Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
—Step 10 of the Twelve Steps
“But who can detect his own failings? Who can expose his own hidden faults?”
—Psalm 19:12
“Even pagans who never heard of the law, can be said to ‘be’ the law; it is engraved on their hearts. They can call forth this witness, their own inner mental dialogue of accusation and defense.”
—Romans 2:14–15
“Then Jesus said to him a third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was upset that he asked him a third time, and said, ‘Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.’”
—John 21:17
I must admit when I first read Step 10, I wanted to say, “OK, come now, let’s get on to something a bit more positive and evolved. This is beginning to feel like an endless examination of conscience, and will keep people navel-gazing forever.” I still recognize that as a danger for some. I do believe our religious history has been too guilt-based and shame-based, and not enough of what some would call “vision logic,” which is a broader, positive, and out-in-front kind of motivation. Jesus’ metaphor and draw was a positive vision he called “the kingdom of God,” which he seemed to be constantly talking about. For Bill W it was a “vital spiritual experience.” Neither of these were a negative threat, but a positive allure, promise, and invitation. For me, this is crucial and necessary or the spiritual journey largely becomes fear-based problem-solving.
I come from a religious life practice where we learned from the Jesuits about a daily and personal “examination of conscience” which certainly had some wise intent and worked for some. But I found that people with a mature conscience did this naturally anyway, and some way too much. Now many of the Jesuits recommend instead an “examination of consciousness,” which to me feels much more fruitful. I guess that is what I would recommend if I were teaching Step 10, and also because it transitions well into Step 11 on prayer and meditation. So let’s talk about consciousness a bit.
Consciousness as Soul Itself
Consciousness is the subtle and all-embracing mystery within and between Everything. It is like the air we breathe, take for granted, and do not appreciate. Consciousness is not the seeing but that which sees me seeing. It is not the knower but that which knows that I am knowing. It is not the observer but that which underlies and observes me observing. You must step back from your compulsiveness, and your attachment to yourself, to be truly conscious. Consciousness cannot be “just me” because it can watch “me” from a distance. Author and psychologist Ken Wilber describes it beautifully as “the simple feeling of Being” underneath all of our perceptions, and yet so simple and subtle and always there that it is hard to “feel,” I would add. Consciousness is as hard to describe as soul is hard to describe. Maybe because they are same thing?
Consciousness is aware of my feelings so it cannot be purely and simply my feelings themselves. Who or what is that awareness? Most people do not get that because they are rather totally identified with their own thoughts, feelings, and compulsive patterns of perception. You see why so many of our mystics and saints emphasized detachment so much. Without it, people could not move to the soul level. Meister Eckhart said detachment was the whole deal, and the early Franciscans seemed to talk about nothing else, though they called it “poverty.” We do not live in a culture that much appreciates detachment or such poverty. We are consumers by training and habit, which is exactly why we have such problems with addiction to begin with! For properly detached persons (read “nonaddicted”), deeper consciousness comes rather naturally. They discover their own soul—which is their deepest self—and yet has access to a Larger Knowing beyond themselves. This is one description of our mysterious and multifaceted soul. We would have done better to help people awaken this soul rather than trying to save it (often unawakened!) for the next world.
If “obeyed,” yes, obeyed, consciousness will become a very wise teacher of soul wisdom and will teach us from deep within (Jeremiah 31:33, and Romans 2:15, both called it “the law written on our hearts”). Some call it the “Inner Witness” and this witness is what Christians have called the Holy Spirit, which has hovered over creation since the Big Bang (Genesis 1:2), that is, the first moment when God began to materialize. Fourteen-and-a-half billion years after the Big Bang, or the cosmic incarnation, when humanity was ready for conscious encounter, this same Spirit hovers over a single Jewish girl, Mary, to effect and reveal what we Christians would call the human incarnation in Jesus (Luke 1:35). Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann calls it “the scandal of the particular.” Just as it has been equally hard for us to believe in our own Spirit-filled incarnation as children of God (see Romans 5:5, 8:9–10), it has been hard for many to believe that Jesus could be God’s “child” too. Jesus is not an exclusive son of God, however, but the inclusive son of God, revealing what is always true everywhere and all the time. Paul resolves this subtlety, by calling us “adopted” sons (Galatians 4:5) and “co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).
So, on one level soul, consciousness, and the Holy Spirit can well be thought of as the same thing, and it is always larger than me, shared, and even eternal. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks of “giving” us the Spirit or sharing his consciousness with us. One whose soul is thus awakened, actually has “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:10–16). That does not mean the person is psychologically or morally perfect, but such transformed people do henceforth see things in a much more expanded and compassionate way. Ephesians calls it “a spiritual revolution of the mind” (4:23). And it is!
Jesus calls this implanted Spirit the “Advocate” (John 14:16) who is “with you and in you” (14:17), who makes you live with the same life that he lives (14:19), and unites you to everything else (14:18, 20). He goes on to say that this “Spirit of truth” will “teach you everything” (14:26) and “remind” you of all you need to know (14:26). Talk about being well equipped for life from a Secret Inner Source! It really is too good to believe—and so we didn’t.This loss and sadness led me one Lent to write sixty-five names for this hidden mystery in a “Litany of the Holy Spirit.”1 It was really my homage to a Loving Inner Consciousness that we all share, but we have not been taught to rely upon or to allow to guide us. Most churches gave people the impression they would “get” the Holy Spirit as a reward for good behavior, in occasional dire circumstances, if they were writing a Gospel, or when a bishop would lay his hands on them. We severely limited the Spirit’s available working hours, and edged God’s defending Presence out of its pivotal role for us. We were left “orphaned,” exactly what Jesus said he did not want (14:18). Maybe the old German-based word “Holy Ghost” (geist) was a correct premonition of what had happened or not happened. The Holy Spirit had become an invisible ghost or mind.
