11th Step thoughts

Dave's posting on the Third Step and the Noble Eight Fold path has gotten me to thinking about the role of the 11th Step in the spiritual path of AA.  The connection is simple: when I think of Buddhism I think of meditation.
My home group meets at 6 AM and about 5 or 6 months ago we started holding a short meditation session in a separate room 20 minutes before the main meeting.  Now, admittedly 5:40 is a bit early, but it is striking that of the 50 - 70 people we get at the 6 AM meeting only 3 - 5 usually show up for the meditation.  I don't think we've ever had more than 7.  That strikes me as a pretty low figure.

Bill W. was in a depression for 12 years that only broke when he realized his excessive dependence on the approval of other people.  It seems to me that dependence on others' approval is precisely the kind of false quest for happiness that the Steps, and especially the 11 Step, are meant to expose and hand over to our Higher Power.  Yet when I hear people talk about the 11th Step it is generally in reference to prayer.  My impression is that relatively few of us are meditating on a regular basis and I wonder about the effect this has on our programs.

Another indication:  I'm pretty sure I have never heard of a meeting or a sponsor giving the kind of detailed attention to the 11th Step that is virtually always given to the 4th (and yes, I am including discussions of the chapter in the 12 + 12 on the 11th Step).

In Divine Therapy and Addiction Thomas Keating refers to "a merely external working of the Twelve Steps" possibly leaving us looking for happiness in the wrong places - like approval, security, and power.  Perhaps more attention to the 11th Step, on its own and in relation to Steps 6, 7, and 10, is called for as a means of avoiding skimming through the Steps.