Thursday, November 1, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
What are you waiting for?
Is there something good going to happen in a future time to you? Do you hope life will get better? Better then what? If you can't make yourself better right now, what do you think is going to happen in the future. Our bodies are getting older, our minds work in circles, you are not what you were, and never will be. The mind has changed from the time you started reading this, what is permanent about you?
There is no escape, where can you hide from thoughts? Don't the thoughts and doubts eat away at any happiness you have? Try to imagine a mental state that will be better.
What is it that sees the thoughts, that is knowing the mental activity?
If you say me, you already know that is a thought, see what is knowing, What are you waiting for?
There is no escape, where can you hide from thoughts? Don't the thoughts and doubts eat away at any happiness you have? Try to imagine a mental state that will be better.
What is it that sees the thoughts, that is knowing the mental activity?
If you say me, you already know that is a thought, see what is knowing, What are you waiting for?
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
It Really is About the First Drink
Lets look at the first direction in the Big Book, Try a little controlled drinking. Why would he tell an alcoholic to drink? I believe that unless it was my own personal experience that I couldn't stop, the first step would remain not understandable. Then following a period of sobriety I would fall back into thinking I had it under control. You see this very often in AA.
The idea of a power greater then my self remains just that, an idea. The second direction will only be tried if the first step is believed, if I am convinced.
The second direction is to form my own concept of a power greater then myself, this is the missed direction, the third step remains a concept until this is done.
How often do you here someone say "the group is my higher power" No you heard it from someone else you didn't do the work to form your own. If you don't do the work you don't get the benefit.
What you are left with is people saying that being sober is what this is about. Wrong, If this were about staying sober, just don't drink the first drink and you will be OK, But the book says, you are powerless over that first drink, that is the problem, if this is your thinking you have skipped the first step. Your life is unmanageable because you are powerless over the first drink.
Remember the first step is only a description of the problem, the thinking that proceeds the first drink.
(Now is the time to ask yourself am I really, really powerless over the first drink? If you say "not if I don't take it" you just missed the point)
The second step is a statement of the solution, You agree or don't agree based on the concept YOU formed of a higher power. It will not click if you use an old power or someone else's, not even the old ideas "I just don't know, Or I can't believe" If you are stuck here, go back to the first direction and try some controlled drinking. (you will any way or be sober and suffering). This is not brain surgery, just follow the directions. If your sponsor has done this they can show you how they did it. If they can't show you find someone who can.
The chapter "We Agnostics" is just that, it is addressed to us who can honestly admit we have no knowledge of a power greater then themselves "doing anything", all that is in our "knowledge" is the world around us and it's conditions. God is understood by us as someones imaginary friend. Very quaint.
In "We Agnostics, there are directions for "us" who have honest doubt, and can admit it, to come to an awareness of a power that is right here, right now, and is not in any conflict with any religion.
The book says that from that point on (when we follow the direction) it is "only" speaking to our conception when it speaks of god. To miss this point is to negate a very fundamental direction.
The direction, or suggestion is the recipe, as in do this then that will be evident.
Our "problem" as alcoholics can only be seen from the point of view of the solution, the solution given in following the directions for doing (or taking action on) step two on pages 46 & 47 of the Big Book, without the understanding given by acting on these directions, sobriety will be "maintained" by self knowledge.
Nothing but self knowledge and some vague metaphysical bullshit will be "passed on" to a newcomer.
The cornerstone of the solution that "self in it's various manifestations" is the problem will be overlooked.
My experience is a magic happens in the process of coming up with my own higher power.
Maybe it was the release from doing the same thing and expecting different results. It made all the difference in working the steps. This time I stayed.
The only thing worse than being drunk and knowing about AA, is sitting in an AA meeting and suffering sober if you call that sober.
You will know if you have done this by your own willingness to work the steps.
This is not a topic for meetings, this is only for the one on one, discussion meetings are the other way of doing AA.
They (the meetings) are the substitute for the taking action on the second step. They give the new alcoholic something to do, to take the focus off the problem, to change the way he feels.
The solution is in the following the directions in the book, not in the meetings.
Meetings change, the directions in the book don't, everything is discussed in the meetings, only the directions are discussed in the book.
The common solution is an "understanding" a common understanding. As "we' (as opposed to "me") understand it. If this seems a little confusing, guess what?
The book says "little or nothing can be accomplished until this understanding is reached". Until you know what this understanding is, what are you passing on?
The idea of a power greater then my self remains just that, an idea. The second direction will only be tried if the first step is believed, if I am convinced.
The second direction is to form my own concept of a power greater then myself, this is the missed direction, the third step remains a concept until this is done.
How often do you here someone say "the group is my higher power" No you heard it from someone else you didn't do the work to form your own. If you don't do the work you don't get the benefit.
