FAITH MONTH: DAY 25: “If you’ve got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn’t prove it.”― Robert A. Heinlein
A favorite old book of mine is titled, “If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him.” This is the truth around a spiritual life. If I tell you I am spiritually fit, I have just proven that I am NOT.
I love listening to people talk about how good or spiritual they are. How they are recovering and working these principles. The more they talk, the further away I get.
Some of the most talkative spiritual people have been shown to have been the most fragile humans in the world. A great guru who changed the face of Western culture in the 1970s has just been exposed as someone who had a lot of trouble with his relationships with women followers. I was not surprised. The kinds of people we venerate in Western culture can be scary.
My wonderful old sponsor used to give me service assignments all the time. One of the most important rules of the assignments was that I could not speak about my service…ever. It was frustrating, because I was certainly tied into doing service and taking full credit for anything I did for anyone. That is not service to those people, it is only service to my ego.
I don’t talk about how many people I sponsor or how many people with whom I have interacted in my work through these 34 years. I DO talk about it in context of how much disease I have encountered in my time here. Or in context of how many stories I have heard, etc. I cannot take credit for any of this. I came into my work by mistake.
And I remember the wisest thing anyone ever said to me about working in the fields of mental health and addiction. “If they are here to recover, you cannot say anything wrong. If they aren’t, you can’t say anything right.”
Yeah, that keeps me in my place. Every time. I have great experience, but it only is as good as my application to my personal life any day. I have faith that I will be shown how I get to recover more deeply today. Your journey is between you and your Power. Whomever and whatever that is. There is no source here, only a flow that goes through me back into the Universe. Seldom will it apply to you, especially if all you can do is analyze and reiterate it in your own vernacular. Try living it, won’t you? The best way for me to do this is to keep my mouth shut and get on with the living.
Dolphin Hug 