AA Book Club

 From the Dhammapada, sayings of The Buddha: 160. Your own self is your own mainstay, for who else could your mainstay be? With you yourself well-trained you obtain the mainstay hard to obtain. 166. Don’t sacrifice your own welfare for that of another, no matter how great. Realizing your own true welfare, be intent on just that. 204. Freedom from illness: the foremost good fortune. Contentment: the foremost wealth. Trust: the foremost kinship. Unbinding: the foremost ease. 207. For, living with a fool, one grieves a long time. Painful is communion with fools, as with an enemy— always. 210. Don’t ever—regardless— be conjoined with what’s dear or undear. It’s painful not to see what’s dear or to see what’s not. 244-245. Life’s easy to live for someone unscrupulous, cunning as a crow, corrupt, back-biting, forward, & brash; but for someone who’s constantly scrupulous, cautious, observant, sincere, pure in his livelihood, clean in his pursuits, it’s hard. 328-330. If you gain a mature

  Thoughts for the week:    May 29 How Much Faith Is Necessary? Have faith in your own faith. Have faith enough in yourself to believe that you really have enough faith to move mountains. Is this a strange idea? People are constantly saying that they wish they had more faith because if they had they could get better results. You have to realize, however, that this attitude of mind is extremely negative. If you have enough faith to pray at all, you have enough faith to start with. If you had no faith, you would not be praying. Have faith in your own faith, and that in itself will build it up more and more until the work is done. Around the Year with Emmet Fox   (Excerpt)  May 29 I will try to help others. I will try not to let a day pass without reaching out an arm of love to someone. Each day I will try to do something to lift another humanbeing out of the sea of discouragements into which he or she has fallen. My helping hand is needed to raise the helpless to courage, to strength, to

  Saturday speaker link - "Baby" Ruth R. in Nashville, TN (1949): https://wejoy.org/php/speaker_detail.php?slug=baby_ruth_r_nashville_tn_1949

  Throwback Thursday history link -a presentation by Gary N. on Charles Towns of Towns Hospital, where Bill W. was treated by Dr Silkworth: https://www.recoveryspeakers.com/king-charles-of-new-york-city-presented-by-gary-n-8-28-2020/

 Bill W.'s original Grapevine article introducing Tradition Five:                  Tradition Five                   Copyright © The A.A. Grapevine, Inc., April 1948                   Says the old proverb, "Shoemaker, stick to thy last." Trite,                   yes. But very true for us of AA. How well we need to heed the                   principle that it is better to do one thing supremely well                   than many things badly.                   Because it has now become plain enough that only a recovered                   alcoholic can do much for a sick alcoholic, a tremendous                   responsibility has descended upon us all, an obligation so                   great that it amounts to a sacred trust. For to our kind,                   those who suffer alcoholism, recovery is a matter of life or                   death. So the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous cannot, it dare                   not, ever be diverted from its primary purpose.            

 Thoughts for the week: May 23 I fail not so much when tragedy happens as I did before the happening, by all the little things I might have done, but did not do. I must prepare for the future by doing the right thing at the right time now. If a thing should be done, I should deal with that thing today and get it righted with God before I allow myself to undertake any new duty. I should look upon myself as performing God's errands and then coming back to Him to tell Him in quiet communion that the  message has been delivered or the task done. 24 Hours a Day May 24 Your Heart Follows Your Treasure In the long run, no one can retain what does not belong to him by right of consciousness, nor be deprived of that which is truly his by the same supreme title. If you are looking to outer, passing, mutable things for either happiness or security, you are not putting God first. If your are putting God first in your life, you will not find yourself laboring under undue anxiety about anything.

  Saturday speaker link - Sandy B. A Spiritual Malady (2012):    https://www.recoveryaudio.org/aa-speaker-tapes/tampa-fl-a-spiritual-malady-at-woodstock-of-aa-22nd-spring-conf-may-2012

  Today's Throwback Thursday history link - from Recovery Speakers.com, the life of Hank Parkhurst, a major force behind early New York A.A. and writing the Big Book:   https://www.recoveryspeakers.com/what-it-was-like-hank-parkhurst-through-august-1935-presented-by-chris-j-10-15-2021/  

