Boleo

After hearing hundreds of people talk about their particular Higher Power, it occurred to me: We aren't just talking about different Gods, we are talking about completely unique paradigms for GOD.

When religious people talk about God, they usually start out with a paradigm that presupposes a Supreme Being. Some form of Super Human being with most of the characteristics of being human, just more so. However, when people in recovery talk about Higher Power, they are talking about paradigms so diverse, that they are venturing into a whole new Being of being (whatever that entails).

My own personal concept has changed so much, so many times, during recovery that it no longer resembles a Supreme Being anymore. It is more like a hidden force of nature that religious people would consider Pantheism. I am now considered an atheist in some circles.

I have come to appreciate that we alcoholics are blessed with a weakness that can also be used as a strength or measuring tool. When we make progress in recovery, we experience a release from the obsession to drink. When I say progress, I am not talking about the quantity of sobriety (such as is in calender days of abstinence). I am talking about the quality of recovery (as in time spent free of thoughts of drinking). It is this new freedom and new happiness that gives us our real benchmark for recovery.

It is this new benchmark for recovery that allows us to see just how powerful or new Higher Power really is. As we progress away from the obsession to drink, we progress towards a new Higher Power that becomes our new Being of being.

God goes from being some Super Guy, to being some Super Guidance. Some call it Good Orderly Direction. I call it my new Guider Of Decisions. When I stop guiding my own decisions, I stop playing God. When I have a new Guider Of Decisions, God stops playing God to.

Threshold

This a powerful, and transforming observation.

I often feel that much is lost in translation when people talk about their HP, or their understanding of the order of things. It's tempting, because it's easier, to try to plug another person's HP into the paradigm that we are most familiar with, and if/when things don't "add up" to assume the other person's sobriety is in danger, or that they don't "get it", or would be better off just taking the HP of Bill W just to be safe.

I follow a non theistic religion. I get asked who my god is. I don't have one. In my religion the Universe is the Ultimate Reality. It's not that we plug "Universe" in where they would use the term "God", because the Universe does not operate as a being, or hold the roles that their god does. It's a totally different paradigm. Often people think that I am judging them and their god, or assume I am rejecting their god. My faith is taken as an insult to them. I make no statement about their god or anyone's god through the act of following my faith.

Or I will get the "oh well, in the end we are all really worshipping the same god and going to the same place.". No, we're not. I don't think there is any reason that we should or need to. But making this statement has led to me being told I am seeking to set myself apart, what's the matter with me that I can't humble myself to a particular HP, maybe I should do a step 4 on it...

It really feels like a bait and switch when it is repeated ad nauseum that it's a spiritual not religious program, and then I am told my recovery isn't what it could be if I would just pray to a certain HP, using certain words, in a certain position.

The fact is, often we cannot understand, wrap our head around or even respect another person's understanding of an HP. BUT, we can SURRENDER the NEED to do so. Cease to take the inventory of our neighbor's HP.

Truly surrender that need, not the grudging "that's very nice dear...my HP will be here waiting when you finally decide to do the program the real way."

It's very refreshing to know there are others out there who recognize this. Thanks for posting this.

DylanS

This very thing happened to become the topic at a meeting the other day. One guy shared that, "even in the same religion or church, no one can really hope with any certainty that everyone there has the same God." That tendency to want to 'be the same' for some sort of security is something I'm 'guilty of' in many areas, but the second, the very second, I relax and let go of the need for comprehension, for sameness, I become accepting...and openly curious. My thinking unclenches and becomes expansive, almost no-thought-like. And, strange as it may seem to my thinking brain, instead of being less connected to the other person, I am more so.

My concept of a "Higher Power" has been undergoing some reconstruction recently. The experience isn't a new-age-y gentle dawn with Yanni playing the background. It seems more like a wrecking ball plowing into an old building, with me sitting under the rain of plaster and drywall. Interestingly enough, the dismay and instability I feared has not occurred. It's more like I'm here in the rubble, watching as it comes down: "Huh, that's interesting. Oh - there goes that room. Huh, I think that was a load-bearing beam..." So, really, at this point maybe it isn't so much reconstruction as it is destruction.

