Audio
Transcript
Source: Sandy B – AA-Sandy B. – Let Go..Let God – Date Unknown.mp3 File: sandy-b-aa-sandy-b-let-golet-god-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:57:20
============================================================
Alright, let's go ahead and get started, Lee. Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Sandy B. and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm delighted to be here this morning and I hope my voice lasts. What I plan on doing is just share some thoughts on a very simple concept, let go and let God. And after about 45 minutes or an hour, whenever my energy runs out, be thinking up some questions. Because I would like to see if any of you would like to ask some about the general subject of our spiritual program or letting go and letting God. Because it's always fun to answer questions. I was at a meeting out in California where the format was they get an old timer to talk on any topic he wants for 30 minutes and then the next 30 minutes is answering questions. And it really was a lot of fun. So anyway, you wonder if you knew how in God's name we can spend a whole hour talking about letting go and letting God. It looks pretty simple to me. You got a problem? Let go of it. You want God to help you in your life? Well, let him. Okay, let's take a break and we'll be back.
I mean, what's the problem? I mean, you know, that's the funny thing about simplicity. It's very hard to do and we don't like it. We don't like the idea that the entire program could be summed up with the words let go. We don't like that at all. If it's that simple, why aren't I doing it? Why isn't everything fine? So, it must be more difficult than it looks. And the best picture that I've ever seen about our dilemma in this matter, and it's an old story. It's been around, I suppose, for a thousand years. And it's how tribes used to capture monkeys. And they took a jar with a narrow neck and they put food that monkeys like in there. And there was plenty of room for the monkey to get his hand and arm in the jar. But when he got a handful of food, he couldn't get it out. And he was stuck with a dilemma. In order to get my hand out, I've got to give up all the food. I've got to let go of it all in order to get out. And I'm hungry. So, what am I supposed to do here?
And they walk up, and he can't carry this jar, it's too heavy. And they walk up to capture him and he just sits there trying to get his hand out with the food in it. And his problem is he doesn't want to let go of it. And believe it or not, that's our problem. It sounds great, but we just don't want to let go. And that's why we have an entire program that in one way or another involves letting go. We start out by letting go of alcohol. And we finally let go of it because it's killing us. Up until it was almost killing us, we almost let go.
And then it finally got where I go, you know, if I don't let go of this thing, I'm going to die. And our ego gave us permission to let go. Because obviously if we die, the ego dies, and it's not dumb. I think egos push us to the brink of suicide, and then they go, only kidding. That would be going too far. You say, oh my God, I created too many problems and now I'm dead. And so we do that. And so I don't need to talk about that, that we finally came
[00:05:05]
to surrender and let go of our alcohol problem. But now that we're sober, and we want to stay sober, we've got to get happy. And in order to get happy, we have to work the 12 steps. Because if we don't get happy, we're not going to be able to stay sober. It's very hard to stay sober and miserable for any extended period of time. That's what happens when you go on the wagon. I'm not drinking and I'm miserable, but I'm very tough, I can take it. And maybe it lasts a year, but eventually it's too much, and we want some help, we want some relief, and so we go back to drinking. So if you take a look at our 12 steps, and in the perspective of letting go, that's what they all are. We start out by saying that we're powerless over alcohol and our lives are unmanageable. And then we let go of the idea that we're sane, and that we can handle our own lives. So we come to believe in something that can take care of our problems, and then we make a decision to let go of everything, and turn it all over. That's a lot. I'm going to let go of my entire life and turn it over.
Well the only reason we would do that is, other people did it and they got great results. It does not make sense to anyone who thinks about it. You know your life, the one you live? Yes. Well we want you to stop managing it, and just turn it over to something invisible. How does that sound? Not good. And so we have role models, sponsors, the great speakers that have been here at this conference, who report the tremendous results of letting go, and that entices us to maybe give it a try, because it doesn't look plausible at all.
Turn over my life, the entire management, all judgements about what would be best for me. Gone. Do you think that's easy? That's the first thing out of the newcomers' mouth. You know, they go to a meeting, and they come over, and they go, well in my judgement, that's really a bad programme. Your judgement? You're wearing a wristband from a nut ward. Who wants to hear your judgement about anything? Well nobody else does. I do. I like my own judgement.
