The Twelve Tools

by Natti Ronel

  A master can also be an idea, preferably an idea that someone is living, an idea that brings us closer to the life of grace. A master can also find expression in a book, and it is worth asking ourselves what influences we are exposed to through the books we read, the music we listen to, the movies we watch, even the people we meet. Reality does, indeed, manufacture some of these encounters for us, but some of them are subject to our choice, and then we should ask ourselves who is the “master” -- whose influence we want to be exposed to, and to what extent?

  At times, our life-teachers aren’t the ones we would like them to be, and sometimes we’re influenced in a way contrary to what was wanted, contrary to all grace. It’s worthwhile getting used to asking ourselves who is our master at a given moment -- whose influence has been such that we have appointed this person our life-teacher? If we get used to paying attention to the influence exerted over us, then it’s easier to choose it consciously, and expose ourselves to what and to whom we consider to be in harmony with the way we want to live our lives. If there’s someone we know who meets these requirements -- that’s great. We can be helped by them, ask questions, study their examples, and learn from them. If there’s no suitable person around, then we can look for answers in books, in movies, or in history, until we find a figure who fills us with real and positive inspiration, and with that person’s help we can gain some control over the influences that face us. If there’s no positive influence that we can choose for the moment, at least we’ll know that we should beware of the negative -- we’ll unmask it and steer well clear of it.

  Positive symbols

  With the help of the tools, we can live the grace that we want to encounter; we learn how to identify different kinds of influence, and we know from what we should abstain, and to what it’s appropriate to expose ourselves further. In the heat of life, when we are pressured by the unexpected, we don’t always find ourselves under the influence that’s right for us, but actually under influences that are liable to drag us into places where we don’t want to be. This happens, and although we’re aware of it, sometimes it’s as if our strength drains away, our awareness is weakened, and we’re carried away to somewhere that isn’t so good for us. So, what’s to be done?

  When we “make a master for ourselves,” we are identifying a positive influence, usually a person who is perceived as positive, and we want to adopt his or her ways. One of the ways of doing this is to create for ourselves an internal image of a certain master, of positive influence. This image should be crafted in a moment of tranquility, not when the storm is overwhelming us. At the end of the day, or in pleasant moments of leisure, instead of letting our mind veer towards all kinds of misty or dubious visions, we’ll guide it towards the formation of a clear image of a certain master, of the person who symbolizes grace for us. As we become more accustomed to the image of the master, we can internalize it in a more stable manner, in the depths of our consciousness. In moments of distress, we can draw up from the recesses of our minds the image that we have created and imagine that he or she is actually here beside us, instead of being drawn into old habits. The image reminds us of grace, and it stands in opposition to the reality that tries to make us forget it, with its demands. The image of the master and the positive influence reminds us of what we want from ourselves, and encourages us, by virtue of the very existence of the master or of such positive influences.

  For example, there was the case of a young man who was going through a period of heavy use of what are considered soft drugs, a period of his life that he remembered as not at all good. During one of his drug-binges, when he was stoned out of his head among friends who were as stoned as he was, what appeared in his consciousness was a visionary image which appeared completely genuine, of a man he knew before who, for him, symbolized all that was most positive. The image appeared without saying a word, didn’t rebuke him or accuse him of anything, and just raised the simple question: “And what now?” The question reverberated loudly in his heart despite the heavy dose of drugs. Looking back, you could say this was an important stage in the change of direction towards something better from his point of view, a direction with more grace. In this example, the imaginary figure of a known person appeared unbidden, when the defenses of rational thought were inoperative following the surfeit of drugs. But we can create and design the image while we are in a completely sober and serene state, and use it as required.

  Here’s another example: Ethan was a young man, very friendly, but also very impulsive. He tended to react without thinking and regret it later. He was smart, and he decided to change the direction of his life, giving up violence and the desire for instant gratification. In one of our conversations, when we were discussing the stress that was almost a permanent feature of his life, I asked him if he had a place where he felt more at ease, more serene or even elated in some way. Ethan remembered such a place, a small hill on the outskirts of his town, in the countryside. The hill hadn’t been built on, or developed for agriculture, a living natural enclave which hardly anybody knew about. He told me he used to go up there sometimes for the peace and quiet of the place. In the course of the conversation I asked him to imagine he was on the hill and to relive the calm and everything else that the hill infused in him. With a slight effort of concentration, the image grew stronger in his mind, and a pleasant sense of relaxation took over. I suggested he should exercise the image on a regular basis. Quite quickly, he learned to imagine himself on the hill, enjoying the freedom, even in times of external stress.

