LIVING IN THE NOW – THE MOUSE, LION AND THE BERRY

There was a mouse being chased by a lion and the lion was rapidly closing in on the mouse and the mouse saw that he was at the end of a cliff so he had no choice but to make a leap off of the ground he was standing, so he leaped away from the lion. As he was falling to his apparent certain death the mouse noticed a twig on the side of the cliff and grabbed hold of it and hung on. The lion reached and reached but could not quite reach the mouse no matter how hard he tried to lean down and extend his claws the just barely found the mouse out of reach.

All of a sudden the mouse noticed the twig he was holding on to was slowly uprooting from his weight holding on to it. So here is the terrible predicament the mouse found himself; he had a roaring lion trying to reach down and eat him and the twig keeping him from falling to his certain death was coming out of its roots. Then in the middle of this dilemma the mouse noticed that the twig he was holding on to for dear life had two berries growing on it and the mouse thought why not take a bite of one of them before either the lion figured a way to reach him and eat him or he fell to his certain death.

The mouse took a big ol bite of the berry and thought to himself, “MY GOODNESS THIS BERRY IS SWEET!”

That’s the end of the story – enjoy the berries of the NOW in your life!

“… direct our attention to what He would have us be.” (BB pg 68)

Q: WHAT DOES GOD SEE WHEN HE LOOKS AT YOU?

A: It’s not what you are or what you have been that God sees, but what you desire to be.

AM I THE BEST ME I CAN “BE” TODAY?

I sometimes judge myself and my recovery based solely on where I see others and what they have or how much better they seem to be doing than myself. I sometimes think of what I should “DO” and what I should “HAVE” etc, etc. instead of living in the presence where as the Big Book says, “There is… One Who has ALL Power that One is God may you find Him NOW.”

It IS SO WRONG OF ME TO JUDGE MYSELF SO HARSHLY! I believe it is better for me to look at myself this way, “to look at where I was when I came in to the Program in a state of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization and where I am today… this is the true measurement of my spiritual growth in the program!

AS the Old Gospel song says, “Ol Lawd, I ain’t what I should be… Ol Lawd, I ain’t evenwhat I am gonna be… but thank ya lawd that I ain’t what I used to be!”

Sponsee: “How do I know if I’m an alcoholic?”

Sponsor: “Chapter 4, Page 44, 4th line down.”

“If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.”

ARE YOU CONSCIOUS OF YOUR CONSCIENCE? – Don’t say what you’re thinking, think about what you are saying!

“Each individual should consult his own conscience.” BB pg 132
“For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator.” BB pg 56

CONSCIOUS: perceiving, apprehending, or noticing with a degree of controlled thought or observation. Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.

CONSCIENCE: the awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one’s conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong: Let your conscience be your guide. It is the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action: to follow the dictates of conscience.

IN SHORT, TODAY THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT! As a very wise man once told me, “Don’t say what you’re thinking, think about what you are saying!” After he told me that, I believe that I really began to get the idea of becoming God Conscious.

I CAN’T GET NO SATISFACTION AIN’T JUST A SONG!

How Bill W’s Divine-discontentment led him to finding God’s goals hidden in his heart… perhaps that’s the way it is for us too. As C. S. Lewis once said, “Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.”

When Bill Wilson asked Father Ed Dowling whether there was ever to be any satisfaction, the older man snapped back, “NEVER . NEVER ANY.” Bill was to be a person who would keep on reaching. In his reaching he would find Gods goals, hidden in his own heart. Father Ed Dowling frequently reminded Bill of the verse, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst.”

“Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well?” BB pg 61 “For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God.” BB pg 68

TIMES OF REPROGRAMMING & REALIGNMENT:

Recovery is not all-tiresome, unrewarded work. There are times of joy and rest, times when we comfortably practice what we have learned. There are times of change, times when we struggle to learn something new or overcome a particular problem.

These are the times when what we’ve been practicing in recovery begins to show in our life. These times of change are intense, but purposeful.

There are also times when, at a deep level, we are being “reprogrammed.” We start letting go of beliefs and behaviors. We may feel frightened or confused during these times. Our old behaviors or patterns may not have worked for us, but they were comfortable and familiar.

