The Twelve Tools

by Natti Ronel

  When we are used to repeating a prayer, something in our intentions starts to change. Sometimes the change comes with the knowledge that we’re not alone, that someone is listening to the prayer. Are we, ourselves, the listener? We’ll be content with the understanding that the listener to the prayer is one who transcends our terrestrial awareness and can be us without any identification, individual or otherwise. The question, “Who is listening?” isn’t relevant. When we gain the knowledge that there is a listener to the prayer -- this is a privilege that shouldn’t be taken for granted -- practicing the prayer creates a direct connection with the entity that is listening. At first it seems to us that the communication is one-sided, from us to the one who hears the prayer -- He is that He is (In the Book of Exodus, chap. 3, 14, when Moses asks God for His name, God replies “I am that I am”). But this sensation of one-sided communication is caused by the fog of our self-centeredness and old habits. With time and perseverance, something extra is opened in the communication channel and we realize that the communication is two-way, even understanding, at a certain stage, that it was always like this, the listener to our prayer tried time after time to establish contact with us and we were impervious to it. The prayer is intended for us -- to open up our blockage and make it possible for the communication to flow. This is an astonishing experience which gives a different significance to all spiritual practices and to life in general, and it’s only the beginning of living the spirit.

  One of the traps set out before us when we start engaging in spiritual practices is thinking that these practices are the essence of living the spirit. Practices, however beneficial and important they may be, are only practices. They prepare us and bring us closer to realization of the idea of living the spirit; they create order and stability and they also guarantee progress. But only on condition that they are done with intentions that see beyond the practices, thus preventing the practice itself from turning into our higher power, as happens with many people who belong to the institutionalized religions.

  Life of the spirit in the everyday

  What is the meaning of living the spirit? A big and complex question, and the answer tries to be simple. The goal is that more and more our activity will be directed towards the spirit and will help us to move closer to the spirit. In every activity in the transient world, we should remember what isn’t transient. For example, an outstanding characteristic of the transient is the multiplicity that exists in the world and the experience of separation and divisiveness. The non-transient is The One who exists at the basis of all things, in whom there is no separation or divisiveness. Accordingly, it’s possible to think, while performing our daily tasks, in a way that brings people and things closer together in unity, in a way that sees what is shared, in a way that looks for The One who is in the midst of the multiplicity. If we relate to other people out of understanding of The One that we are all a part of, others are perceived for a moment to be close to us, despite divisive feelings and mutual self-centeredness. The way to attain a perception of human closeness is to see ourselves as if, indeed, “wearing the shoes” of the other in every human encounter. We can see ourselves in the shoes of the market trader who may be trying to exploit us for a small profit, or the shoes of the motorist who cuts us off on the road, or the person who needs our help, or even the person we wanted to exploit for our own benefit. If we are capable for a moment of being like them and in the eyes of the spirit, they and we are identical, we are all one, our relationship to them has already changed. The transient, the temporary, the divided, turns into a channel of spiritual communication, on the way to leaving consciousness behind, for the sake of the non-transient and the undivided.

  Into our daily activity we can introduce the simple realization that the Divine presence, as we understand it, is with us every moment. We can start by playing the mental game of “if”: if we were aware at this moment that God -- the Divine Being, is present here and now, how would we behave? What would we do, say, think? Would we behave in the same way as before, or would we be more cautious, less liable to let ourselves drift, more sensitive to what is called “holy fear?” This being so, we can act “as if.” As if we know that God is here and now, seeing God, hearing or sensing Him. With the realization of the Divine presence -- even though it’s still only “as if” -- and the appropriate choice of behavior, we’re already living the spirit. Subsequently, we start to feel the closeness that shows us the way, the closeness of God who is present here and now. This is a big change in our perspective, which gives us hope and strength when we meet external conditions that aren’t easy. Just then, when a survival need arises in the face of a world that is experienced as hostile, remembering the Divine helps us to know grace and love despite the pressure of life. That remembrance of the Divine helps us not to lose the way and ourselves. When, in moments of distress, we keep our focus on the Divine presence or on our spiritual quest, we notice that things work themselves out in the end. Maybe not in the way we wanted at the outset, but we have the ability to accept things without complaints and disappointments. Our ability to accept setbacks and unpleasant outcomes grows with our focus on God and on His presence, even when we’re only acting “as if,” but out of intention and volition.