I think about it a lot. I spend a lot of time judging, thinking, forming opinions, beliefs, prejudices, ways of doing things, idiosyncrasies, favourite traditions, ways of doing things. That's who I am. Well we want you to get rid of that. Just get rid of that. So you can see, this is a bigger deal than we thought. When I came in here, I thought we were just going to not drink. And then my sponsor, you've heard my story, he said, you know you're taking money out of the petty change down there in the Marine Corps where you're working.
That's embezzlement. So you have to stop that. And I said, oh so it's a two-step programme. No drinking, no embezzling. Yes, that's it. And then he said, you know if you want to keep your marriage together, you're going to have to stop having affairs. So it's a three-step programme. No drinking, no embezzling, no affairs. Glad it's over. Glad I got it. Okay, I can handle that. Well, as the years went on, there's thousands of things that get added to that list. No, give up that, give up this, give up that. It just seems to go on and on. Well, what do you think that step said? Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. That is letting go of everything
[00:10:01]
we have in our grimy little hands. Every single thing. Or we can't get the hand out of the jar. Well, alright, I'm going to do it. I've made a decision to turn my life over, but I still can't get my hand out of the jar. And I said, well, that's because you haven't let go yet. And so we have methods to pry open your fingers. And they're called the rest of the steps. Alright, well, that's inventory, what you're holding on to, that you won't let go of. We call them character defects. And so we start in. Yeah, I got resentments that I don't want to let go of. Why should I let go of them? These people really did me wrong. I'm not going to let go of that. I'm not going to let go of my fears. I'm not going to let go of my views on things. And we just start down all of the things that are holding our hand in the jar. Now, why do we want to get our hand out of the jar in the first place? I like to think about the last, just about on the last page in our book, where it describes the purpose of our whole program. To walk hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. And as we get going, we get glimpses of this spirit. We call it a conscious contact, a little awakening, a glimpse, those things. And we suddenly realize that this power is real and that it loves us and it wants us to get as close as we can.
And it wants to hold our hand and take us to see the wonders of the universe. And it says to us, just give me your hand. And we say, I can't get it out of this goddamn bottle. So there we are, like the freaking monkey. I don't want to let go of this. I don't want to let go of that. Isn't that hysterical? That's us. That's us. I've hated my father for 30 years and I'm not starting to forgive him now. Well, you'll be in the bottle a long time with your hand. So you can see the softening up, the development of willingness, willingness to become open-minded. Obviously, the mind is the hand. We're using the hand as a symbolic.
It is the mind that is closed and doesn't want to let go of the things. But we're using the hand as an example so we can visually see it. And so we start on inventorying what we're going to have to let go of, what's holding us from having this contact with our higher power. And then we run it by our sponsor because we're very easy, we rationalize. Rationalization was one of the things on the top of my list and he said, well, if rationalization is your specialty and conning and distorting, then how do you know what you just wrote down is worth anything? And then I had to let go of the idea that I could see the truth about anything alone. As smart as I am, I cannot see the truth about anything with just my eyes. I need to run it by someone else. And that is a deep spiritual principle. People of very high spiritual development always insist on checking with others the guidance they feel they got from their higher power. How about that? People of very high spiritual development. Because I can remember having very spiritual thoughts. I ought to leave my wife and run away with that Costa Rican girl. And I think God wants me to be in Costa Rica. Right, Brian?
Right, Brian? Where are you out there?
[00:15:05]
others are going to agree with you. they don't think it's a good plan at all and talk us out of it. So step five, we have to let go of the idea that we can see the truth about anything on our own. That gets us away from isolation and brings us into being part of something instead of being a part from. And that is the difference. We were born part of something. God created me, sent me here to planet Earth to have a very short adventure, hoping that I'll have a wonderful time, and when I finish I'm sure He's going to ask me, Did you have fun down there? Did you have fun?
I put together a hell of a show for you to see down there. I had volcanoes and wars and tidal waves and love and hate and peace and black and white and up and down. I mean, I worked hard putting that whole thing together. Do you remember what I told you right before I sent you? I told you ten times, absolutely insist on enjoying it. Well, I didn't enjoy it very much. Why? Why didn't I enjoy it? Well, He created me and then I recreated me.
I didn't think He did a good enough job. I didn't think He created a good enough world. I looked around and had a lot of ideas how to improve it. And I put together a place to live called my own. In the program we call it our story. And to tell you the truth, God wasn't even in that story. Because we didn't need Him to be the star. I'm the star. And that's what I found out when I talked to other people.
