Dear Susan,

I have enjoyed very much reading your articles. I have been a student of Christian Science for many years. I do not belong to the church although I have taken class instruction.

Is there any place in this [your ] teaching for alcohol? I drink several cocktails each evening. Some recent books on spirituality that I have read discuss “Intention” and say that one cannot progress spiritually and consume alcoholic beverages.

I would appreciate hearing from you. I feel a deep kinship with your
viewpoints. Christian Science is precious to me. How can I purchase your book?

Anne S.
Southern California

Dear Anne:

Thank you for your note, and your interest in my writing. It is always wonderful for me to meet new people who have glimpsed the non-dogmatic nature of Truth.

First of all--practical stuff: To order the book, just go to the Bookstore page and it will walk you through the steps.

Secondly--in regards to your questions:

Is there any place in this teaching for alcohol?

I don't know if I'd say there is a place in my teaching for alcohol....I mean, we don't drink Mint Julips at the seminar breaks! However, I don't agree with any teaching that is "proscriptive" and that offers systems, methods, and rules for spirituality. My reason is simple: because they don't work.

Genuine spirituality, as well as our demonstrated lack of it, is not a behavioral problem. So "behaving" in this way or that does not solve it. For example, Hindus would say you can't eat meat and "know God." So in India, cows wander the streets and everyone is enlightened! Catholics wanted to go slowly on this vegetarian issue, so they only gave it up on Fridays! Others would say, “That is ridiculous. God gave us ‘dominion’ over the whole earth—and gave us the animals as food.”

Every sect and teaching has their list of dos and don't. I am against all lists. Obedience to our list—whatever that list might enumerate--gives us the illusion of progress for a certain time. However, all lists start with a symptom (our behavior), in an attempt to get to the root problem—which is not about behavior but a question of what we love.

We cry when we are sad. And tissues help. But we would never think that
tissues were the solution to the problem! Behavioral lists are like tissues. They might meet the immediate need, but they never get to the real problem. Continuing with your question:

YOU WROTE:
"I drink several cocktails each evening. Some recent books on spirituality that I have read discuss 'Intention' and say that one cannot progress spiritually and consume alcoholic beverages."

I don't know how the writers you are speaking of would know that you can’t consume alcohol and “progress spiritually.” Christian Scientists gave up drinking 100 years ago, but I wouldn't say they are all walking around in perpetual "clarity." Contrarily, there are teachers today who say they became "enlightened" while suffering from severe mental depression, alcoholism and sleeping on a park bench. However, I wouldn't suggest this as a method for success either.

After decades of wandering and searching and trying every methodology in the book, the Buddha sat down under a Bodhi tree and "gave up." So….now… millions of Buddhists think that if they, too SIT, or sit long enough, they will also give up the way the Buddha did.

The mind always wants to substitute ritual for Spirit. It simply doesn't work.

HOWEVER, what ensues as a byproduct of genuine spirituality is another thing. People may stop drinking alcohol, and make all kinds of other changes in their lives as a result of a changed sense of who they are found within genuine spirituality. Changed behavior is the natural outcome of genuine spirituality. But outcome cannot be taught. We can’t get from “by-product” to the essential. My teaching attempts to turn us toward Spirit as the true ground of our being.

Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base on
which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind." [Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, p. 162:9]

This is my hope as well, and the summation of my focus and efforts: to stir the human
mind to a change of base.

In so doing, other changes take place—including behavioral changes. There is no guarantee that you will still want to drink three cocktails a night, or one a week. Then again, no guarantee you won't. Neither is my business....or even yours. Because the minute we are focused on outcome, we are distracted from what Jesus called the "one needful thing."

For the record: Sincerity and a desire for Truth are the sole "criteria" for attendance at my seminars.

Warmest regards,

Susan Dane

A second question from the same site visitor:

Dear Susan:

Is there any value in your estimation, in knowing the self, i.e. the false
self, so as to 'work on' or try to “see” its unreality??

Anne

Dear Anne:

It depends on what you mean by “knowing the false self.” My experience is that while psychological “digs” may unveil some inner “archeological” issues, the unveiling of these problems does not necessarily guarantee their cure. Much of what we take to be our own personal and psychological issues have their root in the generic human condition.

For example, when we go digging psychologically, we come across “sins” and 'diseases” and “confusions” and “hurts.” Everything is in the plural, and has some sort of a psychological cause. Or so we think. But there is the generic problem that being a human being entails—the fact that we each suffer from sin, disease, confusion and hurt—in the singular. Our susceptibility to this generic condition is not a psychological problem, and yet it is what we most want healed.

Early on in my search, I imagined that spirituality would fill me up with a type of radiance and I would just sort of "soar" around. Far from it! Spirit is Truth; so spirituality entails seeing what is and what is not. Eventually, I came to see spirituality more like art which involves a growing acuteness of the eye, or as in music, a continual refinement of the ear. Just as a master musician has an ear so tuned to perfection that anything less is quickly and specifically identified as off key and out of place, someone who truly knows Spirit has an acute awareness of what we often call the “false self”—its tricks, its confusions, misconceptions and errors.

In short, the more you come to know Truth and Spirit, the more clear you will be about the specifics that portray themselves as part of your character --yours and others--but have no relation to God. Artists don’t study bad art. Musicians don’t study bad music. But as we study what is the Truth, the “not so truth” does not disappear. Rather it becomes blatantly obvious.

The difference between a psychological exploration of the false self, and the spiritual discovery of what constitutes our true Self, is that when we “go digging” psychologically, we uncover a myriad of attitudes that we think are us. In spirituality, we discover that whatever we think we are apart from God, this is precisely what we are not.

What a relief our spiritual innocence is.

Please send your questions to BeyondSelfHelp@aol.com

[ABOUT SUSAN]   [AUDIO] [SEMINARS]  [COUNSELING]  [SUSAN'S BOOKSTORE]
[5 MINUTE CORNER]  [UPDATES]  [HOME ]

All materials copyrighted by © Susan Dane 2006