Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
In the previous step I emphasized that any form of human power (false God/false idol) could not possibly fill the emptiness in the soul with any degree of permanent effect. Once accepting this reality to myself— not to my counselor, not to my doctor, not to my family member…but to my innermost self—according to the Big Book I've done the first step.
The next obvious question is: What will I use to fill this emptiness?
I cannot continue living without doing something to "genuinely" fill that emptiness—it's too painful. Sooner or later, I'm going to need relief. If nothing of this world will fill it—no human power—the obvious solution is we need something greater than human. The Big Book states that the main object of the book is to help you find a Power that will solve your problem. My understanding is this means the primary purpose is to find something that will fill that emptiness and has an affordable price-tag.
An awareness of a Creator that has all Power and all Knowledge will fill that emptiness. The awareness is temporary—which means it requires consistent action—and it seems the only way to attain, and then maintain, that awareness is by letting someone share their experience with me and then turning around and sharing it with someone else. The difference between using this to fill the emptiness and all of the other forms of relief I have engaged in before is the price-tag. The price-tag for this action is free, the supply is abundant (there is no shortage of people in need) and the reward for consistently engaging in this "one person sharing with another" is phenomenal. All of my needs are met. Everything I need to effectively continue this way of life is provided for, seemingly as a result of some mystical director, a Power greater than human.
I've attempted to identify what I believe the problem to be and that the solution is to find a Power greater than human, the only Power that can solve your problem. Here we need to agree that the Power greater than human I am referring to, from here on in this writing, is God. Since a lot of people may have a problem with the word "God" due to their past experiences or concepts they have about what God is, let me assure you that I do not know what God is. I don't think I'm supposed to know. When I use the word God, for simplicity, all I am referring to is whatever Power is the Creator and Director of everything, absolutely, nothing excluded. One thing the person who is unaware of God can be assured of is that he/she is not feeling the presence of God at this time. So it should not be difficult to suggest to them that we're attempting to point out that this might be the dilemma. I think the most difficult part about Step 2 is letting go of my old ideas about God. Some of them may be accurate, but they'll be accurate even if I accept the possibility that I cannot be sure of anything when it comes to defining God. So it's not important to have a concept of God—what's important is being open-minded to the existence of some sort of all-knowing, all-powerful Creator and Director. What's also important is acknowledging that this Power is not human. It is greater than any thing human and all things human.
The problem being a lack of awareness of God, genuinely in my soul, causing me to need to find relief in other forms—false Gods/false idols—drink, drugs, sex, gambling, eating disorders, self-mutilation, child abuse (including preying on susceptible adults), on and on and on. Basically what I'm saying here is the relief can take on many forms, but the underlying issue is still a lack of awareness of God in any given moment in time. Here we are really talking about Step 3 and also referring to Step 1. I might have answered my own question that I asked in Step 1 as to why the founders of AA decided to write "We were Powerless over Alcohol…" Maybe they realized that the reader must first (in the first step) realize that the alcohol has taken away their power of choice and, no matter what they do, they are not going to be able to be free from the alcohol on their own. Then in the third step they are suggesting that the problem is much deeper—a spiritual malady. My question is: Does it really matter whether or not we mention it in the first step or the third? I believe that in each situation we'll have to trust our hearts, because the idea that a one-size-fits-all approach seems unrealistic. A point that I might get across with one person in the first step, I might need to wait until the third step to get across to a different person. Who cares? As long as we're getting our point across.
Now that we've identified the problem as Powerlessness (the emptiness in the soul) and Unmanageability (no human power that I've been able to find is going to fill it), whether it is just with the alcohol or with life in general, this is where we are urged to open our minds to the possible existence of God.
For those who have a problem with the word "God" due to previous teachings or experiences, what I am referring to here is whatever the creator and director of everything is. This is the Power that is greater than human. Whatever God is, it seems to me that it IS—regardless of whether or not I believe in it, whether or not I like it and whether or not I am aware of it. It's like gravity…gravity applies to all people…even the people who don't believe in gravity and the people who are not aware of gravity. Gravity does not care what people believe or what they are aware of, because it is a principle. The same thing with the Creator and Director of everything…if there really is a God…he's God, regardless of whether or not people believe in Him or are aware of His existence.