  Living the spirit expresses completely free choice, the only free choice that’s possible for us. It is a choice which emanates from us only, and not from self-centeredness, which is influenced by a million or more factors, and not under the pressure of the environment or of other elements, old habits, memories, and conditionings. Personal self-choice, when we move away from self-centeredness, is no longer personal or selfish or constrained by time, and then it’s completely free, even from the personal and the self.

  When we aim to live the spirit, there’s a distinction or an understanding which helps us to put things in order, and this is that every action we perform expresses our choice -- what we choose to do and how we choose to do it. But completion of the task, which depends on a great multiplicity of factors, most of them unknown and unexpected, isn’t in our hands. The results of the action are outside the range of our control or our responsibility. Living the spirit is expressed in the knowledge that we have responsibility for the action itself, but the results are in the hands of God, as we understand Him, who is responsible for all the other factors that aren’t under our control. In this insight there is relief and ease, together with a focus on our ability to choose well and to take responsibility for our actions. Similarly, knowledge that the results of the action are in God’s hands reminds us of the Divine presence, even amid the daily tasks.

  The distinction between action and results, or more accurately, the focus on the manner of doing, which will be directed towards the spirit and not towards the result, is expressed in the idea of “non-doing” (“Wu Wei” in Chinese). This idea is a basic tenet of Taoism according to Lao Tzu, who presents the sage as someone who does without doing, and thus lets the Tao, which is divinity and love, do what it does. The sages are not shy of work, but they work without tying themselves to particular results, and their work is something that stands in its own right, free and correct according to the yardstick of the spirit. A similar idea also occurs in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita. The simple way to accomplish it is to free oneself from expectation of any specific result, and to focus on the introduction of grace into action. If the work is done in a way that lives the grace, then the very action is its own result, and we encounter grace in the course of action, whatever the outcomes may be, since they’re not in our hands but in the hands of God.

  So far, things sound nice and ideal, but life is complicated. Hence, there is another aspect of living the spirit, which is connected with everyday activity, and this is recognizing “Who is my higher power?” at a given moment. We’ve already discussed the idea of “Who is my teacher?” -- when we turned our attention to the various influences affecting us. To the same degree, there are various forces which are trying to influence us and somet
imes they turn into a higher power for us, whether we’re aware of their influence or we deny it completely. We can look at ourselves from the side and see the action of the forces that are “higher for a moment” over us: the power of money and property, the power of instinct, lust and hedonism, and at times, the pursuit of honor or dominion over ourselves and over others and the world. There are also forces that we experience as negative, arousing pain or suffering in us, such as disease or financial distress; when we try to get away from them, they are actually controlling us like any other higher power. Even other people can turn, for a short or long moment, into a higher power in our lives, whether we view them as positive or negative. With a little sincerity, we can see how any influence might turn into a higher power for us, and know that what is happening in these cases is simple idolatry, in which the idols change to the rhythm of our self-centeredness, with its changeable fears and desires. With a little more sincerity, we can see that at certain moments we are, almost all of us, idol-worshippers, sometimes worshipping them with great joy, in the vain hope that they will supply what seems to be missing from our lives. They offer us fleeting gratification, but usually, it only intensifies the sense of deficiency and emptiness. “Living the spirit” tells us to be aware of the existence of various idols and shows us how to choose what isn’t an idol, the choice of the spirit, of the Divine. We give up on the satisfaction or the fear that the different idols have to offer, and then we feel the satisfaction that isn’t dependent on anything and the grace that transcends the usual fears.

