Atheist

[Charle’ Nielsen]

so, using a doorknob doesn’t really appeal to me insofar as having an hp that can “remove my character defects.” my notion of faith and hp are gravity, action-reaction, karma to a degree. but, i cannot, for the life of me, outside of embracing human connection and the willingness to accept responsibility for myself and responsibility toward others (ultimately, growing and listening to my higher consciousness) conceive of something super-human that’s just going to grant me grace from my insanity. thoughts?

[Josh Christman]

Totally understandable, Buddhism has no anthropomorphic god either.

[kevin Finn]

You can be your own higher power.

[Heidi Quist]

Charle –
Seems hard finding something you can give your will and your life up to right?? I had a hard time at first too so not surprising to me that others feel this way. I just had to think that there was something out there bigger than me that I could rely on to put my life(i.e. character defects) in their hands. I couldn’t rely on myself because I would always be disappointed and what kind of HP would that be? A HP to ME would be something that would never fail and always be consistent to be able to help me at any moment. At first I went straight to something simple as there was “something out there” / “the Big Man upstairs” then the further I got into my recovery my Higher Power started to change and finally came to be exactly what I wanted to hand my life and will over to. Also, you said atheist in your subject matter, I have known lots of atheists who have changed over to believing in a power greater than themselves and their recovery finally started to happen. If this is a stumbling block for you work hard with your sponsor on this it’s not something (in my experience) to push aside.

[Charle’ Nielsen]

and still i’m at a loss! i do except the universe, and all its ins and outs, as a power far beyond my control and even conception. but that i’m anything more than a speck in the grand scheme of things, that my life, spirit, soul, what have you, is in any way in the “caring hands” of said universe…no. i’m more of a nihilist in that respect.
all i can fathom is gut instinct, moral principles, intuition. i’m talking in circles…ugh!

[Duane Jackson – dj]

Your problem seems to be you do not work through your doubts.If you want to make spiritual progress in your life you have to keep working through the doubts. Also, your intellect isn’t much help in developing a spiritual life. Spirituality is an emotion, a faith, and it has to be accepted on faith Stop thinking and start doing. dj

[Duane Jackson – dj]

Your hp could be the power that ignited the Big Bang or the power of gravity

[Duane Jackson – dj]

You call yourself an atheist. Are your sure you are not agnostic. I have dealt with many true atheist and if your are willing I will have a visit with you and perhaps help you clear the air a bit so you can move on dj

[M Twelve]

All I really needed was a workable concept of a Higher Power, one that works for me. The other debates in my head boil down to semantics.

I found the Sandy B. audio series “Contemplative A.A.” to be helpful in my thinking about a HP, even though I am in another program. He says “God is in the silence.” He notes that his diagram of spirituality has changed. He used to draw himself, God, The Rest of the Universe as three separate entities. He found healing by “smashing” his “own little world”, and realizing that we are all part of a larger whole.

The mention of “God” and “Him” in my first in-person recovery groups some years ago was shocking to me. My childhood contained negative experiences of religion. The references to a deity that I heard in meetings back then were very religion-specific. Sometimes, those very specific references come up in present-day meetings. If a meeting contains The Lord’s Prayer, I hold hands and feel the unity and power, but I do not say the words.

This time around, I heard much more open definitions of a HP in meetings.
I used to get hung up on debates over theology. Recently, a fellow in the program told me that a Theologian is someone [i]talking about[/i] a spiritual experience, whereas a mystic is someone [i]having[/i] a spiritual experience. 🙂

My current personal concept is like a “oneness” of all universes. Everything, everyone, and every place are parts of this HP. Elements including gravity, time, energy, matter, particles, and space are all powered by this oneness. I try to let go of my ideas of the difference between meditation and prayer, intuition and answered prayer. Maybe synchronicity is one way for me to connect with the purpose of the oneness? I find the “need to know” far less urgent than the need to connect and recover.

But, those are my personal concepts — you can develop your own. It may take awhile, or evolve over time. That’s okay.

If you like physics or psychology, you might find some meaning in these books:
Jean Shinoda Bolen’s The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self

Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism

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