How To Know God

I did not pick up a 10 year medallion. At nine-and-a-half years, convinced I would not drink or drug again, I set off to cash in on a law degree that I had earned in my sobriety. I didn't drink or drug again, but thus started the craziest (and most painful) portion of my life. Five years later, I finally made my way back to AA, with the urging and help of an old AA friend, and my sponsors to be.

When I returned, and after perhaps another nine months regaining some semblance of AA balance in my life, two old-timers came in to my life and became my spiritual mentors. They were Harry, who would teach me meditation and explain the highest potentials attainable through the spirit, and Chuck who would explain the true nature of alcoholism to me, and who would become my co-adventurer into all aspects of spiritual life.
After my first sit-down with Chuck and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, he said that if I was serious about this spiritual quest, I should read The Essential Rumi and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. I ordered both of these from the bookstore.  Finding, the first was easy as it is a best seller translated by the poet, Coleman Barks.  But I had to choose from over a hundred different commentaries on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras that were then available. Fortunately, while I was waiting for my book order, my other mentor Harry lent me a copy of what he called his "Book of Spiritual-Realization". It  was called How to Know God: A Commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, written by Christopher Isherwood and his teacher Swami Prabhavananda. (Synchronistically, when my book order arrived, I had picked the exact same commentary from amongst the 100's available!)

In How to Know God (which can be found here), Isherwood and Prabhavananda render a wonderful analogy of the mind and the "skhandas" - or habitual thought patterns - which are in essence the same as what we would call "character defects" in AA. They explain that "yoga" - the word for "religion" in the East - means to reunite with the Godhead that is imbued throughout every being, and which is the essence of each being.  In this sense, "yoga" (which derives from the same Sanskrit word as the English "yoke") is the same as the inner religious path examined by William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience. (The word "religion" comes from the Latin re, meaning again; and ligare, meaning to tie or unite - as in ligature, or ligament.) In other words, as Isherwood and the Swami explain, yoga is the practices by which the individual reunites with his authentic being, or the atman in Hindu parlance.  Patanjali's second sutra, or thread, says that, "the practice of yoga is learning to still the thought stuff or the mind"

(It is important to for the reader to know that Patanjali's yoga practices do not include the "hatha yoga" practices that are common in the yoga studios of the West.  Hatha yoga is seen as a later practice that is viewed as merely preparatory, readying the body and mind fit for studying the six limbs of classical yoga.)

Isherwood and Prabhavananda go on to give the following beautiful analogy of the mind, and the skhandas or character defects which obscure its true nature. (Remember, that page 55 of the Big Book says that the fundamental ideas of God is within each man, woman and child, "although it may be obscured by calamity, pomp and worship of other things.")

In How to Know God, the authors describe the mind as being like a clear lake, at the bottom of which rests the atman, or God within. While at first it is possible to see straight through the lake to God, thought waves and thinking stirs the surface of the Mind-lake and its water column, so that in time the lake becomes turgid and we can no longer see to the bottom.  And just like a muddied lake, there are habitual currents and eddies (i.e., our habitual ways of thinking, or our "old ideas") that build up sandbanks and pebble beds that further obscure the lake bottom.

They explain, however, that as one learns - through self-examination, meditation and prayer - to still the thought waves of the mind, and through a disciplined practice of doing so, the mud settles out of the water and we can again see to the lake bottom.  Yet, even when the water is again clear, we are left with the sandbars of the skhandas (our defects of character), which tend to channel our thoughts, just as sandbars channel the currents in a lake.  But, they explain, through patient and persistent practice even these obstructions pass away, so that once again the Mind-lake becomes clear and we can see all the way to the bottom - which is the Ground of Being - and, thus, we complete the process of reuniting with the Godhead, or making conscious contact with our Higher Power.

I find this to be a wonderful analogy of how the AA program works.  We come in with a muddied mind, but come to believe that there is a Higher Power somewhere within our access.  We then work to clear the waters, through a shared moral inventory, making amends and continuing to watch for character defects through a continuing inventory.  Then we practice the arts of self-examination, meditation and prayer, through which we realize a spiritual awakening. Finally, by consistent effort, we may be afforded what Bill describes in Step Eleven of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, as "a new state of consciousness and being."

