Someone, not an alcoholic, asked me about meditation today and we talked about it for quite a while. Of course I didn’t directly bring the Eleventh Step into the picture, because it didn’t seem appropriate. But we did talk about the basics of meditation. And that made me not only think about it, but do it.
A couple of things came to mind. The first was discipline. I know over the years, talking to any number of people in the program, the one thing which always came up was how difficult it is to keep the practice of meditation up. I know it has been that way with me. Not that I don’t try, but trying seems not enough. It’s something I know I have to do, if I want to continue to grow along spiritual lines.
I know I will always think about it. But somehow thoughts will come into my head, which will lead me away from formally doing it, or just give me the “excuse” not to. I do go back, when I find myself having avoided it. Or I think I have. However that’s where the discipline has to come in. To do it anyway, even if I think I’m doing it poorly. Kind of what Bill W. once wrote about, when he finally went back and read what he had written in Eleventh Step in the 12&12. He said after reading it years later he felt like a beginner. That’s me. Same kind of thoughts.
When I do, like I did today, sit down and make myself be quiet, trying to establish a conscious contact with the God of my understanding, as the Step says, isn’t the easiest of tasks for me. I know I can meditate. That is thinking thoughts. I can do that by writing them out, because staying in focus is not easy for me. I can start off and before I know it my mind is someplace else, if I sit quietly, without writing. But, when I write, I can see it and focus and stay with the thought. It’s always been that way with prayer and meditation.
That wandering thoughts mind of my mind often discourages me from practicing this Step. I’ve talked about this with a few old timers, who felt much like Bill for the same reason. Start a prayer or meditation and I can find my mind in a basketball game the night before, without my being aware of what I’m doing. I remember my sponsor’s widow, with 59 years in sobriety telling me the same thing happened with her. We both admitted we felt like Bill W.
However I go back to the Second and Third Steps where the goals of my sobriety were set up for me. The basics of the spiritual life I’m attempting to live on a daily basis on which my sobriety depends. And, when I do that, my attention is drawn back to the Eleventh Step. So, at least each morning, I’m in a position to begin the day. I start it with the Third Step prayer, as I was told to do. Seeking only knowledge of the God of my understandings will for me. I may do it imperfectly, but I’m not going to quit trying. That I do know.
Anyway, after that talk earlier I had to sit and meditate on this. I am determined to keep on trying to remain sober to the best of my ability. And I know the Eleventh Step plays a big part in this. Like I said, just thinking.