Understanding makes the trouble of life lighter to bear.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
We often suffer because we do not understand. Many conditions and many people are difficult to tolerate because we do not understand them, but once we understand we can tolerate almost anything.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume IX – The Unity of Religious Ideals: Part I – Prayer, Section ii )
All tragedy of life, all misery and inharmony are caused by one thing and that is lack of understanding. Lack of understanding comes from lack of penetration. Those who do not see from the point of view from which they ought to see become disappointed because they cannot understand. It is not for the outer world to help us to understand life better; it is we ourselves who should help ourselves to understand it better.
What a great thing is understanding! It is priceless. No one can give greater pleasure to their fellow beings than by understanding them. The closest friend in life is the one who understands most. It is not your wife, brother or sister, it is the one who understands you most who is your greatest friend in the world. You can be the greatest friend of God if you can understand God. Imagine how you live in the world — with closed eyes and closed ears! Every name and every form speaks constantly, constantly makes signs for you to hear, for you to respond to, for you to interpret, that you may become a friend of God. The whole purpose of your life is to make yourself ready to understand what God is, what your fellow human is, what the nature of humanity is, what life is.
Now coming to a still greater secret of Life I want to answer the question: how can we grow to read and understand the message that Life speaks through all its names and forms? The answer is that, as by the opening of the eyes you can see things, so by the opening of the heart you can understand things. As long as the heart is closed you cannot understand things. The secret is that when the ears and eyes of the heart are open, all planes of the world are open, all names are open, all secrets, all mysteries are unfolded.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
We need not escape pains and pangs; these must be, so long as we carry a mind. But mind is not the abode of understanding, heart is the abode of understanding. Trouble will not cease with the opening of the eye of the heart, but the evanescent character of disturbance will make itself clear. So time alone is sometimes a healer. Exercising a muscle may cause a pain or overworking a muscle may cause a pain, but the first kind of pain makes no impression on the personality because there is a purpose in it. It is in this sense, when there is a purpose in view, that every burden is as a load in exercise, and the pain does not cause anguish.