My Story

Our stories disclose in a general way what we were like, what happened, and what we are like now.

…

I have learned that when I come from self-centeredness, I will not give the best.
So I dedicate this to you, to the world, to known and unknown Higher Powers.
It is a privilege to share my story.

…

In thinking about my life I found I was a confused about my history. It seems complex to me—too much detail and what to include what to leave out.

So I decided to tell the story of this year.

Contents

Limits and Potential 4

Higher or Greater Power 4

Examples of Greater Powers 4

Shame of Being 4

Summary. Immanence of Power 5

Introduction

I would like to say a couple of things as preface.

My primary addiction is alcohol. However, I know enough to know that I have potential for addiction to opiates and drugs such as valium and Xanax.

By 2010, my life was in some disarray. I was fortunate to retire instead of being fired for losing my driver’s license. My personal life was miserable on account of drinking. Relationships were non-existent: relationships ended: my contribution was anger / remoteness due to my shame. I had filed bankruptcy. These were the result of what I did while drinking. And finally I had at least eight DUI charges though not all within 10 years.

I realize now that although I am not unafraid of the law, fear of the law is insufficient to change my behavior.

As long as I remember I have had a spiritual orientation but it is only recently that I have called or thought of it as spiritual.

I have an interest in philosophy / metaphysics which forms groundwork for spirituality.

In 2010 my writing had become so extensive that I began to experience this as a burden.

As a result of the disarray of my life and center, I was suicidal.

I now understand that fear of consequences will is insufficient to address my addiction—that a spiritual program is essential.

I think that the main block to spirituality is my egocentric shame.

2011

January 4 and 8, 2011 DUI #’S 3 & 4.

Crisis

I could see my life as I knew it crumble.

I could have gotten 3 years.

My brother said he had never seen me more miserable.

This was the first time I felt I had to reach out.

My brother and sister-in-law were supportive—emotionally and financially.

Friends—emotionally and physically.

AA. January 5: ‘My name is Anil and I’m an alcoholic’… I felt truth and relief but drank through January 12.

D&A counselor, Laurie Monroe, January 13: ‘Anil, check into DTOX—you need to isolate yourself from alcohol.’ I said ‘I can stop; if I don’t I will check in.’ January 12 was my last drink.

Singing Trees: two weeks in January. From hopelessness to hope.

Attorney: would negotiate the minimum sentence with minor charges dismissed, potential felony reduced to a misdemeanor.

Opportunity

I was energized.

Other people’s help was essential (higher power).

I would go for long walks and use this time to make arrangements (attorneys, counselor, Singing Trees, where to stay, support…).

I would get up at 5AM and use the time before businesses (attorney’s offices…) opened to think, reflect and write. I was able to organize my writing.

The crisis suppressed self-indulgent aspects of ego—neither avoidant nor giving into fear and perfection, allowing at least temporary emergence of a naked form, more adept to being-in-the-moment and ready-for-growth-dismantling-rebuilding.

These were all aspects of immanent greater powers.

I learned that my sentence would be 4 months (May-Aug) in jail, 4 months (Sept-Dec) in rehabilitation.

I’d developed a metaphysics—an understanding of the Universe (below) and its relation to the world of spirit (which I don’t see as distinct from matter… and therefore the words ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ are but conveniences here).

In Jan-March I began to see the year as an opportunity to firm up metaphysics as a spiritual system and that jail and rehabilitation would be chances to work this out.

In January, at Singing Trees, my not so concrete (in principle) ideas about metaphysics as a support for religion-spirituality became firmer and committed. At jail I would attempt meditation-in-action as acceptance and work out the metaphysics in spiritual form (power, immanent power, powers, God, gods, spirit, soul, permanence, impermanence) and I would implement this and further write it out at Singing Trees.

Where I was suicidal a year earlier, I began to see my life as transformed, I began to have hope.

Jail. Understood the metaphysics more clearly. Understood it as a spiritual system. Did not entirely embrace jail but had some success with meditation-in-action as acceptance and working through.

Singing Trees. I expected to work out these ideas in detail. Instead, I found myself making concrete though incremental (small steps) spiritual progress (but in interaction with the fluid metaphysical picture.) Thus my thoughts on metaphysics and spirituality are in transition. I have not achieved the system that I anticipated (that might come later in changed form). Instead I found something better. I had been thinking How will I live out my thought—which had a source in my life and feeling? I had had some ideas. But the experience at Singing Trees has made it all more real and concrete. Spirit is both immanent-practical and universal-transactional-sought; the levels are in interaction; we accept impermanence, imperfection at the immanent level as perfect in process and as connection to the universal. I’m still at a beginning….