They did the same thing. They put together their little view of the world from their point of view, from them as the center. And it was a lot of fun putting it together. I don't think that… Do you remember how… My parents are stupid. I know what the right thing is. And off we went and assembled all of these ideas. Because the entire world is created by ideas. And that's where we live, in the world of our ideas.
And then we're not getting happy. Now we're miserable. And we're very lonely. We are experiencing what is called cosmic loneliness. We suddenly realize I'm all alone in this universe. And I don't like it. But we're not alone. We're touching God. Except we created a place, imaginary, where He doesn't exist. And it's just us against them. And so I'm not part of you. I'm not just part of this crowd. There's this crowd and me.
Does everybody feel that? That's why it was so scary. That's why we drank so much. And when we did drink, then we went, Hey, we're all together. Look at all my brothers and sisters. Get over here. You're wonderful. And then that power disappeared and I went out and you're out to get me again. Whoa, what happened? That was what we brought to AA. Those are called our old ideas. That's what we mean our old ideas have bailed us nothing.
If we continue to think about the world the way we trained ourselves to think about it, we're always going to be restless, irritable, and discontent. That's our story. I'm sitting here, restless, irritable, and discontent. Well, what are you going to do about it? And here's the crushing answer. I don't know. I'm going to think about it. All of our problems are caused by thinking, so we're going to think about it.
Even when our sponsors point out to us, You know, your thinking is very faulty. Very faulty. It's just not on target at all. What are you going to do about it? I don't know. I'll have to think about it. I'll have to think about that.
[00:20:00]
I'm going to use my faulty thinking to figure out how to fix my faulty thinking. That is our obsession with self-thinking and self-fixing and self-figuring out. I've got to figure it out. Figure out. Drive ourselves crazy. So now we have this process. This wonderful process of getting rid of old ideas. So, isn't it interesting? We're going to make spiritual progress by getting rid of things. We're going to find the truth by unlearning.
There's nothing to learn. There is everything to unlearn. When we get rid of the world we created, we'll be back where we're supposed to be. In the world that God created. Which we didn't like. Because we thought we could do better. And so we returned home after our little prodigal journey and decided that it wasn't so bad after all. And this is the spot when we're talking with our sponsor about step five.
That helps us see what we have to let go of. And begin to develop the willingness to let go. So you'd think it would be pretty easy then. Just take a look at our next two steps. We've got a little couple of paragraphs where we decide that we really are totally willing. And then we say a little prayer and we're ready to go to step eight. Until you read the twelve and twelve. And then it goes, halt. Let's take another look at this.
Let's take another look at this. We're entirely ready to let go of everything is the step that separates the men from the boys, the girls from the women. That's the big one. Why? What's the implication of that? Perfection. Perfection. Bill said he hid the absolutes in steps six and seven. The Oxford group is still out in Cleveland. They put out the pamphlet, the four absolutes. Akron is big on the absolutes, the absolutes, because that was part of the Oxford movement.
And Bill felt that alcoholics would drive themselves crazy with absolutes when they're new. They would understand it later on that it was a goal that we'd probably never reach. But all of a sudden, it's being put in front of us and we see a transition from progress not perfection to progress towards perfection, knowing that we'll never get there, which allows us to never stop the journey. This is the problem that many of us that pick up 25 years or so, we get there and we go, you know, this is pretty comfortable.
I've got it pretty good. I like it. It's very good here. Well, pretty good is great for a while, but after another five years, pretty good is getting uncomfortable. It's like climbing a mountain. When you get up 10,000 feet and you look around, you go, this view is so superior to the view I had on the ground. I love it. And it's normal to take the pack off, sit back, and marvel at this view. Five years later, that view is getting old.
It's getting very old. It's time to put the pack back on, climb up another 5,000 feet, take the pack back off and go, oh, whoa! This is unbelievable compared to what it was. So, that's why this is stuck in front of us. Now, progress towards perfection, towards letting go of everything. Letting go of everything. When we look at the full implication of that step, there's something in us that gets very threatened.
And that part of us that gets very threatened is our ego. It says, hey, if this guy succeeds, there'll be no need for me. He will be totally relying on God and others. I will be out of business.