During these times we may feel vulnerable, lonely, and needy – like we are on a journey without a road map or a flashlight, and we feel as if no one has traveled this ground before.

We may not understand what is being worked out in us. We may not know where or if we are being led.

We are being led. We are not alone. Our Higher Power is working His finest and best to bring true change in us. Others have traveled this road to. We will be led to someone who can help us, someone who can provide the markers we need.

We are being prepared for receiving as much joy and love as our heart can hold.

Recovery is a healing process. We can trust it, even when we don’t understand it. We are right where we need to be in this process; we’re going through exactly what we need to experience. And where we’re going is better than any place we’ve been.

SELF-DENUNCIATION: “The spiritual fortitude of constant refusal to accept the old ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of one’s life.”

BEING CONSCIOUS OF YOUR CONSCIENCE:

If our choice of God is to be made with integrity, we must first have felt other attractions and chosen, painfully, not to make them our gods. Don’t wait for some miracle to be performed on you from without, lifting you above your fears and doubts and self-centeredness. You help God from within by turning in outgoing love to others, and miraculously your fears and doubts and self-centeredness will vanish. The miracle starts within, not from without.

You can do nothing to bring it about, but you can avoid creating obstacles.

Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates.

As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher.

When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher.

The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge.

That source alone is.

Go back to that source and abide there.

It is not in the sky nor in the all-pervading ether.

God is all that is great and wonderful; I am nothing, have nothing, can do nothing.

Yet all comes out of me — the source is me; the root, the origin is me.

When reality explodes in you, you may call it experience of God.

Or, rather, it is God experiencing you.

God knows you when you know yourself.

Reality is not the result of a process; it is an explosion.

It is definitely beyond the mind, but all you can do is to know your mind well.

Not that the mind will help you, but by knowing your mind you may avoid your mind disabling you.

You have to be very alert, or else your mind will play false with you.

It is like watching a thief — not that you expect anything from a thief, but you do not want to be robbed.

In the same way you give a lot of attention to the mind without expecting anything from it.

Evil is a parasite. It has no permanent life of itself; its whole existence depends on the life it borrows from its parent, and when its connection with the parent is severed nothing remains. In Divine Mind there is no recognition of evil conditions. Such conditions have no basis of reality. They are conjurations of a false consciousness. Apparent evil is the result of ignorance, and when Truth is presented the error disappears.

There is but one presence and one power, God omnipotent. But man has the privilege and freedom of using this power as he will. When he misuses it he brings about inharmonious conditions. These are called evil. Evil appears in the world because man is not in spiritual understanding. He has not learned that all is Mind; neither has he conformed to the law of Mind, with the result that inharmony appears in his body and affairs. He can do away with evil by learning rightly to use the one Power. If there were a power of evil, it could not be change.

Evil must be overcome with good. We must dwell in the good so wholly that all the substance of our thoughts and our being is given over to the promotion of the good. This is a mental process in which all negation (evil) is denied, and creative, fearless affirmation of God’s perfect good is steadfastly adhered to.

 

MINING FOR SPIRITUAL GOLD & DIAMONDS IN THE BIG BOOK… DIG DEEPER!!!

“Father feels he has struck something better than gold. For a time he may try to hug the new treasure to himself. He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay dividends only if he mines it for the rest of his life and insists on giving away the entire product.”

The study of the Big Book is not unlike the search for diamonds in South Africa. At first people found a few diamonds in the yellow clay, and they were delighted with their good fortune, even while they supposed that this was to be the full extent of their find. Then, upon digging deeper, they came upon the blue clay, and to their amazement found as many precious stones in a day as they had previously found in a year.

In your exploration of Big Book Truth, see to it that you do not rest satisfied in the yellow clay of a few spiritual discoveries, but press on to the rich blue clay underneath. The Big Book, however, differs from the diamond field in the sublime fact that beneath the blue clay there are more and still more and richer strata, awaiting the touch of spiritual perception – on and on to Infinity.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God found in the big Book! (I got this idea from an EF book I was reading)

THE SHORT FORM OF THE 10th STEP IS, “OOPS!”… I say it a lot! Lol

AN HONEST PERSON IS ONE WHO TELLS THE TRUTH… EVENTUALLY!

“Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty.” BB pg 65

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING ‘ABLE’ OR ‘CAPABLE’ OF BEING HONEST: In hindsight I learned to be honest by practicing the principles of our program, which meant taking the steps. As a newcomer I was worried that I didn’t have the ‘capacity’ to be honest, then I heard someone shared a 55 gallon barrel has the CAPACITY TO HOLD 50 GALLONS ONLY WHEN IT IS EMPTY! IT MAY BE CAPABLE OF HOLDING 55 GALLONS BUT NOT ABLE TO HOLD THEM IF IT IS FULL – MUCH THE SAME WAY FOR US ALKIES… WE MUST BE RID OF SELF OR IT KILLS US… THIS INCLUDES ALL OF OUR LITTLE PLANS AND DESIGNS AND OLD IDEAS!

As the BB states, “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.”

“One day while all alone, I was reading my Big Book, the Chapter on How It Works. I came to the line that says, if they have the capacity to be honest, and something made me stop right there.

Reality struck me square in the face, and I realized then and there, thank God, that I had not been completely honest, and that if I tried again, right from the beginning,
maybe my life would be different.

At long last, I got down on my knees with all the humility and honesty that I could find within myself, and I did the 1st 3 Steps, with God as I understood Him now.

Since that day, my life has taken on a new meaning. I feel that the word honesty is the backbone of A.A. and my life. I have at last been able to do Steps 4 and 5 with complete abandon and honesty, and I can’t fully describe the relief and freedom that I have felt in the last 2 and a 1/2 years.

Since I honesty turned my will and my life over to the care of God and became willing to accept what He had in store for me, 1 day at a time, I have found serenity that I had never dreamed of. I realize now that not being honest was my main problem all those years. I pray to God that there are not too many like me, and I am really sorry for those who are.”~Harry

 

WHAT DO WE DO WHEN WE MAKE AMENDS AND THE PERSON DOESN’T ACCEPT IT?

“It’s water over the dam.” Big Book page 78

If you have asked, “what can I do to make it right?” and was, as the Big Book suggest us to be, very specific about the harm done you’re your sincere desire to make it right whether the person accepts your amends or not it is “It’s water over the dam.” and would be a form of egoic self-pride to think the harm we have done is so bad that even the power of God and AA’s 12 Steps, specifically the amends process could not heal this harm. Some people can be dogmatic and rigid. Remember the Big Book says, perhaps they like ourselves are spiritually sick too.

Two things I always remember when it comes to amends:

“A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won’t fill the bill at all.” (Big Book, pg. 83, in the discussion about Step 9.) Prior to AA most of our lives were a long, pathetic useless litany of “sorry sorry sorry.”

An amends is much bigger than an apology. The amends process is about restitution. It’s about making things right. It’s about changing our behavior so that we don’t repeat the offenses we’re cleaning up. As one old timer used to frequently say, “you know your amends was sincere when YOU STOP the behavior causing the harm… I believe that is the truest depth and meaning of, “It’s water over the dam.”

When I am locked in to focusing on the rejection of others IU must double my resolve to move on no matter whatever the outcome of our amends, it is important not to wallow in self-pity, or to seek to attach blame to the other person. Far better to accept that things happen and if you can’t set them right, at least you did your very best to set them right. Even if you we make amends successfully, it is important to remind ourselves not to bring up the matter again in future, and we have chosen to move on from it.

• We can choose to focus on what’s ahead and don’t keep reliving whatever happened.

• Even if we don’t make up with the other person because they have made a decision that things are completely broken, we can make a decision to never hurt another person in this way again.

• We can use your experience from your mistake to have compassion for others who make the same mistake. Not only do we feel we understand them better now, but it’s possible we’ll have enough experience to help them work through to reach a positive outcome, without condemning them. This is a great example of the Big Books saying on page 124,” Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have — the key to life and happiness for others.”

• Self-forgiveness (which, in my experience, is at the heart of making amends) enables each of us, if we choose, to live in the present rather than the past, so even if things don’t work out, we can choose to be grateful for this gift. For by forgiving others and making amends for the harms we have done, we are healed.