I am grateful to the two old-timers who picked me up and became my spiritual mentors, as I am to my sponsor and those who came before him.  Through these people, a message was carried that helped show me there is a far Greater Reality than that which I had only theretofore experienced in the choppy waves at the top of my Mind-lake - the dangerous waters of the ego, or if you like, the bondage of self. And this is a message that is handed down to us, not only through more experienced AA members, but from the wisdom traditions passed down from the very sands of time itself

Spiritual Experience: Living the Spiritual Life

There are two small sentences - one a proposition, the other an assertion - that, I believe, lie at the heart of the AA program.  Both are keys to a new 'attitude': i.e., new thoughts and a new way of thinking about the world,  and who and what we are. It is this new attitude that allows the recovering alcoholic addict to live at peace in a world that is inherently unmanageable, without compulsively seeking to either manage his or her experience, or seek the comfort and ease that might elusively be found in a continuing addiction.

The first proposition is found at page 53 of Alcoholics Anonymous, AA's basic text. "When we become alcoholics," it reads, "crushed by a self-imposed crises we could not postpone or evade, we had to face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing, God either is, or He isn't." [Emphasis added.] It then asks us, "What is our choice to be?".

The 11th Step Prayer - Invocation, Meditation & Contemplation

In the 11th Step prayer (or St. Francis' Prayer), set out on page 99 of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, we pray that God "make us a channel of thy peace." How do we become a "peace channel", and why a "channel" at all?

Page 55 of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, makes it clear that "the fundamental idea of God" is deep within the consciousness of each of us - man, woman and child. Such higher consciousness (most especially in the mind of the chronic alcoholic addict) may, however, be obscured by the cloud of three particular mental manifestations or constructs of extreme 'self-consciousness': namely, those of "calamity, pomp and worship of other things".

It is this "Great Reality deep down within us" described on page 55 - or what the Spiritual Experience Appendix describes as "an unsuspected inner resource" - which is the "peace" in the channel of peace sought through the 11th step prayer. It is by facing the powerful, inner and near-hypnotizing manifestations of "self" - the inner calamity, pomp, and worship of other things such as money, prestige, sex relations - and then going beyond the narrow confines of this self-consciousness to a deeper consciousness, that we will find true peace of mind. But how specifically do we do this?

The Mysterious, Depth & God - An "Unsuspected Inner Resource"

In The World As I See It, an autobiographical collection of Albert Einstein's papers, notes and lectures etc., the most renowned scientist of the twentieth century - and not unrelatedly one of that century's most visible and public atheists - makes the following comments regarding religion, God and the deep mysteries of life:

"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery--even if mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."

Fear, Desire and Suffering

Re-reading, yet again, the Seventh Step in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, I was struck anew by (a) how profoundly fear, desire and suffering are interrelated, (b) how integral the realization of suffering is in order to gain the humility necessary for removal of our character defects, and (c) how closely the commentary on Step Seven - whether knowingly or unbeknownst to Bill - reflects the simplicity of the Buddha's primary spiritual teaching. It teaches the nature of our suffering and how to remove it.

Evolving Consciousness

Perhaps the most frequently referenced quote from the stories section in the back of the Big Book is that dealing with 'acceptance' from the chapter "Acceptance Was The Answer" (formerly, "Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict"). It is found at page 417 in the fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous and reads:

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. Whenever I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."

Acceptance is at the heart not only of the Serenity Prayer, but at the heart of most of our slogans. To "Live and Let Live" is acceptance. Acceptance is the 'grace' in "But for the Grace of God," the 'first thing' in "First Things First," the level of thought to aspire to in "Think, Think, Think," and the means of 'letting go' of old ideas in "Let Go and Let God".

"Self-Examination, Meditation and Prayer" - Using Basic Recovery Tools: Part III

Bill W. wrote the series of essays that would be published as "The Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions" when he was fifteen years sober and had emerged from his own 'dark night of the soul' - a prolonged, ten year bout of depression that followed shortly after the "vital experience experience" that led to his co-founding Alcoholics Anonymous with Dr. Bob in the summer of 1935.

