Addictions, Surrender, 12 Steps and Homa Therapy Barry Rathner, Ph.D. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. Steps 1 through 3 of the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous can and have been summarized to state, “I Can’t, He can, let Him.”
In other words,I cannot manage my life because of my addition to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, food, sex, co-dependence, WHATEVER. a higher power can, however, bring me out of the insanity caused by these addictions, so I would be well advised to let my higher power do just that.
Shree Vasant said many, many years ago that in point of fact, all humans are addicts. Some may abuse recreational drugs, some may be chronic over-eaters, some may be rageaholics. it doesn’t matter really. Anything that has the potential to:
1) make our lives unmanageable
2) lead us into depressive states, and
3) take us out of a balanced state of being an instrument of the divine into something much less balanced, much less happy, much more neurotic anything that does that to us is basically an addiction.
And if one has trouble with the label of “addiction,” it may be helpful to think of it in the 12-step model of addiction being a disease, not a choice, not a lack of self-discipline, not a lapse in morals, but a disease, not unlike diabetes, e.g. one might label it “disease or condition of life.” We don’t berate a baby for being “addicted” to its mother’s breast. We slowly and inexorably wean the baby from the breast when appropriate.
Take “attachment,” e.g.; who amongst us is not attached to something or other--a person, a place, a job, a food, a movie, a concept or doctrine, a whatever. Well, I would surmise that the road from attachment to addiction is a straight line and with all of us looking for ways to alleviate the sometimes unbearable stress that punctuates our lives, the diversions and delusions and Dunkin Donuts that we often turn to for short-term stress relief put all of us at risk for truly addictive behaviors.
So it may be with any addiction as we strive to be better instruments and slowly approach the condition of “surrender.”
And we do not do this out of obligation or out of something similar to adherence to religious doctrine. We do it because: 1) our true, ultimate happiness depends on it, and 2) it is win⁄win in the clearest and purest sense of the term whereby we, our loved ones and the planet as a whole become better as we individually become better.
That is the genius of the serenity prayer of 12-Steps: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
When push comes to shove, the thing I have the potential to change the most is myself. So why not throw our energy where it does the most good?
“Simple, but not easy,” is how the big book of alcoholics anonymous describes the 12-Steps. One might use a similar description to describe Homa therapy.
It is pretty simple when you think about it. A little bit of ghee, little bit of cow dung, make sure your watch is correct, add the rice⁄ghee mixture, do the mantra and there you go.
Sounds a bit like, “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down,” huh?
I remember being rather stunned in 1975 when I first learned Agnihotra from Ross Ford while he coordinated an intense group Psychotherapy session in Baltimore.
"You mean to say that if I light a fire in a copper pyramid each sunrise and sunset simply using 3 specific ingredients, and saying a short mantra once, that I will feel what I felt each time I experienced Agnihotra with ross?” I wondered.
I learned repeatedly that that was indeed the case. to this day, nearly 33 years later, I am still not only stunned by it, but so, so, grateful.
So as we trudge along approaching the second decade of this new century and find ourselves individually and globally at risk of so many negative forces it is unnecessary to list them, we have the choice to: 1) choose to deny 2) stick our heads in the sand, or 3) be a part of the solution.
The first two choices are those that addicts often make before entering into recovery. choice #3 may be the best. Barry Rathner
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THE HUMAN CONDITION
It wouldn’t surprise me if some day during a patient’s angiogram, it was found that a piece of his/her mind was blocking the heart.
If our minds were to concentrate on human similarities and not the differences, we would immediately cognize—and feel, hopefully—that all of we humans share at least one major similarity—we all are part of the human condition.
The” Human Condition,” First, we all will die some day. Reborn? Let’s save that for another day. Second, there are bad hair days, very bad hair days and days we never, ever wish to again experience. Mixed in, of course, are the good hair days and the peak moments of life we would never wish to have missed.
So look at all the things we all have in common. Don’t have any hair? Then remember back to when you did. (Anyway, “bad hair day” is an expression—wonder how it translates into German, Polish or Hindi?)
The point is we have the choice of whether to view glasses as half full or half empty, or to complain about having electricity only 6 hours a day or be grateful it’s not only two,. So each moment of our lives we can either thank God, ignore Him/Her, or curse Him/Her.
These choices are totally within our purview. That’s the really good news. Our attitudes are up to us. Now I would suggest this is not simply a matter of choice. I would suggest that doing our homework, greatly increases the odds of being more positive.
For example, it’s tough to be positive with a hangover. It’s also tough when troubled by the flu. So our homework might consist of not drinking to excess—dare I say, not at all—eating, sleeping, praying properly to lessen chances of becoming ill—Eat, Pray, Love, for those of you Elisabeth Gilbert fans and generally adding to our goal list, BEING POSITIVE.
Now somewhere I heard something about “train the mind to react with love all the time.” Well, if that’s not being positive, I don’t know what is.
With love, all is possible; without it, life is less than. We have choices, choices, choices—known otherwise as the Power of Discrimination (between right and wrong).
One difficulty with right and wrong is that those concepts are sometimes the extreme ends of the bell-shaped curve. There are so many choices, situations, nuances, etc. that fall somewhere near right or wrong, that it 1) makes life interesting, 2) makes things difficult sometimes and 3) can require us to really, really pay attention and be clear.
To attempt more clarity, one can put Jerry Springer (or worse, Maury Povich) on the TV anytime and view three-headed people from alcoholic families with eating disorders. Similarly, we can read about (or actually watch on TV nonstop in India) about saints and prophets and holy persons whose lives we would have much difficulty emulating. There we have the extreme ends of the bell-shaped curve.
Then there are the rest of us, having two or less heads, and less moments of high spirituality than some others.
This may be why we have been told that Swadhyaya (Self-Study) takes no vacation. Those shades of grey of life are often facing us. Vigilance is the key. Like the government’s anti-terrorists are fond of saying, “We have little or no room for error.”
Well, actually we have a lot of room for error, but as Law of Karma is inviolable, pay now or pay later, but pay we will for our indiscretions.
And so, the Human Condition……. We are all in the same boat, be it Noah’s or some other.
