Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Latest Entry by Kevin Griffin on Huff Post re: Steps 6 & 7

Here is a link to Kevin Griffin's latest entry on the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-griffin/the-higher-power-of-karma_b_890510.html

And here's an excerpt from the article that struck me:

To me, this process isn't about God in a Western sense, but it is about power -- the power of karma, action. In the Bible it says, "Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." This sounds a lot like Step Seven to me. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, a Thai forest monk of the 20th century says this about that passage: "From the Buddhist point of view, this is a matter of karma ... we beseech the Law of Karma through our action and not merely with words." From a Buddhist point of view, the Law of Karma, which says every action has a result, can be seen as a Higher Power. For those of us who have been lost in addiction, when we connect with karma in this way, take the actions that harmonize with the Law of Karma, our life changes in radical ways. There's no magic here, but there is great effort and faith. We have to abandon long-held beliefs, about ourselves, and about the world. We have to fight the self-destructive and pleasure seeking habits that have destroyed our lives, even as we have devoted ourselves to them. We have to take actions, internally and externally that may be uncomfortable and unnatural, and we have to stick with these new behaviors even when they aren't producing the results we want.