12 Steps & 12 Traditions
This month’s Step and Tradition articles from the Digital Archive:
|  11th Step
Sought through prayer meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
WHEN I WAS SMALL, my parents sent me to several different Sunday schools, but I don't think they ever went to church themselves. My aunts and uncles were members of different sects, and when they came to visit, they took me with them to their churches. My parents made no objection, and, in fact, I believe they thought it would be good for me. As it turned out, it wasn't.
Before World War I, religious intolerance was much stronger, more prevalent, and more open than it is today. I heard hellfire-and-brimstone sermons, and usually the damned were those people who did not attend that particular church. Since I attended a number of different churches, I heard them all ripped up and down, at one time or another. To a youngster, it was very confusing.
By the time I was in high school, I had come to the conclusion that all religion was a lot of baloney. I had tried to find out more for myself and had actually read most of the Bible. I'm sure now that I understood very little, but I found enough nonsense in it to prove my case to my own satisfaction.
When I took my first drink (and got drunk) at the age of seventeen, I was already an all-out, atheist. As my alcoholism developed, my atheism got nastier. I was absolutely certain that I was right, and after a few drinks I enjoyed imparting my wisdom to anyone who would listen or, preferably, argue. I ridiculed anyone who was so stupid, ignorant, or superstitious as to believe in any sort of God or religion--or who was so hypocritical as to act as though he believed such nonsense.
Twenty years after my first drink, alcohol had me licked. I heard that a friend of mine had been sober for four months. Since I knew that he absolutely couldn't stay sober, any more than I could, I drank enough to get my courage up and went to see him to find out how he did it. I had read a newspaper article about Alcoholics Anonymous, had sent for the Big Book (for a friend, not for me), and had read part of it; so the thought had already been in my mind that maybe that was how he had gotten sober. Sure enough, it was. He gave me a drink and talked with me from mid-afternoon until after midnight.
The next day, I remembered just two things he had said. (1) "Can you stay sober 24 hours?" I had answered "Yes," because I had. (2) "AA has a spiritual part to it." (My heart sank.) "But I know you, and I advise you not to pay any attention to it. Just skip the whole subject, and try to keep an open mind." (Heart went back up.) "There is no religion in AA, but there is a belief in a power greater than ourselves, and your higher power can be AA."
My sponsor kept me with him overnight and all the next day and took me to my first meeting the next night, at the Old 24th Street Clubhouse in New York City. For the first time in my life, I felt at home. People were kind and welcomed me uncritically. I didn't know it then, but I had had my last drink.
From then on, my higher power was AA. I lived it, breathed it, became immersed in it. There was no doubt that I was powerless over alcohol and that AA had enabled me to do that which I had been unable to do myself. I took my inventory repeatedly, tried to make amends, did Twelfth Step work, went to numerous meetings, spoke, worked in the group jobs and at the intergroup office, admitted my shortcomings, and wanted them removed. . .by God, as I understood Him? I didn't understand Him at all, because He wasn't.
In group discussions, my good AA friends said things to me like "You have faith in a dollar bill, don't you? Yet it's nothing but paper." Many who had gained some faith themselves tried to pass it on to me--but it didn't work.
Then I went to a small closed meeting and listened to a real old-timer, who had preceded me in AA by six or seven years. He said that when a new member comes into AA, he naturally leans on his sponsor. After a while, he transfers his leaning to the group to which he belongs, and later on he transfers his leaning to AA as a whole. He leans on, depends on, gets his help from AA philosophy, rather than from any particular individual or group. And then, finally, if he is to stay sober for the long, long pull, he makes the final transfer and leans on God. Then he puts his reliance and dependence on God and lives by His will--and if he doesn't do this to some extent, he will not stay sober indefinitely. You have seen AA members, after some years of sobriety, get drunk. They didn't make the final transfer.
That was the gist of what he said, and it scared hell out of me, because I didn't want to get drunk, ever, and I didn't see how I could make the final transfer. So I doubled and redoubled my efforts to get some kind of faith, whatever that was. I think my mind finally may have opened, not only to the necessity of getting faith in God, but to the possibility, because I did begin to remember a few things.
Not long before coming into AA, when I was down so low that I was thinking about what a relief it would be to be dead. I remember saying out loud to myself something to the effect that I knew there was no God, but I wished there were, so I could ask Him, as other people did, to get me out of the horrible mess I was in. I began to wonder if this wish had been a prayer that had been heard and answered. But, of course, it couldn't have been. It was just a coincidence that I had come into AA shortly thereafter.
When the Lord's Prayer was said at the end of meetings, I didn't say it because I didn't know it. But I thought I should say it, so I looked it up and memorized it. Then I read Emmet Fox's analysis of that prayer, and the empty words began to make sense for the first time.
The old-timer had convinced me that I had better start doing something constructive about acquiring some kind of faith; so I started a ten-year stretch of reading books--probably a couple hundred of them--and have read more since then.