Maybe the creator and director is nothing short of a "big bang" that somehow fell together into millions of little pieces of law that we refer to as principles. The creator would then be the laws of nature as they randomly fell together after the "big bang" settled. There is still Creation and Direction in this theory.
Maybe the creator is something more intelligent than that and has designed all of these principles for a purpose that is beyond the understanding of man, individually or collectively. Since there is nothing we can do to change it, the important thing for us, so we may have peace in our lives, is just to identify these principles so that we can use our self-will to stay in-line with them and therefore live in harmony with the universe.
Maybe the creator, God, is Jesus Christ, Allah, whoever. Maybe these stories that are so popular are man's best attempt to explain something in human terms that is really too big to be described in human terms. Whether you believe these stories to be fact or not, obviously one thing is undeniable. They have stood the test of time and are very important to a lot of people over the centuries. If we stop attempting to decide whether or not to believe the stories to be historical fact and just listen to the stories, fact or fiction, the stories tell us how we should be living our lives if we want to be at peace. Here again, we might never know for sure, since none of us were there to witness it. We only have the word of the authors of the different books and then our own rationalizations and interpretations to attempt to understand what the author was trying to tell us. Here again, if we stop trying to be right, rather than happy, than we can just enjoy the stories and identify the principles within these stories. They are Powerful stories if you do this.
So here's the ultimate question… what is God? Maybe we're just not supposed to know right now. Maybe we're supposed to know God in the heart, not the intellect. Maybe the gift is in knowing that there is a God rather than knowing what God is. Maybe it is important to know He who knows, rather than knowing. He who knows everything has everything under control and as long as I trust that possibility, this eliminates the need for me to worry and concern myself with what is going to happen next. Delusional? Maybe, but what if the real delusion is in not trusting God. It appears to me that both are a 50/50 proposition… so pick your delusion. Which one is more enjoyable and which is more painful?
One thing that seems evidently clear is when I identify these principles in order to stay in harmony with the universe, my life not only brings on a new peace and security, but I seem to attract others. When I do not live in harmony with these principles, I seem to repel others and do not maintain any degree of happiness, comfort or joy. Maybe the journey is the gift, coming to believe.
The twelve steps are clear. The twelfth step states that "Having had a spiritual awakening as 'the' result of these steps… "The primary purpose of the steps seems to me to be attaining the awakening, going from being spiritually asleep to being awakened, a state of unaware to a state of awareness. The steps suggest that I'm not unaware of God in the deepest element of my being. What I am is blocked off from that awareness. Bill Wilson believed that deep down in the hearts of every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental knowledge of God. What we've done is intellectually bought into ideas that have blocked me off from that awareness.
My understanding of the second step can be summed up by saying that an intellectual concept of God is a human power, in and of itself, and will block me off from that fundamental certainty that I was born with. So stop trying to define God intellectually. Don't put self-imposed human limitations on God because of the egotistical desire to be right, rather than happy.
When I hold a baby in my arms, something happens to my heart. What happens to my heart is indescribable. However, it is absolutely undeniable. This is the place in the heart where God proves himself to me, provided I get my head out of the way. In other words, believing that I am capable or qualified to intellectually understand the God that put the joy in a baby's eyes, or the God that made the Milky Way galaxy, not only seems to me to be quite self-righteous, but that intellectual belief will block me off from the awareness of God in my heart. So in two words…stop it. Don't do that…it's too painful and very unnecessary. Actually it is detrimental to my well being.
I already have plenty of experience knowing the results of living life oblivious to the awareness of God. Maybe it's time to try living life with the awareness. What do I have to lose? It seems to me that all good men of science, such as da Vinci, Nostradamus, even Einstein, were all strong believers in an ultimate Creator of everything. No matter what scientific principle they uncovered, the ultimate answer to the question of "Why?" was always…because that's the way the Creator and Director of everything created it.
