If Only We Could

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The book 'Alcoholics Anonymous' says on page 45 :

"Our human resources, as marshaled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly. Lack of Power that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem." AA 'Big Book'

However I have come across many people who have reacted strongly against the idea of handing over to a 'power greater than self' as a way of change. It seemed to them that this was a negative approach.

But they did not understand what is involved psychologically: 'self', which we all experience as 'I' or 'me', is in a person, and has no actual power in the world. But because we all experience 'I' or 'me' as real, we think it is 'I' or 'me' that has the power, or should have the power. But 'I' as internal has no power; if you look at it from the objective point of view, it's clear that it is the person that has power, not the person's self. The person's self has enormous influence and importance in the person, but none in the world.

The practice of handing over to a 'power greater than self' recognises that power is not in the person's self. Where the true 'power' of a person, any person, comes from, is a matter of personal, spiritual belief, but will only be found by experiencing the way you are differently, not by thinking about it.

Recognition of 'power greater than self' provides a person with a way of bypassing and letting go of troublesome self, and to change in all sorts of ways that were not possible while he or she was still trapped in experiencing self as the reality.

As we shall see later, self (I or me), is a type of psychological image in a person. Image is automatically not reality, even though it is centrally important in people. Naturally, people who do not understand this think that what is required when someone is functioning irrationally in some way, is more self confidence and more power to the rational self, However, this does not produce the change needed in deep-seated disorders. For deeper disorders, we could say: ' De-power the self and empower the person'.

When this realisation comes to people, it often does so at a level deeper than words or thought. Bill Wilson mentions several times that his realisations came to him without thinking. People have described it as a lifting of a burden, a new freedom, a falling away of the old;

To bring this about there needs be losing of a mistaken faith in the self, of self-confidence, and replaced with confidence in being a person.

http://www.jimmaclaine.com/lgs7.html

It wasn't cruel, it wasn't tormented. It was simply a way of being. He had heard it all, so many times. He had watched the best and the worst. He had seen these self serving rent seekers populating the rooms and the streets, the very fabric of things, their self indulgent ways and astonishing arrogance turning everything to gold. Or mud. He couldn't be warmed, or warned. He didn't believe a word they said, not anymore. I wouldn't piss on half of them if they were on fire, Peter had said, and the bracing shock of this healthy contempt for the masses struck home. He had always had a naive, romanticised faith in the proletariat, that people were essentially good, well meaning; that it was simply a quirk of fate that he wasn't being loved back to life, supported at every moment. He had seen too much crap now.

He had come to view people like dogs. If you were vulnerable they attacked. The secret to survival was never to be vulnerable. They were arguing over the smallest of things. They were shadows lurking on the edge; disembodied voices. He had no faith; not in them, not in the heart of things. There was no way out of things; except surviving through the slow days. He longed for company and became alone. He followed the shadows through the looming dark, as if the love of his life was just around the corner. It was a shock to find so much of it over. He tried to start again but there was no way back. He just wanted to grow younger by the day; and that was not possible.

Everything was disembodied; romantic attachments; meanings, cruel flicks of fate. If only the psychological dependencies could be solved. If only there was a way out of the tangled woods; the repeating thoughts, the encroaching vagueness. The straightforward fear. If there was a way out he did not know it. These were the spaces in between. Each day he walked from one end of the beach to the other, and then up on to the point overlooking the bay. It was a spectacular view. It's like a different city, he thought again, and it was true. Here the rich frolicked amongst the tourists on the long strip of sand. Their children splashed in the beckoning surf. Apart from splashing his bare feet in the shallows, there was no way he was going to immerse himself in that cold terror called the sea, no matter how hot the weather, how many others flocked into paradise.

He couldn't have been more gifted; only to see it all wash away. Brief loves, flashing intimacies, those ghosts twirling through the rooms at World's End, so real he could reach out and touch past lives, his earthly lover on the bed, watching his every move, raptured and enraptured as the withdrawals from sleeping pills brought on a succession of vivid hallucinations. They had been so close. He remembered thinking, so ludicrously, if only I was older, uglier, could be loved for myself and not my looks. Time cures everything; including a surplus of good looks. He had passed back through London years later; and had rung his old lover, now the resident drunk in a pub in Essex; and made all the arrangements, much to the other's excitement, to travel out there. To be reunited in their clumsy, fumbling love. But it was not to be.

As so often; he made the arrangements and then never arrived. And was plagued with guilt at his own indifference, his amorality; his drunken abandonment of all that was near and dear. He could be carried past the roaring crowd; lolling on the carry couch made of reeds; appreciating only dimly the hands reaching out towards him, the eager faces, the adoring looks. How was it possible to imagine being one of them, a commoner, when he was so adored; when destiny had so clearly chosen him for this higher fate. He didn't know and he didn't care. The torturers in the palace barely even marred his consciousness, although he knew there were terrible things that went on there. They were the concerns of his father; and the political caste. He was above and beyond everything; chasing pleasure as a noble goal; ready to fly, to laugh, to be entirely exultant.

