Feb 22, 2015

Ponderings

 

Step 6. Ask God to remove these barriers to a full and rich life, one filled with joy and happiness.

 

This is the step of surrender, when we let all these issues in our life flow over to the care of our God. Now is the moment to let go of all, and let God handle all we are carrying in our life. It is a relief to let these burdens be handled by the creator of the universe, the One who can create anew the life we are living, move us into alignment with the energy flows of the universe, so that we move into level of creative power that we were created to use.

 

 

This will prove surprisingly difficult to do: to surrender our burdens. We have become very attuned to the these burdens of ours, and we suddenly find ourselves clinging to them, afraid to let them go, afraid that we will lose a vital part of out very being. These burdens are OURS, and nobody had better fool with them. We hesitate, wait, and procrastinate, wondering what we are losing.

 

This is our Ego speaking. It is the self-centered part of our being that we have carefully built up over all our life into a formidable barrier that isolates us from perceived blows that seem to come from outside ourselves. It is our ego trying to survive, for it knows that if we truly give all our burdens away, it will have no place to cling to and will gradually wither away to a minor part (but an important part) of our lives, and our soul will have a chance to come forth and direct our lives in a manner that befits a creation of the Universe, one recognizing our being one with I AM, the very Creator of the Universe, the One who is the Universe.

 

Ego

 

Our Ego is an important part of our life. It is the side of our life we need to do the ordinary functionality of our life. It is the ego that performs all the functions we need to live, work, and function as a citizen of the world. Balancing between the Id (instinctual drives, such as eating, fear, and reproduction) and the Super-ego, that part of our training that understands the strictures of society and religion, the ego provides the structure to our life for everyday events. Over time, it builds a structure in our life that forms all the central meaningful events, both the good and the bad. It is the ego that defines who we are to ourselves, that acknowledges the structures around us, sets our limits of actions and effectively runs our life.

 

Thus the ego forms a central part of our life, neither good nor bad, and allows us to function in life. This is good, as far as it goes. But eventually to almost all of us, the ego becomes another person living in our life, having its own thoughts what we, that is our very being, should be doing. It begins to dictate the way in which we act, what are responses are in a given event. What it uses to do this is to take experiences we have had, in actuality or in our imagination, and turns them into weapons it can use to strengthen its own functionality, and batter us into doing its bidding. More and more in our life these functions of the ego become our driving functions, and control all that we do – until we say ENOUGH, and we look outside of the ego for something better.

 

That is the purpose of these 12 steps. They are a guide to freedom. Freedom from the drives of the ego. Freedom from the instinctual drives of the Id, and the controlling drives of the Super-ego. You have felt that there must be more: more joy, more happiness, that is, the feeling we have had of ‘not enough’.

 

Sigmund Freud could only see these three forces in the conscious mind. But the conscious mind also has many other forces, with our Shadow being the parts of our consciousness that reflect our negative drives, and the Soul being that part that reflects the truly positive drives. The best proponent of that approach was C. J. Jung, who wrote a differing viewpoint of the human psych that included the spiritual side of the psych (that I term the soul) and provides a profound influence on the person. These discussions and variations led to being a strong sentiment in a group known as the Oxford Group (known later as Moral Rearmament), which influenced an alcoholic, Bill Wilson, who had a strong conversion experience and as a result, eventually formed what is now known as Alcoholic Anonymous, (AA), and wrote the 12 Steps, of which these 12 steps of abundance are a development. Bill, as he was known throughout the AA, communicated with Jung, who greatly appreciated and approved of the 12 steps and what they said.

 

When I speak of the ego, I am also including the framework established by Jung, as we are a more complex being than that thought of only as Id, Ego, and Super-ego. These other drives that make up our humanity create a very complex being, and much of what as humans are doing is learning to move around these complexities and to put them in the proper place in our evolution in life.

 

In this terminology the ego is that portion of our ego that supports out life goals, and if properly used forms us into a productive being in our society. But in almost all of us, the ego becomes a leading force that dominates our thinking and being, and results in our isolation from our soul, that portion that recognizes our oneness of being with all that is, and the ego creates in individualism that prevents us from evolving into the God-being we were meant to become. When the ego becomes dominate, it creates inner angst, that leaves us with a bewildering amount of unease, dissatisfaction with our life, and drives us to seek satisfaction in life by, too often, means that form a distraction rather than a satisfaction.

 

This is the time that symbols and signs appear in our life that, if we are the least bit “awake”, we will see and follow to see where it goes.

 

Thus these 12 steps were formed in my life to give me the perspective that I am sharing in this treatise. You would not be reading this if your inner forces were not guiding you to seek a wider vision and purpose in life.

 

Letting go

 

Letting go of our ego, surrendering that portion of our being that, up to now, has formed our central awareness of who we are, is a difficult step to take. Generally if follows a stutter-step process, where we give it up only to take it back, time and again. This process continues throughout life for most of us, as we have spent all, or at best most, of our life up to this point building up and relying on our ego, and it does not want to surrender and reduce its hold on us. One day we give it to God, the next day, much to our surprise we find “we”, that is, the ego, has taken control of our life again.