[00:25:00]
I will be the hole in the donut. I will be a non-entity. This progress has to stop. Now we encounter the true problem of being a human being and a spiritual entity. The forces are now tugging one against the other. And we're getting the advice, don't keep going. There's no fun ahead. Oh, really? Yeah. You get more spiritual, there's no sex at all. Really? Are you sure? Yes. Yes. I talked to several advanced spiritual people.
There's no sex. Well, I don't want to get too spiritual then. I don't want to go that far. I don't want to let go of too much. Too much. There's that… Sorry, give me a second. There's that great C.S. Lewis story about this whole situation. Very quickly, I think I told it just a few weeks ago. The little boy is playing baseball, the big game. The coach tells him to get eight hours sleep. Don't think about baseball.
Just get a great meal, eight hours sleep. He does that. His mother puts him to bed. About midnight he gets the beginning of a tiny toothache, which he knows if he gets too aspirin from his mother it'll go away and he'll go right back to sleep. But he doesn't call his mother. He instead decides to wait and see if it goes away by itself. You all remember how that goes. You're sitting there. I think it's gone. I think it's gone.
I think it's gone. Well, you can't go back to sleep because it goes… No, we're still here. Maybe it's going to go away. Maybe I ought to call my mother. Maybe I shouldn't. I'm going to do this. He wrestles with this dilemma for a couple hours. Then he calls his mother. She gives him the aspirin. He goes back to sleep. But he didn't get eight hours sleep. And so he makes a couple errors and the team loses.
Why in God's name didn't he call his mother? The answer is that he knew his mother and he knew that she would bring him the two aspirin. But he knew that she wouldn't stop there. The next day she would make a dental appointment. And then when he got to the dentist, he would look at that tooth. The dentist wouldn't stop with that tooth. He'd say, well, while we're here, we're going to look at all the teeth.
And then he might find three or four other things that need work done. Then there'd be a series of dental appointments. And the whole process won't stop until you had perfect teeth. He didn't want perfect teeth. He wanted two aspirin. He didn't want perfection. He wanted to settle for as much perfection as would get us by out of the 12 and 12. We want to settle for as much perfection. I want to let go of just enough, but not everything.
I want to let go of greed. I think a real greedy guy is ugly. It's a real ugly thing. But I don't want to give up getting stuff. So I'm going to become moderately greedy. Moderate, moderation. I want my greed reduced down, down to… Keep it in the six figures, but I want to bring the greed… I want to bring it down, down because I want to be spiritual. After all, it's a spiritual program. All right, well, you're not doing too well on that, so let's move over.
Let's take right head-on lust. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be lust-free? Never tempted. And that, as Bill writes, that imperious urge. Wouldn't it be great if you were totally free of that? You could just go and live life and just go? No. Thank you. This man answered for everyone in the room. Whoa! You're going too far. I don't want to be lustful enough that I rape people. Certainly, and I want it brought down from that.
…brought down from that, but I don't want it gone. What is that? Is that like being dead? What is that? I think this is too extreme. I'd like to get lust down, let's start 80%. I don't want to really go too far on that yet. When I get old, I'll drop it down some more, I'll drop it down some more.
[00:30:21]
So we can go through all of them. You see where I'm going? We just said, we got the simplest program in the world. You had a lust problem? Watch this. God's got it. And it's going to be wonderful, you will be happier than you've ever been. Ready? Okay, let go, take your hand out of there. I let go of a lot of it. I know, but it still won't come out. And there we are. There we are. How can we? So, as Bill writes, it's a lifetime step. Six and seven. What else can I let go of? What else can I let go of? So, it isn't just the seven deadly sins. It's everything about us. It's everything about us.
And so, we can look ahead and then humbly ask God, and we found out that letting go of things is painful. Why is letting go of things painful? Because we have to puncture the ego in order to make it let go of something that it controls now. Alright, I want you to let go of all the causes you're involved in. Oh, I don't think so. I don't think so. If I don't straighten the world out, who will? Who will? Who will? And you can see it's screwed up. It's terrible. It's a mess.
Guess who's involved in that? My ego. Makes me feel important. I love to get involved in things. Should we have decaf or not? I like to go to the business meetings in the home group. How many people want to get decaf or just keep the regular coffee? Three guys don't vote with me. What do you mean you want decaf? What are you, wimps? This is a tough group. This is a black belt. Black belt. No decaf.