What you are left with is people saying that being sober is what this is about. Wrong, If this were about staying sober, just don't drink the first drink and you will be OK, But the book says, you are powerless over that first drink, that is the problem, if this is your thinking you have skipped the first step. Your life is unmanageable because you are powerless over the first drink.
Remember the first step is only a description of the problem, the thinking that proceeds the first drink.
(Now is the time to ask yourself am I really, really powerless over the first drink? If you say "not if I don't take it" you just missed the point)
The second step is a statement of the solution, You agree or don't agree based on the concept YOU formed of a higher power. It will not click if you use an old power or someone else's, not even the old ideas "I just don't know, Or I can't believe" If you are stuck here, go back to the first direction and try some controlled drinking. (you will any way or be sober and suffering). This is not brain surgery, just follow the directions. If your sponsor has done this they can show you how they did it. If they can't show you find someone who can.
The chapter "We Agnostics" is just that, it is addressed to us who can honestly admit we have no knowledge of a power greater then themselves "doing anything", all that is in our "knowledge" is the world around us and it's conditions. God is understood by us as someones imaginary friend. Very quaint.
In "We Agnostics, there are directions for "us" who have honest doubt, and can admit it, to come to an awareness of a power that is right here, right now, and is not in any conflict with any religion.
The book says that from that point on (when we follow the direction) it is "only" speaking to our conception when it speaks of god. To miss this point is to negate a very fundamental direction.
The direction, or suggestion is the recipe, as in do this then that will be evident.
Our "problem" as alcoholics can only be seen from the point of view of the solution, the solution given in following the directions for doing (or taking action on) step two on pages 46 & 47 of the Big Book, without the understanding given by acting on these directions, sobriety will be "maintained" by self knowledge.
Nothing but self knowledge and some vague metaphysical bullshit will be "passed on" to a newcomer.
The cornerstone of the solution that "self in it's various manifestations" is the problem will be overlooked.
My experience is a magic happens in the process of coming up with my own higher power.
Maybe it was the release from doing the same thing and expecting different results. It made all the difference in working the steps. This time I stayed.
The only thing worse than being drunk and knowing about AA, is sitting in an AA meeting and suffering sober if you call that sober.
You will know if you have done this by your own willingness to work the steps.
This is not a topic for meetings, this is only for the one on one, discussion meetings are the other way of doing AA.
They (the meetings) are the substitute for the taking action on the second step. They give the new alcoholic something to do, to take the focus off the problem, to change the way he feels.
The solution is in the following the directions in the book, not in the meetings.
Meetings change, the directions in the book don't, everything is discussed in the meetings, only the directions are discussed in the book.
The common solution is an "understanding" a common understanding. As "we' (as opposed to "me") understand it. If this seems a little confusing, guess what?
The book says "little or nothing can be accomplished until this understanding is reached". Until you know what this understanding is, what are you passing on?
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
You is the Disease
The Disease Is taking your self Seriously
I could just leave it here, this says it all, if you really did a second step, this is obvious.
We suffer from taking our "selves' too serious.
There is no self, there is only you.
Don't drag me into your own private Hell.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Kill the Head, (and the body will die)
What is myself?
An individual is one who is undivided. An undivided individual has no other self, is aware of no other self or awareness, To speak or think of myself is mental division. To speak to or think or think of myself mentally, is to divide the individual. For example, to say to myself "I am stupid"
Or " I am better then that, or I should have known better" is to already believe I am divided.
This can be seen to be a belief. But the practice of doing this is habitual. The habitual activity is to tell "myself stories" about what is happening around me, since the stories are coming from "myself" "I" habitually believe them. They are always false. This is self reliance, this produces fear.
This is a false sense of self. After a period of time this activity becomes uncomfortable, then painful. This suffering produces an activity which seeks to relieve the suffering. I become aware "I" am suffering, suffering from a belief that I the awareness has a secondary me.
There is no secondary me, the belief there is, is the suffering, is the search for relief in what is not me.
This is the bondage to self.
The habit becomes so ingrained, "I" see everything through the filter of me, it is always distorted. Everything is seen in terms of relieving the suffering, reality becomes the raw material, for the "me's" escape through fantasy of sex and violence. The insatiable need for security arises, and food becomes a preoccupation.
I cannot escape from this, as the problem does not exist in reality, I cannot solve "my" own imaginary problem. But as is by now evident, this split is insane, IE, not in reality, realities only use is for raw material for escape fantasies.
This is a spiritual dilemma.
Everything I sense reinforces the split. My senses have been turned against me by myself.
The imaginary self I believe I have is threatened by everything, because it suspects it is imaginary, so to protect it self, it projects the threat outside itself, then its raw material for its own fantasies becomes threatening. The very idea of trust is threatening.
