Steps 10 & 11 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV

My name's Sandy Beach. I'm an alcoholic. Who's Sandy? I'm 50 years old, but my knees are 80. And so that's why they were kind enough to, have me not stand up for an hour.

And besides, this is, nice. I feel like I'm just sitting here having a chat with everybody, And there's nothing between me and you, and I'm honored to be here. Been a wonderful weekend, and I'm so happy Sue gave me a chip again this year. I don't know where to start. I because what I wanna do is tell you how things look to me.

They don't look the same as when I got here. So as you are around, your perspective on things changes, and so all I can ever share with you is what I see and what the book looks like today compared to how it looked like 42 years ago. And a lot of times we hear something about, the word truth. And, there is no such thing as truth. There's no way I could tell you what the truth is.

I can only if you're new. So in other words, we we we keep looking for an answer, and then that'll be it. We can only show you the way to your truth. We are nothing more than wayshowers. And you come along, you go, which way is truth over there?

So we could really just have a sign up here pointing. See those 12 steps? Climb them. And then your truth will be revealed to you, and that'll be it. And next year, it may be different.

And so all I can tell you is what seems to be true to me today about our program. And if that is helpful, then in, inspiring you to seek your own truth, then my job has been done, and I will be very happy. So there's a big difference. In other words, we seem to think that knowledge is a very important thing, and it is in the material world. But as we move over here into the spiritual world, it's not a process of learning, but rather unlearning.

There was a guy back in Washington who used to say, it's not the things you don't know that'll kill you. It's knowing things for sure that just ain't so. And so when you look at what Chuck used to say, uncover, discover, discard, what else am I wrong about? That's the ticket to freedom. What else should I get rid of?

What old idea have I just inventoried? And I go, have I still got that? And when we finish the process and there's no old ideas left, we're there. And, that's what I wanna talk about today because we're talking about steps 1011. Tom was talking about it last night in terms of service, and I'll give you my take on service and then and then move on from there.

It's, as I look at AA history, I would say that the origin of service, the center of the energy that provided service occurred in Bill Wilson's spiritual awakening. When that was over, you could not have stopped him from carrying the message. You could have put him in handcuffs, and he would have gone out the door trying to share what had happened to him with every alcoholic in the world. And look at the adversity that he went through. You know what I mean?

Being broke and evicted from the house in Brooklyn and no home. There's people loan him a car. He can't raise any money. What kept him driven to carry this message and to save all the alcoholics in the world, I would submit to you it came in that awakening that part of an awakening is the absolute necessity to share it. You can hardly wait to find some other alcoholic and go.

And I think the reason is that we have opened up a stream of spirituality, And if it doesn't get out, it'll become like the Dead Sea. And so there is no you don't have to encourage someone with a spiritual awakening to go into service. You can't stop them. So one school of thought that I would suggest is the greatest service work you can do is to cause someone to have a spiritual awakening, which is what I'm talking about in, steps 1011. So I just wanted to tie the 2 together.

Now granted, as we're working towards this, I think it's wonderful that we herd ourselves together and go make the coffee and do this and do that, and then you get the joy out of doing it. But, eventually, the purpose of the entire program, as our 12 step says, we only have one result, which is a spiritual awakening. And then we carry the message of how to have a spiritual awakening to the next alcoholic, and we kinda move on. And that's sort of the whole deal to cheat somebody out of a spiritual awakening and just have them have 25 years of sobriety would be selling them short. Now that's just my own view.

Remember the guy in the cyclone? He comes up out of the wind cellar. Ain't it grand isn't it grand that the wind stopped blowing? And then Bill writes, we think a man who says sobriety is enough is crazy. It's not enough.

It's only the starting point. That's how we stay alive in order to have occurred to us what I think we were born to have. And what we've been looking for and what makes us so restless, irritable, and discontent is that we know there's something still missing in our lives. And that's what keeps pushing us is to try and resolve the separation of ourselves from our own creator. That's my view of what the deal is.

You could talk to lots of other psychologists and philosophers, and they would tell you that's not what the human situation is. But from my perspective, that's what it looks like to me is that we're trying to solve the separation problem. And, of course, in order to talk about that, you have to talk about the human ego, which is not an easy thing to do. There's just, you know, you read study for psychiatry and psychology, and there's just a million ways. And in a way, the only way you can talk about an ego is through making up a story, you know, or an analogy.