To me, Bill's reflections in the Twelve and Twelve on how to work the 12 Steps of Recovery first set out in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, are an invaluable insight into the deeper workings of a spiritual practice that is designed to awaken a "new state of consciousness and being" in the person who applies this spiritual methodology. And perhaps no passage in the Twelve and Twelve more succinctly sets out the path to follow for a person who is earnestly seeking the spiritual awakening that is necessary to permanently arrest one's alcoholic addiction, than the following passage from Bill's essay on 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 interrelated and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life. Now and then we may be given a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God's kingdom. And we will be comforted and assured that our own destiny in that realm will be secure for so long as we try, however falteringly, to find and do the will of our own Creator. (Emphasis added.)

I hear much talk about the necessity of prayer - and it is necessary - at AA meetings. I hear that we are to pray to the God of our own understanding for help throughout the day, and to give thanks at night. Indeed, the Third Step tells me to repeat the Serenity Prayer each time my emotional state is disturbed or my mind is racing and indecisive. The Third Step and Eleventh Step prayers are specifically laid out for our daily use.

Yet,while effectiveness of prayer is often and loudly touted, too often the necessity of meditation - the need for a quiet time of contemplation in the morning and evening - is not mentioned . . . let alone emphasized. Sometimes, even old-timers seem to scoff at the notion that meditation is a basic recovery tool that is necessary and required to achieve the emotional sobriety we all eventually require It is as if the practice of meditation is seen as some strange foreign "Eastern" tradition that was not a fundamental aspect of every religious tradition - West and East - including the Christian tradition.

Indeed, "self-examination, meditation and prayer" are three vital components of each of the world's great wisdom traditions. How then do we 'logically interrelate and interweave' these three ancient practices?

I suggest, as was shown to me, that first thing in the morning the spiritual aspirant looking for recivery from any of life's varied addictions sit in a straight backed chair for a 10 minute period of meditation. I was instructed by a man with over three decades of sobriety achieved through daily periods of prayer and meditation to count the breath. (Indeed, this is a fundamental technique of both Buddhist and Hindu yogic practice, as well as a technique used in many Christian, Jewish and Muslim schools.) This appears to be the technique that Bill himself was shown by his sponsor - Ebbie T.

In "The Man Who Sponsored Bill W." Ebbie recalls how he was shown a simple method of morning meditation by Rolland H. and the Oxford Groupers that had come to his rescue, before Ebbie in turn carried the Oxford Group message and methods to Bill.

"Rowland gave me a great many things that were of a great value to me later on," Ebbie recalled. "He had a thorough indoctrination and he passed as much of this on to me as he could. When we took trips together we would get up early in the morning, and before we even had any coffee, we would sit down and try to rid ourselves of any thoughts of the material world and see if we couldn't find out the best plan for our lives for that day and to follow whatever guidance came to us."

Following their period of morning meditation, they would make a simple list, based on the guidance they received during this quiet time, of the things they would like to accomplish during the day - a handy reference when the mind is chaotic! They would repeat this quiet time of meditation again in the evening, sitting for a ten-minute or so period trying once again to rid themselves "of any thoughts of the material world."

Personally, I find it absolutely essential to quiet my mind in this manner first thing in the morning. The clamorous and undisciplined "thoughts of the material world" that arise first things in the morning are the "calamity" that helps obscure the fundamental idea of God within me, as it is within every man , woman and child (AA, page 55). It is my job to uncover that "Great Reality" within me. First by a few minutes of quiet to dispell that obsessive (and oppressive) voice of "self" that can arisen unbidden first thing in the morning. Then, by being aware of my thoughts and emotional condition throughout the day - by the process of "self-examination" or taking a continuing personal inventory of my thoughts, actions and how these make me feel - and asking for relief from the "bondage of self" and repeating the Serenity prayer when I find my "self" emotionally distured or indecisisve, as laid out in Step Three. And finally, by engaging in another period of quiet contemplation, prayer and meditation at the end of the day, to lay that false "self" or human ego to one side before sleep.

