In day 26, Warren tells us that we can grow through temptation when we “realize that it [temptation] is just as much occasion to do the right thing as it is to do the wrong thing.”
I’m going to skip past the bothersome judgment and shame inherent in notions of “right” and “wrong” and jump right to my objection – we grow through temptation when we burn ourselves out on whatever it is that tempts us, not by saying “no” when what we really want to express is an emphatic “YES!” This is what it means to learn from our mistakes. We learn a lot more from the mistakes we make – even, and perhaps especially, those mistakes we have to make a million times before we get it right – than we learn from the mistakes we avoid. True spiritual growth and maturity comes through learning, not avoidance of learning by adhering to dogmatic notions of right and wrong because we are told to.
Warren says:
We think temptation lies around us, but…it begins within us. If you didn’t have the internal desire, the temptation could not attract you.
This is absolutely true – we cannot be tempted by what we do not desire. Desire isn’t inherently a bad thing, but when we talk about temptation, we’re talking about desiring something that we shouldn’t. Well…says who*? Who gets to say what we should or shouldn’t desire?
Not that all our desires are for our good – they’re not. Sometimes we desire things that are bad for us. And when we get what we desire and the thing we desire is bad for us, that’s called making a mistake. We may not realize we made a mistake. We may not realize that getting what we wanted harmed us. We may have to make the same mistake over and over and over again before we start to see that a desire is harmful to us. This is how we learn. This is how we gain knowledge. It would be nice to simply be told “if you do X, you’re going to get hurt” and to believe it and to never do X and trust that our lives are better off as a result. And that’s what Warren advises us when he tells to let the Bible have authority in our lives and say no to temptation. But each of us have to discover truth for ourselves. Trust is not based on someone else’s word, but on our own experiential knowledge of truth. Part and parcel of gaining that knowledge is making mistakes – that’s the human condition.
All that said, spiritual texts are necessary tools for our spiritual growth. We can’t uncover our shadow on our own – we need help. If we’re deeply illusioned about the world, we need help. An illusioned mind trying to disillusion itself is the blind leading the blind. We need help. Spiritual texts are one source of help. Like good friends or therapists, spiritual texts challenge what we believe to be true and give us a different perspective to consider. If we are blind to the fact that we keep making the same mistake over and over and that that mistake is making us miserable, we need help in seeing our mistake. Spiritual texts can provide that help.
Again, that’s not to say spiritual texts – or any text – should be taken at face value and trusted as God’s Truth on their own merit. In fact, asking, and expecting, people to blindly follow any spiritual text, and then judging them (or yourself) as “sinners” for following the dictates of their own heart instead, breeds resentment, fear and shame – hardly the fertile environment to encourage spiritual growth. Furthermore, how can you know the truth in a spiritual text unless you know it experientially? Any interpretation of spiritual text not based on experiential knowledge is guessing at best or a reflection of the ego’s wishes or fears at worst (think of all the times the bible has been used to justify trashing the environment, sport hunting, sexism, racism, homophobia, and hate of all kinds). Rather, having been posited a “truth” previously unknown to us, it is our job to find out whether it is in fact true.
Warren makes a good observation about not identifying with our disturbing thoughts – thoughts that we may find bizarre, disturbing, scary, or that make us feel ashamed. We all experience these from time to time, sometimes at the most inappropriate or inopportune times, and Warren advises “Instead of condemning yourself with “How could I think such a thought?” treat it as a distraction…and immediately refocus on God.” This echos the wonderful Buddhist teaching:
Good-humoured patience is necessary with mischievous children and your own mind.
-Buddha
It is so easy to become identified with our thoughts. We think that if we think something, then we must believe that thing, and that must be who we are. But our minds really do have minds of their own, and we have lots of random, inexplicable thoughts all day long. I like this reminder not to identify with our thoughts.
*This conversation excludes desires to hurt ourselves or others. Others may end up getting hurt (emotionally) as a result of how we choose to live our lives, but this is different from desiring to hurt another person (or yourself).
TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.