And Bill does that in suggesting that, we're actors on the stage. And so if we follow that and let's say that god made me an actor. And, in step 4, under the fears, he said, he assigned us the role to play. That's God's will. He assigned me to be in this play where I'm the janitor and I sweep the floors.

That's it. That's what I was assigned to do. That's God's will. He told me if I do that, I'll be as happy as can be. I'll be the happiest little sweeper you ever saw.

Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep. But I, on the other hand, having the power to observe and to be aware, might look around and go, why the hell am I sweeping? I ought to be the star and get the woman. I wonder what I did to end up sweeping. I must be a piece of crap or they would have given me a better role.

This whole play sucks. No. It this is this is stupid. I the people don't even know my name. They don't even talk to me.

They just how about cleaning my dressing room too? You know what? People really would be a much better play than the one I'm in, would be a play about me having to play the role of a janitor. Now that would be a huge success. The pain that I suffer, I mean, this is amazing.

I think it would sell out Broadway if they could just be inside of me and see the drama that's going on. And then I got this lousy place to sleep and I you know, you don't get paid much for belittle actor doing this. And as time goes on, he honestly believes that the play he's in is the one he wrote, that the real play is about a guy playing the role of a janitor. And when we create this play, this story, the only one in it is me. And God is not in that play.

He's not in that story. It's very lonely in that story. And I recognize how lonely I am, and I forget that it's a story, and I forget that it's a play within a play, and that all I have to do is go back to being sweeping the floor in the play, and I'll be as happy as can be. And so I have to go through the process of dismantling, un writing the secondary play. And it's a very complex thing because the whole society has entered into a secondary play.

And we're all playing in roles that we made up ourselves. And so we have a collective dysfunction. I read a spiritual writer who described the ego as an imposter pretending to be you. And it's so revolutionary. We can't believe that we could have faked ourselves out that way.

I couldn't have pulled the wool over my eyes like that. It's impossible. And so the lucky ones like us, we come to AA. How many people came to AA and were not an alcoholic when you got here and became an alcoholic after you got here? You know?

I I was not an alcoholic, and then I got oh, maybe I am. Okay. I am an alcoholic. Wow. I just discovered I've been an alcoholic for 30 years.

How could I have not been an alcoholic yesterday? I had fooled myself. I had told a story to myself, believed it, and reacted to it, and caused myself a number of problems. And as Bill says, all of our problems are of our own making, our own creation. We make it up in our head and then emotionally react to it.

I didn't understand that the emotional reaction to my telling myself that the gentleman in the back with the sweater doesn't like me is identical to the man in the back with the sweater coming up here and saying the words, I don't like you. You follow what I'm talking about? All I have to do is tell myself that he doesn't like me, and I react. And I sit here just in abject rejection. What happened?

The guy back there just rejected me. Feels awful. I'm dying over it. But he didn't come up here and do it. Yes, he did.

I can feel it. He rejected me. Otherwise, I wouldn't feel this way. That's a pretty good trick. I mean, it's so simple.

There was the movie, the illusionist. I thought it was so cool. I don't know if you saw it. They didn't do the plot that well, but the premise is just wonderful. 2 illusionists trying to outdual each other, and you gotta keep the secret.

And I could show you how to create something out of whole cloth, out of thin air, right here in front of your eyes. I could just sit here and I could tell you, watch this. You know, Bob Darrell has a 12 cylinder car. Not bad. Now watch this.

I'm not gonna move my hands. I'm gonna keep them stationary at all times, and I am going to cause a resentment to appear before your very eyes. My car only has 6 cylinders. Can you feel it? Can you feel it out there?

Is it present in this room? Can you feel the power? There it is. We just make them and make them and make them. So why would we make them in order to keep the illusion going?

In order to keep the separate play going, the one where there's no God, the one where it's a huge tragedy, then I'm sweeping the floor in the play. And spirituality, the steps, oh, thanks. The disassembly of that play, our story. That's the illusion. For my next illusion, I'm going to tell you my story.

The reason I call it an illusion is I believe it. It has total power over me. So what's that got to do with the 10th step? Well, Tom led off last night by quoting the sentence in the 10th step that I was gonna quote. He just walked right up and said the very words.

So I'm gonna say them again. It's about 2 sentences, maybe 3 sentences into the 10th step in the big book. It says, we have entered the world of the spirit. I wonder what that means. It's sitting there, isn't it?