Higher Powers. My crisis was energizing. The sentence was the right combination of punishment and leniency to provide need and opportunity for change (a harsher sentence may have been better but at 64 I seem to feel that I have not too many more rodeos left in me.) Jail was boring but a perfect place for thought, writing, and meditation. At Singing Trees I have gained so much (I considered Teen Challenge but it seems clear that I would not have gained near as much there). At the Trees, I have sources in nature, peers, counselors, and spirit…

Future. I face this with not a little fear but also not a little confidence. Mostly, though the future, should I live or not, is an immense opportunity.

Spirituality

Metaphysics

The Universe is All Being—all that there is.

The Universe has no Limits.

Examples. The Universe has consciousness in all phases; this consciousness has degrees of focus and acuity. Except for some simple restrictions, the limitlessness of the Universe is given to every one of its elements and individuals. Ultimately, every individual is identical to one another and to the Universe even though we experience very real and immediate limits.

God and Power

Though I’m comfortable with the word ‘God’ I hesitate to use it because it means different things to different people. However, I use it as an abstract (container) term that can be filled with concrete meaning from experience and reason. I’m comfortable with the idea of Religion as a shared, cumulative, inspired, and perhaps recorded and institutionalized spirituality (that may become corrupted and whose power may be used to worldly and political ends).

Power is degree of limitlessness. The Power of the Universe is without limit. God is a name for the Being with the greatest power, another name for the Universe.

God confers its power on every individual (except for some simple conditions).

Limits and Potential

In human form our experience is—may seem to be—intensely limited. In Addiction, our limits are even greater. Our problem, the same in normal life and Addiction, is to walk and live between the immediate and the ultimate, the limited and the unlimited.

Even normal human experience is limited relative to the potential of the human form. In the ultimate, we are the Universe.

Every transaction, material or moral, between myself and the Universe is a transaction of Power. Included here are supportive and corrective actions physical or moral. Every moment is spiritual in this way. But I do not always have aware conscious contact. My apparent access to the unlimited power of the Universe is limited.

Higher or Greater Power

I may enjoy doing the right thing and experiencing its consequences; I may suffer in doing wrong and experiencing its consequences; this is an example of the Power of God / Universe in my life.

Generally God / Entire Universe are remote. A Higher or Greater Power is a way of access to God.

The term ‘higher’ suggests a remote power; I like the term ‘greater’ because it includes the remote as well as the immanent—it allows power to be everything and in all things.

God / Entire Universe are the Greater Power.

Examples of Greater Powers

Any power that helps in the way is a Higher of Greater Power. Natural powers are immanent and are understood and lived in more than invoked. But invocation may promote understanding… and it may promote access to the non-proximate powers seen in the metaphysics. Some Greater Powers are (a) aspects of self, (b) nature and its inspiration, (c) ideas and understanding including the above metaphysics and its dynamics, (d) spiritual means (step programs—including, meditation, prayer, and service; the yogas including mystic vision, service, love and worship, and embrace of what may be repugnant; vision quest) and (e) other people, groups such as 12 step groups, and institutions, (e) everyday events, especially the supportive and corrective material and moral actions of self and world (e.g. material and moral crises). Note that #c provides a continuous path and a way of permanence to the discrete and often temporary ways of #d.

Shame of Being

A burden on:

Relationships—others, world—love, ambition.

Being.

Approach:

Accept compliments—in truth and in form—sincerely.

Understand others anger sarcasm as coming from a place of love.

Follow the path—my path and hope… do estimable things… share and society through shame and anxiety.

Affirmation—union, freedom from bondage of lower case ego.

Blocks:

Not practicing awareness (e.g. meditation-in-action).

Giving in to fear.

Summary. Immanence of Power

These thoughts may be summarized: manifest Being requires individuation; the path is access to power—i.e. elimination of over-individuation and distortions of individuation. In this form the ultimate is the ideal human; but we transcend this form and there in relinquishing individuation we become the Universe. In this form we may attain any limitlessness consistent with our necessary individuation.

Help is an awkward term for entering wholeness and flow. God is everything and in everything; the idea of getting help is the over-individuated ego’s way of overcoming itself.

All Power is immanent.