Thanks for this thread - it's nice to take a deep breath and pop a few of those mental straps. What once felt securing is becoming chafing...

Boleo

Sounds like you are having a "Dark Night of the Soul Experience".

Keep up the good work!

BackToSquareOne

Did anyone ever consider that we were never meant to know (for a fact) what happens when we die or to solve the higher power mystery? If we did know, beyond any doubt, that what came next was much better there would be no point in sticking around here. It would be a mad race for the exits.

Threshold

Glad you brought that up back, I don't know. My running theory is that with death, consciousness (function of the brain) goes with it.

I find that thought both comforting and motivating. This is my life, lets experience it fully and deeply.

And if there is an afterlife, why spend this one dwelling on it? If there is something we need to know about the afterlife, I suspect we will get that information when we get there.

It being the season that addresses mortality (at least in my tradition) I listened to an audio book about ghosts this week. A serious book, not a book of ghost stories. Of course the validity...who can prove this man does or does not see and communicate with ghosts? I can't, but it was interesting none the less. He does believe in an afterlife and many ghosts have told him about it.

If falls into the camp of beliefs (is you have spent any time reading about this stuff) that we are spirits wearing a body for an earthly experience. We and a group of fellow souls have chosen to return to earth to learn some spiritual lesson, so we choose to forget everything we know about our true self and come here to learns something about our true self. Hmmmm...

Then, as is rather typical, he does talk about how lamentable it is that humans don't know who or what they truly are, and how much better we'd all be if we did, and how it's his mission to, apparently, tell everyone what they chose purposely to forget so they could learn a spiritual lesson, or have him ruin the surprise for them.

Yet, when he talks about the afterlife, he speaks of it in a way that never seems to point towards anyone choosing to come back here. Indeed he repeats that NO ONE wants to return here, it's so much better there, and if you go into the light you get to hang out with your loved ones in a place where there is no strife, and the colors and beauty are beyond words. Unless you get trapped part way, which is where folks like him come in to help ghosts get untrapped and to into the light.

It's unclear, where, when or how any of those happy souls decided it's time to go back to the low vibration of earth and forget everything they know about their true selves and then wait for someone like him to tell them.

Perhaps the spiritual lesson is futility. That earth life is futile?

I don't know, but I've always found that version of the afterlife a head scratcher...but see, of course I don't know. I chose to forget!

At any rate. I trust the Universe. It hasn't let me down so far. I did have a near death experience 20+ years ago. I refer to what I experienced as the great OKness. It didn't fit the typical pattern for NDE's, but actually many NDE's don't. No dead relatives came to help me cross over, no tunnel, no being of light...actually lots of fog and a grate made of light.

Now, this author did say that people with different beliefs often experience what they believe as far as afterlife, and will end up with other passed spirits who shared the same beliefs. Again, not sure how this squares with who we really are, if we retain the form and beliefs that we had in earthly life, and at what point do we lose that and come back?

I do agree with him there though. I've always assumed that different people will experience different things in both life and death. I don't have any reason to disbelieve that all those cultures that worship and believe in a deity and afterlife are wrong. There are all sorts of stories of death bed visions and NDE's. I'm no psychic nor smarter than the average bird.

DylanS

"The Great Okness" - what an incredible way to put it. That resonates for me in an intense way. I read that, feel it, repeat it to myself and, as I look around me, it absolutely fits with any thing I think, see, believe or feel. Such a simple sentence, yet so profound. Thanks, Threshold.

I've never believed in reincarnation, in ghosts, etc. As I've mentioned, I like things buttoned up at the end, d*mn it. I watched a program, Science of the Soul, recently and in it there's a story of this kid who started having nightmares at about 2 years old that he was in a war, his plane was shot down, and he was trying to get out. This kid knew all kinds of things about this fighter pilot and his parents, though devout Christians, started researching to try and get this kid some peace or help or something. It turns out that a guy named James did die in WW2, was a fighter pilot off this area that the kid had described and even had three close friends, whose names matched what this kid had named his GI Joes. A lot more detail matched than I'm relaying, but that report, plus others that they included, made my mind reluctantly creak open a bit. It reminds me of this song by the group, Tool: "Prying open my third eye".