Says we've entered the world of the spirit. So if anybody asks you, what is the 10th step? Well, it means you've entered the world of the spirit. Yeah, I know. But, what's the world of the spirit?

How do you know if you've entered the world of the spirit? Is there a sign? A little doorway? World of the spirit Right here. Well, let's see.

Is there something that might give us a clue that we've entered the world of the spirit? Something, perhaps extravagant, something that might, to use magic, materialize, something like fear of people and economic insecurity leaving us. Where'd it go? What was I doing when they left? I was making coffee, if I recall.

Turned around and they were gone. Then I was cleaning up afterwards and self seeking slipped away. That's not much of a psychological term, is it? Like, slip away? Is that out the back, Jack?

50 ways to leave your character defects. What kind of story is that? Self seeking will slip away. Okay. So I'm real smart now.

I got lots of knowledge. No. I don't. But I intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle me. Baffle, baffle, baffle, baffle.

Oh, I see it. Oh my god. I don't know anything about this. I don't know anything about oh, it's perfectly clear right there. This is an absolute mess.

I don't know. Possibly had oh, it's all straightened out. There it is. Done. Intuitive, intuitive, intuitive, intuitive.

Wow. That's amazing. That is just amazing. Well, I wonder what a spiritual awakening would look like. They talk about them in here all the time.

Do they hand them out at the meetings? The light go on? I don't know. They say they 2 types. One that happens, boom, Bill Wilsons and then the educational variety.

Remember that? They explained it that way, William James, varieties of religious experience. That's a book that's mentioned in the big book. Here's a joke. Is that conference approved?

That could be a topic at a heated discussion meeting. The devil made me do that. The only worst topic would be, what would be the best way to stay sober if there was no AA? But we won't go into that. Anyway, what would a spiritual way you know, what would it look what I imagine what would it look like?

Now here's the funny thing. The sudden spiritual awakening occurs suddenly and the gradual educational spiritual awakening occurs suddenly. They just it occurs later. Suddenly, just awakened to the truth for us that there is indeed a creator that has touched us. So it's no longer do we have to rely on on hoping or rely on the fact that our sponsor had a spiritual breakthrough.

I just had it. And that is entering the world of the spirit. Of the kingdom of God. A glimpse of the kingdom of God. A glimpse.

And the glimpse itself starts serving as our motivation to see more. Wow. I wonder what else is in there. I wonder what else is in there. And it would be so simple if we didn't have an archrival that doesn't want us to see what's in there, our ego.

Because our ego knows if we get in there, it disappears. The story's over. We're back to sweeping the stage happy as can be. And its whole show has been exposed as a fraud. And it it is not gonna die easily.

It is not just gonna roll over because it holds the key to your mind. It knows how to trick you at every turn. Let me give you an example. Some of you have been around a long time. And I find myself almost being taken over by my ego to say an ego prayer.

You didn't know that egos pray, did you? This is what an ego prayer looks like. We get down on our knees just like we're regular praying. Looks exactly the same. And here goes an ego prayer.

God, I wanna thank you for taking me out of the world of fear, and being lost, and being resentful, and forming me to this wonderful world of peace and serenity and transforming me into a person who is now filled with love and who now sees the world as it really is. I am so grateful that you have placed me in a position where I no longer need your sorry ass. I I have tears coming down my cheeks. I never thought I would be returned to a state of entire self sufficiency. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.

Amen. And you don't even know you said it, and you get up off your knees taking credit for your own sobriety, and you walk out and have the worst damn day you've ever had. It's awful. Absolutely awful. So we engage now in the real struggle to see the whole deal.

And Bill talks about spiritual goals. I've had more things happen in the last 3 years than I have in the other 39. More thing more I've seen more things differently. I don't know why. I think I decided to seek harder.

I started thinking, what would be the most important thing? What is the most important thing? This is for me. This is what I see right now. What would be the most important thing?

Most important thing would be to entirely awaken and find out, what am I really? What what what am I? What it what is the mystery of life? Well, the mystery of life is the mystery of me. Once I got that one, I'll see everything.

So what, you know, what is this creature that's sitting here? So I began making that a priority. I began seeking. You know what I'm saying? Well, do we have anywhere where it said to do this?

Make that a priority? Let's see. Chapter 5. Read it every meeting. What's the last word?

Sought. God could and would if he were sought. Seeking. So seeking becomes I want to become a god seeking missile. You know what I mean?