Consciousness, our soul, the Holy Spirit, on both the individual and the shared levels, has sadly become unconscious! No wonder we call the Holy Spirit the “missing person of the Blessed Trinity.” No wonder we try to fill this radical disconnectedness by various addictions. There is much evidence that
so-called “primitive” people were more in touch with this inner Spirit than many of us are. British philosopher and poet Owen Barfield called it “original participation” and many ancient peoples seemed to have lived in daily connection with the soulful level of everything—trees, air, the elements, animals, the earth itself, along with the sun, moon, and stars. These were all “brother” and sister” just as St. Francis would later name them. Everything had “soul” and spirituality could be taken seriously and even came naturally. Most of us no longer enjoy this consciousness in our world. It is a “disenchanted” and lonely universe for most of us. We even speak of the “collective unconscious,” which now takes on a whole new meaning. We really are disconnected from one another and thereby unconscious. Yet, religion’s main job is to reconnect us (re-ligio) to the Whole, to ourselves, and to one another—and thus heal us. We have not been doing our job very well.
Our Divine Identity as Children of God
So a daily “examination of consciousness” sounds like a very good thing indeed. Paul wisely makes this point of an inner knower in several subtle passages that show real insight; he calls it “the mind of Christ” and the “inner law” (see 1 Corinthians 2:10–16 and Romans 2:14–15), which seems to be an inherent sharing in this one Spirit or consciousness. In another place he speaks of both ourselves and God, carrying a “united witness” (Romans 8:16) to our divine identity—as “children of God,” “heirs,” and “coheirs with Christ” (8:17).2 When we stopped trusting this inner and united witness, we had no support in believing the central Gospel message itself—that we share in the same identity as Jesus (1 John 3:1–2; 2 Peter 1:4). That should be more than enough to heal anyone of their low self-esteem, insecurity, or the addictions that we all use to fill this tragic void.Wisely, Step 10 does not emphasize a moral inventory, which becomes too self-absorbed and self-critical, but it speaks of a “personal inventory.” In other words, just watch yourself objectively, calmly, and compassionately. You will be able to do this from your new viewing platform and perspective as a grounded child of God. “The Spirit will help you in your weakness” (Romans 8:26). From this most positive and dignified position you can let go of, and even easily “admit your wrongs.” You are being held so strongly and so deeply that you can stop holding onto, or defending, yourself. God forever sees and loves Christ in you; it is only we who doubt our divine identity as children of God.
We now have an implanted position and power whereby we can see ourselves calmly and compassionately without endless digging, labeling, judging, or the rancor that we usually have toward our own imperfection. Don’t judge, just look can be our motto—and now with the very eyes of God. That will awaken consciousness, and then things will usually take care of themselves, with even the least bit of honesty and courage. A wonderful Indian Jesuit, Anthony de Mello, used to say, “Awareness, awareness, awareness!” Once we see our inherent dignity clearly, the game of evil and addiction begins to collapse. Evil always relies upon camouflage to have its way. Evil must get us to doubt our inherent dignity, just as in Jesus’ temptations in the desert, where Satan precedes each temptation with the same line, “If you are the son of God” (Matthew 4: 3, 6). Once we doubt that, we will slip into addiction and the unconscious, and we will easily do evil—and not even call it evil. When we are standing in our inherent dignity, we can easily do Step 10, calmly taking “the personal inventory,” and then having the security to “promptly admit it when we are wrong.” People who know who they are find it the easiest to know who they aren’t.
Whenever we do anything stupid, cruel, evil, or destructive to ourselves or others, we are at that moment unconscious, and unconscious of our identity. If we were fully conscious, we would never do it. Loving people are always highly conscious people. To rely on any drug or substance is to become unconscious. I always find it sad in counseling when people share that they have to have some wine or alcohol to make love to their wife or husband. In a very real way that is a contradiction in terms because we cannot actually be loving when we are unaware or not fully present.
To be fully conscious would be to love everything on some level and in some way—even our mistakes. To love is to fall into full consciousness, which is contemplative, non-dualistic, and including everything—even “the last enemy to be destroyed, which is death itself” (1 Corinthians 15:26). That is why we must, absolutely must, love!
Didn’t Jesus tell us that we must love even our enemies? When we can on some level even love our sins and imperfections, which are our “enemies,” we are fully conscious
and fully liberated. God, who is Universal Consciousness itself, knows all things, absorbs all things, and forgives all things—for being what they are. If Jesus commands us to love our enemies, then we know that God must and will do the same. What hope and joy that gives us all! It takes away all fear of admitting our wrongs.
Yes, you love all that exists,
you hold nothing of what you have made in abhorrence,
for had you hated anything, you would not have formed it.
And how, had you not willed it, would a thing persist in being?
How could it be conserved if not called forth by You?
You spare all things, because all things are yours, Lord, lover of life, you whose imperishable spirit is in all.
—Wisdom 11:25—12:1