This is one of my favorite passages from the Big Book. I love how Bill says the same thing over and over with different wording.
Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world, people who rose above their problems. They said God made these things possible, and we only smiled. We had seen spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true.
Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.
We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.
BB pg 55 Chapter 4 We Agnostics
He tells us in Chapter 5...
Though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions. Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was Step Four.
That we need to face....And be rid of...What's blocking us. In the passage above...He uses the word...Obscured....By what?
for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there.
Calamity...Something that causes damage or distress....Which if I dwell on it long enough...Will lead to resentment.
Pomp...Putting on airs...Trying be someone we aren't...For fear of being found out....Who we really are.
Worship of other things...Could be sex....money...power....Alcohol...Things we put before God that leave us with shame and remorse.
Those sound like the same things we address in step 4....Where we face them by putting them down on paper.
We find the Great Reality....Deep down within us. ...By simply facing and removing....What's blocking us.
We had to search fearlessly....Heard that before?
In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.
-- Edited by Stepchild on Sunday 9th of February 2014 09:21:17 PM
These were the most eloquent words I'd ever read in my life, when I first read them long ago. They still are. Maybe I was just ready to hear them, or perhaps I was receptive at the time. But, I'd never heard anyone put it that way before. Bill made faith make logical sense to me. Fabulous post Stepchild! Thank you much, Mike D.
We find the Great Reality....Deep down within us. ...
In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.
Thats exactly how it was for me. In the last analysis. After i did every thing i could do, try everything i try, i failed in epic perportions. my utter self destruction brought me to the jumping off place, which is in fact the entrence to AA. And the beginning of the road to seaking God for this alcoholic. The steps and other spiritual tools have helped me to get to The only place i can find God. And it is read at almost every meeting around the world.
Chapt 5 pg 59......But there is One who has all power - that One is God.May you find Him now! Find Him now!
Why now? Because that is the only place He is, now. And until i was able to quite down my mind i could never be here now. I was always in my head grinding about something in the past or the future and could not be right here right now, where God is. Now. By clearing out the clearing out the things that were blocking me, and continue to clear out, i can walk in the sunlight of the spirit, which always happens to be now.
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Since it cost a lot to win, and even more to loose, you and me gotta spend some time just wondering what to choose.
