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Einstein, Spirituality, and Recovery
by
Lloyd J. Gordon, III, MD
Medical Director of COPAC
Over the years, I have attended many presentations about the difference between spirituality and religion. It seems that at every recovery-related retreat or meeting someone is trying to explain spirituality. We often talk about the need for spirituality to get into recovery and I have often tried to understand why this is so.
Several months ago, I decided to try to understand Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. This theory was published in 1903 before there were many instruments that could have verified it. Einstein did what were called thought experiments, in that he would pose examples of situations and postulate about what the outcome would be. Some of these might be something like "a man is on a train going the speed of light with a tennis ball in one hand and flashlight in the other. Does another man standing in the train station see the light go on or the ball hit the floor first?" I'm just kidding, of course, but this is the idea. As time went on, we developed the capacity and instrumentation to make measurements, which ultimately proved the special theory of relativity.
There are some things about the special theory of relativity that I think apply to spirituality. The first postulate of the special theory of relativity is that the laws of physics hold true for all frames of reference. An example of this would be that when you're riding on an airplane at 500 mph and you drop a ball, it goes straight down. This is the same as it would if you were sitting in a chair stationary on the earth. Even though the airplane is moving while the ball is in the air, it falls straight down. This would not be the case on the outside of the airplane or a car. The second postulate of the special theory of relativity is that the speed of light is measured at a constant speed in all frames of reference. That means that light would be the same speed whether I am going toward it or away from it. As I thought about these, I began to see that spirituality is about a group of concepts that could be defined as spiritual laws. They also hold true for all frames of reference and are constant no matter what the frame of reference. Before I came into recovery and while trying to find recovery, I was a member of several different religious denominations or adhered to several different philosophical practices. In recovery, I've had the opportunity to travel to many places in the world outside of the United States. I have come to see that no matter what your religious preference is, be it Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or any other religion, there is a set of foundation concepts that are the same, no matter which religious denomination. I sense then that these concepts must be universal and that some have been able to see these throughout time. I think that most of these concepts would define a set of spiritual laws. A few examples would be in order. The concept of living one day at a time seems ubiquitous in the current religious and philosophical practices of the world. I remember that when I was trying to get into recovery, I both tried to understand how this works and tried to practice it just because it sounded like a good idea. I did not get into recovery until I understood that I had to learn how this concept worked through the help of other people. I had to be guided and taught how to live one day at a time. I had to practice living one day at a time to develop proficiency.
Another spiritual law is that human beings do better if they have a concept of a Higher Power or power outside of themselves. As I have watched innumerable patients pass through COPAC over 20 years, I have observed this myself. If I think of human beings as simply a machine that needs maintenance and care to continue to run, then the human being/machine runs better with a concept of a Higher Power. There are two ways in which that could have happened that are the two different poles of the spectrum. One, is that we could have evolved that way and it was advantageous to survival. Two, is that there could be a supreme being out there that made us like that. For years, I tried to figure out which one it was and finally understood that it did not make any difference. In my functioning as a human being, I have always been able to do better having a Higher Power. I have observed that other human beings also do better having a Higher Power. It is no longer so important to me why this is true as it is that it works. The proof is in the results, much in the same way as when science developed technology to actually measure some of the physical properties that the special theory of relativity predicted, they were found to be true in all circumstances. The proof was that it worked. Actually, even before the technology was available to prove that the special theory of relativity was true, scientists applied its laws and predictions to the development of innumerable inventions, and found that they worked based on this law being true. In much the same way, as opposed to understanding spiritual principles such as acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, confession, prayer, and meditation, I could simply try these under the guidance of those who have gone before me and see if they work. I finally was able to get into recovery when I gave up the need to understand and simply tried to do what I was being asked to do.
The 12 Steps in fact, are a set of spiritual laws. Everyone that tries to get into recovery is skeptical of these, and we ask how are they going to help me. Or, in a given situation, we state, "that doesn't apply here." Spiritual laws hold true in all frames of reference and are constant. I would encourage you to do the experiment and try living this life of spirituality and see for yourself. |
