Why Bother?

Are You Psychotic?

There are only two ways that we exist in this world. Either we are awake and aware or else we are asleep and unaware.

To be asleep is to exist in a state of unconsciousness running the “matrix” program that presents only an illusion of wakefulness.

Rene Descartes’ famous quote, “I think therefore I am” shows great introspection. Unfortunately it also reveals poor Descartes’ great intellectual delusion. It is both true and it is false – depending on our state of being in any given moment - which is why Descartes' observation make such excellent fodder for college debates and forensic society who like to argue the chicken and egg. (Which came first?)

But there is another perspective to be seen in poor Descartes' observation. When it is true – then we are truly screwed.

There is also a spiritual axiom, probably Hindi in origin, which recognizes that most of us are asleep – dreaming that we are awake. This is an accurate description of our human condition even though it falls very short of conveying the depth and breadth of the dream state. Still it as at least fair and correct. But seeing it not enough.

There must be something more. There must be some way to correct this hypnotic condition and to reclaim our original birthright state of God-centeredness. There is. It is found in a certain form of meditation.

We humans exist, living our lives in a constant state of unawareness and we are not aware that we are, in a very real sense, psychotic; unaware that we are unconscious.

To become aware of our present lack of consciousness is to no longer remain unconscious.

Read that last sentence again because it is the basis for effective meditation and the secret weapon that will free from all delusion. It never need become any more complicated than that. It is the mediation practice that allows us to break out of the pit of dreams we call thinking by separating us from thoughts and allowing the delusions they bring to float on by.

So, why bother? Because when we make decisions from this place, this fool’s paradise, such choices can never be right. We become entirely subject to fate, chance or luck. Life becomes an endless series of coin-tossing. We live and react to conditions as if our lives are nothing more than an algorithm and not one comprised of intuitive action aligned with the will of the Creator.

Most people who practice a Twelve Step lifestyle have been well counseled in the importance of aligning thought and behaviors - life and will, if you prefer – with God's will. We yearn to turn these over to God’s care and to receive knowledge of His will and the power to carry His will out.

The knowledge and power for which the Twelve Stepper prays cannot be wrested out of a life that is really just and ambitious career of self-willed decision-making.

Receiving knowledge of God’s will means a reversal of agnosticism – after all agnostic means without knowledge of God. When we exist in an unconscious state – this waking sleep - we can have neither the knowledge nor the power because our very ground of being from which we are operating is disconnected from the present truth.

It is only during our Godfull moments (the opposite of our agnostic moments) that we are aware. Only then are we truly not operating from an agnostic, Godless platform. From there we can see from a place where we are able to make decisions and life choices that can never be wrong. Never.

Staying there, in that place of wakefulness from where Godly direction comes is the secret of living happily. From there we can have “knowledge of (His) will” and the “power to carry it out” no matter what we do. This is, literally, the secret to answering every single problem you have ever had or will have in your life - and you found it here just happening by some blog on the Internet. Go figure, eh?

Ahh. . . . but there is a hitch. We cannot remain there for long. Thoughts, thinking, mental distractions of the intellect rush in to pull us away. And so . . . this is why the need for meditation.

Practicing allows us to experience the present state of awareness so that the stresses that come to steal our awareness away can be observed straight out of existence, lose their power over us – their power to make us struggle with them through worry and ambition.

Peace & Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

The Secret of Life