I also enjoy, as Dr. Bob, advocated a period of time each day devoted to reading something - anything - of a spiritual nature. But it is this logically interwoven practice of self-examination, meditation and prayer that gives me the unshakable foundation - and gets me out of me. It is when I let up on any of these - particularly meditation, or more immediately, self-examination - that things get shaky.

(See also, Basic Recovery Tools: Part I and Basic Recovery Tools: Part II)

The "Serenity Prayer" - Using Basic Recovery Tools: Part II

For me, as for most others I suspect, there are three key concepts that stand out in the "Serenity Prayer" - serenity, courage and wisdom. All three concepts reflect an element of our consciousness, the mental "attitude" or internal perspective that we take in respect of the world that surrounds us and our state of being within that world. When utilizing the Serenity Prayer as the principal tool in my spiritual 'tool kit', it is these three components of what amount to a deeper, yet higher 'God-consciousness' that I focus on.

I am told that practicing the Third Step of Recovery, and in fact my entire psycho-spiritual recovery from a hopelessly, helplessly addicted state of mind and body, is contingent upon my bringing the power of my will to the task at hand each time I become emotionally upset or indecisive about what to do in the face of the vicissitudes and curve-balls that life itself has a way of tossing in my direction. And that task is (a) to "pause" from the thoughts and actions that have so disturbed and shaken me, (b) to ask for an inner "quiet" in which to recollect the Wholeness of G_d and my place within that entirety, and (c) from the internal "stillness" - a quietistic attitude and the non-rationalistic, non-analytic, non-judgmental mode of thought and cognition gained by doing this this invokes - take in and absorb the effect of the Serenity Prayer.

All of these affirmative actions, contemplations and meditations are intended to invoke an attitude of trusting acceptance in me that the results of all that is transpiring in that moment will occur in a good, orderly and directed fashion that will ultimately satisfy the requirements and needs of all, and not merely satisfy my narrow desires and quell my ego-centric fears.

The Serenity Prayer is, thus, really a means for reorienting my interior attitude - a means of reorienting my innermost thought processes. ("Attitude", is defined in The Concise Oxford Dictionary" as being a "settled opinion or way of thinking"). Truly, "nothing is good nor bad," as Shakespeare observed, "but our thinking makes it so." The Serenity Prayer is thus the mechanism for the conscious "attitude adjustment" that A.A. is often said to be the acronym for.
"Serenity" then becomes the state of being or consciousness that I am affirming and invoking.

In Emmet Fox's classic work, The Sermon on the Mount, a book that Bill, Bob and other Recovery "pioneers of consciousness" relied upon, Fox observed that there are really three levels of 'prayer': the lowest level being 'prayer' as we commonly think of it, but prayer invoking and affirming the omnipresence of God and not a mere asking for things or outcomes; the next higher level of 'prayer' being meditation, or a quiet abiding in that omnipresence; and contemplation, the highest level of 'prayer', in which to practice the continued abiding in God's omnipresence that we find only in meditation.

Often, in troubled times I merely make the silent affirmation, "God, you grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change", knowing that the 'courageous' (from the Latin cour, meaning 'heart') process of detaching from what my reasoning and analysis is saying to gain an intuitive perspective will follow, and that I have the "wisdom" to know the difference between the two ways of thinking about and responding to life's circumstances. I often have to say the Serenity prayer frontwards, backwards, silently, out loud or in my own words, but acceptance comes. I find that backwards is often the way this powerful prayer works best - a quiet inner affirmation that I have the wisdom to know the difference between the two attitudes or ways of thinking about this life, courage to let go of the fearful, egoic way of thinking about life that I learned as a young boy and perfected in my addictions, and then serenity is what is left.

Paul's letter to the Corinthians says, "God is Love." It could equally say that God is serenity, inner peace, acceptance, truth or any one of the synonymous attributes of God that we can find within ourselves through the Serenity Prayer when we move from finding life itself "unacceptable" to an attitude of inner acceptance.

(See also, Basic Recovery Tools: Part I and Basic Recovery Tools: Part III)