Post by aristarchus on Nov 16, 2007 15:01:08 GMT 10
1. We admitted we were helpless in the face of institutionalised Power—that our lives had become dominated by the desire to control and the will to obey, and that our behaviour had been governed not by our knowledge of right and wrong but rather our desire to avoid punishment for disobeying or otherwise challenging illegitimate structures of Coercive Authority, as well as our distain for the sine qua non of meaningful freedom, ie. our responsibility for thinking and acting for ourselves.
2. We came to believe that learning to take responsibility for the way we felt about things, as well as for thinking and acting for ourselves, could restore balance, sanity and agency to our lives and enhance our sense of meaning in life and our own sense of self-worth.
3. Made a decision to stop being dependent on others for telling us what to think and feel, to stop telling others what to think and feel, and to stand up for what we knew to be right even if in doing so we came into confrontation with institutionalised Power.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves—of the reasons why we had come to be addicted to power and control and of the consequences of our actions while emotionally and psychologically dependent on institutionalised Power.
5. Admitted to our own conscience, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongdoings committed in the name of, and as a result of our addiction to, institutionalised Power.
6. Were entirely ready to submit to the dictates of our conscience and independently-formulated sense of right and wrong and transcend the defects of character brought about through our addiction to institutionalised Power.
7. Humbly asked forgiveness of our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed in the name of institutionalised Power, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through introspection and meditation to deconstruct the moral absolutisms that had prevented us from transcending our Earthly attachments, through which our addiction to power and control had been expressed, and thereby to integrate our personalities with the reality formerly denied in the name of defending institutionalised Power.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts of power and control, and to create the seeds of a new consciousness and of a world freed from coercive power by practicing empathy, sharing and cooperation in all our affairs.