CLARIFYING THE “HIGHER POWER," Part Three

[Continued from 3 October 2005] You also wrote, Jim, that you are “of service and help others.” I’ll save discussion of that “others” part for another posting. Since the Advaita Teaching deals only in fact and not fiction, however, it must be asked what factual evidence you have to support your claim that others have truly been helped by you? There was a time prior to realization when I, too, made such claims, an assertion that originated from several ego-states/personas. I collected and then gave away coats to people who would not work and buy their own. Was that helping them? I shared more and more knowledge with people who already had too much knowledge and who needed their “minds” purged of garbage rather than having more packed in. Was that helping? I took thousands through a series of steps dreamed up by others to help people find truth when neither they nor I had even begun to find all the false. Was that helpful? When I followed up on some of those people I had claimed to help, however, it became quite clear that they’d received no lasting help at all. Even the ones not drinking were still mentally, emotionally, and spiritually intoxicated, and most were behaving as self-destructively as ever...just in different ways. Several studies report that fewer than 5% who enter the program stay in and stay sober for any length of time. 95% seem not to be helped at all. Next, what about the other three levels of sobriety that Bill W. identified? Are you helping someone if you offer them only one-fourth of the solution, the physical part? The founders’ book says that they used “doctors, psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds.” Are you truly helping people who need professional “doctors and psychologists and practitioners” to treat their “grave mental and emotional disorders" if you’re telling them that you’re “the last house on the block” and that “if they don’t get it there then they’re not going to get it”? Is it helpful if people in the relative existence needing professional help are being discouraged by non-professionals from seeking that help, especially when the founders encouraged such additional assistance? [Again, there are no points being made against a program. The founders were totally correct on this count as well. The pointers here are focusing on those who offer their own personal message that contradicts the program literature.] So even when physical intoxication ends, the “grave mental and emotional disorders” often continue. Is that helpful? And what about the fourth level of intoxication that Bill wrote about, namely, spiritual intoxication? Do you even know what that looks like? How can people become sober around spiritual concepts if they do not even know they have been spiritually conditioned, spiritually programmed and are thus spiritually intoxicated? My book given to you by the woman in your group identifies religious and spiritual roles as the third step of a seven-step “journey.” The religious and/or spiritual roles—as intoxicating as they are—can be a necessary way-station, but they must be transcended, as you’ll learn if you finish From the I to the Absolute. So are you helping someone by convincing them that the adoption of your personas and the playing of your roles is the final goal when in fact that doesn’t get either of you even to the halfway point of a “journey” to the Great Reality? Is anyone helped when given more false identities rather than led to the realization of Who or What They Truly Are? If one cannot even answer the two most basic questions—“Who am I?” and “How did this food-body get here?”—what else can they possibly claim to actually understand? Now, all that having been said—for the sake of entertainment only, by the way—let this pointer be offered: hang that book and hang all books that would suggest that you need to know more from the outside rather than find what you already know on the inside. You may be able to repeat what you’ve heard or read, but are you aware of that which is within? Have you found that? What is that inner resource? [To be concluded 5 October 2005] Please enter the silence of contemplation.