For those who realize that everything is from God, everything is the same.
(Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi, p. 58)
The Heart-keeper will leave you neither in faithfulness nor cruelty, neither in denial nor acknowledgment. Whenever you turn your heart toward something His Severity will detach you from it -- oh heart, fix not your heart on any place, do not persist!
(The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, p. 239)
Whatever God gives you, be content. At the very moment you become content in affliction, the door of paradise will open. If the messenger of heartache comes to you, embrace him like a friend! A cruelty that comes from the Beloved -- bestow upon it a warm welcome! Then that heartache can throw off its chador, rain down sugar, and be gentle and heart-ravishing... They all put on ugly chadors so that you will think they are dragons. But I am fed up with my spirit -- I worship dragons! If you are fed up with your spirit, then hear their calls of welcome! Heartache can never find me without laughter -- I call the pain the "cure". Nothing is more blessed than heartache, for its reward has no end.
(The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, pp. 293-294)
Everyone knows God's Gentleness and everyone knows God's Severity. Everyone flees from His Severity and holds fast to His Gentleness. But God has hidden severities within Gentleness and gentleness within Severity. This is God's trickery, concealment, and deception, in order that the people of discernment -- those who see with the light of God -- may be separated from those who see only the present and outward situation. That He might try you, which of you is fairest in works (Koran 67:2).
(The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, p. 99)
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