DUALITY

Ego and God as We Understood Him: A Non-Dual Awakening

In my life, there came a moment when the struggle to run the show exhausted itself. I tried, failed, tried again, and finally arrived at that quiet edge where my mind whispered: Maybe I don’t have to do this alone.

For me, this prayer offered that invitation:

“God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. 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. Amen.”

At first glance, it’s a prayer of surrender. But over time, it revealed something far deeper, a dissolving, rather than a handing over. For me, this process became less about giving control to God and more about awakening to the truth that I never truly had control in the first place.

Ego and the Illusion of Control

Before I awakened (pulled my head from my ass), I clung to control like it was oxygen. Every situation, every person, every feeling, something in me was always trying to steer, fix, or manipulate. I believed my willpower and selfishness were the engines of survival.

The work I’ve done in recovery, and this prayer in particular, shattered that illusion. It revealed that the “me” who believed it was in charge was itself the source of suffering. The very will I was trying to surrender was the same will creating the chaos.

In my opinion, this is where non-duality and the program, clearly outlined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, meet: both point to the illusion of separateness, the false idea of a “self” apart from life, apart from God. Non-duality doesn’t ask us to believe something new; it asks us to see through what was never true. From this lens, the practice is not the act of surrendering my will, it’s the awakening to the fact that there was never a separate “I” to surrender in the first place.

Non-Duality and the Big Book

It’s worth noting that what we now call non-duality, the understanding that there is no ultimate separation between self, God, and life, didn’t really arrive in the United States until the 1950s and 60s, through the influence of Eastern teachers and writers like Ramana Maharshi, Alan Watts, and later, Nisargadatta Maharaj.

By that time, the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” and the fellowship had already been around for more than a decade. The first edition, fondly referred to as “The Big Book” was published in 1939. What’s fascinating is that the founders of AA, without using any Eastern terminology, were already pointing to a truth that non-dual teachings would later articulate in philosophical terms.

The founders, Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob Smith, along with the early members discovered through experience, not theory, that recovery wasn’t about self-mastery, it was about self-surrender. They spoke in the language of faith, but what they described was the same spiritual realization: that freedom comes when the illusion of control collapses and we awaken to something larger, quieter, and more loving that’s been here all along.

In that sense, the Big Book was expressing a non-dual truth before the term ever reached American ears. The difference is mostly language. The essence is the same.

The Power of Letting Go

The language of the Steps can sound dualistic: “our will,” “God,” “turning it over.” But the experience that arises in true surrender transcends those words.

It has been my experience that when I stop grasping and pushing, when I allow what is already happening to be as it is, I fall into a vast, still awareness. Some call it God, others God consciousness, consciousness, awareness, presence, grace, or love. Whatever the name, it’s the same wordless recognition of unity.

In that silence, the distance between “me” and “God,” “self” and “life,” begins to dissolve. Control softens into trust. Doing dissolves into being.

And what remains is simple: life as it is - alive, whole, and unbroken.

God as We Understood Him

The phrase “God as we understood Him” is one of the most profound pieces of spiritual inclusivity ever written. It opens the door for believers, skeptics, mystics, and seekers alike.

For some, God is personal and intimate. For others, God is not a being at all but the movement of life itself. From a non-dual perspective, this phrase is the pivot point: it invites us to see that the seeker and the sought are not two.

In that realization, “God” is not something to be found but what’s always been here, quietly aware, patiently waiting for recognition.

From Surrender to Awakening

Many describe this step as a decision, a choice to turn our will and lives over to the care of God. But in truth, it’s less of a decision and more of a dawning. Again and again, I return to this simple seeing:

I am not separate from life.
I never was.

The “I” who thought it could control, manage, or surrender was only ever a passing thought in the vastness of what I truly am.

When this is seen, not as an idea, but as a lived experience, the burden lifts. There’s nothing left to hold together. There never was. Something larger, quieter, and infinitely kind has been carrying it all along.

The Prayer Revisited

“God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt ...”

Each time I recite this, I no longer feel a plea from a separate self to a distant God. I feel it as the voice of life itself, surrendering to its own unfolding. The prayer becomes an echo of what’s eternally true:

There is no “me” offering anything.
There is only the movement of grace, already in motion.

This is the real “relief from the bondage of self” - not a temporary reprieve, but the recognition that there never was a separate self to bind or to free.

In Closing: Not Two, Never Were

Seen through the lens of non-duality, this process is not about giving something up, it’s about waking up.

It’s an awakening into the effortless truth that life doesn’t need managing, only meeting. That love doesn’t need to be sought, only seen. That what we call “God” has never been elsewhere.

Bill Wilson wrote that “deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God,” and that while this truth may be obscured by other things, it is never lost. He also spoke of “the great reality deep down within us,” a reality discovered not through striving, but through spiritual experience.

In that light, the process of letting go doesn’t lead us toward God, it gently strips away everything that seemed to stand between.

Not two.
Never were.