This is exacerbated by holding conversations with myself, some times in the third person, IE, "I should have said this to them, I'm not going to be treated this way" "from now on this is the way I'm going to handle that type of situation". Giving myself advice.
Never asking the one question that leads to freedom, "Who is the my in myself?"
When this me becomes acute the need to isolate seems to provide security at the cost of turning more inward, the self conversations become centered on fixing the problem, and trying to ignore it.
Finally the light comes on, "kill the head and the body will die" it's the only way out, poison the fucking bastard and the it's voice will stop, then I'll have some peace.
What ever happens don't tell anyone, they will think you are insane, and you know it's not you it's yourself.
When you can admit it's you that is crazy you become sane, you see there is no myself, there is just I. You were only caught in a cliche, "me, myself and I" or as some people who have woken up to this truth call it the ism, "the I, the self, and the me.
Acting your way into sanity, coming out of the world "I" live in with myself, examining all the past stories, and telling them to someone, going out into the world and repairing the damage, then showing, some other schizoid the way out.
You are left with a single I, that does not have to die.
An individual is one who is undivided. An undivided individual has no other self, is aware of no other self or awareness, To speak or think of myself is mental division. To speak to or think or think of myself mentally, is to divide the individual. For example, to say to myself "I am stupid"
Or " I am better then that, or I should have known better" is to already believe I am divided.
This can be seen to be a belief. But the practice of doing this is habitual. The habitual activity is to tell "myself stories" about what is happening around me, since the stories are coming from "myself" "I" habitually believe them. They are always false. This is self reliance, this produces fear.
This is a false sense of self. After a period of time this activity becomes uncomfortable, then painful. This suffering produces an activity which seeks to relieve the suffering. I become aware "I" am suffering, suffering from a belief that I the awareness has a secondary me.
There is no secondary me, the belief there is, is the suffering, is the search for relief in what is not me.
This is the bondage to self.
The habit becomes so ingrained, "I" see everything through the filter of me, it is always distorted. Everything is seen in terms of relieving the suffering, reality becomes the raw material, for the "me's" escape through fantasy of sex and violence. The insatiable need for security arises, and food becomes a preoccupation.
I cannot escape from this, as the problem does not exist in reality, I cannot solve "my" own imaginary problem. But as is by now evident, this split is insane, IE, not in reality, realities only use is for raw material for escape fantasies.
This is a spiritual dilemma.
Everything I sense reinforces the split. My senses have been turned against me by myself.
The imaginary self I believe I have is threatened by everything, because it suspects it is imaginary, so to protect it self, it projects the threat outside itself, then its raw material for its own fantasies becomes threatening. The very idea of trust is threatening.
This is exacerbated by holding conversations with myself, some times in the third person, IE, "I should have said this to them, I'm not going to be treated this way" "from now on this is the way I'm going to handle that type of situation". Giving myself advice.
Never asking the one question that leads to freedom, "Who is the my in myself?"
When this me becomes acute the need to isolate seems to provide security at the cost of turning more inward, the self conversations become centered on fixing the problem, and trying to ignore it.
Finally the light comes on, "kill the head and the body will die" it's the only way out, poison the fucking bastard and the it's voice will stop, then I'll have some peace.
What ever happens don't tell anyone, they will think you are insane, and you know it's not you it's yourself.
When you can admit it's you that is crazy you become sane, you see there is no myself, there is just I. You were only caught in a cliche, "me, myself and I" or as some people who have woken up to this truth call it the ism, "the I, the self, and the me.
Acting your way into sanity, coming out of the world "I" live in with myself, examining all the past stories, and telling them to someone, going out into the world and repairing the damage, then showing, some other schizoid the way out.
You are left with a single I, that does not have to die.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Happens All the Time
What is this? What do I mean by this, this, call it the present moment experience and all it includes.
Where is it coming from? How is this happening, including the sense of me in it.
Would this "be" if there was not a me? Is there a me seeing an out there? It all seems so intimate.
Could I know I am if not for what I am surrounded by? Why this sense of standing apart from all this? Could this sense of standing apart be inherent in this? Than that would be this too. But this standing apart makes me uneasy, why? Could it be uneasy is also included, it seems so.
But back to how is this happening. I can read books or talk to people about what this is, but that always leads away from this, I become caught in the ideas about this, but aren't the ideas about this, included in this?
Can I ever be lead away from this? Where would I go? This always seems to be my starting point, and my ending place. Can I call this here? Yes this and here feel the same. I see trying to explain this somehow takes away the wonder of this, and leaves a sense of unease. But the exploring of it inhales this feeling of self, I forget myself in the wonder of here.
When I believe I know what this is, it becomes old. The truth be told, I don't know what this is, I can only wonder, and lose myself it it, or believe I know what it is, and feel the unease. It seems that both these different attitudes are included in this.
