12 step groups useful for enlightenment?

[Inliytened1]

3 minutes ago, James123 said:

You can see that analyzing birth and death, actually there is no free will whatsoever. 

Birth and death doesn't govern what happens in between.  You make choices everyday.  Is that not you?  It feels like you are making those choices doesn't it? That's what I mean by free will. 

[James123]

39 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Birth and death doesn't govern what happens in between.  You make choices everyday.  Is that not you?  It feels like you are making those choices doesn't it? That's what I mean by free will. 

If you realize that mind is the making the choices or mind is connecting with the body and that's how the choices happens, yet none of is You? 

[mmKay]

3 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

It doesn't discriminate. I've dealt with addiction and yes it is easier to overcome the more self aware you are but it can still pull you into the darkness.  

Sorry to hear about your struggles. I've certainly gone through my own version of that battle for a good decade if not two.

I'd like to mention that while yes, self-awareness is a net positive for dealing with addiction, many times counter-intuitively it can actually be the trigger if you're doing this kind of spiritual and self-actualization work and aren't prepared with the right tools. 

Since the Ego employs all kinds of self-deception mechanisms to get away with all kinds of behaviors for its own benefit and survival, shining the light of awareness on those self-deception mechanisms can trigger all kinds of nasty defense mechanisms and ego-backlashes, so to cope with the suffering we many times resort to addictions and distractions and eventually regression into more self-deception to get yourself back into functionality. 

If I could give my old self some advice, it would be to pace the spiritual and self-actualization work.

There's a reason ignorant people often seem more "stable, peaceful and functional". They never destabilized their psyche in the first place.

Once you start pulling back the curtain on your own self-deception, things can get pretty messy.

Going too deep too fast will definitely overwhelm you and trigger exactly those defense mechanisms that pull you back into addiction.

Do I'd tell myself to take it gradually rather than biting off more than I can chew.

Trying to fast made me go slow for years. 

Edited Wednesday at 10:49 AM by mmKay

[Terell Kirby]

Thing with 12 steps is that they’re primarily in the business of constructing a sense of self that helps the survival of its members and 12 step program itself (traditions, culture, language, narrative's, etc).

There is a kind of identity one has to adopt to get the full benefit of being part of these groups. All of this of course is antithetical to genuine truth seeking and existential inquiry (to the likes of Leo’s / Peter Ralstons work).

Ultimately- it’s conformity and group think, but healthy in a sense it can help you develop out of your addiction & codependence-but not much beyond that relative to serious spirituality.

Edited Wednesday at 12:23 PM by Terell Kirby

[Hojo]

@HafizYou can fly. Its possible for a human to fly. You can get so happy that your body starts floating in the air. When you get happy  and loving your body gets physically lighter. Tkae the happiest and most loving state youve been in and times it by 10 thousand and you will start to float in the air.

Not flying necessarily flying like a bird but like floating and moving.

I think youd have to know and feel 100 percent like you are in a dream.

enlightenment might not make you fly but it will show you its possible.

Edited Wednesday at 05:32 PM by Hojo

[gettoefl]

AA is religion - rules rituals routines relationships as opposed to spirituality which is stay at source. Can the former take you all the way? Sure if you go hell for leather at it. I had AI write the 12 steps in terms of the highest truth:

Quote

🕊 The 12 Steps Reframed in Absolute Truth

1. We admitted we were powerless over the illusion of separation — that trying to manage life apart from Source always leads to suffering.

→ Recognition of the ego’s powerlessness and the impossibility of control in a dream.

2. We came to realize that only remembering our true Identity as Spirit could restore us to sanity.

→ Only awareness of Oneness corrects the insanity of believing in a personal self.

3. We surrendered our imagined will to the Will we share with God — recognizing there is, in truth, only one Will.

→ Letting go of the “personal chooser” and aligning with divine flow.

4. We made a fearless inner inventory — not to judge, but to expose every belief that hides the Light.

→ Looking at the darkness without judgment so it can be undone.

5. We admitted the unreality of our errors to God, to ourselves, and to another reflection of the One Mind — seeing all guilt as meaningless.

→ Confession becomes transparency: nothing needs to be hidden because nothing real can be threatened.

6. We became entirely willing to let illusion be undone — not through effort, but through surrender to Light.

→ True willingness is the bridge between illusion and truth.

7. We humbly accepted that only Grace can heal the mind — and invited that Grace to dissolve all false desires.

→ Ego cannot purify itself; surrender is the purification.

8. We saw all those we believed we harmed as innocent, and prepared to remember their innocence completely.

→ Forgiveness reinterpreted: no one was ever truly harmed.

9. We extended forgiveness to all appearances of others, knowing we were freeing ourselves from our own projections.

→ Making amends through vision — not by changing form, but by seeing truly.

10. We continued to watch the mind gently, and whenever we forgot peace, we immediately remembered: “I am at Source.”

→ A living vigilance — instant correction through remembrance.

11. We sought only to rest in communion with the Holy Spirit, knowing prayer is the still awareness of what already Is.

→ Meditation as listening — the silence where the separate self disappears.

12. Having remembered our unity with God, we naturally extend peace to all minds, demonstrating that healing is already accomplished.

→ Sharing from wholeness — being the presence of the healed mind.