by Natti Ronel
Let’s take a long -- long moment of silence. We’ll practice meditation, repeating to ourselves the words “absolute purity” which will express for us the idea of living the spirit; it will be the purity of truth, of love, of happiness, purity that instills in us hope and calm. We’ll repeat the purity, live it within ourselves and see how it is an inseparable part of the absolute, and for a brief moment, we are part of it too. The struggle will go on, self-centeredness will appear again, and we have a full answer for it: “absolute purity.”
THE NEVER-ENDING STORY
Living the Grace
The way of the spirit is finite; its end is the endless.
Let’s take for ourselves a long moment of silence. In the silence we’ll look into ourselves from the side and see how self-centeredness is still controlling us in certain moments. Without opinion, we’ll look and learn what is revealed -- who is this “ego” who acts on the orders of self-centeredness? … We’ll return to the deep silence, and now we’ll look into the moments when self-centeredness is relatively quiet, momentarily. What was in our minds then? We’ll look and learn from what comes up, without opinion. … We’ll return to the silence, listening to its depth. … Thank you.
Jordan is a young man who has given up the behaviors associated with various addictions, and he is trying to adopt grace in his life as a way to follow. In a conversation we had recently, he raised, in semi-theoretical fashion, an interesting question which affected him personally: how is it possible that a person with faith can suffer from depression? In his opinion, if a person has faith, it’s supposed to drive away depression, since one’s whole attitude to life is changing. From a theoretical point of view, he’s right. But from a practical perspective, I’ve heard about and I’ve met people who tried to get into the way of the spirit, who had hope and faith that this was the right way, and yet from time to time they suffered from depression. What does this say about their faith? There’s a temptation to declare that their faith isn’t genuine; if it was true faith, they would apparently be happy all day and all night and never be depressed. Maybe. But who can judge a believing heart? Faith is an intention towards the spiritual, towards God as we understand Him, but still the world is a challenge which we must confront, helped by faith from which we derive hope. The revelation of faith is an important stage in our journey and it gives us significant help in the struggle against self-centeredness, but the struggle is still there, alive and kicking, in our lives. Faith exposes us to more ways of coping with self-centeredness and its wiles, setting variable challenges before us.
One of the challenges that the world presents to us on the journey of faith towards the life of the spirit is the challenge of coping with pain. Depression is emotional pain. Almost every direction we turn, pain exists. It is tempting to say “unfortunately,” but pain has an important role to play in our development. Emotional pain as manifested in the experience of depression also has importance. Pain isn’t suffering. A person who feels the pain of depression isn’t obliged to suffer, and several of the tools that were recommended can help that person to see beyond the pain and the distress of the depression. That’s where faith is aimed, at what lies beyond pain; faith that doesn’t identify with pain, but sees it from the side. Jordan, who raised the question, can say to himself something like, “Jordan is depressed at the moment, and as it happens, I am Jordan. It hurts, but at a certain stage it will pass. That’s the way it is.” It’s possible, although no one can guarantee it, that when we relate in this way to emotional pain of one kind or another, over time it diminishes. Or our interest in it diminishes, and this is significant in itself. The main thing is that pain won’t constitute an obstacle for us. It’s a challenge, and tackling it can help with our progress on the way.
We may compare ourselves, in moments of suffering, with a man who finds himself in the desert, and thirst is driving him crazy. He’s prepared to do anything to find fresh water, dreaming about water, talking about water, seeing water even where there is none. So he roams the desert paths and survives, as others have in the desert, by drinking the drops of dew that he finds in the mornings on dry leaves or on hard rocks, and sometimes he finds fleshier leaves and sucks their juice. The pain of thirst is excruciating, and when it takes over his mind, it turns into unbearable suffering. For some reason, the man refuses to pay attention to what is around him, and he doesn’t learn that right beside him, behind a low ridge of sand-dunes, there’s a spring which is gushing all the time, sending a steady stream of water into a cool and shaded lake, a place where he could take a dip, wash himself, and drink his fill. In the lake, there are people enjoying themselves, and they even climb up on the ridge and shout to him, urging him to turn around and join them. For some reason, he chooses not to listen, he doesn’t believe them; they’re living in a desert delusion, and their condition is so mortal that they’re confusing facts with mirage, living in a primitive movie of their own making which will end very badly. The fact that so many people are wandering in the desert and suffering like this man shows that it isn’t logical to think there’s a spring and water close at hand. It’s dangerous to fall into a dreamy trap that isn’t logical. He’s being practical and he must survive. The world is an arid desert and you can improve your chances there and survive, nothing more.
A little sad, don’t you think? Revelation of willingness to climb up on the ridge is a big turnaround. The revelation of willingness to go down to the spring, dip one’s feet in the water and even jump into the delightful lake, despite the apparent danger that this may only be a mirage, is an even bigger turnaround. Maddening thirst helps us to make this turnaround, when our feeling is that there is no other choice. Thus, pain creates a positive change. It’s the way of the world and the way of our bodies that even when we’re bathing in the refreshing water, from time to time, thirst will arise. Sometimes we’ll forget to drink, sometimes we’ll feel so confident that we climb over the ridge and walk back into the desert, moving away from the gushing spring, until rampant thirst reminds us to return. Any way we look at it, the water flowing from the spring is the end of the desert. In the water there is no desert, and the water itself is infinite.
