“On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.” (Chapter Six, Big Book)
I was at a meeting recently where they read out part of the Step Eleven from the Big Book, encouraging direct communication with God. They did this by way of introduction to a ten-minute meditation we were going to engage in. They then added their own reading on how to meditate, which was not from the Big Book. They encouraged us to adopt a specific posture, and they told us how to breathe. They told us not to engage in our thoughts, to let them pass by, and to come back to the breath and the body.
These are opposite sets of instructions. God is in the metaphysical realm, not in my toes, spine, or breath or in the room, just to the left, by the boiler. God is to be found through the mind, not by exiting the mind. Mindlessness is not mindfulness. Real mindfulness is about remaining in the mind, and thinking consciously, deliberately, carefully, and concentratedly on deserving matters in order to communicate to God through words and through listening to how God replies through inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision.