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From: John Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/29/2006 2:51:00 PM
liquor industry.
Cross- talk has a rich history in the Fellowship. It's been given an
bad name by therapy-based practicioners in the treatment industry.
wrote:
I was recently asked about the text of tradition two in the 12x12.
Specifically I was asked if I knew who it was Bill was referring to
when he wrote: "Almost timidly, one of my friends began to speak."
pg
137 Also they were curious as to why Bill mentions this story about
being offered a position at Townes Hospital in the text of tradition 2
instead of either tradition 6 (Never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A.
name to any related facility or outside enterprise etc.) or tradition 8
(Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional etc.)
unless it's to emphasize the point of a "Loving God as he may express
himself through our group conscience" being the guiding forcxe of A.A.
Can any of you learned folks answer these two questions?
Service is Love
John S.
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++++Message 3614. . . . . . . . . . . . How do we meditate according to the
11th Step?
From: jsmaranatha . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/20/2006 8:37:00 PM
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Hi everyone,
Is there anybody who could tell me what's the B.B. say about
meditation? And I don't talk about thinking or the prayer of
St. Francis which, incidentally is not really from St. Francis.
At the beginning of this marvelous fellowship: have our founders
known anything about meditation? Not prayer or thinking but real
meditation. I asked this question many many times, here in Montreal
and all around Canada and nobody could answer with real conviction
about that.
What's up? Not the "think think think" stuff but real, profound
and
deepful meditation? I will really appreciate your help.
Regards,
And excuse my written English, sorry - in advance thank you for your
understanding.
John S.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
jeanst_onge@cgocable.ca
________________________________
A NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR
People sometimes tend to forget, and start assuming that there has only been
one
early AA author.
There were four great AA authors from the early AA period: Bill W., Richmond
Walker, Ralph Pfau (Father John Doe), and Ed Webster.
________________________________
ENTERING THE DIVINE SILENCE
Richmond Walker, a New Englander who got sober in Boston in 1942 (see
http://hindsfoot.org/RWchrn.html ), later moved to Daytona Beach, Florida,
and
wrote some meditations for himself on little cards which he carried around
in
this pocket. The Florida AA people persuaded him to publish these in 1948 in
a
little black book, called "Twenty Four Hours a Day." It was
sponsored by the
Daytona Beach AA group, printed at the county courthouse, and distributed
from
Rich's basement. Its use quickly spread over the U.S. and Canada, and there
were periods when there were more AA members who owned a copy of this book
than
owned a copy of the Big Book. Rich is still the second most published AA
author
(only Bill W. has beat him in total sales).
The eleventh step says "Sought through prayer and meditation [a] to
improve our
conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for [b]
knowledge
of His will for us and [c] the power to carry that out.
The majority of early AA members during the 1950's and 60's found that
Rich's
little book told them exactly how to do all three of those things.
The fine print section at the bottom of each page is based on one of the old
Oxford Group books, "God Calling by Two Listeners," which is still
the sixth
most popular book sold at Christian book stores. As we all know, AA
spirituality was based heavily on Oxford Group spirituality.
Rich refers to the kind of meditation that you are talking about as
"entering
into the Divine Silence." In addition to the influence of the Oxford
Group, he
seems to have been influenced by Hindu meditational techniques, perhaps as
mediated through the New England Transcendentalists (notice the quote from a
Hindu author at the beginning of his book) and by nineteenth century German
idealism (notice all the references to the philosopher Kant's concept of our
normal consciousness being boxed up in the box of space and time).
His concept of the divine spark within the soul, with which we need to get
into
contact when we are meditating, may indicate some knowledge of the medieval
Catholic concept of the scintilla or divine spark within the soul, although
some
of the spiritual writers whom the Oxford Group read and were influenced by,
also
spoke that way on certain occasions.
________________________________
THE GOLDEN BOOKS
Ralph Pfau (Father John Doe) was a Roman Catholic priest, and of course
talks
about meditation in his Golden Books and in his tape recordings, all of
which
are still available. One of his definitions is that "meditation is
thinking
about something that is true." And that is one of the standard things
that the
word meditation meant in traditional Catholic spirituality.
