“When you go through a difficult period when everything seems to oppose you, … When you feel you cannot even bear one more minute, NEVER GIVE UP! Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!”
Rumi believed that the art of living is how to be patient and handle the difficult time of our life. It like anything else in life will pass. It is part of our life; if we are not skillful in managing this critical part of life, we cannot reach the other part of our life, which is happiness. You can not have one without another. Our joy is inherently tied to our pain and sorrow.
Our lifetimes are full of ups and downs. We each must go through our downs to truly cherish our Ups. It is pretty easy to fall prey to the negative spiral that a hurting heart can bring about. But it is far more rewarding to learn from that hurting Heart- What does not break you only makes you stronger and wiser.
Think of all the times you have been hurt as a blessing in disguise. If it weren’t for that experience, you wouldn’t have become the evolved soul you are today. Darkness is NOT something to fear when you have a hopeful heart that has been blessed with wisdom from past hurts. Today, be thankful for all your past scars because if it weren’t for those scars, you wouldn’t be who you are today.
We may not recognize it at that moment of hurt, but if we connect all our up and downs in our lives, we can see the pattern. Sundown followed by sunrise, never missed in a million years. We become wiser people if we can identify the time between our sundown and our sunrise. That darkness in between is not something to fear when you know that it is a time between your sundown and your sunrise. People with bright hearts never feel or are scared of the darkness. Rumi said, “What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.”
“Sorrow prepares you for joy.
It violently sweeps everything out of your house,
so that new joy can find space to enter.
It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your Heart,
so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.
It pulls up the rotten roots
so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your Heart,
far better things will take their place.