AA 4th step – Make a searching & fearless moral inventory of ourselves

“If you react out of your internal structure to do something, this is exactly the moment, when you can observe it and discover the root of the reaction – the ground of reality, then relate to this, see it clear, make a decision, dropping the worn out structure and walking on. No conflict, no fight – Going with the flow.” – BeiYin, November 2006

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Alcoholic’s Anonymous (AA) 4th Step – Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

I see this as a very important step in spiritual growth. By becoming willing to look deeply inside yourself, to identify the source of our self-centeredness, we can find a way out. Looking inside, I can now see that my self is built up of many layers of structure, of which I operate out of, in an automatic fashion. I see that all of my character defects, are based on these worn-out structures, having to do with my desires, beliefs and fears. So the first step here is to realize this truth, the second step is to become aware of how we react in an automatic fashion, based on our desires, beliefs and fears. Once we are aware of what desire, belief or fear, we are reinforcing by our reaction, we then have the ability to change how we respond, allowing us to drop the worn out structure. It also becomes clear to me that our operation (reacting in our life to people, places and things) based on our desires, beliefs and fears are what cause our disappointment, unhappiness and sense of failure. This acting automatically, without self-discipline and awareness, is what keeps us blind, within the realm of our own self-centeredness, away from our creator.

{ List of desires, fears, beliefs, etc.}

Desires are our cravings, attachments and expectations out of life. They are one of our main sources of disappointment. We set them up – they are not met – and then we feel bad or depressed, angry, etc. All of these are self-oriented materialistic things and must be dropped in order to be one with our spirit.

Fears create avoidance in us to look at ourselves and are based on insecurity of our own position in life. Fears make us run from life and not confront it.

Beliefs, orient us to a goal, where we use will and force to reach it. We intellectualize our beliefs with logic and pictures, which we then can’t see as coming from ourselves – not the creator. Beliefs take away our desire to look at things and find out more about them. They give us a pseudo-security, which prevent us from going on into new fields, where we might with awareness discover something new. We need to just simply trust that we’ll get from God what we will need with out hanging on to our beliefs.

Lack of self-discipline, decreases our awareness, by not letting us look inside ourselves and discover how we can change our internal – automatic behavior. In working on our internal structure awareness levels must be increased, and maintained to continue to grow along spiritual lines. It is by applying self-discipline, that we can become aware of our reactions and thereby have the means to change them. This awareness of our reactions is knowledge of ourself and it is what makes us grow along spiritual lines.

By making a list, such as this, I can identify what I am holding, and can then say, “I don’t need this anymore.” The list is a sort of ‘short-cut’ to identify character defects, but the real elimination comes through awareness practice and identification of the undesired structure at the time that it is in use.

One of my challenges is that I have a strong wish to clarify things, which leads to very analytical thinking. This conscious thinking (in the realm of thought) stops the flow of awareness and relating or reacting to things. I need to let go of this strong wish to understand.

We need only realize that we are already spiritual; we just can’t see it, due to our layers of self-structure that we have built up over it, over our lifetimes. We need to know that we are already eternal, that we simply change form over time. We can then know that our real self will shine through, when we react without these desires, fears and beliefs. As these worn-out structures are removed, we can find the ground of reality, looking at our true self.

I can see certain things that I want to keep as truths to guide me. But also, knowing that these truths themselves are only concepts and can be subject to being discarded as well.

My starting point:

·        To have trust in the creator, we don’t have to force things, this allows for grace to happen.

  • Belief that we are all one.
  • Desire to find other humans of like mind
  • Belief that compassion is love and is the way to foster spiritual growth in others and self
  • Know that we are already eternal
  • Self-discipline is needed to develop awareness.

Betsy
December 1, 2006

Posted in Self-realization Tagged with: , ,
2 comments on “AA 4th step – Make a searching & fearless moral inventory of ourselves
  1. this is true stuff I been clean for 4 months and im in rehab doing my work ,If you don’t make a searching moral inventory to yourself you will never get clean , its a important step , fimnd all your morals and figure out who you are for you give your self to your higher power.

    • betsy rabyor says:

      Thanks for your testimony holly of how important the 4th step is! Keep up the great work! Love & Blessings, Betsy

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