First We Heal

“Charity” really does begin at home. "Home" is not our physical brick and mortar 'house'. It is our psyche, our 'insides' where a false ‘self’ we erroneously think is some us takes up its unholy residence.

When we practice separating from that ego-self, divorcing ourselves from that vile identity within, (meditation helps us do that) then ‘it’ looses its numbing hold on us.

Automatically then we are able to stop trying to ‘learn’ truth with an eye for remembering it so as to repeat to others and instead we just listen, understand and live, without regard whatsoever for whether or not anyone else will ‘get’ it as we “get it”.

Our charity becomes the entirely altruistic, genuinely inspirational gift that is the power to help others, in ways that require no planning, premeditation or act of ambitious will. That is true charity and it starts inside us. But we heal first.

When Bill W inaugurated his little telemarketing campaign to find and help another alcoholic, his 'healing' - his state of recoveredness was already in place. He was a recovered alcoholic prior to placing one finger in one hole of that rotary dial public phone.

His obsession to drink lifted came BEFORE the power to carry the message to Dr. Bob. Prior to that he was another white-knuckling drunk trying to figure out how to get ahead, make money, get laid and fuel the whole trip with three drinks ( and "no more") in an Akron hotel bar.

Being helpful is great. But it is a something that happens - it isn't anything we force to happen through our own ambition. Its is a noneffective ego that wants to take credit for installing goodness into others and be glorified for its good works. That can even be a misguided motivating factor for extreme sponsorship.

Meditation that permits true awareness changes us from non-spiritual, animalistic creatures living a somnambulistic existence to a human-spiritual existence, moving through life effortlessly in an awakened state of consciousness. This is another way of saying that we walk in the Sunlight of the Spirit.

This change effortlessly alters our motives without us even trying to be well intended”. That is true usefulness. There is no faking it till we make it. That is ambition and a promotion of self-will.

Just watching the ego’s inclination to try to learn and remember spiritual ideas and not resenting our own selfish need to 'feel spiritual' or holy, or to make show of our uselessness, is enough to shrink that alien identity and set it at bay. Then a new lifestyle and natural deportment begins to express in maximum usefulness. Now that's charity.

Peace & Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Read More

Blue Pill Red Pill

"You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake
up in your bed and believe whatever you want
to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland and
I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

Wake up - or Stay Asleep

In his 1889 essay, The Decay of Lying, playwright and anesthetist Oscar Wilde, held that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life."  He also observed that such imitation can be a lie although it could also be true. He approved of purposeful art for art’s sake.

In the movie “The Matrix” we are introduced to the Blue Pill-Red Pill dilemma. It is really not a new idea. It is an ancient one.

If you are familiar with the film then you already may know just how close screenwriters, Andy and LanaWachowski, have come to a horrifyingly true depiction of our own human existence and how forces unseen wrest control over all that we are and all that we do without us being aware that it has happened.

Meditation wakes us up and allows us to move through our day consciously, resilient to stress put upon us through the behaviors of irritating, yet somnambulant, zombie- folk around us.

At first just a little. 

"Every day is a day when we must carry the
vision of God's will into all of our activities." (85:1)

Then, with more and more practice and with the ever-accumulating experiences of living in an aware state we begin to live with more conscious clarity, more of the time. It is like coming out of the blackest darkness; first into the shade where we begin to see and then finally walking in the bright Sunlight.

This well lighted, effortless existence - aligned with and illuminated by God's vision - becomes a cumulative affair.

This awareness, wakefulness can be lost rapidly without practice. Once we forget what it is like to be awake, aware and in conscious contact with God it can be astonishingly difficult, sometimes impossible, to ever get back within one's own lifetime. 

It happens often to those who have attempted to traverse the spiritual path and fallen off  in favor of re-adopting their original willfulness.
 
Therefore, it is recommended* to experience meditation daily so we do not so easily forget just where and who we are. We are not ourselves and to lose sight of this reality means certain sick allegiance to 'it' - this is the bondage of self.  Daily, regular meditation allows us to experience re-centering - or to become 're-booted', so to speak.

When we find that we have been sucked out of our awareness and into the sea of swirling thought, the meditative experience can be recalled easily in those moments; as stresses commence their daily assault on our psyche, always trying to keep us away from our inner sense of being - our God consciousness and clarity of Vision.

To knock us off balance, all it takes is one swift resentment launched at our psyche.

It could come from an unthinking person, a memory out of the past, or the fear produced by of some imaginary, pending resentment perhaps not even yet materialized.

If we have recent practice and our spiritual muscles are worked out, and ‘buff’, we can get back on the beam again effortlessly.

This might happen a hundred times a day.

Negative forces like selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fears will be standing on our doorstep, just outside the door -- and never go away. That is how life is. It is our providence to live through this reality and somehow not be overwhelmed by it.

Despite this reality, such forces will crop up less and not appear on our side of the threshold, as long as we are progressing in our spiritual growth.

With enough practice, one day we will not even fall off the beam as our future becomes a new present lighted by Sunlight sourced in Spirit. 

We can see our way clearly.
 
With no practice . . . . .  this is not very likely.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Link to the MATRIX clip referenced in this article.

 

* In the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" it is more than a recommendation. It is proposed as a standard within the daily practice of Step Eleven.

Read More