"The founders made clear that all except the religious members realize that the 'Higher Power' is, in fact, an inner resource."
[Continued from 2 October 2005] I challenge your claim that you’re "not religious but are spiritual," using the distinction made in your own literature. That book uses gender-specific religious terms like “He” and “Him” to refer to a Higher-Power/male-God. But in the back of the book the founders added Appendix II to clarify. They said, “With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.” That term “with few exceptions” means “most,” so most of the founders did not believe the Higher Power to be a male entity but identified it as an “inner resource” (a.k.a., pure consciousness). Too, you’re likely aware that the program is rooted in religion, an outgrowth of the Oxford Group that was started and advanced by a Lutheran minister and an Episcopal rector. Meetings follow a religious format with an opening prayer, a message, a passing of a basket to collect money, and a closing with the Christian “Lord’s Prayer.”
Actually, this topic is only being discussed on this site because of that revelation. The founders offered a truth that is being ignored: that the power is within, not without. Remember the man who wrote, “I had reached the point where I decided that if this is all there is, I might as well die, and then I found this site and I'm learning what I was missing”? He, too, missed what his own literature had offered: the founders made clear that all except the religious members realize that the "Higher Power” is, in fact, an inner resource. Neither the false nor the true can be realized wiithout tapping into a real resource rather than into a conceptualized resource.
They continued, “Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves (this awareness of an inner resource) is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it ‘God-consciousness’." So those who had a “spiritual experience” are aware that “the power” is just an inner resource. It’s the religious members—not the spiritual members—who continue to call the power a male “God” and who refer to an outer resource. Since you report that you found “God around the tables,” then by your own book’s definition, you are religious and not spiritual. What a revelation, huh? (By the way, know that the only purpose in clarifying the exact roles you’re playing—religious and/or spiritual—is to allow you to know which rung you’re on on a seven-rung ladder. You're on the third.) If you believe you have “arrived,” then your “journey” will end before it’s even half complete. If your intent is to journey from Los Angeles to New York and you’re in Denver and mistaking that for New York, anyone agreeing with you is certainly mistaken, is allowing you to remain misinformed, and is contributing to your incomplete journey. They are not helping you. So, Jim, are you seeing more clearly that neither in the book the woman gave you nor on this site is any program being criticized? What is being offered, instead, is an awareness of some of that program’s teachings that have typically been ignored and that offer an Advaita-type message. Any benefit you claim will not be debated, but consider this analogy: if one is bleeding from a broken arm and wants to ennoble the first responders who helped halt the bleeding, so it is. It sounds as if the program may have been your first responder and had an effect for you. No value can be given to the methods of the medics, however, if they ignore the broken bone within and only treat the externally-visible symptoms. Finally, to your claim that you are helping others, would you consider some questions in that regard? [To be continued 4 October 2005] Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Actually, this topic is only being discussed on this site because of that revelation. The founders offered a truth that is being ignored: that the power is within, not without. Remember the man who wrote, “I had reached the point where I decided that if this is all there is, I might as well die, and then I found this site and I'm learning what I was missing”? He, too, missed what his own literature had offered: the founders made clear that all except the religious members realize that the "Higher Power” is, in fact, an inner resource. Neither the false nor the true can be realized wiithout tapping into a real resource rather than into a conceptualized resource.
They continued, “Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves (this awareness of an inner resource) is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it ‘God-consciousness’." So those who had a “spiritual experience” are aware that “the power” is just an inner resource. It’s the religious members—not the spiritual members—who continue to call the power a male “God” and who refer to an outer resource. Since you report that you found “God around the tables,” then by your own book’s definition, you are religious and not spiritual. What a revelation, huh? (By the way, know that the only purpose in clarifying the exact roles you’re playing—religious and/or spiritual—is to allow you to know which rung you’re on on a seven-rung ladder. You're on the third.) If you believe you have “arrived,” then your “journey” will end before it’s even half complete. If your intent is to journey from Los Angeles to New York and you’re in Denver and mistaking that for New York, anyone agreeing with you is certainly mistaken, is allowing you to remain misinformed, and is contributing to your incomplete journey. They are not helping you. So, Jim, are you seeing more clearly that neither in the book the woman gave you nor on this site is any program being criticized? What is being offered, instead, is an awareness of some of that program’s teachings that have typically been ignored and that offer an Advaita-type message. Any benefit you claim will not be debated, but consider this analogy: if one is bleeding from a broken arm and wants to ennoble the first responders who helped halt the bleeding, so it is. It sounds as if the program may have been your first responder and had an effect for you. No value can be given to the methods of the medics, however, if they ignore the broken bone within and only treat the externally-visible symptoms. Finally, to your claim that you are helping others, would you consider some questions in that regard? [To be continued 4 October 2005] Please enter the silence of contemplation.