Nader Butto is a senior Israeli cardiologist and a distinguished physician who combines lecturing on advanced science with knowledge of a wide range of spiritual traditions and traditional Arabic lore. At a seminar in which I participated a few years ago, Nader proposed this formula: “Love is the way, happiness is the sign, and light is the objective.” In the words of the Graceway, we can put it like this: “Love is the way, truth is the guide; grace lights the way, and God – we, being on our way towards Him.”
We’ve reached an important stage in the journey that we’ve made together, and it’s a continuation of personal practice, as you find it appropriate. The Graceway is, first of all, a way of life which flows and renews itself with life, and in addition, it entails various tools and practices. Some of them we aspire to activate and to practice regularly, like meditation, “Gratitude” and “Promoting Good,” and some of them we activate when the need arises. Beyond the practices and the tools, we find the Graceway, which is expressed in the manner of our living, in what’s important to us, in our visions, meanings, and goals, and especially in how we approach them and how we function at any given moment. Everything we do expresses our way of life, our range of choices and distinctions. Of course, we are all complicated, but beyond the changing moments there is vision and there are aspirations and an effort to move ahead and implement them. There, life can express the Graceway with intensity and be helped by it and by its wisdom.
One of the characteristic features of the Graceway, which relates to the way in which we implement the tools in our lives, is an expression borrowed from the Step-program which I have mentioned a few times before, “in the spirit of a loving God.” It is our aspiration that the “spirit of a loving God” will express our “how” in the world. When we live according to it, we enjoy
its refreshing breeze. When we live with the spirit of a loving God, without expecting any result, we have already gained an astonishing result, which is life “in the spirit of a loving God.” Love is the way, the manner of life and also its wonderful outcome, which grows stronger the longer we live it. Our attitude towards the world is one of the few things that we can choose and that depends on us, and it can be in the spirit of a loving God. Usually this kind of attitude influences others too, but the spirit of a loving God doesn’t expect this. It’s simply there, waiting for us to adopt it.
Alongside the spirit of a loving God, we can mention two other important characteristics of the way and of living in the way, which complement each other. The first is renunciation and the second is gain. The Graceway, like other spiritual paths, recommends an increasing element of renunciation in our lives. Every tool has suggested a certain degree of renunciation and implementing all of them expresses large-scale renunciation. For example, in “Abstinence,” we renounced the thing from which we were abstaining, which could be certain kinds of food, habitual behavior, or even modes of thinking that lead to consequences we don’t like. Even if the thing was very agreeable to us in part, abstinence recommended to us full renunciation of it. “Just for Today” suggested to us renunciation of concerns about yesterday and tomorrow, as well as renunciation of grandiose plans, staying in the present and, as far as possible, implementing things now. This applies to the other tools as well. When we refuse to renounce, when we hold on to something, suffering appears at some stage or another. The height of the way, which is expressed especially in the Twelfth Tool, “Living the Spirit,” is renunciation of self-centeredness, which holds us in manacles of attachment to what isn’t the spirit. When we choose the spirit, we are renouncing the desert, with its tantalizing adventures, moments of fear and joy, stories of courage and expertise in desert survival. Renunciation is done on the level of declaration only, because self-centeredness doesn’t give up on us that easily, and only the grace of God can help us get there, when we get there. It’s easier to take us out of the desert than to take the desert out of us, and this is a process which continues all through our lives. The very declaration of the will to avoid self-centeredness and the aspiration to leave the desert behind do something. There’s also the readiness in them for the biggest renunciation of them all, renunciation of everything that we call “we” or “ourselves.”
If the way was renunciation only, obviously very few would have enthused over the discovery of a spiritual path which asks us to renounce the things that give us pain together with what we thought we were enjoying, or to which we were accustomed. For example, there was a woman whom I advised to give up something very small, her compulsive desire to be thin, and still thinner, desire that came accompanied by fear of the most terrifying thing imaginable to her, slipping into uncontrollable obesity. It hardly needs saying that in my opinion, she was already very thin. It was clear that slimming-mania was the dictator controlling her life in an unbearably painful way and preventing her from living it. The assurance that it gave her, that she wouldn’t get fat, aroused excruciating pain. What then? If we tell her to renounce it -- what will take its place? There will be an emptiness which will be filled by uncontrollable binge-eating, and there’s no way she would be able to be put right. It’s complicated and a challenge to renounce our points of weakness, even when what is in them hurts us. In the words of Narcotics Anonymous (p. 33): “There is a certain distorted security in familiar pain.” We trust what is familiar, even when it’s painful, just because we recognize it. Of course, this is undesirable, even perverse, but it instills confidence, however bogus it may be. That’s the way she trusted in what she knew -- the compulsive need to be thinner and the pain this created. Suggesting renunciation only is simply not sufficient, even when there’s no choice, as happens with so many people whose suffering is unbearable, but renunciation is not an attractive option.