You can get involved in anything. What does that do? It makes me more important. Bigger. Less able to get out of the jar. Bigger. What are we trying to do? Get smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Smaller. So we can fly through a screen. That little tiny. And God is everything and I'm nothing. Nothing but an instrument. So I have no identity left. That's the goal. But I don't like that. And I'm going to fight it. And so I have to settle that I'm going to struggle. And that it's going to be a struggle. And that I'm going to need help from you. And I'm going to ask for this help as I move in that direction.
And so let me talk about some, and you can see where this is going. In the tenth step we can, oh, in order to get rid of the past we have to work steps eight and nine. I've got to let go of it. Let go of it. Let go of it. And then for the rest of my sobriety I joyfully look at what else I'm wrong about. What else am I wrong about? What other stupid idea do I have? And the fun comes when I don't wait for somebody to point them out, but I look for myself voluntarily. I think that we ought to change the greeting that we have with each other.
You know how you come up and you say, Joe, how are you doing? Mary, how are you doing? I think we should change it to this. Mary, how am I doing? Joe, how am I doing? Then I would know how I'm doing. Right now you ask me, I go, fine. And they go, God, it doesn't look like it. Wouldn't it be nice to hear what they see? Oh, that would take too much humility. I don't want somebody else pointing out what might be wrong with me. But finding out what's wrong is a ticket to freedom. And then I can let go of it. I go, oh, this is wrong. I'm wrong about that. Goodbye. Oh, another stupid idea.
[00:35:02]
After a while, it becomes fun. Chuck Chamberlain, my hero, talks about that. Uncover, discover, and discard. Somehow I uncover, then I discover. Wow, I really am wrong about that. I've been wrong for 41 years. Bye. Bye. Everything that gets thrown overboard, we get lighter. And when I say we get lighter, that word has two meanings. We get lighter in the sense that we no longer have the same burden that we've been carrying all our lives.
We have a pack when we arrive here, and these steps allow us, if we could get out of the way, to reach in and just drop one rock and another one and another one. Boy, I get 30 pounds out of there. And we just find life is a lot easier than it used to be. It's a lot more fun. Sure. Your burden is lighter. Who put the burden there? Me. I created it all. Here's another rock. I'm going to put it in there. Here's another one. I hate those people too. There's another one. You're stupid. Here's another one.
How many of those things are in there? God knows it takes all the rest of our lives to finally get down to the bottom of that thing. Look at this thing. I thought that up when I was six. And I'm still committed to it. Good enough for my great-great-grandfather, it's good enough for me. So you can see. Now, so that's lightening, lighter in that sense. In the other sense, in the truly spiritual sense, more light emits from you and people can see the change.
What is light? What are we talking about when we say light? It's the universal word for God. The light. I see the light. More light comes out of us. And that is why AA is a program of attraction. People are attracted to that light like a moth is attracted. We don't understand it when we're new. I don't know what it is about going over to Yonah every noon, but I always feel better when I come out. What is it? I don't know. I just know I have this irresistible pulling to go in there. That's attraction. Nobody's out front going, come on in, have a good time. Hey, hey. You just are pulled in that direction.
And then you experience the beginning of the lightening, of the lightening of the load and pretty soon your light starts to shine and people are attracted to you. Even if you're in your first six months, there's something different. Your own mother will say, Henry, what's happening? You seem to be so different. And you're returning to the boy or the girl that she loved. You're returning home as this process happens. And it's all happening by letting go.
And, of course, we get to the beginning of our awakening, which I think happens in the promises. We suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. That is a personal awakening that we have a personal awareness of our own creator. And then we want to never lose it. We want to maintain it and expand it. And that's where step 11 comes in. And as Bill writes in both the big book and the 12 and 12, this is essentially an individual adventure. That's your personal journey.
No one can pray for you. No one can meditate for you. That's your place to go. How you learn how to do it is up to you. As Bill writes, our libraries are filled with non-conference approved literature. He doesn't say that. He says books. I'm being a wise guy. We do have permission to read other books. I know some new people going, you do? I didn't know that.
[00:40:19]
The libraries are filled with wonderful spiritual paths. It's just that they're not going to become an alternative to AA. They're going to expand your AA program. Your foundation will always be right here in these 12 steps, in the people that you identify with so strongly, which are your fellow alcoholics. This is a spiritual society. We are the members of this society. We're the luckiest people on planet earth. This is the greatest society. It's all over the world now.
