Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
Conscious contact implies a relationship that is awake, aware, sentient. In order to make a connection with my higher power, I need to raise my consciousness to a higher level. Incidentally, this is exactly what I have been doing in Steps One through Ten.
To raise consciousness, I need to raise my vibration. What does this mean? Well, we are space, mostly. We seem like solid flesh and bone but the actual physical matter at a subatomic level amounts to the size of a frisbee lobbed across a cathedral, except the cathedral walls aren’t there. So we are vibration, mostly. To raise this vibration at the physical level, I need to ensure I am not polluting my body. Food that is filled with genetically modified organisms, excitotoxins (such as aspartame) and neurotoxins, or food that is processed with high fructose corn syrup or unsaturated fats is going to lower my consciousness, and my thoughts and emotions are going to follow. In this way, through trial and error, I have discovered that there is a very physical component to my spirituality. In a similar vein, meditation is all but impossible if I am still nursing physical addictions, such as nicotine. I am too distracted at a cellular level with the cravings that send my thoughts stampeding through my mind like wild horses.
I can say without hesitation that I didn’t really move into recovery until I quit smoking.
Knowledge of God’s Will For Us
What does it truly mean to be asking for knowledge of God’s will for me? This is a tough proposition to nail down considering that there are as many different understandings of a higher power as there are AA members. I know one thing for certain: I can’t be open to receiving this knowledge if I am holding on to a fixed idea of what God’s will is. Generally speaking, this knowledge is a highly a personal odyssey—not a standard recipe of somewhat bogus self-sacrifice in the name of service to others. God’s will for me is my true will in alignment with the spiritual principles that resonate with me. It is right place in the universe at the right time.
Between Steps 3 and 11 is a Quantum Leap
I can’t improve my conscious contact if I’m being inauthentic, and I cannot possibly be authentic if I am holding on to a one-sided man-made idea about what it means to be spiritual. Whereas Step 3 can often represent a leap into the belly of the whale on blind faith, Step 11 is a step forward into ultra-conscious awareness.
Some of the teachings in AA appear to have the clear intention of supressing, controlling, or subordinating the individual will. My own experience has demonstrated to me how guilt and denial of my own will is what caused enough discomfort to make me seek out booze as a solution in the first place.
It is not my individual will that is the problem, it’s the misalignment of my will with natural divine order caused principally by ignoring my deep-rooted need to move my own feelings. These are important considerations and observations to make non-judgmentally as I move forward into a genuine surrender, a surrender to reality as it is—not just in my left brain, but as it is emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. This process of observing with equanimity is sometimes called meditation.
I’ve taken many courses and tried many styles to find out that there is nothing overly technical or fancy about meditation, which ultimately consists of observing various phenomenon—breath, physical sensations, emotional or mental fluctuations—objectively, without reacting to whatever might crop up. Meditation is essentially an engagement in a choiceless observation without wishing that what I’m observing were different. By doing this I can eventually come to some very valuable insights such as: I have a tendency to crave pleasant sensations, I have an aversion to unpleasant sensations. After some time I may notice that the craving and aversion both eventually get me feeling uncomfortable by provoking fear of not getting something I want or losing something I don’t want.
One of the most powerful observations I have gleaned from insight meditation is that all sensations, all fluctuations, are transitory, ephemeral. Why would I get hooked into craving or struggle with aversion if everything is constantly changing? When we see this we no longer need to react and can live with more harmony. As Bill W. put it in the 12 & 12: “Let’s remember that meditation is in reality intensely practical. One of its first fruits is emotional balance.”
I can’t expect to drop into insight meditation of any sort, however, if my mind is weighed down by guilt, remorse and shame. The first ten steps are designed to remove these obstacles, or at least render them more manageable so that some degree of focussed observation is possible. This doesn’t mean I have to have a zen mind to practice; meditation can serve as a diagnostic as well. I may not even know what type of mind I am carrying until I attempt to sink into the stillness and listen to what it has to tell me.
I’ve learned that it is very easy to become discouraged with meditation, not merely because of my chaotic mind but because it is my nature to hold onto some one-sided idea about what meditation is supposed to be like.
If I am reaching for a perceived ideal, it is impossible for me to be able to accept reality as it is in this moment—which is precisely the goal. If I am grasping onto some grand idea of spiritual progress rather than simply accepting the genuine sense of ease and comfort that is possible through accessing the innate awakening of my being, I’m sort of a spiritual junkie, looking for the same kind of hit I was looking for every time I put a bottle to my lips.
Meditation only asks me to calm down and pay attention.
Prayer
It is often heard, particularly in AA, that prayer is talking and meditation is listening. I wouldn’t necessarily argue with that, but I would certainly want to qualify the talking bit. A series of specific words said without meaning or feeling can, in my view, be more misleading than helpful. I have to find my own way to pray. Sometimes this is done physically—through dance, hiking, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, mountainbiking, yoga. Prayer happens through playing with my children. Laughter can be prayer. Preparing a meal. Drumming. My breath. All prayers, when done with conscious intent.
My higher power isn’t an anglophone who can only understand incantations; energy and intention is what counts. The ‘fake it until you make it’ advice bandied about the rooms of AA is utter nonsense. If I am a human being, capable of feeling, then there is nothing to fake. I just need to feel something, and have the intention to feel more—to feel better. How tough is that?
Prayer amounts to a conscious elevation of my energy to connect with a higher power and to bring myself into a right relationship with how things are. The easiest and most effective way for me to do this is to cultivate gratitude. Prayer is anything that evolves my awareness of gratitude, protection, expansion. Prayer is a concrete vector in the direction of self-care. Love, which is a behaviour, not an emotion, is the highest prayer. Love is what amounts to the highest good for everybody.
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