From the story in the Torah of Moses sending spies to scout out the Land of Israel before it was to be conquered by the Israelites we find immense insight that guides us to self mastery.
This is how the Torah relates it: “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Send out for yourself men who will scout the Land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel.” The great medieval Torah commentator Rashi writes that the words “send [spies] for yourself” betrays the fact that the idea to send spies originated from the Israelites rather than from God Himself. God responded to this idea by saying that if Moses wanted to, he could send spies but it was not a divinely mandated action.
As we know from the Torah the spies Moses sent came back with a negative report which put back the conquering of the Land of Israel by forty years. After an additional forty years of wondering in the desert and after the death of Moses, his successor Joshua was ready to lead the Israelites into battle to conquer the Land of Canaan. This time, however, God commanded Joshua to send spies into the land of Canaan but with a different purview. Whilst Moses asked his spies to scout the entire Land of Canaan Joshua’s spies were only mandated to spy out the city of Jericho.
The Kabbalists read intense symbolism into this story. They say that Jericho symbolizes the human capacity to think, speak and act whereas the entire Land of Canaan includes our abilities to have feelings, emotions and desires. According to the Kabbalists we humans are unable to control our feelings, emotions and innate desires but we are able to have dominance other our thoughts, speech and actions. In other words there are things that make us angry, depressed or happy and we cannot control those feelings. In addition all healthy human beings have an innate desire to eat or have intimate relations. These emotions and desires are not something that we can outgrow or dispense with—they are a part of our inborn humanity.
Our thoughts, speech and actions, conversely, can be changed. We have choice over which thought to entertain or which words to say and the actions we take. We may have no choice when we feel angry but we do have the ability not to entertain angry thoughts. The desire to speak in an inappropriate manner may surface involuntarily, but the decision to actually say the words is our own. We may have the desire to eat like a glutton, but we can choose to eat in moderation instead.
God commanded us to keep a watch over our inner Jericho—our thoughts speech and actions It is through contently watching over them that we reach self-mastery. We should try and control our feelings, emotions and desires but success is not guaranteed nor divinely mandated. Thus the rest of our inner Land of Canaan does not need to be constantly scouted and scrutinized to the same extent.
Within these Kabbalistic insights is the framework for our inner work that leads us to self-mastery. In order for us to be able to focus our energies in a fully productive manner we must be cognizant of the areas of our psyche which we are not able to control.
There is no obligation to focus our energies trying to change our desires, feelings or emotions nor should we get prostrated when we are unable to do so. Instead we must focus our inner work on ensuring that we have full control over the thoughts we entertain in our mind, the words that we utter and the actions we undertake. If we are able to have complete command over those, we will have reached the highest level of self mastery most human beings can ever achieve. Give it a try and the difference it will make to your life will be immense.