DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
"HOLD BACK NOTHING"
The real tests of the situation are your own willingness to confide and your full confidence in one with whom you share your first accurate self-survey. . . . Provided you hold back nothing, your sense of relief will mount from minute to minute. The dammed-up emotions of years break out of their confinement, and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed. As the pain subsides, a healing tranquility takes its place.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, pp. 61-62
A tiny kernel of locked-in feelings began too unfold when I first attended A.A. meetings and self-knowledge then became a learning task for me. This new self-understanding brought about a change in my responses to life situations. I realized I had the right to make choices in my life, and the inner dictatorship of habits slowly lost its grip.
I believe that if I seek God I can find a better way to live and I ask Him daily to assist me in living a sober life.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
I've noticed that the ones who do the most for A.A. are not in the habit of boasting about it. The danger of building myself up too much is that, if I do, I'm in danger of having a fall. That pattern of thought goes with drinking. If one side of a boat gets too far up out of the water, it's liable to tip over. Building myself up and drinking go together. One leads to the other. So if I'm going to stay sober, I've got to keep small. Have I got the right perspective on myself?
Meditation for the Day
The way sometimes seems long and weary. So many people today are weary. The weariness of others must often be shared by me. The weary and the heavy laden, when they come to me, should be helped to find the rest that I have found. There is only one sure cure for world-weariness and that is turning to spiritual things. In order to help bring about the turning of the weary world to God, I must dare to suffer, dare to conquer selfishness in myself, and dare to be filled with spiritual peace in the face of all the weariness of the world.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may be a help to discouraged people. I pray that I may have the courage to help bring about what the weary world needs but does not know how to get.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Are we having fun yet?
Page 132
"In time, we can relax and enjoy the atmosphere of recovery."
Basic Text, p. 56
Imagine what would happen if a newcomer walked into one of our meetings and was met by a group of grim-faced people gripping the arms of their chairs with white knuckles. That newcomer would probably bolt, perhaps muttering, "I thought I could get off drugs and be happy".
Thankfully, our newcomers are usually met by a group of friendly, smiling folks who are obviously fairly content with the lives they've found in Narcotics Anonymous. What an enormous amount of hope this provides! A newcomer, whose life has been deadly serious, is strongly attracted by an atmosphere of laughter and relaxation. Coming from a place where everything is taken seriously, where disaster always waits around the next corner, it's a welcome relief to enter a room and find people who generally don't take themselves too seriously, who are ready for something wonderful.
We learn to lighten up in recovery. We laugh at the absurdity of our addiction. Our meetings-those rooms filled with the lively, happy sounds of percolating coffee, clattering chairs, and laughing addicts-are the gathering places where we first welcome our newcomers and let them know that, yes, we're having fun now.
Just for Today: I can laugh at myself. I can take a joke. I will lighten up and have some fun today.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
There is no revenge as complete as forgiveness.
~ Josh Billings
"We all have a past.
We all make choices that maybe
weren't the best ones. None of us
are completely innocent, but we
all get a fresh start every day to be
a better person than we were
yesterday."
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
The Causes of Delusion
Their Foundation
Their Object
Society
Discussions
Familiarity
Unrealistic Thinking
The Drawbacks of the Delusions
From An Ornament to the Sutras
Delusions destroy you,
Destroy sentient beings,
And destroy your ethics.
You hold your equals as inferiors.
Guardians and teachers criticize you,
And you don't heed opponents.
You will be born in conducive states.
Your acquisitions and non-acquisitions
Will decline, and you will have great suffering
Above extract from 'Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand ' by Kyabje Pabonka Rinpoche
"Lust at the sight of a young woman springs from ignorance and delusion. Reason points out inwardly time and again, that bodies are only the combination of flesh, blood and fat." Sri Sankara
Native American
"We must remember that the heart of our religion is alive and that each person has the ability within to awaken and walk in a sacred manner."
---- Thomas Yellowtail, CROW
The Native Spirituality is full of life. When we seek it we become alive. Even if we have gone astray and have conducted ourselves in a bad way, we can look within and have a new awakening to life. Maybe we have drunk too much alcohol; maybe we have cheated on our spouse; maybe we have done things that make us feel guilty and ashamed. If we look outside ourselves, we will not find life; if we look inside, we will find life. Anytime we choose to change our lives, we only need to look inside. How do we do this? Take some sage and light it, close your eyes and say to the Great Spirit, I'm tired, I need your help. Please help me change.
Great Spirit, I know you exist inside of myself. Let me awaken to your teachings.
Keep It Simple
Anyone who follows a middle course is called a sage. --- Maimonides
Much of the wisdom of our program is about how to live in the middle. We learn how to pause and think before we act. We ask, "What is the best way to handle this?" We look for the smooth part of the road. Our actions tell us who we are. We listen to our actions, and we think about them. This listening and thinking takes time. This slows us down. It's good for us. It gives us time to talk with our Higher Power. After all, we want our actions to come from the new values our Higher Power has given us. Thus, over time we act and feel wiser. The wisdom of the program becomes part of who we are.
Prayer for the Day: I pray that I I don't get caught up in the rush of the day. Higher Power, teach me to stop and think, to seek Your wisdom.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll set aside time to think, meditate, and be alone. I will listen to what's inside me.
Big Book
Chapter 4 We Agnostics (pg 56 & 57)
Our friend was a minister's son. He attended church school, where he became rebellious at what he thought an overdose of religious education. For years thereafter he was dogged by trouble and frustration. Business failure, insanity, fatal illness, suicide-these calamities in his immediate family embittered and depressed him. Post-war disillusionment, ever more serious alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse, brought him to the point to self-destruction.
One night, when confined in a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience. Our friend's gorge rose as he bitterly cried out: "If there is a God, He certainly hasn't done anything for me!" But later, alone in his room, he asked himself this question: "Is it possible that all the religious people I have known are wrong?" While pondering the answer he felt as though he lived in hell. Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else:
"Who are you to say there is no God?"
This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator.
Thus was our friend's cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night, years ago, it disappeared. Save for a few brief moments of temptation the though of drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him. Seemingly he could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity.
What is this but a miracle of healing? Yet its elements are simple. Circumstances made him willing to believe. He humbly offered himself to his Maker-then he knew.
Even so has God restored us all to our right minds. To this man, the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly. But He has come to all who have honestly sought Him.
When we drew near to Him He disclosed Himself to us!
To subscribe click the link below:
https://app.getresponse.com/site/dailyponderables/webform.html?wid=108246