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Love is the Self-organizing Energy that heals and holds the world together. Having forgotten the Love that is our Reality, humankind has put itself in bondage to fear. As we drift toward catastrophe, we are awakening to the necessity of transforming separation and fear into Wholeness and Love.
The age of leaders has come and gone. The suffering in our lives and in our world is our responsibility. The root cause of all suffering is the mind’s belief that we are separate. The mind sees separation and fear, while the ‘Heart knows Wholeness and Love. Truth is the way that aligns our lives with Love. By embracing Truth, we are co-creating the critical mass of Love-Energy that is transforming our planet.
We are one Spiritual Family, here to love and care for one another. Through focusing on a vision of Unity, Freedom, and Bliss, while accepting current reality, we are shifting human destiny from catastrophe to Benestrophe.
Meeting in groups of two or more, we share experience, strength, and Sacred Touch. Aware that strength lies in defenselessness, we share our vulnerability. We do not judge, label, gossip, or give advice. We respect the confidentiality of all that is shared. When to speak is superfluous, we remain silent. Listening with the Heart, we touch, hug, dance, sing, laugh, cry, work, play, and breathe together. Gazing into each other’s eyes, we merge into Bliss.
We enter Relationship to heal ourselves and to support others in healing themselves. We commit to a life of reverence, humility, and rigorous honesty. When anything less than Love surfaces, we remember that the Wholeness of Relationship is more important than any issue. Keeping communication open, we recreate Relationship anew, fresh in the Perfection of the moment.
Our craving for approval and control takes us into the past or future where Love cannot be found. The Twelve Steps offer a way to dance in the Perfection of the moment if you are tired of feeling “not enough,” and would like to be happy; we invite you to join us in taking these steps:
2. We trust the miracle Love, as experienced through Sacred Touch, to heal the pain of separation.
3. Surrendering to the mystery of Life, we commit our will and our lives to the intuitive wisdom of the Heart.
4. We take a searching and courageous inventory of ourselves.
5. Choosing to release guilt, we tell the truth to a trusted person about everything we have done that is inconsistent with Love.
6. Choosing to manifest health, joy, and abundance, we live consciously in gratitude for the gift of Life.
7. Choosing to resonate with Unity, Freedom, and Bliss, we humbly celebrate Sacred Relationship with ourselves, one another, and all that is.
8. Choosing to heal our lives through forgiveness, we allow Love to replace blame.
9. We make direct amends to people from whom we have withheld Love, except when to do so would harm ourselves or others.
10. When suffering surfaces, we breathe consciously into our feelings, relax, and merge into the Perfection of the moment.
11. We seek through prayer, meditation, and Sacred Touch to expand our conscious contact with Love, asking only for inner guidance and the courage to take action.
12. Awakening spiritually as a result of these principles, we gratefully share The Vision of Benestrophe and teach Love by the way we live. Sharing Benestrophe is Benestrophe!
No one among us has been able to maintain absolute adherence to these principles. The Twelve Steps guide us. By embracing the Steps of Benestrophe, we transform fear, greed, and separation into beauty, excellence, and completion. Through learning optimism, we develop the ability to see the good in everything.
Discovering we are Perfect just being, rather than trying to be perfect, we love ourselves exactly as we are, and that’s enlightenment.
Our common welfare comes first. Individual and planetary healing emerges from the purity of Sacred Touch. Bčnestrophe groups are autonomous and self-supporting. We do not endorse or oppose causes. We are not allied with any nation, politics, religion, or institution. We remember our common purpose by reading aloud The Vision of Benestrophe at meetings. To protect our fellowship from the influence of our egos, we maintain anonymity with the media. Anonymity fosters humility, ever reminding us to place principle above personality, cooperation above competition, and to take our guidance from Love.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. As we let our own light shine, we give other people permission to do the same; as we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
A Course in Miracles
All human experience can be divided into two categories: Love and fear. Love is the Self-organizing energy that heals and holds the world together. Personal global problems dissolve in the higher consciousness of Love.
The Vision of Benestrophe is intended to guide us in the way we were meant to live—joyously, abundantly with Love. Fear is the absence of Love. Right fear dominates our consciousness and is the underlying cause of our current world crisis. Under the influence of fear, humanity has brought our planet to the brink of catastrophe. The mind resists looking at unpleasant reality, and current reality is so painful most of us choose not to see it. This refusal to see is known as denial. When we refuse to look at what we have done, when we deny our role in what is, we think of ourselves as victims. The mind does not admit we are individually responsible for our plight that we are manifesting—with every thought and belief—the world we see around us.
All negative emotion, including anger, greed, jealousy, and resentment is an expression of fear. When we live in fear, we feel alienated, separated, fragmented, and different from others. When we live in Love, we feel whole, connected, and in touch with the experience of our inherent Unity.