These past lives barely reflected into the present, so disengaged had he become from the lineage of the flesh. There was evil. There were the masses. But he had become disembodied from mere earthly concerns. He studied and googled the death of self; as if it was just another academic subject to fill the passing hours; watched the young Eastern suburbs moms pushing their fashionable prams as they walked in their flowing, fashionable clothes, ever so casually expensive; emerging from their multi-million dollar homes to walk along the beaches and linger in the cafes. He wasn't going to be sacred, or resolved. He wasn't going to deny he was disturbed by all the errant nonsense swirling in his disordered brain; the reasons why it was so easy, or so impossible to escape. The project was to build a new person: the project was to die with dignity. Instead it left abandoned landscapes; so beautiful in their half-formed vistas; the swirling, poisonous colours beneath their feet and the flimsy, but nonetheless magnificent structures, swaying in the strange air.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/10/2788925.htm?section=justin

The funeral service will be held later today for Indian graduate Nitin Garg, who was stabbed to death in Melbourne last weekend.

Accountancy graduate Nitin Garg was killed while walking to his part-time job at a fast-food restaurant last Saturday night.

Mr Garg's body will be cremated near his family's home in the northern state of Punjab.

Hundreds of mourners are expected to gather at the ceremony to honour the 21-year-old, who was fatally stabbed in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray.

Mr Garg's relatives say they want his death to put an end to assaults on Indians in Victoria.

But the latest alleged attack on another Indian in Australia, 29-year-old Jaspreet Singh, has caused widespread anger in India.

Jaspreet Singh, 29, was attacked in Essendon in Melbourne's north-west shortly before 2.00am (AEDT) yesterday.

He had just come home from a dinner party with his wife and went to park his car when four men poured fluid over him and set him alight.

He is in a stable condition in the Alfred Hospital with burns to 20 per cent of his body.

The incident is headline news in India.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/horror-indian-summer-20100108-lyw0.html

Syed, 24, came to Australia a year ago and has paid about $12,000 for a commercial cooking course. He recently decided he will return to India when his course is completed. ''Sometimes I ask myself why I paid these fees. Did I pay these fees just to be attacked? In my country I can go anywhere, even three in the morning. But here I'm [afraid] to walk around [at] 11pm. I just want to finish my studies and go home. There's no point staying.''

In the 12 months to June 2007, 1082 attacks on Indians in Victoria were reported to police - an assault rate of 1700 in every 100,000. Victorian Indians are 2½ times more likely than non-Indians to be beaten up or knifed. Why? Furious disagreement prevails. The most contentious theory, the one that has caused such damage to Australian-Indian relations, is that Indian students are targeted by Romper Stomper-style teenage thugs, skinheads looking to reassert control over suburbs newly populated by Sikhs and Hindus; an atavistic and violent response by racists sick of Indians working in every cab, service station and every pub they frequent.

Another theory is that Indian students are ''soft targets''. They are ''walking ATMs'' carrying mobile phones, iPods and jewellery as they travel on public transport between university and late-night work shifts.

Alternatively, it's argued the Indian Government and Indian media are whipping up a storm because they were miffed and insulted that Australia refused to sell uranium to India. The snubbed Indian Government consequently chose not to hose down the Indian media frenzy over Melbourne bashings.

Whatever the causes, being Indian in Melbourne in 2010 is not the most comfortable of situations.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Indian-set-on-fire-in-Oz-again-cops-say-no-race-angle/articleshow/5429296.cms

As reports of another Indian being attacked in Melbourne — this time set on fire while parking his car — ruled the airwaves on Saturday, the government appealed for “restraint” in reporting the event, fearing it would damage bilateral relations with Australia.

Jaspreet Singh, living in Essendon, Melbourne, on a spouse visa where his wife is a student, was allegedly doused in flammable liquid and set on fire after 2am by some unidentified assailants. He is currently recovering in a local hospital with 15% burns. The initial police report said there was no evidence that the alleged attack was racially motivated.

The incident, coming a week after the fatal stabbing of Indian student Nitin Garg, has put a definite strain on bilateral ties, just at a time when India and Australia are building a deeper partnership, including Australia trying to get India into the APEC grouping.

In a statement, the foreign office spokesperson said, “The Indian high commissioner in Canberra and consul-general in Melbourne are following up this matter vigorously with the Australian authorities.”

But MEA also added a cautionary note to the coverage of the incidents in the Indian media. “The media is advised to exercise utmost restraint in reporting on these sensitive issues, as it could aggravate the situation and could have a bearing on our bilateral relations with Australia.”

Unconfirmed reports say Singh hails from Yamunanagar in Haryana and was working in Australia as a driver. Other reports said he had gone there for a vocational course and stayed on, while a third account said he was living with his wife Paramjeet and a young child on a spouse visa.

Neighbours interviewed said they heard the sounds of a car explosion but did not see anyone running away from it. ‘The Age’ newspaper in Australia reported that the case appeared more “complicated” than it originally seemed and the arson squad had been called in. Police accounts say there are certain “strange” bits to the story, which made a racially motivated account appear difficult to believe.