Sooner or later reality will frustrate any excessive desire, leading to frustration, anger, anxiety, worry, sadness, depression and all the rest. If I have an excessive desire for approval for example, that desire sits there like a land mine until someone or something comes along and steps on it by criticizing me or putting me down. Then it explodes in a blast of painful emotions ranging from hurt to rage.

The same applies to our excessive desire for security and control. And the greater the number of these desires that are in us, the greater the frequency of emotional suffering. And the greater the intensity of any desire, the greater the intensity of the emotion pain, when that desire is frustrated.

Given that our excessive and disordered desires are the direct cause of all of our emotional suffering (assuming that the brain is functioning normally), it follows logically that we will want to drop all these desires. In the next chapter, we will see that the spiritual journey requires dropping these desires by developing a holy indifference to the way the world is and trusting God completely.

Abusive Action

We now turn to the fragrance of the weed, which represents abusive action. Abusive action includes words and deeds which are not loving. These words and deeds are the final step, the acting out, of a deluded mind experiencing emotional pain.

If the abusive action represents an intentional going against the will of God, the action rises to the level of “Sin”. Obviously, we want all of our actions to be loving, and the next chapter will show us how to get there.

<< Previous  •  Next Chapter >>  | View Chapter 2 as single page