Two twentieth-century English writers dominated the subject of what the future holds for mankind. One of them saw that future as a dreary, eternal war between three world powers, with citizens under constant surveillance from their governments. The other -- who has turned out to be more accurate -- saw the future in terms of increasing diversions for a bored, passive, and over-stimulated population, whose problems could always be solved by a dose of soma.

In a little-known short story, that second writer makes the following rather odd statement:

The supernatural is exciting. But I don't want to love the supernatural. I want to love the natural.

One of the interesting things that comes out of meditation, as we practice Step 11, is that we come to see that what we find in our practice is not something that is other-worldly or unreal. Instead, we discover that meditation puts us in touch with the "natural," with what is really here and now; and that the majority of our lives when we are not meditating is spent, not in dealing with the realities of existence, but with the memories of yesterday and the hopes and fears of tomorrow.

After only a short period of commitment to daily meditation, this awareness of the "reality" of our practice starts to become compelling. Like the writer mentioned above, we are no longer much interested in finding God as we understand God in the supernatural. We prefer to encounter God in the reality of the present moment.