That's all that's all I'm aimed at. And everything else becomes secondary. Well, then if I do that, if I focus just on that, who's gonna take care of the world? Who's gonna manage my business, my relationships, my finances? This who's gonna manage all of that?

Turns out, the person who's supposed to manage it, God. And I was taking away things from him. God, I'll handle that. I'll take on what the world should do. I've got it.

Don't worry. This is a way of surrendering. So the world of the spirit, what does it say about entering the world of the spirit? We have an it what it's saying is, you arrived here with your way of handling things. We have now, in those promises, proved to you the existence of your own personal, loving, higher power.

You experienced it yourself. So what do you do once you experience that? Alright. So now we're gonna the 10th step is how to live in the now. Right?

It's a day at a time. This is where a day at a time arrives, how to go through a day after we've entered the world of the spirit. That's how we went before we entered. Now how do we go through a day now we've entered the world of the spirit? I mean, here's the problem.

It's so simple that we don't like it. Alcoholics don't like simple things. Remember when you first came in? Well, yeah, you know, my carb just broke down, and I go over here. What am I gonna do?

Don't drink. Oh, well, my girlfriend left me, and then my boss said that don't drink. Well, it's gotta be more complicated than that. No. Just don't drink.

That's it. Two words. Don't drink. So now we come in here and it says what does it say when, it says, when we get frustrated, angry, upset, irritable, etcetera, etcetera. This is what it says, and this is what we do all the time.

We ask god at once to remove them. Any questions? Anybody do that? Not what I do. I try to exercise a little understanding of my fellow man.

I try to be more patient under all conditions. I see you leave god out. Yes. That's what I do. I, basically I like to leave god out, and I'll handle it.

Well, it didn't say to do that. It said, no matter what happens, ask god to remove it. You know, I just don't like that. When do I I get to do something? When do I get a little creative problem solving going here?

No. Just ask God to remember. I wanna I wanna do this one. Give me that. Here, god.

I got nothing to play with. Ego only plays with problems. There's no such thing as a grateful ego. There's no such thing as a loving ego. There's no such thing as a happy ego.

It's a problem ego, problem ego. Your uncle leaves you $1,000,000 and your ego goes, somebody will steal it. Well, there went that joy. Watch out. They'll be taking it away from oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So the 10th step is trying to get us to stop living in the confusion of the world and move back into the now. And the now becomes smaller and smaller until it's the moment. And when you think about where is the power, Where did they find the greatest power that they ever used in a bomb?

By splitting an atom. That's pretty tiny. When you think of big power, you thought, I gotta get a great big whatever. No. It's down in the tiniest, tiniest is where all the power is.

The power of God only exists in this fraction of a second, and in that fraction of a second is everything. All of the power we could ever possibly want is in that second. In order to not be in that second, we have to make up a story that we're not in that second, And we make up a story about the past. I'm really not in this second. I'm thinking about the teacher that flunked me in college and what it felt like to flunk.

And I instead of staying right here where all the power is, I make up a story that I'm not right here, but I'm back there in that resentment. And that gives my ego full power to run the show and keep it going. And if that doesn't work, and I put all that to rest, and I've made my amends, and I've got that down, and boy, now I'm ready to sit in the moment, I hear a warning sound. Caution. Caution.

Dangerous future up ahead. Holy cow. I haven't checked on my future in a long time. I'll be right back now. And I'm out there for about a week, and I come back.

Oh, god. Oh, I don't even wanna live any longer. It's gonna be awful. Wait. Wait till I tell you guys what's gonna happen out there.

Really? Yeah. It's the scariest damn thing you can imagine. And that's where we hang out. We hang out in these 2 manufactured neighborhoods, the past and the future.

Hee hee hee. Because right here, right in this moment, in this blissful moment of gratitude, there's no room for the ego. And it starts to die. And it starts to shrink, and it's threatened, and it starts raising hell, and it makes us very uncomfortable. There's a price that's paid for spiritual growth.

It's really funny of the irony of that. As we move along, there's this part of us that's gonna block this thing at all costs. So if we know that, we just get used to it, and, eventually, we don't pay any attention to it. I saw a situation comedy thing. I it just was perfect.

And there was a brother and a sister. They were both married. They both had a couple of kids, and they both had a mother who can was the controller from hell. And they have one episode where she visits the son and one episode where she visits the daughter, and she comes in the son's house and just immediately you still got those drapes? God, I thought I told you to tell your wife to get rid of them.

