I was reading in my Men’s Health that “Studies of both people and rodents have shown that it’s less stressful to know you’re about to receive an electric shock than to think you might get one.”
This is fascinating, isn’t it? Is it not reasonable to derive most human dysfunction from a passionate desire to avoid fear and pain by CREATING pain, and thus putting fear into a box of sorts?
In my view it is useful to imagine the universe–God–raining down blessing and joy in rivers everywhere, for all of us, across our lives. We are truly offered manna.
But all pleasures are fleeting, are they not? Is this not our universal experience? Have you not experienced moments of joy only to immediately realize how foolish such a thing was, in the face of so much THAT?
The point of the spiritual path, in my view, is to get from the fleeting to the lasting, to finally SEE the manna, which can only be seen when you let go of all the cords tying you down, when you tear down the bars of the prison cell you built to protect yourself, and keep the world out.
Every spiritual tradition tells you that food and sex and power and wealth and all the trappings of Earthly life are inferior to the manna, the Buddha Nature, the Samadhi’s, Mokshas, and Nirvanas of the spirit. There is nothing wrong with food and sex and even within limits power and wealth.
But they are DISTRACTIONS. That is all. I would even propose that “sin” could be equated with distraction, with losing focus. Certainly, it is often called falling off the path, but I would suggest that path is not virtue per se, but perception understood broadly. You stop looking when you find something, even if there are much, much better things possible.
I forget the field, but somewhere they speak of Exploring and Exploiting. In Exploring you find out what there is. In Exploiting you take advantage of it. You might explore your town for the best restaurants. You might date many women or men to see who is out there. But sooner or later you need to make a choice. For restaurants, you will have a few you go to often. For relationships, you may need to “settle”.
In fact, as one comedian I was watching commented, ALL women, or most women, are settling when it comes to us men.
And spiritually, you are trying to find what is NOT manna, and cast it aside. Neti, Neti, as the Upanishads put it.
Put another way, the issue of Theodicy might be readily settled by supposing God set us a perfect table we are just too stupid to perceive.
But notice when you create trouble that is quite real, to avoid trouble that is only theoretical. Notice when you lasso and confine momentary pleasure by noting it cannot last.
None of us can eat one meal and be satiated for a lifetime. Likewise, the pleasures of life, while fleeting, are as numerous as our perceptual genius allows. One leads to the next, and connecting them is a learnable skill, one which presumes non-attachment, and non-aversion, within broad limits.
Buddhism, Stoicism, Hinduism, and Christianity all teach these things.