Creative Suffering

flower after fire wikipedia

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.   Rumi

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.  Kahlil Gibran

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.   Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.  Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.   Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.   Albert Einstein

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.    Albert Einstein

Any fool can know. The point is to understand.   Albert Einstein

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.   Albert Einstein

Finite Thought, Infinite Existence

Infinite Galaxy deviantart

For the first time I noticed – as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next – that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting.  I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still.  My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized.  And I could accept this.  It was all right. (It was daylight that brought my protest: “No! No! No! My suffering does matter.  I want to live!  I can’t help but mix my life with that of the universe.  Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness – how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view I have of things?  This peephole is all I’ve got!”).  I mumbled words of Muslim prayer and went back to sleep.   Yann Martel, Life of Pi

[H]igh in the firmament where soul material gathers and plays out all the dreams and joys of which we temporal beings can barely conceive, [there are] all the things that are beyond our comprehension; but, even so, are not beyond our attainment if we choose to attain them, and believe that we truly can.  Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

ONE VOICE

From the album “Never Say Never” by Brandy

I had a dream, a crazy vision

It may sound strange, this intuition

But it was true beyond description

And somehow I knew that it was real

When I saw

One sky above

There is just one source of love

If I got one chance, one choice

I’ll sing it from the heart, one song, one voice 

I’ve seen the fires of deep division

The hearts of stone, the cold ambition

But I have found my sacred mission

To live in this world and still believe

That there is

One sky above

There is just one source of love

If I got one chance, one choice

I’ll sing it from the heart, one song, one voice