But honestly, it appears I don't know what this is but somehow I do, I can't banish either of these two attitudes, they come and go as they will, but still the knowing and the not knowing are dependent on this/here, without this neither could be, I am dependent on this to be, but the I and this seem to be much the same, I can't find the dividing line.
If there is no division then there is not two, but there seems to be a division, could that division be what the mind is? But these questions are also included in this.
It is like an apple, are the seeds the apple, or part of the apple? But they are both made of the same stuff. So I and this, this present moment experience are made of the same stuff, only divided by word thoughts, ideas and concepts, nothing is not included. Nothing is excluded.
Can I experience this, this here and now, without words? Yes, but there is no memory of what happens when there is direct experience without words. There is only this. And what can you say about this, only that it is empty of mental content. Even when I close my eyes there is that knowing, that is empty of mental content. There can be thought, but the knowing itself is empty of mental content, thought appears in the knowing. The knowing includes everything, but itself remains empty of mental content. By knowing the content it is the content, but the thoughts cannot touch it, there can be no, true actual living memory of the emptiness of mental content.
I can only know this now, and the I that knows it disappears in the wonder of it.
You can do this yourself. Just relax into this without words, wonder with out words, you will have no memory of the experience, you can have no memory of yourself disappearing, nothing to get.
This is really not so weird, it happens every night. It happens all the time.
Where is it coming from? How is this happening, including the sense of me in it.
Would this "be" if there was not a me? Is there a me seeing an out there? It all seems so intimate.
Could I know I am if not for what I am surrounded by? Why this sense of standing apart from all this? Could this sense of standing apart be inherent in this? Than that would be this too. But this standing apart makes me uneasy, why? Could it be uneasy is also included, it seems so.
But back to how is this happening. I can read books or talk to people about what this is, but that always leads away from this, I become caught in the ideas about this, but aren't the ideas about this, included in this?
Can I ever be lead away from this? Where would I go? This always seems to be my starting point, and my ending place. Can I call this here? Yes this and here feel the same. I see trying to explain this somehow takes away the wonder of this, and leaves a sense of unease. But the exploring of it inhales this feeling of self, I forget myself in the wonder of here.
When I believe I know what this is, it becomes old. The truth be told, I don't know what this is, I can only wonder, and lose myself it it, or believe I know what it is, and feel the unease. It seems that both these different attitudes are included in this.
But honestly, it appears I don't know what this is but somehow I do, I can't banish either of these two attitudes, they come and go as they will, but still the knowing and the not knowing are dependent on this/here, without this neither could be, I am dependent on this to be, but the I and this seem to be much the same, I can't find the dividing line.
If there is no division then there is not two, but there seems to be a division, could that division be what the mind is? But these questions are also included in this.
It is like an apple, are the seeds the apple, or part of the apple? But they are both made of the same stuff. So I and this, this present moment experience are made of the same stuff, only divided by word thoughts, ideas and concepts, nothing is not included. Nothing is excluded.
Can I experience this, this here and now, without words? Yes, but there is no memory of what happens when there is direct experience without words. There is only this. And what can you say about this, only that it is empty of mental content. Even when I close my eyes there is that knowing, that is empty of mental content. There can be thought, but the knowing itself is empty of mental content, thought appears in the knowing. The knowing includes everything, but itself remains empty of mental content. By knowing the content it is the content, but the thoughts cannot touch it, there can be no, true actual living memory of the emptiness of mental content.
I can only know this now, and the I that knows it disappears in the wonder of it.
You can do this yourself. Just relax into this without words, wonder with out words, you will have no memory of the experience, you can have no memory of yourself disappearing, nothing to get.
This is really not so weird, it happens every night. It happens all the time.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
One day at a Time is practice for Now
We believe reality is all we perceive, a reality laid out before us and for us, when in truth all that is perceived is only pointing to what is.
When the mind is turned toward its source now, what is called existence is coming into being, not as mind sees, observing apparent pre-existing "things", But as only now, only now.
This source is known to itself as I, there is only one I, source of mind, not mind
There is no pre-existing present moment.
Mind comes after.
Before the present moment nothing exists.
There is no pre-existing source.
There is no place where all is coming from.
There is no place where all is going to.
There is no place to move forward to.
There is no position to fall back on.
This alone is
Now the only real question is "where do I fit in"
Do you see the illusion now? 0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1...
When the mind is turned toward its source now, what is called existence is coming into being, not as mind sees, observing apparent pre-existing "things", But as only now, only now.
This source is known to itself as I, there is only one I, source of mind, not mind
There is no pre-existing present moment.
Mind comes after.
Before the present moment nothing exists.
There is no pre-existing source.
There is no place where all is coming from.
There is no place where all is going to.
There is no place to move forward to.
There is no position to fall back on.
This alone is
Now the only real question is "where do I fit in"
Do you see the illusion now? 0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1...
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