  The tools in the service of the spirit

  The first tool is Abstinence. According to the Ramchal (a.k.a. Rabbi Moses Chaim Luzzato) the first principle of the spiritual journey is caution. In a similar vein, the first rule of medicine is “First do no harm” (Primum non Nocera). On the journey of living the spirit too, we don’t want to cause harm or injury, so we are cautious and refrain absolutely from doing anything that is liable to lead us far from the way of the spirit. Examples of this include hurting others or ourselves or sinking into compulsive behavior, which obstructs our minds and blights our lives. At the start of our journey of change, when we experience some kind of distress, the motive for abstinence is usually desire and longing that the distress will stop. But when the desire and longing are to live the spirit, they also constitute the primary motive for abstinence and caution in our actions, so we can progress on the way of the spirit without diverging from it. Thus, we take care and refrain from any behavior which could harm someone else, and not only behavior which damages us with its compulsiveness. We strive to bring grace into the world and not injury, and harming others obstructs the Graceway and the way of the spirit.

  “Living the Spirit” suggests to us a way of managing our lives, and how to function in the thicket of changing life. The suggestion is that spiritual intention will be the focus of our minds and it will guide our activity. But what kind of activity are we talking about? We are indeed concerned with the manner by which we operate, and the reflected principle of activity, but all the same, there are activities which conform to our focus in the spirit, or at least they don’t contradict it, and there are those which simply don’t conform. For example, a person who isn’t addicted to drugs or alcohol can, apparently, drink to the point of intoxication or get high on drugs as he pleases. It seems that use of these substances won’t lead him into a state of growing powerlessness and therefore, the use of them doesn’t constitute a blemish from a social or personal point of view. But to get drunk or high voluntarily contradicts the desire to live the spirit, since in moments of intoxication, there is no freedom of choice at all, no grace, and no divinity in our consciousness. In mind-changing there is a large quantity of self-centeredness, and the probability that it will grow larger still. The question isn’t whether to get stoned or not, but whether there’s an aspiration to be freed from self-centeredness and grow out of it in the direction of the Divine, or to remain satisfied with the status quo. If we want spiritual development from our life and ourselves, we will not compromise over what is considered acceptable but disrupts the way of the spirit.

  When we choose such a view of life and of ourselves in life, then an appreciable quantity of the leisure activities with which we’re accustomed to passing the time can be seen in another way, wasting time and life rather than spending time. What is suggested here is a kind of self-moderation in all areas of life which will help to find a way of freeing ourselves from self-centeredness, but this is not a recommendation of celibacy or asceticism, not at all. Living the spirit is expressed in the ability to practice moderation by choice and with happiness, in full non-attachment to the affairs of the world in which we function, “in the spirit of a loving God.”

  For example, if a woman drinks a little wine at a social event -- good health to her, so long as the drinking doesn’t influence her state of mind, but being in a group that drinks itself into crude oblivion obstructs the way of the spirit. Similarly, to go into a casino and bet extravagantly contradicts the desire to progress on the way of the spirit, especially if the priority is the urge to make a quick and easy profit. We can go further and look at other behaviors and ask ourselves simply what they represent, how they are done, what stands behind them, what social atmosphere do they reflect, and so forth. Then we will know where to locate the behavior from the perspective of the way of spirit and of grace. The study of behavior is linked with all spheres in life. What stands before our eyes is how a certain activity is done and if there are motives directed towards grace or the kind that strengthen self-centeredness, and not only if harm has been caused to somebody, or if the behavior is legal. We shall strive as far as possible to choose grace, and if there’s something that’s liable to plunge us into self-centeredness, it’s preferable to avoid it, and abstinence becomes a tool that reinforces life with the spirit.

  An event that happened many years ago in a Narcotics Anonymous group in Tel Aviv sums up well what has been said here about abstinence in the service of the spirit. A veteran member of the group (clean for about three years) found himself in an unpleasant situation: a police officer came to his house with an arrest warrant, relating to an old fine that hadn’t been paid. On the warrant itself some of the member’s personal details were missing. ID number. The police officer, under the impression that here was a reasonable young man (he came from a distinguished family, with looks to match), made him a tempting offer: “Because some personal details are missing, you can say it isn’t you and it’s an easy way out for you.” The member’s family accepted the offer with alacrity but the member himself objected --it would be a lie to say the fine wasn’t his, because he remembered the fine that hadn’t been paid. In his opinion, this lie would be opposed to the message of the program and opposed to the will of God. The program was more important to him than anything else, and he wanted to uphold the will of God, so he couldn’t tell a lie. Despite the protests of his family, he took the rap voluntarily.

  The second tool, Just for Today, is activated to help us live the spirit when we are struggling with temptations that are trying to divert us from the way. We’ll remind ourselves that we are living the spirit “just for today,” in the current segment of time, so it’s easier to defer the various temptations until later. The moment that we call “later,” to which occasional temptations are deferred, doesn’t have to come at all.

  What’s suggested here is a kind of division between two fundamental possibilities of choice and action that stand before us at a given moment -- the one that aspires to live the spirit and the other, which is earth-bound. This separation is accepted in most spiritual traditions. For example, Rumi, the medieval Sufi sage, describes the nature of animals as instinctive and the nature of angels as spiritual and divine. Members of these two categories are not able to make their own choices, and they function according to their nature, which is implanted in them from the start. Mankind, on the other hand, is in the middle. Only we have the ability to
choose. It’s obvious that we are far from having absolute choice and there are times when our intentions aren’t clean and aren’t focused only on the spirit. We are liable to find ourselves aspiring to live the spirit, but, in fact, living the material and the terrestrial, as has been said (Matthew, chap. 5, 41): “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” “Just for Today” helps us to accept our imperfect struggle on the way and thus advance on it.

  In order to live the spirit, “just for today” asks us a relevant question -- how do we want the future to be? As things have been in the past? Taking the pain of the past, the lack of meaning and absence of satisfaction in it, into the future? Doing more of the same thing? “Just for Today” suggests that we can change something small, so that in the future a change will occur. Accordingly, it suggests that our intentions should be aimed at the highest point, and with this, the present is already starting to be like that, even in an initial and limited way, and in this, it’s already different. We create anew the story in which we’re living. What was -- was; it’s gone, and what will be is different and could even be a pleasant surprise from a spiritual point of view This is a refreshing perception according to which, at any moment it’s possible to start anew in the direction of the spirit, and it makes no difference what happened before. An atmosphere of mercy is created, focused on self or divine, in which what was, was, and what’s important is which way we are going, which is being determined anew every moment.

  “Just for Today” guides us towards focusing on the present, while being aware of the movement of events as they pass between times. Every event which is in our future turns at a certain stage into the past, as part of the constant stream of transient events. The pain and the suffering of the present, also its pleasures, will soon disappear into the past. When this is the way we see the movement of life, we can choose a different focal point, situated outside the movement of events between times. “Just for today” we can aim towards the very best that is possible, towards the Divine, endless and unchanging, always here and never passing away. The eternal, always existing, stands aside from the world of changing times. When we turn towards that, “just for today,” we stand aside for a moment from suffering and distress, which belong to the transient world. A woman in her forties was in agony because she’d had no partner in a number of years and she was afraid she’d “missed the boat” and would never be able to raise a family. When she shared her fears with me, I suggested a new outlook: accept that it was possible she wouldn’t find a partner, but did this mean she had no life in the present? That without a partner the future was closed to her? Admittedly, she didn’t find a partner, but “just for today” her choice of the spirit changed her order of preferences, and gradually she was freed from the sense of something missing from her life.