Whom God loves, He makes him suffer pain and loss for His sake. Whoever would be chosen of God must gladly submit to a process of purification. He must be prepared to pass through the fire of suffering: he must be purified as thrice-burnished gold. He must be found worthy of facing trials and tribulations, of courting dishonour and disgrace for the love of God.
In a passage of great beauty, the beloved poet of Sind, Shah Abdul Latif, says, “I have known of no one who met the Beloved in happiness!” The Law of Love is the Law of the Gross, the Law of Sacrifice. Shah Latif sings:
They who embrace the Cross
And surrender their life-breath,
To them is given the vision of God!
To the seeker after God, difficulties and dangers and trials and temptations come in an endless procession. He does not shun them; he is not anxious to avoid them.
The man who tries to escape trouble finds himself, sooner or later, in more serious trouble. Such is the law. The right way to overcome trouble is to accept it and make it a part of one's life. For no trial comes to us without a purpose. Every trial is a teacher (guru): it has some lesson or the other to teach.
Do not resist trials but welcome them. Everything that we welcome is transformed. Suffering is transformed into love. This is the great mystery of life.
Physical pain, mental agony, spiritual anguish—nothing lasts forever. Everything lasts for as long as it has its work to do. When it has completed its task, it falls away like the dead, dry leaves of autumn.
There are periods when a pilgrim finds himself surrounded by utter darkness. At such times, he finds it difficult to welcome trials and temptations with enthusiasm, but in no case does he avoid them. Deep within him is the faith that though the situation be exasperating enough, if only he can be patient and trusting, God will come and lead him by the hand out of danger to security, out of defeat to victory, and out of darkness to Light!
Dada J P Vaswani was a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader
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