They don't match. Jesus. I don't even believe you still have that carpeting. What are you having for supper? That's the wrong stuff.

It'll make the kids sick. By the time she leaves, the son is ready for the nut ward. He has just lost it. And you've all seen scenes like that. So next episode, she's visiting the daughter.

Same thing. You still got those drapes? I can't what are we having for supper? Oops. You're just a little and the daughter goes, oh, mom.

That's her whole reaction to it. Oh, mom. That's just mom being mom. Totally free from all of the alleged problem, totally free from it, immune. The problem's over here.

Oh, mom. So somehow there must be a way of doing that to our ego's antics. You're in trouble. You go to die. You're over the age of watch out for this.

Oh, ego. Oh, shut up. Oh, go away. We will never stop the noise, but we can stop paying attention to it. We can stop paying attention to it.

So we have in the 10th 11th step a whole technique for doing this. And it all centers on a few things. The 12 and 12, it's really got hits the jackpot when it's describing the situation I was just describing, when it says if something disturbs us no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with us. Woah. He said that, and I just reacted to it.

So it was clearly his fault. So why is it what is wrong with me? If something disturbs me, there's something what's wrong with me? I'm disturbed. That's what's wrong with me.

So I come to the realization that the secret to all this is to get undisturbed no matter what. Well, how are you gonna get undisturbed? How do you we're always gonna get disturbed because I it would be hard to be as so perfect that nothing ever disturbed us. But we're trying to get as close as we can. I mean, when I first got sober, there were a 1,000,000 things that disturbed me.

Now there's only a 100,000. So we are definitely moving in the right direction. So what does Bill write about? There's 4 things that they're right there in the 12 and 12. Self restraint.

I get up in the morning. I pray for a 10 second cushion between me and everything that happens so that I don't have to do anything about it for 10 seconds. So the guy cuts me off. I start to feel this. I don't do anything.

I just self restraint. And the temperature goes up to here, and then it comes back down to here. So I don't have any mess to clean up that might have happened during the initial explosion. Number 2, an honest analysis of what happened. A lot of times I have to run it by my friends and sponsor and advisers.

Joe, you got and I do it in the following way. I have a secret password. And what what I mean by that is, can I have 45 seconds of your time? Because I'm calling them at work a lot of the times. And I go, Frank, it's Sandy.

Can I run something by you? Yeah. He knows. Even if there's somebody at his desk, I'm only gonna talk the whole conversation. It's 45 seconds.

Let me run something by you. Okay. My boss came in. He read this memo that he wrote. He said these words, and I have this feeling.

How do you see it? Oh, it's clear. Your boss must have had the night from hell back at his house. He's completely out of line. Forgive him.

Oh, good. Thanks. Or he may say, your boss is right. Apologize. Oh, thanks.

I'm so sorry. You're absolutely right. End of disturbance. There it is. Either forgive or make amends and move on.

Well, what's the point of all of that? To stay undisturbed. Undisturbed means contact with our higher power. Any disturbance, we're on our own, baby. We're on our own.

And so out of the 10th step comes a package of constantly inventorying when we're upset and getting un upset. Back when I used to and and this is how you navigate spiritually is by making that's why pain is how we stay on course. Little pain, back. Going along, oh, that little fear, back. And we just keep getting rid of the disturbances and move back to the beam or the undisturbed area.

When I first started flying, we flew the radio range where you listened in your headset for the beam, the a or the n, or b, and you'll be flying the beam to the airport. All you had was your ears, And if you're on the beam, you would hear beep, and then if you went over to the right, you'd hear. Make a correction to the back to the beam. And then if you went over here, the wind blew you a little this way. So you made constant corrections by hearing when you were off course.

The only way you knew if you were on course was to correct back from being off course. If you just heard the beam, you knew your radio was broken. Nobody flew that perfect. So we go through life going disturbed back, disturbed back. And now we're following the beam or God's will.

God's will for us is to be happy, joyous, and free. Imagine, we always say, you have to deal the cards that were played to you. Did you ever hear that? You just have to deal the cards that were played to you. Okay.

Let's do that. Let's live by that. Come on up. I'm gonna hand you your hand. You ready?

Here's your hand. Be happy, joyous, and free. Five cards. Put them on the table. Something happens, and you're all resentful.

And I've gone, sorry. You don't have a resentment card. You have to play the hand that was dealt to you. You made the rules. I didn't.