  The example of Ethan shows us that we can create for ourselves in our minds a place that for us symbolizes calm and serenity. A hill, a field, a seashore, a particularly attractive house, or a yoga class that we frequent. The place itself makes no difference, only the feeling that it inspires in us when we’re there. If there is no physical place known to us which gives us a feeling of serenity, we can look at a certain landscape or imagine a vista that we like to see, that soothes and relaxes us. The image of the place or the vista can certainly be invoked from time to time, by invitation, and we should get used to drawing it out of our memory at the critical moment, when strident reality is pressuring us and we are losing the way and the grace. Like the image of the teacher who influences us, the image of the place can constitute a strong and positive influence, and it’s possible to award it the status of something sacred in the consciousness. Remembering the “holy” place can arouse in us the feeling of holy elation and with it, the ability to rise above momentary distress which pulls us further down than we want to be.

  We’ll sit for a moment in silence and imagine a place like the one I suggested. Let’s scour our minds for the memory of a suitable place and stay there for a while. … Thank you.

  TOOL 7

  Finding within Ourselves

  The world outside us is a challenge on the way to ourselves.

  Let’s take a moment of silence. … let’s go deeper into the silence, leaving everything behind and just looking on from the side, without any response. … let’s call to mind things or situations that usually bother us, or perhaps distress us. We’ll look for three such things, one after the other. Pictures of life in moments of vexation, dejection or distress about something. … Let’s return to the silence and allow these things and the feelings that perhaps arose with them to melt away into the void from which they emerged. Without any judgement or criticism, we’ll watch as our consciousness returns to the silence. We can be helped by being aware of our breathing. … Now let’s call to mind three things or situations that attract us, that are pleasant for us, that we crave, things that can satisfy us if only for a moment. Again, we’ll watch ourselves from the side, as we face these things or situations. We’ll examine, be impressed for a moment, and then leave them behind. Completely. Let’s return to the silence in which everything can melt away. … Thank you.

  External and internal influences

  Let’s look at the things tha
t we called to mind earlier. They can be divided, as I have suggested, according to our response to them -- those that in our experience are negative, vexing, threatening, or distressing, and those that in our experience are positive, attractive, and that afford us a certain satisfaction. Division according to pleasant or unpleasant is acceptable and it’s also useful. But -- it leaves us in our variable subjective experience, without offering anything else.

  Another possible distinction relates to things and situations themselves, those that are external to us and those that are internal. Among the things that came to mind earlier, it’s easy to see that some of them represent something that is external to us -- perhaps connected with another person, perhaps with circumstances external to us or with something else that is situated in the world. We can see how things external to us influence us and we respond to them out of positive or negative experience. Unless we’re granted the gift of living in total freedom from dependence, being influenced by things external to us is a natural situation for us, and we must come to terms with this. But any external influence can confuse us, and the external world can dominate us through its influence on us; sometimes this is pleasant, especially when drawing on experience that we’ve described as positive, and sometimes it’s unpleasant for us, out of negative experience. Sometimes a positive experience is liable to run out of control, and then there’s an influence which isn’t so desirable. For example, when we surf on the internet, and it seems we’re incapable of stopping the surfing and doing something else with the computer, something that we undertook to do, or that we should do. There are also times when we sink into a feeling of immediate external satisfaction, even though experience shows us that it will end poorly. For example, physical satisfaction that comes at a price -- as with inappropriate sexual relationships which are afterwards regretted, eating something that isn’t healthy for us, pleasing somebody in the hope of gaining momentary appreciation, an effort doomed to failure, and other examples.

  Other things that have come into our minds represent something that is internal to us. For example, I met somebody who described what was vexing him, his fear of his response to angry words addressed to him. He knew from experience that if it even seemed to him that someone was angry with him, he would be liable to “lose it” completely and respond with strong and aggressive anger. It worried him that he was so sensitive, reacting in a way that afterwards he regretted. His tendency towards anger was the internal thing that vexed and distressed him. But the tendency towards anger is an internal response with a view to the outside, to other people. He was worried about what people would say or do, and he was all tensed up, responding in haste to any perceived threat. He was worried by his propensity to respond, but we’re talking about something internal that’s influenced by the outside. Thus, the fears and desires that came up for some of us as troublesome or pleasant things are an internal response turned towards the outside or influenced by the outside. Can something exist which is only internal and not directed outwards? Liberated from external influence? How can it be found? Why is it worth the effort?

  The tool, “Finding in Ourselves” directs us towards looking until we find something internal, which isn’t directed outwards and is liberated from external influence. When we start to examine ourselves, it seems that everything existing in our consciousness, feelings, instinct, sensibility and even thought, have some external connection, and they reflect the external influence on us. Something outside us serves for us as an object which arouses an internal process, and we respond to the outside world and are motivated by it. The external world guides us according to the stimuli which it sets up for us. Sometimes the world is pleasant, and sometimes less pleasant, even horrible. In any case, the external world influences us to the point of controlling us. If we want a little freedom, we should be aware of the world’s influence over us, and we should also know that there is another possibility, which is suggested by the tool, “Finding in Ourselves.”