The Buddhists believe that reincarnation occurs but that the possibility of coming back as human is like floating in the ocean and someone dropping a lifesaver from a plane and having it land on you (I read that in a book on Buddhism).

I've joked that I was an A+ dog or something and, instead of moving up to the next level, say to a chimp or a gorilla, I got skipped up to human and that's why I'm only a D+ human instead of an A+ chimp. If I do come back, I think it'd be nice to be a piece of moss. Just sit there in the sun and grow about an inch a year. Commune with the rock I'm on...

I laughed out loud, B2SO, reading, "It would be a mad race for the exits". Yeah, who'd stick around if there was a sure (better) thing next? We're not much for delaying gratification, eh? I guess that's what occurs with the occult suicides.

Thanks for the posts.

awuh1

I felt the same way for a very long time. Nothing else made sense to me. I find it interesting that you used the word theory. I think that’s a good place to start.



Theories are methods of explaining phenomena, in order to make sense of what we observe. Generally speaking, the more phenomena that a theory explains, the better the theory.



Theory’s change because another theory comes along that better fits the data. The classic example of this was the idea that the earth was the center of the universe. There was good reason for people believe this. The sun rose in the east and set in the west. The stars even circle at night. It was obvious that the sun and the stars are moving around US. The thing that was difficult to explain was the fact that there were several ‘stars’ that did not move in a circle us like all the others. They wondered in the sky. This was an anomaly. It could not be explained. There were only a few of these ‘wanderers’ however, so this was no big deal.



Copernicus came along and said that the earth was spinning and making it look like the sun was moving around us. He said the wandering ‘stars’ were planets and that they were orbiting the sun. He was met with ridicule. People said that if we are spinning that fast we should all fly off the earth into space. It did however explain the wandering ‘stars’ (the planets) in the night sky. It explained the anomaly.



Likewise the evidence of our senses tell us that when people die they are dead. They no longer exist. There is no evidence that life continues. End of story.



Well almost. There is an anomaly. It’s not huge so it’s fairly easy to dismiss…. initially. It comes in the form of experiences that are reported just after the time of death. These are experiences that take place after clinical death. One thing that’s compelling about these accounts is that they have so many common elements (like seeing a bright light and seeing dead relatives etc). What is even more compelling however are the accounts of what people see happening while they were (clinically) dead. Things that actually took place, and are reported after revival from a state of clinical death. These things include accounts of events and conversations in the operating room while staff were working on a (then dead) cardiac arrest patient. Also things like the reports of tools used during the surgical procedures while the patient had a flat electroencephalogram.

But nothing should ever be reported. These people have brains that are not functioning …. at all. No one should be having any experience, let alone be able to remember it.



These reports have increased in step with improved CPR techniques (since the 60’s), and our ability to revive people after the complete cessation of brain function. If you already believe death is the end of all, then these reports are somewhat easier to dismiss (it fits your theory). The fact that they are being reported at all is an anomaly. It’s my belief that these reports may end up contributing to the formation a radically new, and more accurate way of viewing reality, though I have no idea at this point what that might be.



Sorry to be somewhat off topic Boleo.

Zencat

The Gift Of Detachment is where I'm at with relation to HP's/GOD(s). Letting-go of God is in a way to me the same as accepting God. If I hold no notion of God I become more open to others, that is to be less judgmental. Now onto ego, I heard said: Edging God Out. Edging others out is what I get. I'm not a bag of ego or full of self, so I let-go of myself concept (ego?) that I am different from everybody else. So why have a set idea or experience to base an opinion from that can separate me from others (God IMO) when I'm the same.

Detach from self, detach from from God/HP, connect with others. When I experience some resistance to a situation, experience, concept, that's struggling to me. I'm holding on to something that can separate me from God (or fill in the blank______ ). I think the point I'm trying to get is 'cause no harm'. Believe as you will and I'm thinking my task is to cause no distress in others because of beliefs or lack therefore. And that frees me from distress within myself. I never believed that 'letting-go' had so much power. I believed that what I held onto is what mattered. How wrong I was .