And so we are now at that stage where we're in our individual adventure. Talk to priests and rabbis, ministers, spiritual leaders. Read spiritual books that you are on your own journey there to lighten the load further. You will find other ideas to let go of. Let go, let go, let go, let go. And then you will have the irresistible urge to pass it on. Nobody will have to tell you to pass it on. You won't be able to stop yourself from passing it on.
People will go, will you stop talking about spirituality and how wonderful and blah, blah, blah. I'm sick of it. That'll be this, you just can't repress the good news. You can't. You just have to share it. So there we sort of have an examination of, do all our steps appear to have something to do with letting go? And I would say yes, they do. So now I made a couple notes about what I've learned as a result of this. What are some stories or things that have happened to me as the result of this process?
And I started with one of my favorite sentences in the big book early on. This sentence jumps out at us. Okay, you ready? Yes. God is either everything or He's nothing. He either is or He isn't. What's your choice going to be? Isn't that interesting? Your choice is crucial. If you choose that there's no God, there will be no God. That's where I was in my ego story. I said there is no God. And there wasn't. I wasn't going to let Him in.
I've been given the power of free will to block out everything, even AA. We have defiant new members who come here and fold their arms and say, let me see you get past my resistance. They do that for a couple of months and then they leave and go, AA doesn't work, I tried it. So you can see, so this is a crucial choice. God is everything or He's nothing. Well, I wrestled with that and finally said I'm going to jump in the camp that God is everything.
Now, you know what that means. Everything. There's nothing that isn't God. So I had to let go of any ideas that I had that were contrary to that and try this on. Brand new idea. God is everything. And so I said, okay, well God is everything. So everybody in this room is God. Everyone. And me. We're all just God manifesting as people. And out in the parking lot, He's manifesting as trees and grass and birds and clouds and water.
This is the production. Okay, I'm going to make some people. And so we're just creations. We're just, this is it. So we're actually an extension of this creator. What you see here, if you take this to the conclusion that I've reached, is you're watching God sandy. You follow what I'm saying? You follow what I'm saying? I'm the dance and not the dancer.
[00:45:02]
This is happening through me. And that's who I am. Now, as I thought about it, it didn't register. I couldn't make it fit. No matter what I did, I could agree all of you were God. And the rug, and the ceiling, and all those lights. But part of me existed in addition to that. That's… I know what you're saying. But if you got inside of me, you would see there's part of me that isn't part of the universe.
And if I got inside of all of you, I would find out you feel the same way. Yeah. I understand. Everything is there. But there is this thing that isn't part of God in the universe. It's me. And that's what Chuck Chamberlain, my hero, wrote about. And I want to repeat his few sentences. There's only one problem that includes all problems. How about that for a broad statement? We've been working on too many problems.
Forget all those other problems. Because if you work on this problem, you're working on all the problems. What is that problem? Conscious separation from God. In our consciousness, we are separate from God. And from each other. And from ourselves. I'm not… I'm in conflict with myself. Conscious separation. What would be the opposite of conscious separation? Conscious contact. Conscious contact is the solution to every problem.
Now, I hear that and I go, wow, isn't that wonderful? We finally have the mystery of life. There's only one problem. And it's conscious separation from God. So all I have to work on is getting closer to God. And everything else will straighten out. Okay, what's the topic? I've got a resentment about my boss. Oh, well, let's talk about her resentment about her boss. Because she has this problem. And we have to address this problem.
The resentment against the boss. Oh, I thought if we worked on conscious separation, it would take care of the resentment. Oh, you don't like the idea that there's just one answer. Oh, too simple. Oh, sorry. You understand? Whenever something is simple, we go, don't want it. It leaves no room, no wiggle room for exceptions. For particular problems that I have. For uniqueness. Where's my uniqueness going to fit in to one size fits all?
Only one problem. Conscious separation from God. So I'm throwing that out there to show how much we have to let go of. Which is the other 71,000 solutions that we have in addition to conscious separation. Here's a sentence we hear in AA a lot. This too shall pass. You ever hear that? This too shall pass. This too shall pass. I would say 99% of the time that sentence should read, this too can be let go of.