  From Hasidic Anthology by Louis I. Newman, on Anger: Delay Your Wrath The Gastininer Rabbi made it a rule for himself never to express his displeasure with anyone on the same day when he was offended by that person. On the morrow he would say to the man: "I was displeased with you yesterday." The Example of Self-Restraint Rabbi Leib Saras said: "Of what avail is mere study of the Teachings when he who learns is contaminated by pride and temper? The good man should himself be the Teaching, and people should be able to learn good conduct from him." More Pleasing Than Fast Days The Sassover said: "If thy neighbor offend thee, refrain from wrath and it will bee more pleasing in the sight of God than a thousand fast-days; listen to revilings without retort, and it will stand you in stead of a thousand self-inflictions." Patience Under Annoyance The Vorker Rabbi said: " The truly humble man is unable to feel anger. Even if he is interrupted when busy, he

Thoughts for the week:                   May 15  GOD IS NOT BECOMING   God is not progressing or improving. What improves is our understanding of Him, and as this happens all our conditions necessarily improve too. There never was a time in your history when God was not all that He is today, and there never can come a time when God will be any more than He is today. God is continually expressing Himself in new ways—but this is not improvement; it is unfoldment. Your life is simply part of this unfoldment, and that is the only reason for your existing at all. You are the living expression of God now—and to understand this is salvation. Around the Year with Emmet Fox . (Excerpt) May 17 I must constantly live in preparation for something better to come. All of life is a preparation for something better. I must anticipate the morning to come. I must feel, in the night of sorrow, that understanding joy that tells of confident expectation of better things to come.  "Sorrow may endure fo

  Saturday speaker link - Russel  S at the Triangle Club on Step Five: https://www.recoveryaudio.org/aa-speaker-tapes/step-05-at-the-triangle-club-bar-to-mentor-ship-barrier-to-truth

  Throwback Thursday history link - from the AA History Lovers group, The Washingtonians and the Twelve Traditions: https://groups.io/g/AAHistoryLovers/files/Books/The%20Washingtonians%20&%20the%2012%20Tra%20-%20Barefoot%20Bill.pdf

From our AA Book Club.org literature study guide, an analysis of the Big Book's Chapter Five: http://aabookclub.org/aa_bookclub/ch5.htm

                                                                                                           Thoughts for the week:   May 8  NONRESISTANCE When you fight a thing you antagonize it and it hits back. The harder you fight it the harder it hits. When you give your attention to anything, you are building that thing into your consciousness, for good or evil. When you are faced with some negative condition, withdraw your attention from it by building the opposite into your subconscious. Then the undesirable thing falls away like an overripe fruit. Around the Year with Emmet Fox  (Excerpt) May 9 In material things, you must rely on your own wisdom and that of others. In spiritual things, you cannot rely so much on your own wisdom as on God's guidance. In dealing with personalities, it is a mistake to step out too much on your own. You must try to be guided by God in all human relationships. You cannot accomplish much of value in dealing with people until God knows you are rea

Saturday speaker link - Traci M. From Fear to Faith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqyAgE1lnoM

  From Recovery Speakers.com, a history of A.A. 1934-35:   https://www.recoveryspeakers.com/the-miracle-of-aa-1934-1935-presented-by-al-j-and-drew-h-9-17-2021/

   Jiddu Krishnamurti:  "It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."  "I don't mind what happens. That is the essence of inner freedom. It is a timeless spiritual truth: release attachment to outcomes, deep inside yourself, you'll feel good no matter what."   "It is very easy to conform to what your society or your parents and teachers tell you. That is a safe and easy way of existing; but that is not living...To live is to find out for yourself what is true."  "Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself."   "Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something- and it is only su

  Thoughts for the week:   May 1 All material things, the universe, the world, even our bodies, may be Eternal Thought expressed in time and space. The more physicists and astronomers reduce matter, the more it becomes a mathematical formula, which is thought. In the final analysis, matter is thought. When Eternal Thought expresses itself within the framework of space and time, it becomes matter. Our thoughts, within the box of space and time, cannot know anything firsthand, except material things. But we can deduce that outside the box of space and time is Eternal Thought, which we can call God. 24 Hours a Day   May 3 Resist No Evil The desire to “get even,” to get one’s own back, to level things up somehow or other, when we have been hurt or have suffered injustice, or witnessed things of which we did not approve, will remain with us until the time when we definitely take ourselves in hand and destroy it. “Revenge,” said Bacon, “is a kind of wild justice.” Around the Year with Emmet