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Quotations:
If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try. (Alcoholics Anonymous)W-pI.153.3. It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. 2 Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. 3 There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind. (A Course in Miracles)T-27.VII.12. A brother separated from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murderer who stalks you in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingering and slow; of this you dream. 2 Yet underneath this dream is yet another, in which you become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer of your brother and the world alike. 3 Here is the cause of suffering, the space between your little dreams and your reality. 4 The little gap you do not even see, the birthplace of illusions and of fear, the time of terror and of ancient hate, the instant of disaster, all are here. 5 Here is the cause of unreality. 6 And it is here that it will be undone. (A Course in Miracles)It’s easy to tell who loves you. It’s not hard to tell who loves you: it’s the person who is freeing you, who is not condemning you, who is seeing you as you really are, who is accepting you as you really are, who is wanting to see who you are and not trying to get you to act out their agenda. But are you doing the same thing? Haven’t you got a bunch for scripts for everyone around you, who you’re getting upset about if they don’t follow them? That’s why you’re attracted to them. This person is doing the same thing to you. That’s why you’re with them. That’s why you can’t leave them. You’re just like them. If you’re in denial about your own ego, about your own selfishness, fear, or unconsciousness, then you have to deny it’s there, so you can see yourself as being a nice person, because everyone gives the appearance of being a nice person, and then you take the part of you that’s not such a nice person, and you project it onto the people around you, and then you see your own not-nice-person-ness in the people that you are close to, and the reason why you can’t get away from them is that they’re reflecting you back to you, and you know that. That’s why it can seem like you’re surrounded by people who are just the opposite of the way you think you are but you can’t get away from them for anything, because a part of you doesn’t want to get away from yourself. And, they’re also doing you the favour of mirroring back to you your own subconscious beliefs about yourself so you can be healed. So, if you see yourself as a nice person surrounded by people who have real issues, you have real issues, but you’re telling yourself that you don’t, because you’re nice, you’re the nice one. You’re so nice, your face is just wet with tears about all the injustices that people do to people who are nice. You’d be nice all the time, wouldn’t you, if they didn’t just make you have to want to get ‘em.’ (Earl Purdy)THE MEDICAL VIEW ON AA 'In this atmosphere the alcoholic often overcomes his excessive concentration upon himself. Learning to depend upon a higher power and absorb himself in his work with other alcoholics, he remains sober day by day. The days add up into weeks, the weeks into months and years.' (Alcoholics Anonymous)A salt doll journeyed for thousands of miles and stopped on the edge of the sea.It was fascinated by this moving liquid mass, so unlike anything it had seen before.'What are you?' said the salt doll to the sea.'Come in and see,' said the sea with a smile.So the doll waded in. The further it went the more it dissolved till there was only a pinch left. Before that last bit dissolved, the doll exclaimed in wonder, 'Now I know what I am!' (The Song of the Bird, Anthony de Mello)I think losing yourself in life guarantees finding yourself in God. Guarantees it, because all you've got to do is to get rid of the roadblocks. You lose yourself in life and find yourself in God. And so I wouldn't, if I were you, spend another five seconds trying to find self-worth or anything else. To find yourself, yes. To realise that whatever it is you're looking for is right here inside you—what you're looking for you're looking with; what you came here to get came with you. Everything you've ever wanted to know you've always known, and everything you've wanted to be you've always been, but it's covered up. It's covered up, so we uncover and discover. Forget about you—to hell with you. Maybe you've got a little better break on that than I have. Maybe you have, and maybe you haven't. Let the chips fall where they may. The beautiful thing about this deal is not to get serious about yourself, to make the whole deal a game. A play of life upon itself. And to have fun at it. (Chuck Chamberlain, A New Pair of Glasses)Q: With self and ego taking over periodically, do I analyse and look for answers too much?A: You're a mess! If I were you, I'd just give up. I find so many of our people in AA, even in the Grapevine, writing about self-esteem, building self-esteem. I hear people get up here and talk all the time about 'you have to learn to love yourself before you can love anybody else'. I am most grateful this is not the case. I never spent any time trying to build up self-esteem or trying to love me. I wouldn't have taken me with a large dowry. I hated my damn guts. But I got busy doing things our book suggests, and it wasn't trying to learn how to 'self-esteem' me or to love me so I could love you. I don't think that's the way it is at all. Francis says, 'For it is better to love than be loved. It is better to understand than to be understood. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in forgiving that we're forgiven, and it is in dying to self that we awaken to eternal life.' That's exactly what we've been talking about ever since we've been down here, exactly what we've been talking about. I don't believe that an image of me would add anything to my life at all. I haven't any more an image of me than I have of a walrus. I'm not interested in an image of me, that's not why I'm here. I'm here to share me with anybody that wants me in love, and let the chips fall where they may. I'm not even interested in your opinion of what's happened, except when you want to give it to me. That's not my deal. I love you, and that's all I have to do. That's what I'm interested in, that's my deal. It's not my deal who you love or what you love, or what you think. That's your deal. I love you, period. I don't even have to concern myself with what you think about me. I've got no image at all of me. (Chuck Chamberlain, A New Pair of Glasses)