Alcoholics Anonymous Blog/Video Nov 25 DonInLondon Step 11 "Truth Love Wisdom"
"Love, forgiveness, harmony, truth, faith, hope, light, and joy to every human being."
November 25, 2013 Step Eleven Month: "sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out." Every single human being on the planet is having a spiritual experience: living in the moment of now and trying to cope with reality. We all have a spiritual identity, even when we may be suffering and we are not aware that we do have a spiritual identity no matter what is going on in our lives today.
I do have a "spiritual identity," and I do have a spiritual experience every single day. And the same is true for everyone. Believer, Agnostic or Atheist, living and coping with the reality of now is difficult. People talk about the quality of life, the cost of living, and so many different measures to explain what is going on one day at a time. When I was active in my addiction to alcohol, the quantity of alcohol taken diminished the spiritual experience considerably, the more I drank, the less I was able to cope with the reality of now. The quality of my spiritual experience is contingent on my ability to perceive the world and how it is and how I am in it, right now. The greater the clarity, the more precise my experience in the moment, even when life is good, bad or ugly, or any combination of these conditions today.
So no matter what is going on in my life, any combination of good bad or ugly conditions, the quality of my spiritual experience is more precise, the more I am able to perceive reality in its true state. And my spiritual experience is not contingent upon being a believer, an agnostic or atheist. If I were part of a religious organisation with particular beliefs, particular ways of doing things, this would be part of my spiritual identity. Whatever one's beliefs are, it does not make our own spiritual identity superior or inferior to that of another the human being. The quality of the spiritual experience and spiritual identity we have is contingent upon the current conditions of the day. A person is neither less spiritual nor more spiritual than any other person, at the same time each and every person may have more clarity or less clarity in the moment of now. That is why it is a very good idea to ask for help when life is confusing. Because a confusing spiritual experience is very difficult to deal with on any given day.
So the quality of anyone's life could be measured by their clarity and their understanding of the moment of now. And depending on what people are doing and what you are doing, you can measure the quality of your spiritual experience using clarity and coping in the moment of now. What about the quantity of spiritual experience?
Can we have more spirituality than another person? Can we become more imbued and better than others at the spiritual way of life? The quantity of spiritual we can absorb is what we see, and what we get. So the quantity of spirituality is as big as life is in the moment of now. Aware and being able to perceive reality and cope with it and understand it, I suppose this is the highest volume of spirituality we can have one day at a time. If this is true, if I were to drink alcohol again, the quality of my experience, the experience of spiritual now would go down equal to the amount of alcohol I might have consumed. Every drink I took in the past diminished the clarity and perception of my spiritual experience by dulling my senses. I might have felt better back in the day with a drink inside me, as a celebration or a way of blotting out the world, it just meant the quality of the experience of then was less than it is now. So I don't believe one person's spiritual identity is bigger or better than another person's, or that one person has a superior spiritual experience. We cannot compare or judge another person's spiritual experience as bigger and better, smaller and worse, because the quality and quantity of experience is never bigger than what is perceived in the moment of now.
Serenity and spirituality can often be mistaken. Everyone is spiritual and not everyone experiences serenity in this present moment of now. So the serenity prayer works on serenity and is a request to a power greater than us about clarity about what we can and what we cannot do today. Somebody mentioned to me on Saturday, at the end of the meeting that I had looked as if I was feeling very "spiritual." I did reply that I felt happy to be in the meeting and quite content with life. I guess I could measure my spiritual condition on any given day and it would be affected by the current conditions of good bad and ugly and any combination of good bad or ugly events. Mistaking serenity with spiritual is often done. When we feel very serene, content and happy, it is the clarity and current conditions of the day which make it possible. I could be having a miserable spiritual experience on any given day which will impact on my spiritual identity on that day. Emotional and spiritual: emotions altered, heightened or diminished by substances dull our ability to cope with reality and thus impact on the quality of spiritual we might have. At the same time you cannot have a bigger spiritual experience than another person sharing the moment of now, unless of course you are God and not mortal like me.
I guess what I'm trying to say my own clumsy way, is that nobody I have met on this planet has a superior spiritual experience to another person having their spiritual experience of the moment of now. And no matter how much prayer and meditation is done, how much effort is put into it, it will not make your reality bigger and better than anybody else's in the moment of now. Prayer meditation and any kind of psychological training will improve clarity in the moment of now, and contingent on the current conditions of today your experience will be good bad and ugly depending upon your encounters with humanity in the moment of now. Sometimes we feel like we need to pass an exam, demonstrate and share our awareness and that in some way we accumulate wisdom in a spiritual context. We do actually, our spiritual bigness is as big as the moment right now. My spiritual experience is no bigger or better than anybody else's, at the same time I can be serene, I can be frightened, I can be happy or sad, and everything else and it's the same for you wherever you are in the moment of now.
Experience and spiritual, all contingent on clarity and truth, love and wisdom as we are able to live it in the moment of now. And the reason why I felt serenity which was mistakenly expressed as a "spiritual state," was contingent on every person in that meeting on that day. And then the next day was not quite so serene, at the same time I was able to cope with it and have clarity as best I could under those conditions on that day. Every day my spiritual identity is impacted by everything, good bad and ugly. Sometimes I get wisdom, sometimes I just feel tired out and exhausted and yet the experience of now continues from moment to moment. And thankfully I can hear the wisdom of the universe, more clearly just for today.
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