Bubovski

I really prefer the H.P. of AA.

1500 Christian denominations and sects is rather too much for me!

By looking at matters of morality as genuinely as I can and looking to resolve them over time via H.P seems to work pretty well for me.

As for issues relating to eschatology et al .......maybe plenty of time for all that........

DylanS

How much do you really trust this thing, this New Kind of God?

I have read that, as we age, the more risk averse we become. Sadly, it is in middle age that it seems some of us need to revisit risk. Isn't that what the crisis is all about? Finding out where I've settled, where I've become chummy with the mediocrity that I swore I'd never settle for?

I am in the midst of this inner life deconstruction/reconstruction, and at the same time, my current outer life, I'm realizing, has very little to do with who I am. I'm on leave from my current position, but need to make some pretty big decisions within the next two months (my official leave is over in January) and I have no effing idea about any of it. I had hoped, at this point in my life, I'd be settled securely in my position at work, cruising comfortably toward the golden years, going on hikes and vacations and looking forward to the oncoming retirement.

This is not what I had planned and not what I wanted. So much for buttoned up.

I remember in my late 20s, we just up and left our jobs in L.A. and moved to Arizona. We wanted out of the big city, out of the rat race. And, lo and behold, it all worked out as if it had been planned down to the last detail, which is was absolutely not.

Yet, here I am with this golden opportunity to shake up my life, shake off the mediocrity and have another go at this thing and all I can think or feel is, "fvvvvvvvvvvvvvck".

Apparently I have the spirit wisdom of an adventurer but the mind of a curmudgeon. I feel like Bilbo Baggins: But I don't want an adventure!

Joe Nerv

Didn't have time to read everything here, but wanted to plug into this thread. I completely ID with a lot of what I started reading. My concepts and ideas of god have also changed greatly over time, and I too believe I would be considered an atheist in certain circles. Yet there is absolutely some higher power at work in my life. I feel I need only to release or surrender myself to it. I know it sounds somewhat contradictory, but my HP doesn't fit the definition that most people assign to the word god. And while I considered myself agnostic for a long while, I just recently discovered I don't really fit in that category either. I think we might be needin a new word....

Boleo

one thing i have learned about my new kind of god - he has two hands. the right hand giveth and the left hand taketh away. not only do good things come from god - all things come from god - good and bad. most preachers won't talk about that.

*pardon my keyboard. it has a broken shift key.

DylanS

That's the truth, man. I started out with a somewhat Pollyanna-ish conception but that particular cotton-candy fluff was one of the first things to go (in the current deconstruction process).

I heard in a meeting, "There is nothing that's not God" and that statement both intrigued and fascinated me. And then the walls began to fall.

BackToSquareOne

These Higher Power topics are always fascinating. If we say that God is everything, there is nothing thats not God, it gets harder to understand. If God is all the beacty and wonder in the universe, then what about the other side of the coin?

What about the natural disasters that take out big chunks of his creation. Were all those people just in the wrong place at the wrong time or was it 'Gods Will". What about all the horrific diseases, accidents, injustices, abject poverty and countless other terrible things that befall humanity?

We only seem to want to give God credit for all the peaches and cream, raimbows and sunshine stuff, maybe that's just human nature tho.

MythOfSisyphus

I'm an atheist, too, but to me "GOD" is the tiny iota of control we can actually exert over our own fates. It's like this; the Universe is largely mechanistic. The Earth goes 'round the sun, which in turn travels around our Galaxy. The galaxy is just one of many floating like a cork in a sea of galaxies. From stars bigger than our solar systems down to electrons, the Universe is a clockwork of gears running by a set of rules. Even the most powerful stars and black holes are just puppets dancing on strings. And scientists say the maybe 95% of human behavior is governed by subconscious forces we're not aware of.

Ah, but that 5% That's where the difference lies. The largest star can't control or change it's fate at all...but we can. That tiny little part of our personal sphere that we control, that's the entire difference in human history and human life.