One of them, Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy, taught me that men, almost all of them, had always believed in God (or gods) and in life after death. It seemed to have been an instinctive belief, going hack at least 25,000 years. Could it be that I was wrong? It occurred to me that I had judged churches by the people who were in them, rather than by their teachings. Maybe I had been unable to accept religion merely because people didn't live up to its teachings. Could I judge AA by some drunks I knew who occasionally came to meetings, but never made any real attempt to get sober? That thought set me off on a good many years of experimental churchgoing to find out what the various religions taught, rather than what their members did.
I was beginning, I think, to have the first glimmerings of faith, of belief in some sort of Power that created the universe--but not in a personal God. About that time, the thought came to me that I had been personally created; that each and every individual had been personally created--no two alike. We are not part of some mysterious cosmos as a drop of water is part of the sea; each of us is an individual, separate entity, each created individually--and, what's more, each of us is of the most supercolossal, amazing complexity. With all our knowledge of DNA and heart transplants, we haven't the faintest idea how life comes to be. One thing is certain--we didn't invent it. Some intelligence, ten thousand trillion times more talented than we are, did. And that intelligence invented us, not as a general class of undifferentiated creatures, but each specifically. I could now see that whatever Power could do this could be called God. Since God could, and did, invent each of us individually, why could He not look after us individually? It began to seem illogical that He wouldn't.
I read a book by LeComte deNouy called Human Destiny which reinforced and solidified my growing belief. DeNouy was a biologist, whose science had convinced him of God. One of his arguments was this:
There are various kinds of protein molecules, and in any particular protein there are billions of identical molecules. Each molecule contains several million atoms of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. The thing that makes them proteins, rather than some other kind of substance, is the structure of the molecule. The position of each atom has to be the same in every one. Since there are several million atoms in each molecule, the probability of even two identical protein molecules occurring by chance is about as close to zero as you can get. Then, of course, the probability of a thousand or a million or a billion identical protein molecules being generated by chance becomes infinite nonsense. They must be generated, not only by intelligence, but by infinite intelligence.
DeNouy's book has much more than this example. Its general thesis is that man's brain is getting to the point where he will more and more control his own destiny. It is in this sense, I take it, that man is created in God's image and likeness. Man can think, and, through God's evolution, he gets better at it as aeons pass. Thought (I reasoned) must be the basis of all life.
What I was trying to do, as you no doubt have observed by now, was to work the Eleventh Step: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him. . ." That means we think about, it, consciously. Thought. Everything springs from thought. Action must be preceded by thought. Maybe thought is the ultimate power, the final energy of creation. We know that matter isn't really what it seems to our senses--it is a form of energy. We know from elementary physics that chemical energy can be turned into electrical energy, which can be converted into heat, which can be converted into motion, which can be converted back into electrical energy, which can be converted into light, etc. So what is energy?
Rhine's experiments proved to my satisfaction that thought can be transmitted through space from one person to another (ESP, extrasensory perception). Something must be going on that we know very little about. One thing seems certain: Energy is transmitted by waves--light, heat, electrical, sound. The living brain produces waves which medical men and researchers record on machines. Or is the brain a receiving station, like a radio? Does it receive waves that bring information from some cosmic source?
Pick out any particular point in space, the size of a pinhead. Through that point pass thousands of light waves, radio waves, TV waves, electrical waves, and all the waves from the distant stars and suns, and undoubtedly billions of thought waves, and all the kinds of waves we know nothing about--all at the same time. They are passing through us right now, and all the time. Ten thousand telephone conversations could be put on one high-frequency wavelength. Then could not all the information, data, processes, remembrances, thoughts of the entire universe be put on all the wavelengths? That would mean that all the infinite knowledge of the universe could be available at any one point, anywhere in space. Could that be how an Infinite Being would know everything about everything, everywhere? Is that how He would know every thought of every one of His creatures? Wouldn't He know every one of my thoughts, just as religion says He would?
Some of my thoughts were good and some were bad; most were in between. If, as religion teaches, God is all good, He would "hear" the good thoughts and aspirations. Would He ignore the bad ones? Or would He set events in motion to teach me better? The latter seemed more logical, if God is love and if God is our Father. A loving parent would teach his children so that they would live happy, productive lives. At any rate, this speculation satisfied me, so that I didn't have to believe in a God of wrath and punishment and vengeance.
How about guidance? How do we get knowledge of His will for us? I remember, when I was in college, one of my fraternity brothers was a premed student, nicknamed "Judge," who was interested in hypnotism and could sometimes be prevailed upon to hypnotize volunteers, usually freshmen. Before he awakened them, he would give them posthypnotic suggestions. He would say, for instance, "When you wake up, you are going to be very, very thirsty. You are going to get hot under the collar and itch, until you go and get a glass of water and bring it in here and drink it." After coming to, the subject would stand in the group talking nervously, running his finger around the back of his collar, and shortly he would excuse himself and bring back a glass of water and drink it before the gathering. He hadn't the faintest idea why he had done it.
