A Morning of Inspiration

When I went to bed last night, I was pondering how I haven't had a feeling of spiritual energy in a while. That is, I used to get all excited about some new conviction but as I let go of my ego involvement, I feel conviction less and less. I purposefully restrict ego reward activities and instead sit in silence. So the high points go away. I edge toward Truth which must be a non-ego event.

This morning, I couldn't focus on my watch and thought it was late so I leaped out of bed. Getting down stairs I realized it was an hour earlier than I thought. So I had plenty of time for spiritual study and meditation.

"Begrudgingly" was the word that came out of my first meditations. What I was feeling was sort of like this: new people come begrudgingly into AA and begrudgingly try to work the steps. What is received, even from a begrudging effort, is so fantastic. A whole new body, mind and spirit comes through this way of life; totally different from the drunks we come in as.

This brought me to my long term sobriety and how did it come about. The words that meditation brought into my mind were "Spiritual Sobriety." See, I have been a seeker after God for decades; but a majority of that time, at least until recently, was chasing after "Enlightenment." Today for the first time I realized that enlightenment, and my efforts to force God to give it, is spiritual drunken-ness. Not spiritual sobriety.

But recently, my efforts at life have been directed toward what the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions calls "the satisfactions of right living" and "true humility." I've been actively attempting to stop living my life by self propulsion and running the show myself. I feel much more spiritually sober.

I was pondering the situation which happens with meditation; how we can keep our thoughts quiet only for very brief periods of time. Then two thoughts from the Big Book came into my mind. First the one about how some of us grasp AA as a drowning person grasps a life preserver. Second about the Sunlight of the Spirit. I thought of my life as a drowning person who occasionally has the strength to kick their head above water and grab a lungful of wonderful life giving air; and then sinking back down into the underwater struggle. Above the water is the Sunlight of the Spirit. The water is our resentments and ordinary ego world.

My spiritual life is like this. When I quiet my thoughts for even a few seconds, it is like sticking my head into the sunlight of the spirit. My begrudging part is that I don't sit in silence for hours a day. I spend about an hour in the morning and 10 minutes at night. Not much. But for even this paltry effort, I receive so much.