That's why it's not passing. I don't want it to pass. I'm not through with it yet. I don't want to be relieved of this particular outrage that's going on. I'm going to hold it for another year. And then this too shall pass. I'm preventing it from passing. I don't want to let go of it. It's too soon to forgive for that particular crime against me. That one I stay mad six months. Then I let you off the hook.
Sounds like a great plan for you. Anybody do that? I don't want to let anybody off too soon. I don't want to get happy and peaceful too soon. Old ideas. Don't want to let them go. I don't want to let them go. Al-Anon has a wonderful saying, non-attachment. That is letting go. Be attached to nothing.
[00:50:00]
No ideas, no beliefs, no convictions, no opinions. Again, I'm in a total state of having let go. The other thing that Chuck told me was, it's not my job to take care of myself. That's God's job. My job is to do His work. So, I got my hand in there. Why do I have my hand in there? Because I came into this world and I saw that I was unhappy and lonely. I saw what was available in the world to make me happy and not lonely.
And it was in this jar. And it consisted of power and a car and respect and all the things that I wanted to have. And I'm in there and I got them in my hand. And if I can just totally get them all, I'll be happy. And you come along and go, take your hand out of there. Let go of all of that. Let go of all of what you've got your hands on. And God will make you happy and take care of all your problems.
All you have to do is let go of everything including your possessions. So, we use possessions as a word. Why do we use possessions? Because they possess us. That's why. If they don't possess us, then we're just using them temporarily. God gave me this wonderful big house to use temporarily and then after I stop using it, somebody else can use it. But it's not mine. What we do with possessions is, it's not that we just enjoy them.
It's who we are. Suddenly, if you're taking my possession away, you're taking away who I am. I'm no longer important. Ah, that's a different thing. So, if we could let go of our possessions in the ego sense, God could hand them back to us and they wouldn't possess us. We would just be enjoying the gifts of this great kingdom that He created. Okay, now we're going to… I'm getting hot, so I'm… Oh, good. We're almost at the end of time.
I got two more points. Round of applause. Only two more points. All right. He's getting close, finally. If we want to really be happy, we have to let go of two of our favorite places to go. That's the past and the future. Those are the only two places that ever get talked about by science and most religions. You've got to make amends for your past and get ready for the future. Happiness lies in the future. In the future.
Someday you're going to be… We've got the carrot right in front. Keep doing that, you're going to be happy. You're going to be happy. You've got to buy more expensive sneakers. Then you'll be happy. Okay, okay, okay. It never happens. And when we get there, they go, no, close, close. You need two houses. Oh, I forgot to tell you that. Okay. So you can see it's off there. And then we feel bad about what happened back here. That's where we stay.
We're going to have to give up time. Time in the spiritual sense has no meaning whatsoever. If I had a spiritual watch and you came up and said, Sandy, what time is it? I'd say, right now. That's all it would ever say. What time is it? Right now. It's right now. Right now. Ever been there? Anybody ever been there? Did you ever stop by? Did you ever pass through? Did you ever pass through on the way? It's that spot.
You're there for about a millisecond as you pass from a resentment from the past to a fear of the future. You don't know it, but you were there for just a second. You went right by it. It almost doesn't exist. So sometimes I write little crazy stuff. So I'm just going to read this. It's only a few sentences. I dream of a place where all dreams end. A place where love, peace, harmony, truth and light were born.
A place where simplicity rules. A place known as the land of the ages, nirvana, God's kingdom, the ultimate reality or the world of the spirit. A place far away from us in distance and time.
[00:55:02]
A place called right here, right now. I dream of someday awakening and returning to my land of origin. The land known as the now. The eternal present moment, God's only home. The now. That's the spot that I want to get to. That is the spot of letting go of everything. And just being. We're human beings, not human doings. Not human knowings. The next thing is knowing. Knowing is the word that we drive ourselves crazy with.
If I just know, I can figure this out. I just need to know. I need to know. I need to know. The now is the land of no need to know. There's no need to know anything. Just be. I know, but I want to know what's going on in the now. No, you don't. No. You know why? Because it is unknowable. It is the ultimate mystery. It is the absolute place to be. Where you can't know it. You can only enjoy it. You can only sit in awe at the absolute mystery of God.
And when we contemplate the unbelievable mystery of the universe and its higher power, we could spend an eternity in just wonder with nothing to know. End of whatever this was. End of. Thank you. No, no, no, no. Stop, stop, stop, stop. It's too hot.