So reading a short section from one of his Golden Books every morning, and
then
thinking quietly about one of the profound spiritual truths which it talks
about, would be a form of meditation.
I know that you are rejecting this idea, but if you are asking what most
people
in the U.S. and Canada meant by the word "meditation" in 1938 and
1939, when the
Big Book was being written, it did in fact mean "thinking about some
spiritual
statement that is true." Look for example at how the Oxford Dictionary
of the
Christian Church explains the traditional meanings of the words
"meditation" and
"contemplation."
CONTEMPLATION
The kind of practices that you seem to be interested in were referred to as
"contemplation" (not meditation) in traditional Catholic
spirituality. If you
are not thinking about words and ideas and thoughts, but merely
contemplating
something wordlessly (and trying to still all of your thoughts) then this
was
usually referred to as "contemplation."
HINDU MEDITATION (AND THE BEATLES)
The word meditation did not start to be used in the way that you are using
it
until a popular music group called the Beatles (during the 1960's) started
telling everyone about a guru in India whom they had met who had a system
which
the Beatles called "Transcendental Meditation," which they
believed was a safer
way of getting into some of the altered states which they had been
attempting to
get into by taking drugs (and writing songs about it like "Lucy in the
Sky with
Diamonds," "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine," and "I
Get High with a Little
Help from My Friends"). But none of the AA people who helped write the
Big Book
back in 1938 and 1939 knew anything about the Beatles and Transcendental
Meditation.
In my own observation, I have known a lot of AA people who played around
with
Transcendental Meditation or something like that when they first came in,
but I
do not know any good old timers who continued to practice that kind of
meditation on a daily basis after they had been in for a while. They all
told
me that they eventually discovered better ways of carrying out the eleventh
step.
But it never did anybody any harm, so if you would like to try it, there is
a
bunch of stuff on that kind of meditation (or contemplation) on the
internet,
from all sorts of religious traditions: Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Eastern
Orthodox, the methods of the Jewish Kabbalah, and so on, and they all use
pretty
much the same techniques.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, some of the people and works to look at
would
be St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, St. John of the Cross, St.
Bonaventure's The Mind's Path to God, Meister Eckhart, The Cloud of
Unknowing,
and Julian of Norwich.
However, Father Ralph Pfau thinks that most AA people would be a whole lot
better off turning to St. Therese of Lisieux (the Little Flower) and
learning
about the Little Way, the path to simple sancitity where we learn how to
actually practice love in little ways in our relationships with all the
people
around us in our everyday lives. You don't need elaborate meditative
techniques
to learn the Little Way. What you do need to learn is a simple and
unquestioning trust in God, and a willingness to call on God for help in all
the
little details of our everyday lives. And then just go around being GOOD to
the
other people around you.
________________________________
THE LITTLE RED BOOK
Ed Webster talks briefly about meditation in the chapter of The Little Red
Book
which deals with the eleventh step. Since Dr. Bob was actively involved in
helping Ed write and revise that book, and pushed its use strongly until Dr.
Bob's death in November 1950 (sending copies all over the U.S. and Canada,
and
insisting that the New York GSO make the book available for sale), I think
we
can say that The Little Red book gets us as close as we can to understanding
how
Dr. Bob thought the AA program ought to be taught to newcomers.
________________________________
QUIET TIME
And Ed's treatment of the issue reminds us that what the earliest AA people
certainly primarily understood by the term "meditation" was what
the Oxford
Group called taking a morning "Quiet Time." So if you want to know
more about
the AA understanding, it would be very useful to read some of the Oxford
Group
literature. The Oxford Group author A. J. Russell talks about this Quiet
Time
in "For Sinners Only" and the Oxford Group author V. C. Kitchen
talks about it
in "I Was a Pagan."
So to understand what most of the earliest AA people meant by meditation,
read
up on the Oxford Group and see what they meant by having a morning Quiet
Time,
and then read the fine print sections at the bottom of each page in Twenty
Four
Hours a Day and see what Richmond Walker calls entering the Divine Silence,
which was his term for the same thing. (Rich had been a member of the Oxford
Group before he joined AA.)
