“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” — Teilhard de Chardin
“The present difficulty is that the man thinks he is the doer… It is the Higher Power which does everything, and the man is only a tool.” — Ramana Maharshi
“There is only One, Unique, Absolute, Infinite Existence… He shows you He is yourself, then shows you that all else is Him.” — Bülent Rauf, Addresses II
“It is an evident fact that true communities and organisations ‘run down’ and develop peculiarities other than were present in their origins…” — Idries Shah, Learning How To Learn (The Coming Together Method)
There comes a point in this journey when the reader must be told something plainly:
The Twelve Step Programme, which has healed more lives from addiction than any other single framework in modern history, is not a modern invention. It is a rediscovery of principles that are ancient, subtle, and deeply rooted in the inner science of the soul.
Idries Shah called one aspect of this inner science “The Coming Together Method” — a way of dissolving ego, bringing people into the right kind of relationship, and allowing a higher intelligence to work through a group. Over time, he warned, such methods “run down” when their outer form is preserved but their inner purpose is forgotten.
The Sufis have known this for centuries: any living method can harden into structure, ritual, and habit. The original fire cools. The dance becomes choreography. Stabilisation replaces transformation. The same danger applies to all traditions — including, eventually, to the Twelve Step fellowships and any new work like DRT.
The Twelve Steps and the Ancient Arc
The Twelve Steps did not emerge from theology or psychology alone. They arose from lived desperation, filtered through a consciousness that happened, by grace, to align with an older design.
That design is expressed most directly in an ancient Sufi saying:
“I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known. So I created the world that I should be known.”
This is the arc of Consciousness itself:
- from hiddenness to manifestation,
- from fragmentation to unity,
- from isolation to Withness,
- from Mankind to Humankind,
- from de-pair into re-pair.
The Twelve Steps are effective because they align with this arc. They do not merely help people stop using a substance. They clear the obstructions that prevent the Hidden Treasure from being known through a human life.
Step One breaks the illusion of self-sufficiency. Step Two opens the possibility of a Greater Power. Step Three hands the ego’s steering wheel back. Steps Four through Nine cleanse and reorder the inner field. Steps Ten and Eleven maintain the relationship. Step Twelve lets the overflow serve others so it does not stagnate.
This is not moral reform. It is the architecture of Consciousness unfolding according to its original pattern.
The Journey From Desire to Decision
Before Step Four ever occurs, something quieter happens. Every genuine recovery begins with three movements:
- Desire (Step One) — “I can’t do this anymore.” The collapse of the false self.
- Possibility (Step Two) — “Maybe I can be helped.” A crack in the armour.
- Decision (Step Three) — “I turn my will and life over…” A surrender of doership.
Ramana Maharshi described this moment perfectly: the human being suffers because they think they are the doer. Step Three ends that illusion.
The Steps as Be–hav(e)–i–our
The deeper arc of the Twelve Steps is encoded in one English word: Be–hav(e)–i–our.
Steps One and Two form the ignition: the pressure of desire and the first glimmer of possibility. Without this ignition, nothing moves.
Then the word itself opens out as a map:
- BE — Steps 3, 7, and 11
These are the three alignments. Step 3 surrenders will and life. Step 7 surrenders self-architecture in humility. Step 11 surrenders isolation through conscious contact. Together they restore the person to Being — to the One who has all Power. - HAV(E) — Steps 4, 5, and 6
Here the person works with what is held. Step 4 reveals it. Step 5 speaks it. Step 6 becomes entirely ready to let it go. This is the purification of the inner field so the Hidden Treasure can begin to shine. - I– — Steps 8, 9, and 10
The “I” re-enters relationship. Step 8 prepares to repair. Step 9 enacts repair. Step 10 maintains repair through continual inventory. The isolated self is stitched back into the fabric of the All. - OUR — Step 12
When the vessel is clear, it overflows. Step 12 is not duty but overflow: the recovered “I” becoming “our”, carrying the message to all who still suffer, living as an instrument of the One on behalf of the All.
This is not a clever play on a word. It is a behavioural anatomy that the Steps make visible: ignition in Steps 1 and 2; alignment in BE; purification in HAV(E); repair in I–; overflow in OUR.
The One and the All
There are two three-letter words that determine whether a person ripens into recovery. Neither is “God.” The words are One and All.
One is the recognition behind Step Three: that there is only One Power acting, one Reality moving everything, one Source living through every form.
All is the outward movement: making amends to all persons harmed; continuing in all our affairs; carrying the message to all who still suffer. Unity realised inwardly must express itself outwardly.
This is Ibn Arabi’s Journey to the Lord of Power: from the many to the One, and from the One back to the many, now perceived as One.
DRT and the Template of Hope
DRT does not exist to put everyone into a Twelve Step fellowship. Its task is subtler: to help people recognise that we are all living inside an Addictive System that fragments attention and de-pairs us from our own depth, from others, and from Source.
In such a world, the Twelve Step template becomes a universal architecture of hope — because its principles resonate with the original design of Consciousness. DRT does not force ripeness. It simply helps the tree reconnect with sun and water.
The Condition of the Vessel
The Hidden Treasure shines according to the condition of the vessel. A heart clouded by fear, shame, addiction, trauma, or left-hand dominance cannot reflect the Treasure clearly. The Treasure is not absent — merely obscured.
A muddy pool reflects nothing. When the water settles, the face of the sky appears.
The Steps do not ask people to “find God.” They ask them to settle the water. And when they do, even briefly, clarity appears, compassion rises, and human love becomes possible again.
DRT helps people recognise the state of their water. It names left-hand and right-hand conditions not as moral failings but as vibrational states. When the water clears, the movement toward Withness is natural.
A Physiology of Surrender
The body must become still before the soul can hear. A modern echo of this is the Relaxation Response: sit quietly, breathe gently, repeat a neutral word on the exhale, return gently when the mind wanders. This is not mysticism — it is physiological surrender.
The Coming Together Method, Now
Shah’s warning applies everywhere: when stabilisation replaces transformation, the water stagnates. The Coming Together Method existed to keep the inner fire alive. The Twelve Steps rediscovered this structure in the West. DRT now emerges as a clarifying bridge between them.
DRT does not ripen the fruit; it honours the design already in the human being — a design that began as a Hidden Treasure longing to be known.
Some will hear this as metaphor. Some will feel it as truth. Some will turn away until life ripens them further. But for those ready even a little, this recognition can be the beginning of peace.
In this way, the Twelve Steps, the Sufi method, and DRT are not three systems but three expressions of one arc, one mercy, one intention: that what was hidden may be known, and what is broken may become transparent enough for Light to pass through.
An Invitation to the Reader
If something in this chapter stirs you — a longing, a curiosity, a sense of recognition — honour it. You are not being asked to believe anything. You are being invited to look.
Research the names that draw you. Follow the threads that tug at you. Let your own curiosity become your guide. The One meets anyone who steps toward truth, and the All quietly rearranges itself to assist that step.












