Spiritual Growth not Spiritual Perfection

For the last couple of weeks I have experienced some spiritual growth. This may also be known as a spiritual low spot, basically I have not had a very good time, but my experience will tell me that there can be no growth without hardships and boy do I know this.
In Buddhism we call this lojong training, which is transforming hardships into positive energy. This also helps us to understand the concept of karma, because we can directly experience the negative energy of our bad Karma. When our bad Karma ripens we can either practise patience and weather the effects of our negative Karma or we can upset ourselves refusing to accept our situation, when a close friend of mine was dying of cancer she accepted that she was going to die and the most amazing thing was that I was just starting my journey in A.A. and she was interested how I was doing. Still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about that moment and It is only as I writing this blog that I remembered that moment, it kind of puts things into better perspective. So we can either accept or challenge our bad karma, unfortunately in the last couple of week I have seriously challenged my bad karma and subsequently it has been a long couple of weeks.
Bad karma is like dominoes when I start that first domino in motion and don’t practise patience it trips the next domino and so on until I practise patience and finally weather the storm of bad karma and emerged into the sunshine of the spirit, until the same process starts again, lol.
Well about four days ago I started to emerged from my negative pattern, I went to our temple and in front of a statue of Buddha asked him to help me and by the end of the prayers I started to feel better and then on Tuesday I was given the opportunity to help an alcoholic, yet again I am amazed how things work. In A.A. we are reminded in the chapter working with others that “Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail”. Although I feel no need have a drink, I can see that by helping another human being, my problems seems quite insignificant compared to the problems of a person who is suffering from alcoholism.
So things are getting better and what I need is spiritual growth and not spiritual perfection, well spiritual perfection is my aim but the journey should be an interesting one. So I will pray that I have some more opportunities to grow._/\_

Friendship

Hello Everyone,

I was just thinking what to write and I remembered this quote on friendship that I found on a Native American Alcoholics web site and I thought I would share this inspiration with some of my friends new & old.

Friendship ... long ago back when people were given their first instrument, the drum, there was singing, playing, pounding and listening to Mother's heart beat (drum).

They were rejoicing and feeling the joy of living. All of the birds and things gathered around to listen. They too wanted to join in, so bad, to the joy of this song. The word was given that the next day, the birds would be given song. The one that could fly the highest would be given the most beautiful song of all.

That night they were all anticipating the next day to see who would fly the highest. There was a little bird with wings about an inch long or so. His heart was just bursting out wanting to sing in joy. He knew he couldn't win with his little wings so that night he crept up and snuggled up under the wing of the great eagle and he stayed there.

When the new day came they started out. The eagle just bounded up and started to fly. He started to fly with great strength and courage. He was aware of this little bird under his wing but he paid no attention he just moved upward and upward. Then soon all the birds had been left behind. He still carried that little one higher, higher and higher. They were way up and clean out of sight. The eagle's heart gave all the strength that he had left in his wings and he lifted his wings with one last great thrust.

Then that little bird leaped out, fluttered up a little bit higher and they both came down, down to earth.

So the little bird flew higher than the eagle. The Creator blessed it with the most beautiful song. The great bird that carried him up so high that he touched the heart of Creator has been blessed ever since too. But the little bird felt shame and remorse. He didn't really understand the love of Creator even though he had his song in his heart.

That little bird up north, you might hear him, he will be way back in the thickets by himself. He is called the Hermit Thrush. He shares a very special place in the heart of Creator and a very special bond with the great eagle.

On my journey I have come across many inspirational verses. I am very grateful to the friends who have helped me climb just like the little bird and these friends will always have a special place in my heart, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Carl

A God of My Own Conception, An Introduction to AA

I’ve been trying to come up with a blog that would be of some interest but also combine it with my own personal experiences of the last couple of years. I just didn’t know where to start and then I remembered what a friend once told me “always start from the beginning”.

I reached Alcoholics Anonymous from the fear of losing my job on the railway and the realisation that I had kissed many good potential careers good bye, due to my drinking and drug use, I just knew something had to be done. I reached out for help and a friend, who was already in Alcoholics Anonymous, took me to my first meeting. Since that time I have not felt the need to have another drink or sniff anything up my nostrils.

I remember a crusty old timer once told me that I had to change everything and I thought he was joking, then I started to study the Big Book, this is the common name members of A.A. call the book,( the fellowship of A.A. was named after the book) and in the Big Book there is an account of an alcoholic who went to see a renowned psychiatrist and he told this old drunk that his case was totally hopeless, and this member asked “Is there no exception?”

The doctor replied "once in a while, alcoholics have had what we called vital spiritual experiences. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them”. The doctor in question was Dr Karl Jung.

The mechanics of Alcoholic Anonymous is to help an alcoholic change his ideas, emotions & attitudes. However, if it was simply down to acquiring certain new ideas, then many old drunks would have recovered ages ago and A.A. would never have been born......there is something missing, hmmm, I hear you say "how about not taking that first drink, if you don’t drink then can’t get drunk?".

Sounds like a logical solution to this problem, however, my experience is that I have tried this method many times and have failed, big time. For instance, I would be coming home from work and my head would tell me that a drink would be nice before catching the train home and it would sound like a genuinely good idea, however once I had that first or second drink I would get what I called the flavour and all bets are off. Then I would then have another good idea, to catch the next train and while I am waiting to have a couple more drinks. What would normally happen is that I would get the last train home and if I was unlucky I would wake up in some obscure place at the end of the line, stranded.

When I start drinking I have little control over the amount I consume and also I am unable to stop drinking for a period of time because my head will tell me it is ok to drink, therefore I am powerless to stay sober.If my main problem is that I am powerless then the obvious solution to my problem is to find a power greater than myself to help me recover from alcoholism, hmmm, where do alcoholics find that power? Well that’s where the book Alcoholics Anonymous comes into play. It is a text book to show us where to find that power and how to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body just as the first one hundred recovered alcoholics did almost forty years ago.

If it worked for the first one hundred, it would also work for me, all I have to do is follow the instructions in the book. We experience the same problems today as the first one hundred people did, when we (AA members) say "a power greater than yourself" most people assume this refers to organised religion and you can see the hairs on the the back of their neck stand up, however A.A. solved this problem by suggesting that the individual should choose a higher power of their own conception.

The only requirement is a willingness to believe in that power. It could be anything you wanted, however as I went through the book with another alcoholic, I read the following paragraph;

“Actually we were fooling ourselves for deep down in every man woman and child is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or another it is there. For faith in a power greater ourselves and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself. We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was as part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we had for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but he was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the great reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that he may be found. It was so with us”

The person helping me said “Carl where does god dwell?” Intuitively I pointed to my heart. God dwells deep within me, He has always been with me, I have today “A God Of My Own Conception”.Thank you for your time, hopefully what I intend to do over the course of future writings is to give you a broader picture of A.A. and the “mechanics” of the program of A.A. Please note that Alcoholics Anonymous is a spiritual program which allows its members to grow and walk along their own path and it is also this path I will be sharing on.

Carl