________________________________
VARIETIES OF A.A. SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
But also remember that William James, in his book "The Varieties of
Religious
Experience," stated that different people needed different spiritual
approaches,
because different people had different personalities.
That is why the Big Book states "God as we understood Him," trying
to make it
clear that we have to work out of own concept of God. So the Big Book does
not
lay out a detailed theological system defining "what God is."
For the same reason, the Big Book deliberately does not lay out a detailed
system for meditating. Different AA members will have to use different ways.
The majority of early AA people found that Richmond Walker's Twenty Four
Hours a
Day did a far better job of helping them learn to meditate successfully than
any
other book they had ever read, but that did not mean ALL the early AA
people,
and it is possible that you too might find some other book more useful. But
just for myself, I would put the 24 hour book on my short list of the ten
greatest books on spirituality and meditation ever written (including Asia
as
well as the western world). I see more people making more spiritual progress
more quickly, when they start reading that book every day, than any other
spiritual book I have ever seen. But again, that still doesn't mean that it
would be the right approach for you.
________________________________
EMMET FOX and JAMES ALLEN
One of the principal goals of meditation is to bring our minds and feelings
and
attitudes back into peace and harmony with God. So to help you better
understand what this goal is, and to better understand what it is that we
are
trying to do when we are meditating, it might also be useful to read Emmet
Fox's
"Sermon on the Mount" and James Allen's "As a Man
Thinketh" (
http://hindsfoot.org/kML3rc1.html ).
Both of those books were on the list of ten books which early Akron AA
advised
every new AA member to read. And Emmet Fox's "Golden Key" explains
how to
recite mantras to bring our souls back into harmony with God. They aren't
quite
the same as the kind of mantras which are used in Transcendental Meditation,
but
in my own experience they actually work better.
(I wrote about Richmond Walker's system of meditation in The Higher Power of
the
Twelve Step Program, in Chapter 5, "Two Classical Authors of A.A.
Spirituality,"
see http://hindsfoot.org/kHP1.html , and about Emmet Fox's Golden Key at the
end
of Chapter 3 in that book.)
________________________________
OTHER KINDS OF MEDITATION
And it is also useful to remember that meditation is a pretty broad concept.
We
are not necessarily trying to "meditate till you levitate" and get
into the
vision of the Divine Abyss and the Uncreated Light, and all that kind of
thing,
although that is certainly all right. We have people in the AA program whom
I
would describe as spiritual adepts, who have experienced all of the
extraordinary things that we find talked about in ancient and medieval
spiritual
literature. I know a woman in the program, for example, who actually
experienced the vision of the Holy Grail.
But don't fall into the trap of thinking that meditation HAS to be spooky
stuff
and "altered states of consciousness" in order for it to qualify
as real
meditation.
Making a gratitude list, and reading through it every morning, and putting
our
minds into an attitude of gratitude, is also a form of meditation. In fact,
it
is a VERY important form of meditation.
Asking God for guidance in morning, and then LISTENING to hear what God
wants us
to do, is also a form of meditation. And likewise, this is a VERY important
form of meditation. It was a vital part of what the Oxford Group called
having
a morning Quiet Time.
Looking out at the trees and flowers, and becoming aware of the enormous
beauty
of the world (and simultaneously aware of the divine power which lies behind
it)
is certainly a form of meditation. Remember the Song of the Seraphim in
Isaiah
6, which is repeated in so many Christian and Jewish liturgies: "Holy,
holy,
holy, Lord of hosts, all the world is filled with your glory."
If all the world is filled with God's glory and holiness, then start
becoming
aware of it, and appreciating it, and developing an attitude of gratitude
towards it, and you are "meditating." Enjoy the flowers and then
say "thank
you." Marvel at the sunset and then say "thank you."
