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JACS: Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others

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Then There Is (A Mountain)
by Rabbi James Stone Goodman

In the darkness of the soul, there is only self. The door that closes on possibility is the door marked me. It's me, of course, the door of self. This is the oldest wisdom known to religion. Religion knows that the way to Other is through, that is beyond, self. The paradox of religious wisdom has to do with the relation of service and self awareness. Remember the Buddhist proverb: first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. It is the journey into self, through self, back to self, to return to the place from which we began, paraphrasing Eliot, and to know it as if for the first time.

The spiritual teacher Ram Dass appeared in town recently. On the radio, he was interviewed about his life, his teachings, and his foundation which promotes service projects all over the world. The interviewer was ready to sign off when Ram Dass interrupted him, "you haven't asked me the one crucial question," he said. "What's that?" said the interviewer rather incredulously. "The question my life asks is that after thirty years of devotion to the inner work, how is it that I now give myself to service? How is it that someone so devoted to the inner path comes to this place where the focus is outer -- the world, the community, the planet, the environment -- service?" "What's the answer?" asked the interviewer. "The answer is that this is the culmination of the inner work. The inner work is preparation for the work of the world -- the repair of the world, this is what we have been moving towards."

When I learn a piece of music, I play it over and over, in the most self conscious way imaginable. Every movement, every nuance of angle, attack -- it is a most pedestrian activity. Repetitive, radically self conscious. The goal of such radical self consciousness is that one day the music, as it were, plays itself, and I am gone. The music plays itself. That is the goal of radical self consciousness, that the music plays itself; I am gone. How did I get gone? Through radical self consciousness, a kind of training for the self to dispense of self, training for the time when self recedes and the purity of the action only remains. The purity of the action only. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a mountain. The purity of action only remains.

"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." Step Twelve is the culmination of the system because only the radical self consciousness of the first eleven steps frees one of self in order to practice these principles in all our affairs. The purity of action that arises because you are a vessel, a fountain, and the goodness that moves through you spills into the world. This is how it works. It is not about you at all, on the contrary, it is about the absence of you. Not-you. This is called humility.

Want to know the single greatest hindrance to recovery? You. Self. Me. The burden of self. Most of us are so stuck on who we are that we never come to the holy place of purity, service, like a vessel, like a fountain. The music as it plays itself. You have to practice a radical self consciousness without which there is no hope for transcendence. The door of self remains closed until we roll up our sleeves and get to work. The dirt-work, the radical self consciousness, the pedestrian lessons we may have missed along the way, the dirt-work. The steps teach us. The group teaches us. The stories teach us. You have to do recovery with radical self consciousness, like a newborn, tentatively feeling your way through the most basic of human behaviors. Rather, recovery does you this way. Learning to talk, to walk, learning honesty, risking vulnerability, learning the basics, and finally humility. The humility of knowing your place. The humility of being a vessel.

We come to learn the paradox that the less (self) we are, the more we are. The less I am me, the more I am. The more I am a vessel, a fountain, a servant, the greater I am. The lesser I am, the greater I am. You come there not by being nothing, but by being something, then being nothing. To be nothing without being something is devastating, but to be nothing after having been something is freedom. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a mountain. There is me, I have come here through a radical self consciousness, now there is not me, there is only a vessel for something greater, which is the real me. The spiritual reality of this journey is documented everywhere in the world's great religions.

There is no room for God in a person too full of self. Self, you, me, is the great concealer. Everywhere around us the lesson is taught. Not-you. The world story is a great story. A powerful story. A deep story. You are the story; but the story is not you. It is so much bigger than you. The greatest self delusion we live by is that we sit at the center of the universe. Here at the center we have certain specific expectations how the world, God, nature, should behave around us. Reality does not often respond to our expectations of it. Something has to move: the world, God, self, me, you -- who/what is going to move? Guess.

Then There Is (A Mountain) by Rabbi James Stone Goodman

Then There Is (A Mountain)
by Rabbi James Stone Goodman