AS BILL SEES IT
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Money --- Before and After[1]
In our drinking time, we acted as if the money supply were inexhaustible, though between binges we'd sometimes go to the other extreme and become miserly. Without realizing it, we were just accumulating funds for the next spree. Money was the symbol of pleasure and self-importance. As our drinking became worse, money was only an urgent requirement which could supply us with the next drink and temporary comfort of oblivion it brought.<< << << >> >> >>
[2]Although financial recovery is on the way for many of us, we find we cannot place money first. For us, material well-being always follows spiritual progress; it never precedes.
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What is materialism? Chogyam Trungpa proposes in his book, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, that, whenever I put my faith in things external to my own mind... before the task of becoming the teachings, I am submitting to the wiles of the ego. This is true even if I do that with spirituality. Becoming the teachings is akin to the taking the Twelve Steps to heart and living completely in the grace of the Spirit of Recovery. This is not an idle task that makes me a better person than you. This is about becoming what I truly am. It is an inside job that insists I don't allow ego to distract me from the simplicity and beauty of the path.
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