Love is more than emotion. Love is experiential knowledge of Oneness, the direct experience of connectedness with everything and everybody. In short, Love is a higher state of consciousness. Love is the supreme Reality. With Love, there is no ego, no criticism, and no judgment. Because Love is unconditional, the Self is One with all that is.
Fear takes us out of the present moment. The present moment is Perfect, and all else is illusion. We now know conclusively that the Universe is made up of intelligent energy. This energy is calling out to us at all times, through all circumstances, inviting us to join it.
Love is a power greater than ourselves. Through Love, we merge with other beings. We return home to a place of Oneness with all creation. With our Hearts open to Love, we know peace. Through gratitude, optimism, and reverence for Life, we empower our lives with beauty, excellence and completion.
Benestrophe is a process that is capable of accelerating the enlightenment now taking place on our planet. Benestrophe is not a religion, nor is it intended to serve as a process of recovery from chemical dependency. We hold a unifying worldview that recognizes the Wholeness of a Universe of spiritual energy. We recognize that the body is an instrument of experience, and that experiencing Love through the body is a process of Self-Love.
Benestrophe is a universal healing community. United in common purpose, we are a self-organizing, spiritual fellowship of anonymous men, women, and children who celebrate unconditional Love. Our primary purpose is to teach Love by the way we live. The only requirement for belonging to Benestrophe is the yearning for Wholeness.
The Twelve Steps of Benestrophe are suggested as a path of action. Recognizing that the creative process begins with choice, we choose to heal our lives, our planet, and our relationships. We deliberately choose to take control of our lives and contribute to the emerging consciousness of Love in the world.
The Twelve Steps of Benestrophe describe a process of transcending the illusory part of ourselves we call the mind. The mind perceives separateness rather than Unity, which is our birthright. When we transcend the mind, we experience the higher power of Love and realize that we have caused the unhappiness in our lives by denying our spiritual nature. We hold transcending the mind to be the foundation of all spiritual practice.
The past is gone and the future isn’t here yet. The resent moment is all there is. Living in the past or future takes us out of the moment, the only place where we can experience Love. The present moment is Perfect. We can always find Wholeness and Love in the here and now.
When we work the Twelve Steps of Benestrophe, we take a good look at current reality. We do not deny what we find. We embrace the current situation as our starting point. Our world is too endangered for anything less than honesty, and too precious for anything less than Love.
We are beings of Light, here for a purpose. Although we have been sidetracked, our mission of Self-discovery is, right now, vitally important to all humanity. Overtime, we have forgotten the Love that is our Reality, which has, in turn, put us in bondage to fear. Humankind is now charged with the task of rekindling a new consciousness. A worldview based on the principles of Love, not fear, is essential if we are to achieve our goal of Unity, Freedom, and Bliss. As we drift toward catastrophe, we are awakening to the necessity of transforming separation and fear into Wholeness and Love.
Heaven on Earth is possible. Co-creators of Benestrophe see world peace not only as possible, but as inevitable. We are bringing about the Reality of peace through the power of vision and intention. Intention, clearly defined, vividly focused, and persistently applied, produces the desired result. By focusing on a vision of Unity, Freedom and Bliss, while embracing current reality, we are shifting human destiny from catastrophe to Benestrophe.
The age of leaders has come and gone. We are all our own leaders. To go the old way and follow leaders is a form of psychological imprisonment. Deep inside, we yearn to be free. We recognize that freedom is Self-bestowed by letting go of fear.
When the famed Canadian medical researcher, Sir William Osler (1849-1919), was asked the secret of a long and full life, he replied, “Contract a chronic, terminal disease and take care of it.” The success of Twelve-Step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous for over fifty years confirms the wisdom of Sir William’s answer. Only when we recognize our illness do we gain the power to bring about our wellness.
By living the Twelve Steps of Benestrophe, we transform attitudes based on fear and resistance into attitudes based on Love and acceptance. As we accept responsibility for our suffering, we respond to Life with acceptance and gratitude. By recognizing that our attempts to control Life do not work, we build our inner strength through the higher power of Love.
As we look around us, we see war, disease, famine, poverty, environmental degradation, and a world in crisis. Denying the facts or trying to flavor them to suit our dispositions only promotes separation and fear. When we wholeheartedly embrace current reality, however, we accept responsibility for the beliefs that create our experience.
Crisis always has two sides. The Chinese word for crisis is wei-chi. Wei means ''beware'' or ''danger,'' while chi means ''opportunity for change.'' Both elements are contained in the idea of crisis. Along with the potential to create hell, comes the opportunity to create Heaven. Along with the threat of worldwide catastrophe, comes the possibility of global Benestrophe.
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