Direction...

Direction is what I needed and I had run out of great ideas. It seemed to me that I was standing at the crossroads so many spiritual folks talk about. Indeed, there were too many directions to go… each having a perfectly reasonable one to take. Luckily, or by fate, I came to a very healthy conclusion as I looked within. I realized that it was true my life had become unmanageable and I could take any one of these paths. I knew, however, I would still be dependent on someone, something, some organization of some sort (psychiatric therapy, church, ashram, temple, congregation… even AA seemed absurd at that point). I stood until all my strength left me and I fell to my knees begging for a direction… a burning bush of some sort.

In the end this capitulation led me to the doors of AA where I found the direction I longed for. Though, I believe, I could have made progress otherwise on any spiritual path but none would have given me the sort of fellowship that I found when I first stood on my feet and exclaimed that I am an alcoholic like you people. I was no longer alone and I had friends, people who had experienced what I had, and many who have had experiences beyond my own in sobriety and cleared the way ahead on the same path to recovery. It turned out to be the path to freedom.

There is a Buddhist prayer that goes that is helpful and its words contained the direction I asked for:

OM... Oh Thou who holdest the seal of power, raise Thy diamond hand, bring to naught, destroy, exterminate.

Oh, Thou sustainer, sustain all who are in extremity.

Oh, Thou purifier, purify all who are in bondage to self.

OM... May the ender of all suffering be victorious.

OM... Oh thou perfectly enlightened, enlighten all sentient beings.

Oh, Thou who art perfect in wisdom and compassion, emancipate all beings,

and bring them to Buddhahood... 

OM.

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