So thoughts can be put into people's minds without their being aware of it. Certainly, the Creator of my mind could easily insert in it thoughts that would lead to my growth, without in any way interfering with the free will that He apparently wished to build into humans. My pea-sized intelligence can only speculate that He wanted to create a race of free-thinking beings, rather than a race of automatons--and, within limits, He has given us the ability to be just that. God could control human events by controlling thoughts. When I pray and do not "pray amiss," the prayer could be answered by putting the proper thoughts into my mind, or into the minds of others who would act as agents to carry out any necessary actions. I have never been aware of receiving any guidance, but I now believe it is entirely unnecessary for me to be aware of it. I can still receive it just the same.
People do get original thoughts. From where? There is such a thing as inspiration, and most of the time it cannot be traced to any source. Two people often get the same idea at the same time. Thought is prayer, and thought is power. But there are two kinds, good and bad. Energy is divided into two kinds: for instance, positive and negative electricity. If thought is the basic energy of creation, is it surprising that there are positive and negative thoughts? We know that we have to learn to use energy wisely and carefully. Wrongly used, electricity can kill, fire can burn, sound can shatter, light can blind. Wrong thoughts either are full of negative energy or are negative energy--and they can kill and cause destruction and misery. Right thoughts can soothe and heal, bring knowledge and happiness. "As a man thinketh, so is he" is literally true, because a person's whole life is lived in his mind and nowhere else. His thoughts make up his identity. Paul said a man's whole life is a prayer.
Speculations and meditations like these have done something to me, I'm very glad to say. Thanks to the Eleventh Step, I have had to discard from my mind all the thoughts and beliefs that were once there. I gave them up reluctantly. I liked my old thoughts, even was proud of them. I didn't want to believe in God, but through AA I got to a point where I had to. I didn't want to believe in prayer, but finally I had to. Now I believe it to be the strongest force on earth--if the quietest. You don't have to be aware of power. It doesn't have to be loud, like a hurricane. In one day, sunshine delivers to the earth's surface more energy, more horsepower than the total amount delivered by all the power we have ever developed artificially. And we are not aware that the force of the sun is power at all. Gravity acts on every cell of our body, every second, and we are not conscious of it.
Before AA, I wanted more than anything else to get sober. That was a positive thought, and it was a prayer that was answered. Once my closed mind was pried open, once I consciously tried to meditate and increase my conscious contact with God, my life started to straighten out, and it has continued to improve ever since. I can look back and see where I received guidance and where I made right decisions without ever knowing that I was doing so, or why.
When I came into AA, if anyone had told me that I would some day believe what I now believe, I think I would have shot him. How did the change happen? After joining AA, I had complete faith in everything AA said or stood for. I could see the results all around me, and, as time went on, I could see what AA was doing for me. Now, as I look back, I realize that AA was teaching me spiritual values without using religious words. For example:
AA tells us to try to help other people, and the people it tells us to help--other alcoholics--can be anything but lovely. AA tradition tells us to go to the most inconvenient lengths to help others. Religion tells us, "Love thy neighbor," and illustrates it with the parable of the good Samaritan.
AA teaches us tolerance, as we learn not to be irritated by the ideas and idiosyncrasies of others. Religion says, "Judge not. . ."
AA teaches us to get rid of resentments and to replace them with a feeling of goodwill toward everyone. Religion tells us to love our enemies.
AA says that we must be absolutely honest with ourselves. Religion says that to know the truth will set us free.
AA suggests to us the advisability of getting rid of pride and replacing it with humility. Religion says that pride is the deadliest of sins and that it "goeth before. . .a fall."
AA says it is necessary to get rid of our irrational fears, to live the kind of life that makes fears largely unnecessary. Religion says that "perfect love casteth out fear." If we could reach such an unearthly state of perfection, it would mean that our minds would be 100% concerned for the welfare of others, and then, since we would have no concern for ourselves, we would have no fear. Couldn't we say that the concern and fellowship existing among so many AA members, much deeper than friendship, can be called love? Not perfect, perhaps, but love just the same. The more of our minds we fill with concern for others, the less room is left to be concerned for ourselves. Thus, in AA, we slowly learn to stop stewing in our own juice and to start loving other people. (Certainly, we are not talking about romantic love, any more than Jesus was when He talked about loving your enemies, or your neighbor as yourself.)
In spite of my original bias, AA was teaching me spiritual values--love and kindness and consideration and humility, attitudes opposite to the resentments, pride, self-centeredness, and fear that had previously all but consumed my mind. And it was not until AA had taught me these values, to some extent at least, that my mind was ready for faith to enter.
How much faith? I don't, know how to measure it. But now I have faith in the teachings of both AA and religion, because I find them much the same, though expressed in different words. Faith is a matter of degree. I am grateful for whatever faith I have now, even though it is little more than a seedling--far, so very far, from the kind of faith that moves mountains. There is so much more to know, and no limit to the growth of faith. So I shall continue trying to work the Eleventh Step, trying to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand Him.
As I look back, I am aware that I now live in a comparatively happy and serene world, entirely different from the world of self-centered misery of not too long ago. Yet, whatever progress and happiness God has given me through AA, they are only a beginning. I feel sure that, if I keep trying to practice these principles in all my affairs, I will slowly but surely reach an even more splendid world some day.
R. A. S.
Tucson, Arizona Go to... |