You said you have to play the hand that was dealt to you. That's the hand that was dealt to you. Who you're playing somebody else's hand. That card isn't in your hand. You made up the fact that you have a resentment card.

You can't play that one. You follow what I'm saying? In other words, this takes us through the day. And as the 10th step kicks in, we start seeing the truth about the roles that we made up and the roles we were assigned to play. And little by little, we can uncover, discover, and discard pieces about ourselves until we realize that we are simply to play the role of the janitor and sweep the floor.

But then Bill writes, we did get a glimpse of this kingdom, and everybody's had one. And now we'd like to see it more clearly. Is there something we can do to see it more clearly? And we get to prayer and meditation. What are my observations about that?

And I'm gonna tell you something that's in the 12 and 12 and the big book. It is essentially an individual adventure. Doesn't say we. It says an individual adventure. No one can pray or meditate for you.

No one can seek for you. We are simply inspired to do that. Then he goes on to say, our libraries are filled with books. Check with your ministers, your rabbis, spiritual advisers. Seek and you will find.

Now and he said meditation has no limit, either of height, width, or depth. No limit to what could be there. So what could be there? See, we're in the world of the spirit now. We're not worried about money.

We're not worried about all that's gonna be taken care of. Chuck talked about that all the time. First time I heard him, I almost died. What are you talking about, Chuck? He said, Sandy, it's not your job to take care of you.

What? What are you talking about? He said, that's god's job. Your job is to just do god's work. In this example that I'm giving, sweep the floor.

Oh. And I'll be taken care you will be taken care of in a way that you cannot imagine. You're gonna sweep, sweep and be handed the keys to the kingdom. What are the keys to the kingdom? Awakening to the kingdom.

We can't see it. It's not there. Sweep, sweep, awaken. Sweep, sweep. Wow.

Pretty soon we're the happiest sweeper, and we're sweeping the golden streets. Now I don't think I'm exaggerating. I'm saying that this is in store for us. And so we go on our individual adventure. Oh, I'm not gonna read this guy.

I remember you know, I went went and read William James. That was the only book in there. That was the hard I tried when I had about 5 years. I almost died. It's so hard to read.

Oh, good. But later on, I read it, and I'll tell you. He gave a series of lectures at Edinburgh University about religions. 19 lectures. Guy was a genius.

He had never given talks on religions before. He just studied them and then gave these brilliant talks. And he said religions all were designed to solve something. He said there's a problem that humanity has, that at their very best, they still sense that something's missing. At their very best, they still sense that something's missing.

And each religion in its own way says, hey, you know that situation inside of you? Come on in, we can fix it. Kinda like AA. Come on in. We'll fix that thing that made you drink.

Come on in. We can fix that. Now there are AA groups that are really screwed up, and you wouldn't want AA judged by them. There's lots of churches that have gone off the deep end, and there's this and that. And he kind of said, well, all of the hierarchy and all of the ceremony and pomp and circumstances probably haven't contributed too much.

But out of all of this religious stuff has occurred the most valuable thing that has ever been given to mankind, enlightened individuals, individuals who have had profound spiritual experiences who then show others the way. So we could go back to Gandhi, the saints, Bill Wilson, one guy has a flash in a 140 countries? People are coming out of the dark caves of alcoholism? That's pretty powerful, And that came out of Christian movement, the Oxford, and all of that. Boom.

So it gave us that. There's something about listening to an awakened person that you when Martin Luther King gave his talk, I cried because I heard him say that he wanted to save white people as much as black people. I heard him feeling my pain of being the prejudiced one, of being the of having hatred, and he knew that I was suffering just as much as the people being held back. And he wanted to free us all. You remember his speech?

And I loved him. An unenlightened person giving the same speech sounds like it's them against me. And it divides. So there's something special that comes from this awakening, and then we're attracted. And so that's the gift that William James said.

The religions have contributed are the awakened people. I mean, Gandhi. I mean, the Dalai Lama. You know what I cried? I know Stu and I were talking about this.

I literally cried with joy when I read the story about the Amish and the murder, and they went right over to the family of the murderer and said, can we comfort you? It's better to comfort than to be comforted. I didn't know anywhere in the world that that could possibly still exist, and I just was moved to tears with happiness over that story. You talk about a good news story. Jeez.

That touched me. It's about as deep as anything in the last 10 years. That that is still available. Wouldn't it be nice to be to see the world that way so that that's what happened? So how do we get there?

