Learn to surrender to the Divine Will

So you will understand quickly

And have a mind fragrant with love of God

When disaster falls on you suddenly.

While others whiten with terror

In the hour of gain or loss,

Laugh like the rose, for the rose –

Even if you tear petal after petal from it –

Never stops laughing and never grows cast down.

“Why,” says the rose, “should a thorn sadden me,

When I grew this laugh because of a thorn?”

A man asked, “What is Sufism?” The sheikh replied,

“To feel joy in the heart when anguish comes.”

Think of His punishment as like the eagle

That whisked away the Prophet’s sandal

To save him from the black snake in it.

God says, “Never despair.

At losing what leaves you.”

If a wolf comes and destroys your sheep

This misery averts worse misery,

This loss far more terrible loss.      Rumi

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.

The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.

These two spring from the same source, but differ in name; this appears as darkness.

Darkness within darkness.

The gate to all mystery.   Tao Te Ching