Phase Six: A Conversation with God

Phase six brings us to the eleventh Step of our journey, “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us, and the power to carry that out". There are a lot of different aspects to this Step, and when “practiced” properly it has no ending.

So let's break it down. “Sought through prayer and meditation...” Richard Rohr points out in Breathing Underwater that at the time the Steps were written, meditation was virtually unheard of in circles where prayer was involved, so it is important to note its inclusion in this Step.

We are seeking improved contact, and when taken as one, prayer and meditation form an amazing dynamic. This involves opening channels of the mind to receive, not broadcast, thus the next aspect “praying only for knowledge of His will for us...” What this really does is move us further into releasing our false identity, which has its own designs and plans, and accepting our true nature and our oneness with the Creator.

And so, we are “improving” the contact we have already made through working the previous Steps, our “conscious contact”, the actual touching and integration of the mind of God, “with God as we understood Him...”

The importance of operating from my own understanding of God must not go unnoticed. This aspect means that I am now operating from my own personal relationship with God. I am not using a preconceived notion. This is a living, dynamic, personal relationship. My own understanding.

“Praying only for knowledge of His will for us...” Seeking only oneness, and to have my mind enlightened by the Divine plan. Moving beyond the “s”elf into the Self.

“And the power to carry” out the will of God. It seems prudent to sit with this for a moment. The power.... to carry out..... the will of God. We are praying to become the instruments of God's will.

Of course there are a multitude of meditation techniques available on the market. My introduction to the Observer was not by choice, but necessity. Three hits of acid in my early twenties exposed me to a dimension my mind was not quite ready to assimilate, so I had to observe my mind as it broke and was put back together again (a liberating process:)

By far the most important aspect of meditation which I have encountered, and one which fits in with all other forms I have found, is conscious breathing. Mental focus on the breath. This type of meditation can be done anywhere at anytime that we are conscious: driving, in line at the supermarket, before sleep, upon awakening, and it forms a strong foundation for all other practices.

I also highly recommend improving the heart/mind connection that we use in the Ten/Six/Seven dynamic. Researchers have discovered that the heart contains the same type of cells found in the brain, called neurites in the heart. Linking these two centers is the key to Wholistic evolution. This can be done simply by bringing the focus of the mind into the heart center

With practice, we can make our lives a state of prayer and meditation. The Steps give us the action items to make this a reality.

The last phase of our trek is the Twelfth Step. It begins “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps...”