 

How important is this step? Marianne Williamson, one of the guiding lights of the A Course In Miracles, and a member of AA, states: “At a certain point, it doesn’t really matter so much how we got to be a certain way. Until we admit our character defects—and take responsibility for the fact that regardless of where we got them, they are ours now—God has no power to heal them. We can talk to a therapist for hours about how our relationship with Mom or Dad made us develop a certain behavior characteristic, but that of itself will not make it go away. Naming it, surrendering it to God, and asking God to remove it —- that’s the miracle of personal transformation. It won’t go away in a moment, necessarily, but its days are numbered. The medicine is in your psychic bloodstream.” (Day 5, A Year of Miracles, emphasis mine.)

 

So this step is not to be taken lightly. It is the key to transforming your life from a life catering to the Ego and all it’s whims, to a Life of Abundance, where all of life can be a source of joy, even those wrenching moments of life-changing events such as the passing of a beloved. Yes, one can find joy behind sorrow, physical pain, or any gut-wrenching occurrence. Look at the words of Christopher Reeves that I have quoted before: “I would not wish this on my worst enemy, but if this is what it took to understand life, than I welcome it”, (paraphrased).

 

There are some key points in the quote from Marianne that needs to be enlarged upon.

 

God has no power to heal them

 

This statement may shock you, but God will not, can not, violate your free will. As long as you cling to these demons, and call them your own, they will remain. One of the few things that God has placed limits on It’s own power, is to violate your free will. Now God knows, as spoken of the Conversation with God series of books, that sooner or later, in this life or in another passage through life, you will release these demons, and since God lives in the Eternal Now where all time and possibilities are Now, God knows that you will some day see the light of day, and your will, which is as strong as God’s will, will give up these demons. You see, your will IS God’s Will, made manifest. You are the living extension of God, the experiential part of God that can experience God’s own joy and Love through you. That is why the life of Abundance is possible. If you do not like your life, you CAN choose a different life, but you have to CHOOSE that life, and that manner of choosing is what these 12 steps are all about.

 

Naming the character defect.

 

In Step 5, we wrote down all the negative feelings and emotions that dragged us down. This is the process of naming the demons that hound us. These are the areas of life, our actions, our fears, are resentments, and our angers that prevent us from soaring like an eagle. These are the demons that bound us as surely as the fiercest rope, and even more so: for nothing we do can release them by our own actions. These character defects include our actions that we can not forgive ourselves about, those actions that we have decided are too terrible for even God to forgive and so we hang on to them, often defining ourselves by their nature.

 

We have to name them, see them for what they are in our lives, accept them as part of ourselves, lay them down in the arms of our God, and let God absorb them and wash them away. Each act we name limits what the ego can hold onto and beat us over the head time and time again.

 

They are ours

 

These character traits that we abhor are ours, and we have guarded them jealously. They have formed a part of our personality, whether we have admitted them before or not. Without these parts of our lives we feel almost naked, and our real selves begins to shine forth. But all these parts of our being have to be erased from our psyche, and by laying them into the arms of our God we have begun the process of healing.

 

Surrender to our God

 

This is starting the point where we are willing to part with these areas of our life that has, for years, formed such a face on our personality and inner being that this act of surrender is frightening, but it is strongly attracting us by the promise held out to us: We Will Be Free! Yes, Free!! What a strange, compelling, but frightening world awaits us: Freedom to be Who We Really Are. Can we live with ourselves when that happens?

 

We take several deep breaths, and then:

 

We ask God to remove all these problem areas, all our demons

And God will, when asked.

 

At this point, a great sense of relief may occur. The worst of things have been laid out on the table, given to God, and asked to have God remove them. Yes, this action assures us that they will be removed. The timing of the total removal is not out choice, but does depend on the depth of our commitment to remove them, and the road you are on in your specific case. Marianne states that we may see them crop up in the future, but their intensity will gradually diminish and their days are numbered. We have, we might say, been inoculated with the saving grace of this step and God’s promise. If we continue on this path where we draw ever deeper into the wellspring of God’s Love, our Eternal Wisdom will fill us more and more as time flows by.

 

This is the miracle of personal transformation.

 

Step 6. Ask God to remove these barriers to a full and rich life, one filled with joy and happiness.

 

Meditation

 

My Eternal Wisdom, my Guide into Eternity, once again I bow in gratitude for this opportunity to evolve to my next highest version of the highest vision I have ever had of myself. There are no words to express my inner joy and relief I feel by casting off all these demons that have haunted me through the years. I am willing to follow You as You lead me onward into a Life of Abundance. I am amazed how You show me, at just the time I am wondering what is next, the next step in my evolution. I hold my breath for the future, knowing that all is ready for me for the rest of my life to live in your Love forever. I know You will never abandon me, and depend on Your guidance for this life into the next, and will depend on you to follow my efforts and guide them along the higher path that will bring me joy and happiness now and into the future.