Spiritual adepts are sometimes called 'seers' because of their ability to ‘see’ meaning into past or future events.  Any of us can improve our ability to 'see.' We admit our limits as well as our willingness to grow in this area. In other words, we must literally ‘seek’ the ability to clearly ‘see’ the spiritual reality. We ask for God’s help in every area of life while we are learning to use greater powers to better ourselves and make us more nearly fit instruments of a loving God. We learn to assume the attitude of someone who is sincere and believes that prayer will produce results. A myriad of different groups that practice meditation exist outside of Narcotics Anonymous. Nearly all these groups practice a particular religion or philosophy. An endorsement of any of these methods would be a violation of our Traditions. It would also clearly place a restriction on the individual's right to have a God of his/her understanding. When we stick to the definition of meditation is simply getting still, quiet, and listening for our Higher Power’s guidance. This definition allows us one of us to develop spiritually in our own way. Meditation allows us to reconsider some of the things that didn't work for us in the past because they might work today. We can also envision possible futures in time to make changes for the better. We can catch on to errors of judgement brought on by the new choices life offers us and our inexperience at dealing with life in favorable situations.

Over the years, we may have heard it stated many times that meditations would allow us to ‘see’ the path to follow. We amazing seemed left in the dark as to how to choose the paths to follow and how to go about this. Most assuredly, there is as wide of a range of meditative techniques as there are people. In NA, we do not promote no method of meditation above the others nor urge all of our members to follow one particular method, just meditate! This however, doesn’t mean that we cannot outline any variety of practices that we know. We have that freedom and responsibility. ‘Meditations’ open the inner self in order to obtain a higher spiritual nature. To create unity between the two is, broadly speaking, the purpose of meditation. One type of meditation proposes that one choose an object on which to focus - a seed of thought, a mantra, a scene in nature, a symbol, or a quality. A second method is simply a way of observing one’s thought process. We will attempt to share some very simple meditative exercises of both types here.

Before starting, it may help to take a sheet of paper and jot down some of our motives for wanting to meditate. For instance, we may want to find an inner teacher, achieve a spiritual calm, or enhance our personality through meditation. Many of us may simply want to escape from tension, anger, self-obsession, or other personal limitations. When we examine our motives, we note the reasons and look at our needs. This simple procedure will provide us with a rational goal from our meditations. We may ask ourselves questions such as: "What are some of the everyday thoughts that habitually distract me from the job at hand? What clues do these powerful distractions provide me with about my inner state?"

Please share any experiences that you may have with meditation to those asking for help in this area. Sharing an experience, giving it away, is how things become real for you and extends our own progress. Usually, there is a calm certainty that accompanies the constant, supportive feedback that we associate with having knowledge of God's will. Frequent obstacles, unusual delays, and supportive criticism should cause us to pause and consider whether what we're doing is spiritual or self-willed. This is not to imply that ‘doing God's will’ is always easy. Sometimes all we can do to go on and the dream or vision of what God wants us to do remains visible. We want a practical and tangible way to implement these visions just like with many of our attitudes regarding spirituality. If what we're attempting to do seems to be too troublesome, frustrating, or awkward, maybe we should look at alternatives and ask others for suggestions. If after we question and remain certain inside of the way, we may need to pray to receive the additional strength that we need to carry out God's will for us. As addicts, we have a problem with taking on too much, often more than we can handle.

With surrender, faith, and the ability to act without going against our true spiritual nature, we discover that when we don’t go against our own nature and we don't go against others as often. Our sense of what is right and wrong shifts from the confusion of addiction to something more sensible. While the past may remain confusing for a while, our present becomes clearer to us. Many of us discover, perhaps for the first time in our lives, that ‘moral’ is a way to experience more rather than a judgement. Spirituality gives us new ways through which we can experience reality. We can get more done in our lives as we discover that spiritual principles are tools for shaping our lives just as we can get more done at work with the proper tools and supplies. Along with meditation, we may find other words useful. Contemplation and reflection describe two internal processes that have the power to release or direct our spiritual energy. Contemplation is, in a simple form, when we just sit and stare while wide-awake while our minds dwell on some troubling aspect of our life. Many of us use this technique to still our mind while keeping our eyes open. When we ‘tune out’ enough of the external chatter and shove our basic desires out of the way, we discover thoughts and feelings buried deep inside. We know that these will never go away until we give them the time and attention they deserve.

We can test our ideas, thinking patterns, and feelings by meditative reflection. This reflection involves no great mystery, trick, or single technique by which we can to this. Just by sitting quietly, we can eventually reach a level where we can discover our mistakes, gain enthusiasm, or change our mind without the pain and embarrassment of ‘failure.’ Many of us became accustomed to feeling jerked along by life that we couldn’t pause and settle down within ourselves before feeling forced to action. A principle of living clean is that by taking care of what we can do, we gain momentum to make other improvements. Reflection might be another word that some substitute for meditation but it may better describe the process of sending out thoughts or trying on feelings without the necessity to act on them. The basic difference between these terms seems to be indirect visions of reflections as compared to the direct insight of meditation. Directly dealing with many things is most the most desirable method and we should do this wherever possible. Recovery allows us to step out of the bleak, desolate landscape of addiction into a changing landscape where unfamiliar abilities, responsibilities, and demands continuously appear. Being able to explore these things privately without the risk of ‘being wrong’ brings us an advantage in reality. Reflection is a clear-headed and simple way in which we can envision something and think it through before we commit ourselves to action.

One simple way to begin reflective contemplation is to focus our attention completely on any bright point of light that is convenient to where we’re sitting. As our attention becomes riveted on this point of light, we find ourselves awake and feeling intensified in a manner that most of us call ‘regaining our senses’. Many have asked, "Is self-reliance a safe practice for an addict?" Some may answer, "No." How does this relate to Tradition Seven, "being fully self-supporting"? What about simply trusting our feelings? Can we rely on our feelings to guide us? Why would we have them if we couldn't? Did God create these feelings just to confuse us? Of course not! The disease of addiction would have us believe that God is our primary source of confusion, maybe even our only one. God is the source of our clarity, He gives us the ability to see things as they really are. We can begin to sort out our feelings and our thoughts as we attempt be more God-centered. We learn how to trust these God-inspired thoughts and feelings. We know that when our feelings or thinking gets confused, it's the disease attacking us. When our thoughts and feelings are clear and we are at peace with them, it's God. Telling ourselves this is the way we learn to trust ourselves and know that God is working in our lives. We need to act out on these inspirations and affirmations by sharing our feelings and thoughts with the people with whom we share our lives.