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Letting Go of Ideas That Are Working Against Us
A thread
https://cooperatorsoftruth.com/letting-go-of-ideas-that-are-working-against-us/
A thread
https://cooperatorsoftruth.com/letting-go-of-ideas-that-are-working-against-us/
“The result was nil until we let go absolutely…” – How it Works, AA
A friend asked me the other day what the hell it means to let go absolutely. He brought up a line in the book Alcoholics Anonymous that says the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Upon immediate analysis it is clear that this is hyperbole, it is exaggerated for effect.
Human persons, being relative and dependent creatures can only let go relatively.
It could be said that the results depended upon us being willing to let go of certain things relative to how thought we understood them, especially those things that no longer seem to be working.
Whether it is a person’s philosophy of life, sense of justice and self, or religious faith, something is off.
In other places in the book Alcoholics Anonymous it reminds us that we need a faith that works, or we need a sense of self that works, or a philosophy that works.
If our ideas were working, if our thought life, and our sensibilities were as accurate as we thought they were we wouldn’t, like the jaywalker (AA, pg. 37 ( https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf)), keep running out in front of traffic after we had been hurt a few times.
And it doesn’t help to say, well this is a pure physiological dependency.
Sure, it takes place physiologically and we can observe the process of addiction here through a process of reduction. But we must remember, we are a unity of body and spirit, of material and immaterial.
The immaterial, in particular in terms of our bad or harmful perspectives and attitudes is what we must let go of “absolutely”.
We can take “absolutely” here to mean without reservation and with open mindedness to a new experience of self, the higher power, and a changed perception of others.
This thread can be read here: https://cooperatorsoftruth.com/letting-go-of-ideas-that-are-working-against-us/
