Do you remember, when we first came in, that our sponsors and old timers told us not to think? Don’t think, don’t drink, and go to meetings. That became a mantra for most of us, who tried to follow directions. Of course, for those of us, who had damaged our fevered brains with alcohol, our thinking machine was stuck in the “ON” position and not thinking was almost impossible. Later on, when we thought it was all right to think again, we might say to an old timer, “I was thinking…” and the veteran of the wars would respond, “That’s your first problem. ”
Then, one day, when I guess the time was right, my sponsor pointed out one of my thinking problems. He referred the line in the BB, where it said, “unless we let go of our old ideas, the result was nil.” What old ideas, I asked. All of them came the reply. What about the good ones. I was told I had no good ones.&nbs!
p;The struggle was on. Of course, as time went on, I forgot about this direction. I mean, just think; how many old ideas did I have? All of them. I remember our friend Cappy saying one day, that he wouldn’t know a new idea if it hit him in the face. I agreed. And then promptly forgot the direction, again.
My thinking, I finally arrived at one day, was infected with old ideas. Maybe by a hundred old ideas. That turned into a thousand. Now I’m into the millions. The longer I’m sober, the more I’m able to see that this is a lifetime task. Maybe beyond a lifetime. Tom used to say that the first hundred years were the hardest. Now, I know why.
How do we get rid of these things. And how would we know? This was like trying to get rid of all the grains of sand on the beach. Then, one day, I was reading a book about The Way! of Chang Tzu. This was a man, who lived at the time of Confucious and followed some of his thinking. HIs was the way of “no thought”. He would have fit right in with the rest of the old timers. No thought! ??? My mind had not moved off the dime since I first came in. It was still stuck in the “ON” position.
As time went on, and I was trying to apply these steps to my life, I finally reached the eleventh step. Prayer and meditiation. Trying to improve our concious contact with God, seeking only knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry it out. Now, there was a NEW idea. And how was I going to accomplish it? I was told that prayer was talking to God and that meditation was listening to Him. It was all right to talk to Him, but, like all conversations, there was going to have to be a pause to let God talk to me. I was going to have to have “no thought”! during that period. Nothing.
There are a lot of ways to meditate. All of them, I’m sure are valid. But, in all of them, there has to be a moment, when we reach a point of silence. Our minds are still. Nothing is going on. We’re listening. For what? Nothing. If something comes back, we probably weren’t listening and we need to talk to someone more capable than us.
This listening is not going to happen overnight I found out. It was going to take practice. Over and over and over again and again. Just like my physical muscles, my “spiritual muscles” had almost atrophied from lack of practice and exercise. It was new and would be a matter of discouragement on many occassions. It still is.
Anyway, just thinking.
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