In the Navajo language, there is a word yo'zho' which means beauty, peace,
harmony, and serenity. There is an oft repeated phrase in Navajo chants
which
speaks of "beauty (etc.) in front of me, beauty behind me, beauty
beside me."
If I can FEEL the sacred beauty, peace, harmony, and serenity all around me,
that is meditation.
GOD CONSCIOUSNESS and PRACTICING THE PRESENCE OF GOD
In one sense, you see, meditation simply means working out some way that I
can
become AWARE of God's presence at the feeling level. That is what the early
AA
people called developing "God consciousness," or "practicing
the presence of
God," terms which they borrowed from the early twentieth century
Protestant
liberals (like the ones who published The Upper Room).
From 1935 down to 1948, The Upper Room (which is still published today) was
the
standard AA meditational book. It has Bible verses on every page, and is
heavily Christian (naturally), but it is still a very good meditational book
for
people from Christian backgrounds, both Protestants and Catholics alike. If
you
read that quietly and prayerfully every morning when you first get up, you
are
"meditating" in the sense in which Dr. Bob and Anne Smith started
off their
mornings in early Akron AA, because they used that book every morning (or
simply
read straight from the Bible). There would usually be a group of AA members
present in their home, quietly drinking their morning coffee together, while
they all meditated in this fashion on what Anne had read to them.
________________________________
But the most important thing to remember is that something that would work
for
me wouldn't necessarily work for you. Meditation means "meditation in
some way
that works for you," just like AA refers to "God as you understand
Him," because
nobody can lay out a concept of God or a method of meditation that will work
for
everybody. That's why the Big Book doesn't go into more detail on that
subject.
So I would suggest that you read some of the things I have mentioned, all of
which come from good old time AA, and then start experimenting to see what
works
for you, and what doesn't work for you.
______________________________
THE BIG BOOK and THE ELEVENTH STEP
And remember that the Big Book always gives us our basic framework for
understanding what we are trying to do when we work the twelve step program,
and
our basic criteria for figuring out whether we are working the steps in the
right kind of way.
The eleventh step says "Sought through prayer and meditation [a] to
improve our
conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for [b]
knowledge
of His will for us and [c] the power to carry that out.
That is very short, but it nevertheless says it all. [a] We are trying to
increase our God consciousness and our sense of the presence of God all
around
us at all times, [b] we are trying to gain a better understanding of how God
wants us to live our lives (including all the little decisions we make
throughout the course of the day), and [c] we are turning to God in order to
get
the spiritual power to stay away from the first drink, and help in
overcoming
the power of our character defects so that they no longer dominate our
lives.
If the methods of prayer and meditation which we are using are effectively
helping us in all three of those areas, then we are using the right methods
for
us.
Glenn Chesnut, Moderator
AAHistoryLovers
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++++Message 3615. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Herbert Wallace
From: Doug Hart . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/29/2006 11:53:00 PM
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The History Detectives episode described is on at 9 p.m. Monday night in
Tampa
also, repeating on Aug 1 and 3, so the 9 p.m. time on Monday may be fairly
universal, at least for the Eastern time zone. Doug
----- Original Message -----
From: Mel Barger
To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 5:19 AM
Subject: Re: [AAHistoryLovers] Herbert Wallace
Hi Mitch,
Herb Wallace was an export lawyer in New York. The letter in question was
actually a letter of condolence to Herb's wife, as Herb had just passed on.
He appears to have been an Oxford Grouper who remained on good terms with
Bill and the other alcoholics who had left that fellowship. I believe
Herb's grandson found the letter and must have submitted it to History
Detectives.
The show is scheduled to appear here in Toledo at 9 p.m. Monday, July
31st. It may be on different times in other places. I was interviewed for
the program, though not as an AA member. (I checked with GSO prior to
accepting the assignment.) The interviewer was Gwen Wright, who appears
regularly on this show. Much of the interview is in front of Bill's former
home at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn. It will probably be obvious to AA
members that I'm in the fellowship, but I was told that this was okay if I
wasn't identified as a member.
I didn't know anything about History Detectives until this came up and
I've seen only two programs. But it is an interesting show and brings in a
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