Against a sea of addiction and troubles, we can make a choice to live another way. And just as applying the brakes for ten seconds, one hour into a long trip could avoid a collision you would have been in tomorrow, one choice we make to not drink just for today can grant us access to a life we otherwise couldn't have had.

I bristle at the idea of "powerlessness" over alcohol; no idea could be more false or dangerous! Maybe we lack to power to set down the second or the fifth drink but we all have the power not to hoist the first one.

DylanS

B2SO - Yep, my cotton-candy all-good version of "God" failed quickly. If I make the assumption that there is nothing that isn't God, that must incorporate it all. The natural disasters, the serial killers, the corrupt politicians and the destruction of the planet, even nature with its horrible suffering in the 'circle of life'.

If that's true, then it must be my perception of these events that must be faulty, limited. What if I, in my small, human brain, am like a child who is heartbroken and sobbing over the death of a goldfish while my parent, knowing my limited perception, comforts me, nonetheless?

We humans often perceive suffering as bad, death as bad. Is it? Is it 'bad' that a killer whale plays with, and causes great suffering to, a sea lion before finally killing and eating it? Is it 'bad' that so many suffer a traumatic childhood at the hands of ill-equipped parents and flounder most of the rest of their lives? Is it 'bad' that a tsunami killed so many?

We are hard-wired, as herd animals, to find satisfaction in activities that promote the success of the species, so from that standpoint we humans have some fairly universal perceived 'bad' and 'good' human behaviors. That's as it should be; trying to be above those drives doesn't seem to work. I believe that is why altruism can be so satisfying, even healing: making the success of the species a higher priority in my brain takes me up a notch in perception somehow.

Acknowledging those drives within myself, can I nevertheless look at 'tragedies' from the seeming dichotomy of compassion/value of life and that of suffering/death and see 'God' in all of it?

I read about this Buddhist monk who was working with students to clear a field (if memory serves...they might've been building something). At any rate, they were moving heavy rocks around. The students kept having to take breaks, yet the monk, who had cancer, continued without rest in his steady work. When asked if he wasn't tired, he replied, "Yes, but it is okay." When asked if he wasn't in severe pain, he replied, "Yes, but it is okay."

Maybe that's why Threshold's, "the great OKness" struck such a chord in me. I yearn for that equanimity that can truly say, "Even when it is not okay, it is okay."

KateL

Why do I keep seeing Miley Cyrus?

DylanS

MOS - That's an intriguing visual, and, looking at it in a big picture way makes me appreciate the power that I/we do have, and makes me wonder at the power we/I do have but don't realize.

I wonder if the "admitting powerlessness" could be looked at differently. What if admitting powerlessness is basically saying that, yeah, the rat-brain, the limbic system, is powerless over wanting what it wants when it wants it. It is that deaf, dumb and blind brain that knows only to seek pleasure and avoid pain. What if it's admitting that that brain has been in charge and, left to its own devices, will continue to drive the bus. And what if "coming to believe that a power greater than" is really putting the prefrontal cortex back in the driver's seat? The focus on altruism and helping others would aid in this driver switcheroo, since it seems that putting the success of the species high on the list of priorities moves us to a more 'high brain' operating system.

I heard a heavy duty, long term AA guy once say, "And what if there is no God? What difference does it make? What matters is that the place of silence in me can relate to the place of silence in you." It seems to me that the difference between AA and non-AA sobriety is the focus on altruism/spirituality to assist in changing the driver. NOT that non-AA sober folks don't do service, practice altruism, etc., just that the AA-sober path focuses specifically on it. Maybe it's simply that some can make the driver switch without the utilization of the 'survival of the species' drive and others can't. But, really, it's all methods of achieving the same goal: moving the high-brain back to the driver's seat instead of the limbic brain. I don't think it's apples and oranges. I think it's oranges and tangelos.

Pete55

Reminds me of a story I heard about the Ancient Greeks and their 12 gods in the form of statues. Some statues signified the sun, others signified whatever else in nature.
The point is, the 13th stand was empty, there was purposefully no carved marble statue standing on the base of the stand.
The script carved into the marble said, "The Unknown God"

It can be googled, there are further illustrations to give some descriptions from various authors.