But renunciation comes with gain. Renunciation opens for us the door to gain; it removes the obstacle that we have placed in its path. The very fact of renunciation is already gain. According to the Buddha, renunciation of a “small pleasure” leads to a “great pleasure.” Shlomo Kalo added in one of his talks that non-dependence on any pleasure is the “greatest pleasure.” We leave the desert by choosing water and bathing in it. Renunciation is a great gain; by means of it, we are freed from our attachment to the desert, and then we can move the curtain and see what exists behind it – the longed-for water.
As in the Serenity Prayer -- we renounce the attempt to change what can’t be changed, and the renunciation itself is a big and brave change for us. With the acceptance of things that we can’t change, we can let go, and also gain the knowledge that there are things we can change. For example, our perception of reality or our perception of ourselves. Similarly, we can see how every tool suggests renunciation from which gain arises. Thus, “Abstinence” includes the gain of release from something compulsive. “Just for Today” suggests gain in the present and also gain in the ability to perform a small task which leads to another and progress is made. “Gratitude” is a great gain in itself, in which we are satisfied with less, renouncing the yearning for what we don’t have at the moment. Furthermore, we gain something that we didn’t have and that is gratitude itself and the wonderful sensation that accompanies it. When we correct our mistakes, we sometimes renounce social embarrassment and evasion of responsibility, but gain relief and trust. As said before, in every tool we can see renunciation and we can also see gain which goes on growing. So long as we adopt the tools in our lives, renunciation grows, and gain grows even more. When we reach the summit to which we aspire, willingness to renounce the self-centeredness that constricts us, all at once we gain the unrestricted itself, and what can release us from all restrictions, i.e. God as we understand Him.
It’s also possible to describe renunciation as what we do in the material and mental spheres -- we renounce material achievements-- for example, keeping our weight down as was described before -- and also things that belong to the domain of the mind, like a sense of power and domination, or release from depression. When we renounce what isn’t spiritual, the spiritual becomes a real possibility in our lives. Renunciation is done gradually, when we are making progress, and by our full choice, out of experience of gain, and especially - “in the spirit of a loving God.” There’s no renunciation in compulsion, no renunciation in persuasion, no renunciation out of a desire to get something in its place. We renounce something that is not suitable for us, in spite of fear and a natural tendency to hold on to it. Gain arises from within us, by the fact of renunciation and cancellation of the attachment to the thing that we’ve renounced. Renunciation is done in stages, when what we see before us is progress, calmly, “in the spirit of a loving God,” and not the completed task. “Progress, not perfection,” is a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous and the other 12-Step fellowships, and this too is a definition of renunciation -- when we renounce perfection, we gain reliable progress just for today.
Living the grace that we want to encounter means renouncing anything that has no grace in it, so that all that is left is grace itself. In the beginning, when we experienced grace along the way, even if only on a small scale and infrequently, perhaps it was a little scary. We might have been afraid that it wasn’t genuine, or that it would disappear as suddenly as it appeared, and we would return to the former suffering. When the gain of grace arrived with the renunciation of anything that had no grace in it, the fear disappeared. Through active experience, we learned that the spiritual is real; it isn’t just nice opinions or ideas or ideologies, or pretty poetry. It’s a possible ultimate reality in our lives, reality that waits for us until we renounce everything that isn’t it. When we renounce our self-centeredness, attachments, self-identifications, and limitations, the ultimate reality appears. When the reality of grace is revealed, if only by a hint, or a spark, there is great gain in something we didn’t yet know,
which perhaps we craved, not really believing it was possible, and this something is grace. No desert, just flowing water. All the spiritual paths lead to there, each path in its own particular way. Being the grace is infinite, it’s the end of the road. When we live it, we’re living the infinite.
Let’s take a long moment of silence. We’ll leave everything behind. We’ll renounce. What was in our minds, what we’ve heard. Ourselves. The desert and the water, we’ll renounce renunciation. We’ll renounce gain, quietude. Being renunciation, being gain, being grace, being. …
We are.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Graceway and the Twelve Tools was developed with the cooperation of many dear people. It is a pleasing privilege to thank them all: the members of Narcotics Anonymous in Israel, who opened their hearts and lives with warm acceptance and vividly showed me how the 12-Step program is practiced as a way of life. To the thousands of therapists and students who participated in different Graceway classes, workshops and trainings over the years, and helped me to better clarify the emerging ideas. To those who participated in group and individual therapy with me, and whose courageous struggle for recovery paved the way.
The book came out with the help of many warm-hearted friends and it is delightful to thank them here. Amongst them are Ms. Smadar Sapir, with whom we had prolific discussions about the book’s structure, Ms. Noa Bareket who insightfully edited the Hebrew source, Mr. Philip Simpson who patiently translated the book into English with intensive correspondence between us, Mr. Benny Carmi and the eBookPro team (Tali, Nave, Amitai, Kim, Adam, Lan and Carolyn), who attentively and thoroughly transformed the manuscript into a formatted book and uploaded it to Amazon. I also thank Mr. Igal Miller from DAT publications who offered good advice and support during the book’s production.