A Moment of Honesty – Getting “Real” with the Sixth Step

Step 6, which says that we were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, is, together with the first three steps, a cornerstone of determination which ensures that we are well on track with the spiritual recovery of the 12 Step Program.

It may seem at first glance that Step 6 is either repetitive or of "just" preliminary value. After all, in Step 2, we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves, God, could restore us to sanity, and in Step 7, the action of mind to ask for help through the means of prayer, we humbly ask HIM to remove our shortcomings. Yes, it is well-known to experienced “12 steppers” that Step 6 is the most overlooked of all steps.

Beginners tend to by-pass the transformation of character defects and their speedy removal, maybe as a form of active resistance to being "entirely ready" and what it implicates in the justification to at least keep some defects, some part of the human identity.

God doesn't take anything away from you that you don't want to freely and joyously give to Him in order to be undone.

In my experience, working Steps Four and Five -- making a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, inquiring into my mind and finding all these defects (Step 4), and then admitting to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs (Step 5)-- working these steps gave me, as a result, an immediate release from the obsession in my addiction, and finally I found myself on my knees and humbly asked Him to help me. I was willing to be undone, entirely.

Staying true to the Truth of our awakening experience and remembering that God knows us only perfect as HE created us, the expression "to have God remove all these defects of character ” definitely needs explaining. We might have a reasonable question about this statement, e.g. How could an all-loving and all-encompassing God know us as defective? And if God is removing all these defects, wouldn't He need to acknowledge them first as real? How perfect would such a God be? And if it is true that God does not see any differences, defects not being anything in HIS Mind, how can it be God is removing them?

Terms like “defects of character,” “wrongs” and “shortcomings” – as they are used in the program – stand for self-made and self-inflicted mistakes and mis-perceptions. What a miracle that I had become ready and willing to accept the correction of my selfishness, self-hatred, pride, possessiveness and fears.

In A Course In Miracles it is taught that there are basically only two emotions: love and fear. We are looking at the undoing, the removal or correction of fear, and its resulting defects: mistrust, trust of one's self-concept, dishonesty or self-deception, judgment, intolerance, harmfulness, grievousness and attraction to suffering, defensiveness, impatience, faithlessness, and to be miserly and reserved, condemning and accusatory.

What you have to reasonably understand is this: as long as you believe in the reality of the illusion of the dream you apparently find yourself in, your human experience, you are NOT “entirely ready” but want to keep some “defects.” Each and every one here on earth has to ask himself: “How long will I continue to postpone my salvation by saying, ‘No, I can't give this up yet!'” To be “entirely” ready means to accomplish mastery over all errors, to be willing to be completely undone of all fear, of the limited identity every human being has given himself, called “ego” or “self-concept.”

The 12-Step Program, as well as the systematic Mind Training Program of A Course In Miracles, is about Self-recognition. To wake up from the dream of separation requires a “one hundred percent” readiness – determination. Being less than one hundred percent ready, the accomplishment of your own Self-recognition seems to be difficult, but not impossible. The ego offers salvation in a future goal or death. The completion of your Self-recognition, then, is experienced as a progressing toward something that is not yet here and has to be searched or waited upon, rather than an immediate release. Yet any compromise will always require a new choice, in the recognition of the difference between accepting the perfection of God and striving for a self-determined objective.

I had to understand that there truly is only one defect of character: the belief in separation from God … . This feeling of separation from God is the “human condition.” It is the fear of God, the fear of the love within ‘hu-man', the fear of the disappearance of the universe with all of one's own self-constructed problems and errors.

Yet I could not undo myself. The more I was striving to let my errors go or get rid of “character defects,” the more they possessed me. Finally and luckily, all my trying and searching led to complete failure. There was no solution within the problem, within my human experience.

What a devastating recognition this was! And yet, simultaneously the true solution, a complete alternative, was given and joyously accepted: God -Dependency. We cannot do it ourselves! As humans we are powerless over each of our defects, as we are powerless over our addiction to death.

Only in our admission of our defects, and then in following the offered solution, will they miraculously reveal their insubstantiality and the inevitable truth that they CANNOT touch or affect our reality at all.

You are in need of ONE SOLUTION. This solution cannot be found in the world, but only in one Self, in your complete dependence on God. Salvation thus depends on recognizing this one problem, and understanding that it HAS BEEN solved.

“ For a moment I had experienced a miracle of release by letting go of the reality of the hallucinations, nightmares and grievances I made up in my mind, out of a well-protected identity in the limitation of my human emotional experiences like fear, anger, greed, envy, jealousy, love-obsession, and the arrogance of feeling superior or inferior, etc. In a single instant of release I escaped from the time-space continuum and was shown by revelation that there is no such thing as a defect, but rather, a true experience of love and forgiveness within my own mind and Heart, a recognition of the presence of God, of His Grace bestowed on me, you, all of me, the Light Which is singular, One without comparison, immaculate and undisturbed, in Peace forever.”

It is the Holy Spirit, this Higher Power, sorting out the true from the false and undoing all errors for me. For in the moment of finding myself in the finality of the dream, true characteristics are recognized. In these true characteristics, we see - besides trust - honesty or consistency, tolerance, gentleness, joy, defenselessness, generosity, patience, faithfulness and open-mindedness. These are the Characteristics of God's Teachers as it is taught by Jesus Christ in The Manual for Teachers of A Course In Miracles.

And this is how it works in the 12 Step Program: Just ask God for help!

It is already part of the “Third Step Prayer”…

“…Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy Will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy Will always.”

And similarly it is also expressed in the “Seventh Step Prayer”…

“ My Creator , I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do Your bidding.” AMEN