Running out of time. We get there by staying on our individual journey, by getting teachers, by getting books, by persisting in trying to awaken. I talked Thursday night and I compared it to a hologram And how hard I had I never did see the one at my son's house in Baltimore 15, 20 years ago. My grandchildren so everybody saw it except me during Thanksgiving. And I'd eat part of my meal, and I'd go back out and I'd stare at the damn thing.

And the little grandson, granddad, look up in the upper left hand. I'm looking. What do you see? It pops out. It's 3rd dimension.

You'll see the whole fish just sitting there. It's like 3 inches in front. I never saw it. You all know the answer. What do I have to do?

I have to go back and look until I see it, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Only the hologram that we're looking for in the 11th step has a warning label on it, and it says, warning. If you successfully see this hologram, you will cease to exist. Woah. Do I wanna cease to exist?

Did you ever hear an actor say he completely lost himself in the part? How would you like to lose yourself in something? How would you like to have no resentments, no prejudice, no opinions, no past, no future? There'd be nothing left of you except that part of you that's aware of you, Like when you meditate and you're aware that all these thoughts are bothering you, And you're aware that you are a man or a woman. And you're aware of the world that you're living in.

So there's you thinking all these thoughts and driving yourself crazy, and then there's somebody watching that. Maybe it would be worth getting to know that observer better. So how do we get there? We get rid of everything that isn't that observer. The, analogy of the block of marb of the block of marble that the sculptor chips away until the beautiful statue of the woman with the long flowing robe, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip.

They said, well, how do you do that? He said, I just take away everything that isn't the beautiful woman. So what is it about you that isn't the beautiful essence of you? Your story, your character defects, What do we do with them? Chip chip.

Is it a little bit painful? Yeah. There goes another piece. I don't know if the block of marble goes ouch. Ouch.

I'm tired of this transformation. But when it sees what's evolving, we go speed it up speed it up. This is looking good. When you get a first glimpse of yourself with drinking removed and maybe a couple of your big character defects have finally been, oh, looking better. I think I'm liking where this process is taking me.

I think I'd like to see the whole picture. That's when humility comes in, and we eagerly seek the pain of changing. And so we start a very unusual process. A lot of times, I I this year, I just saw something for the first time. Let's say, like, right now, I'm £10 over what I wanna be, and I I'm angry at myself for that.

And every time I pick up 2 extra desserts, I go, god dang you, Sandy. Look at that. Look go look in the mirror. Look at that. Look at that.

And my previous perspective on this was, you'll just have to suffer until you're finally willing to do something about it. Now, this is what I think now. I think that the problem is not that I had 3 pieces of cake. The problem is I gave myself a hard time for having the 3 pieces of cake. What do you think God does to someone who's gaining a lot of weight?

You think he reduces his love for that person based on the pounds? Or does he forgive them as they're eating the cake? Well, if that's God's will, maybe I should forgive myself as I'm eating the cake, and then the eating of the cake will not separate me from God, and I will not be in the pain that the separation causes, which causes me to eat more cake. That's a whole different way of looking at it. Why can't I forgive myself?

Why do I have to beat myself up when I'm doing that? Because I want to create a story that keeps me separate. So I'm gonna just start going, have a 4th piece. Have a 5th piece. I love you just the way you are.

And then I'll be going my ego will go, well, the eating isn't working. Let's attack him from another side, and the weight will probably fall off. You see what I'm talking about? It will not cause the disturbance, and the only problem is the disturbance. In the middle of the 11th step, and then I'm gonna stop, is the prayer of Saint Francis.

Thank God for the 12 and 12. That's my favorite prayer. I love it. And so let me tell you what I see now when I look at it. It says, make me a channel by peace.

I see the channel not coming into me. I see the channel going out. I want god opens up a channel. There's unlimited supply of peace in here that he put there that goes out. And I just go and spread this.

I'm a channel thy peace. And then it starts out, and it says, where there's hatred, I'm gonna bring love. And I go, well, where am I gonna get love? You are love. That's where love comes from.

You are love. That's who you are. Your ego created hatred. There's no such thing as hatred. You're just love.

Well, it says where there's discord, I'm gonna bring harmony. Yeah. You are harmony. Wake up, pal. You're harmony.

You made up discord. Love. I am the light. I am eternal life. My ego made up death.

That's a nice picture, isn't it? You gotta look at it till you see it. Why not keep looking? What if that popped up? I hope it does.