separateness of the human ego and our ego-centric thinking.

The "first and most significant mistake" I had made so long ago then became clear to me: Instead of asking my first sponsor what God is, I should have asked what "self" is. After all, it was only a Power greater than my "self" that I would need in order to restore me to sanity, not the God of some of the more perverse religious teachings. It is only once we know, understand, address and overcome the workings of the ego/self through meditation and prayer that we can understand God, Allah, Brahman Bhudda-nature, or whatever you may wish to call It. Indeed, I know that it was only then that I, a former atheist, came to believe and then to experience God's presence within and all around me.

Most helpful, was the following passage from the eminent theologian, Paul Tillich, which was included in Butterworths' "Discover the Power Within You." (Tillich was a friend and colleague of Reinhold Niebuhr, the man who wrote our Serenity Prayer.) In a book of his collected sermons, Tillich talks directly to the atheist about the "depths" of his or her being:

"The wisdom of all ages and of all continents speaks about the road to our depth," Tillich notes. "It has been described in innumerably different ways. But all those who have been concerned - mystics and priests, poets and philosophers, simple people and educated - with that road through confession, lonely self-scrutiny, internal or external catastrophes, prayer, contemplation, have witnessed to the same experience. They have found they are not what what they believed themselves to be, even after a deeper level had appeared to them below the vanishing surface. That deeper level itself became surface, when a still deeper level was discovered, this happening again and again, as long as their lives, as long as they kept on the road to their depth. . . . "

"The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being," he continues, "is God. That depth is what the word God means. . . . For if you know that God means depth, you know much about him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or an unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not. He who knows about depth knows about God."

[Paul Tillich, "The Shaking of the Foundations," Scribners, pp. 56-57.]

That "depth" is an ever-increasing refinement of  consciousness, a consciousness that is inextricably entwined with all matter. In its purest form it is God. "When we became alcoholics," we read in the 'Big Book,' "crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?" I faced that proposition and came to know that God is, in fact, everything - the manifest and the unmanifested, everything within and everything without all beings and even matter itself.

Having experienced the higher consciousness ( or "God-consciousness") that underlies but is obscured by the ego/self, I came not only to believe, but know, that there is a "Power greater than ourselves" that can restore us to sanity. While I may not understand that higher consciousness in all its facets, I know that it is there at every moment. It is "by self-forgetting" that it is found, and found in the last place most people would think to look for it: "deep down within every man, woman and child."

Escape From the Bondage of Self

To be trapped in the prison-house of the smaller "self" - mired in the incessant stream of involuntary thinking that is the the human "ego" - is to be prey to the full range of destructive emotions such thinking produces. It is to be powerless with seemingly no way out. Unaddressed, the alcoholic addict - "irritable, restless and discontented" unless he or she can can once again experience "the ease and comfort" once afforded by alcohol and/or drugs - is exceedingly prone to seek chemical relief from how he or she is feeling. "Many of us tried to hold onto our ideas" - along with the toxic emotions such ideas produced - "and the result was nil until we let go absolutely."

"The problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind," we read in Alcoholics Anonymous. It is our incessant, involuntary thinking which is the true root of the alcoholic addict's problem. Alcohol and/or drug use is merely the symptom of the problem. While drinking and/or drugging once worked to alleviate "the painful inner dialogue" of the ego, for most alcoholic addicts such fleeting relief was lost long before they sobered up. Hence the need for a "spiritual awakening." It is the resurgent spirit of our higher consciousness that returns the alcoholic addict to sanity as the ego is deflated "at depth."

Self-consciousness, or ego-identification, is of course the bane of every man and woman's existence. The non-alcoholic addict may seek relief from the thoughts and emotions generated by ego-identification in any number of ways - exercise, work, watching t.v., etc. - some of which may conventionally be deemed 'constructive' or others which become obsessive and 'destructive.' For the alcoholic addict, however, the temptation (which may at times of great emotional upheaval seem an imperative) is to return to booze or drugs. After all, at some time in the near or distant past, these once worked and provided, however fleetingly, the relief from acute self-consciousness that was desired. Unlike the means the so-called "normal" person turns to for such ego-relief, however, alcohol and drugs have the power to enslave and kill the alcoholic addict.

To counter the inevitable emotional maelstrom that accompanies one's old ideas and attitudes - our habitual thoughts and way of thinking - the Twelve Steps are designed to foster a spiritual awakening. Describing the effect of the "vital spiritual experiences" that relieve alcoholic addicts of their obsessive, self-conscious thinking and its accompanying emotions, Carl Jung (at page 27 of the 'Big Book') observed: "Ideas, emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them." Bill W., at page 107 of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, describes it as "a new state of consciousness and being."

Steps Four through Step Nine are designed to rid us of our old ideas and obsessions, Step Ten is designed to keep new obsessions from arising, while Step 11 is designed to prolong and deepen our experience of God-consciousness.

"There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer," Bill observes. "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 and Twelve, page 98.)

* * * * * 

"We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us." 

 Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.

* * * * *

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

Luke 17:20-21 (Emphasis added.)

* * * * *

"With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped  an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. . . . Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it God-consciousness."

Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 567-568

Fear and Expectations

Fear - primarily fear that we will lose something we have, or will fail to get something we desire - is "the chief activator" of all our defects of character. Yet, there is nothing objective that we need fear. It is entirely an inner, subjective phenomenon. That is, we are the manufacturers of our own anxieties, oftentimes needless worries that are fueled by the expectations we have about how we, the world, and the people that surround us will perform.

"We expect what we have known," a learned psychiatrist once told me. "And, then, we turn around and fear what we expect." In this way we forge a seemingly hostile world from the potential beauty that surrounds us.

Steps Four through Step Nine are designed to let us look objectively at what has shaped us, at the resentments, fears and sex experiences that have warped our perceptions of the world and its denizens, at the expectations we have formed about how life will necessarily unfold based upon our past experiences, and at how acute self-consciousness and unwarranted fears have crippled us. Armed with insights into what we have thought and done in response to our perceived resentments, fears and sex conduct we are enabled to walk through life on a new basis, correcting our wrongs as they arise when we inevitably fall short of our ideals.

The 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous (at page 75) highlights the experiential change we witness in our attitudes and in our being as our existential fears subside upon completion of the Fifth Step, and as we move forward in our task of clearing away the past's wreckage and drawing nearer to the God of our own understanding:

" . . . (W)e are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. (Emphasis added.)

No longer, I might add, need we be ruled by the fearful expectations we have built up over time based upon our past lives, particularly our lives in active addiction. Rather, we become inspired by the possibilities inherent in our new lives.

"The great fact," after completing the Steps, "is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves."

- Alcoholics Anonymous, page 25.