Experience is key

When trouble comes, realize that you ultimately have created that problem for yourself, according to the Law of karma, the law of cause and effect. You created this problem for yourself because of a lack of knowledge of the ways of divine law.
The way to get this knowledge is not through a holy book or scripture. Scriptures can be guidelines. They can give you a clue of what life is all about, what the spiritual laws are. But ultimately it gets down to testing these laws in your daily life.
In other words, you have to experience life in order to grow spiritually. There is no other way.