Health & Fitness
Seeking Through Prayer And Meditation, Part II
This is part two of an analysis of Step 11 in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Thanks for reading my blog.
Step 11 in the Alcoholics Anonymous program encourages the addict to seek God or our Higher Power through prayer and meditation.
We must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.
After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.
On awakening we think about the 24 hours ahead, consider our plans for the day, and before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
Our thought life is on a much higher plane when our thinking is clear of wrong motives. Self-improvement and self-reliance are not necessarily wrong motives, but since we have selfishness as a character flaw we should ask our Higher
Power to watch over us in this area and stay away from the self-seeking.
We might face some indecision, not knowing which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for awhile.
What used to be the hunch or occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We have come to rely upon it.
I'm usually concluding the time of meditation with a prayer that I be shown what the next step is to be throughout the day. Sometimes I'll recite the St Francis' prayer, "Make me an instrument of Thy peace, where there is hatred let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon, where there is doubt, let me sow faith, ... " It's a long prayer so I won't finish it here.
There are two more paragraphs in the "Alcoholics Anonymous" book that talk about this step 11 and how we should go through the day.
Sometimes I feel like I'm definitely doing God's will and other times I'm agitated or doubtful. We ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, "Thy will be done."
We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity,
or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up our energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