  Listening to Intuition

  Let’s take a break with a moment of silence. We’ll call to mind the memory of an incident in which inner knowledge occurred to us, telling us the right thing to do or the right decision to make, but not on the basis of logical thought alone. It could be an incident in which we had clear inner knowledge that something was about to happen, and it did indeed happen in a manner like what we had foreseen. We can choose in our memories between a number of such examples. … Thank you.

  A woman goes to a job interview. The interview goes well from her point of view and she impresses the interviewer favorably. She also listens to the anticipated terms of employment and these are acceptable to her. Additionally, she has the impression that the interviewer was pleasant and friendly. It seems it’s all going well. But when she gets home and thinks about the offer she’s received, she feels a vague sense of unease. Not on account of anything she could “put her finger on,” but a general feeling of unease coming from within. She has no logical explanation for this. She tells her boyfriend about the interview and the anticipated terms of employment and her impressions of the workplace and the nature of the job, and the boyfriend agrees that the job-offer is absolutely right for her. But the unease doesn’t go away; on the contrary, it intensifies. The more she thinks about starting to work there, which seemed to be just what she wanted, the unease grows stronger, and she has no explanation for this. She consults another friend and tries to clarify things with her; maybe something was said in the course of the interview that aroused reservations, but nothing occurs to her, just an inexplicable sense of unease.

  Usually, our regular knowledge includes material that we take in from the outside world, and also the thoughts and feelings that are aroused in us as response to this material. For example, after an interview we analyze for ourselves the facts that we know and the feelings aroused in us, and reach a conclusion. But sometimes, another source of knowledge arises from inside us, and we’re not sure where it originated, but it speaks in a clear voice in our consciousness, and it could be completely different from the knowledge that depends on external sources We call this voice intuition. Is it possible to rely on intuition, and in what circumstances?

  The tool, “Distinguishing Facts” taught us not to act according to thoughts or feelings that self-centeredness presents to us, distorting our perception of reality. On the other hand, we have intuition, an inner source of information which is not a distortion of reality, but a knowledge of it. Intuition is a means of grasping certain facts in our reality, without relying on feelings, on emotion or on thoughts. When we examine ourselves in various life-situations, sometimes we distinguish the moments when intuition reverberated loudly in our consciousness, demanding our attention and trying to tell us something about reality. Thus, in the example described above, intuition tried to tell her that something about the potential workplace wasn’t right for her. Intuition was expressed for her in the form of growing unease, and it tried to prevent her from taking the job.

  Another example – a young man was chatting with a friend in a café. Something said in the course of the conversation drew the attention of a young woman sitting at a nearby table and she joined in their conversation, politely. They chatted casually, and it turned out that she had made the right connection, and they did indeed have mutual friends. With this, the meeting between them ended. When the young man got home, he felt a sudden strong urge to get to know her. Something more than just flirting with a woman he met in a café who took his fancy. He had an overpowering sense of having met her before, as if she was an old acquaintance and they hadn’t met in a long time. An opportunity arose to try and meet her and sort this out. His normal thought-processes vetoed this idea, because it didn’t seem logical, and added to this, his natural bashfulness usually stopped him from flirting with women whom he met by chance. But this time, there was something else. The other voice was so strong that he succeeded in conveying its intensity to me in a meeting that we had, and we explored
the option of continuing to act in accordance with his familiar bashfulness as opposed to the option of listening to his intuition, and in the end, he chose the latter. Through their mutual friends he located her, and it turned out that she had a similar feeling. In the time that has elapsed since then, the good romantic relationship established between them has gone from strength to strength.

  Since the inner voice of intuition is expressed in the mind through feelings and thought, like the sense of unease that was described before, it isn’t that easy to distinguish between intuition and feelings. One of the signs is that intuition has an inner voice which is clearly heard, if people learn to listen to it. This isn’t a logical summation or normal feelings responding to the world, but an inner voice that deviates from the normal order of things. Sometimes, the voice relates to reality and its stimuli, and sometimes, the voice seems to have no connection at all with the world that’s exposed to our senses. In moments when our minds are relatively uncluttered, intuition is clear and lucid. In other moments, when our minds are trapped by self-centeredness, the voice of intuition is silenced. With the aid of the various tools, we can clarify our minds a little, and then look for the voice of intuition in various situations, with the help of the “Finding in Ourselves” tool, which guides us towards seeking knowledge that is aroused inside us and examining it with all appropriate seriousness. The more we get used to finding intuition inside ourselves and listening to it, in the form of clear knowledge in unexpected situations, the more we shall find.