What about the spiritual or religious beliefs from my childhood? Do I need to abandon them completely? I don't think I can and I would never be so bold as to ask anyone else to. What I would suggest is that we always attempt to find the origin of these beliefs and examine why the originators used the language they used. Attempt to find the principle they were attempting to describe. Attempt to identify the targeted audience they were attempting to communicate these principles to. We weren't there, therefore we will never know for sure, but there is a beneficial joy in the journey of searching. The joy comes in the form of an overwhelming peace as a result of keeping an open-mind and always pursuing more knowledge, understanding and experience. As soon as I think I've arrived at the destination, or I think I have the answer, I now have a closed mind again and I cannot grow anymore. The gift is in the growing…in the journey. Please don't miss it.
One of the typical situations one might find difficult in contemplating or considering the existence of a Creator are those who might be like I was. When I was young, in Sunday school, I was taught that God was like a man, who thought like a man, made decisions like a man and judged like a man. This idea of God was pretty much all that my undeveloped mind could comprehend. It worked well to get me to do my homework and to go to bed on time. I was taught that God would either reward me for doing things deemed good or punish me for doing things deemed bad. I understand why we, in our culture, adopted the practice of teaching our children this being that this might be all the little undeveloped mind can comprehend. The problem begins when the little mind begins to develop and the growing mind does not continue with the pursuit of spiritual awareness. Here again, directly the fault, in my opinion, of common day teachings losing sight of their primary purpose of the importance of helping others and the spiritual principles showing us how to do that. So the growing young mind abandons growing with God and begins chasing things of the world (false God/ false idols). Eventually the human mind reaches a point in its adulthood where it is undeniably aware that these things of the world aren't filling the emptiness…the yearning for God. This person has to turn to God but the only concept of God he/she has to turn to is the childlike idea that was surrendered way back with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Attempting to convince the person you're trying to help into believing in this idea of God is the equivalent of asking him/her to believe in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus again. In this case we need to urge the person to open up his/her mind and consider that the problem was not the concept that people taught them when they were young, but that the problem is they never kept growing with that concept. Maybe this is the norm in current day religion and maybe this is why the churches are having such a difficult time in attaining converts.
The churches claim that God made man in His image. The casual observer of the Bible believes that this is interpreted as God being in the form of a man. I believe, if read in context, that the true interpretation might be that God made everything in His image, including man, or in other words, God is everything. There is nothing that is not God. This means that you are part of God, not separate from Him. God is the Creator and Director of everything. It seems to me that, if this interpretation is accurate, that there is nothing that is not God and therefore there is no such thing as Satan…except that God might be everything and that Satan is an effective description, in terms that the common man can understand, of the revelation of anything short of that awareness. Just a thought…I absolutely do not know. It makes a lot more sense to me than the alternative that the common day church is attempting to convince me of…with absolutely no proof except for their personal self-serving interpretation of the Bible. My theory on God would also include that God, whatever God is, not in the form of man, could care less about man's clock or calendar and does not care which intellectual language is used to attempt to describe Him or His Creation. We can't even get the Chinese to acknowledge our calendar, do we really believe that the Creator of everything cares much about it. It's a delusion that man is in agreement on. It's not even accurate…it is continually in need of adjustment. The languages are continually changing as well. We need to get out of our intellects completely when attempting to bring an understanding into our hearts of things on the spiritual plane.
What about this word "insanity"? I don't think I'm insane; however, I sometimes wonder if insane people really know that they're insane. The definitions that I have found for sanity, the opposite of insanity, would be (a) wholeness of mind and (b) not doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Keep in mind that I may keep doing the same things over and over again, but I know the results I'm getting, and I'm willing to pay those prices, therefore that is also being sane.
When we allow God to direct our lives, fear dissipates. The energy that I normally used by living in a state of fear, which can be very tiring, is now available for me to use to make more rational decisions based on trust…trust in these principles…trust in God. Peace of mind is the result or in other words, sanity.
Keep an open mind about the existence of a Power that created everything and an open mind about the power of this Creator. Don't sell yourself short by closing your mind. If God is everything, that means that there is nothing which is not God and that you are part of God, whether you are aware of it or not.
So God is not some Power up in the sky which requires a long-distance phone call to communicate with. God is within you and around you…you cannot be without God…you can only be without the awareness of God. Lack of awareness of the Power is our only dilemma…lack of awareness of God in any given situation, is our only dilemma. Of course, I may be completely delusional.