While some rejoice over their rise and sorrow over their fall, the wise take both as the natural consequences of Life.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
It makes no difference to me if I am so praised that I am raised from earth to heaven, nor if I am so blamed that I am thrown from the greatest heights to the depths of the earth. Life to me is an ever-moving sea in which the waves of favor and disfavor constantly rise and fall.
In sorrow one may look to God, and in joy one may thank God. One does not bemoan the past, nor worry about the future; one tries only to make the best of today. One should know no failure, for even in a fall there is a stepping-stone to rise; but to the Sufi the rise and fall matter little. One does not repent for what one has done, since one thinks, says, and does what one means. One does not fear the consequences of performing one’s wish in life, for what will be, will be.
What will rise must fall, and what will fall must rise. Rise and fall are natural to life. No rise is permanent, or fall lasting. It is Reality behind it all which is steady and dependent. … Life is one living stream, continually running without beginning or end. Death is our illusion. The change that hides our existence from us we call death. Life is still, but its flow, which is ever-moving, rises and falls in waves; it is this that created an illusion of rise and fall. All this we see is the manifestation of one Spirit in many and varied forms.
The quality of the saints is to be resigned to all that comes — but then they do not even form a wish. They take all that comes, flowers or thorns; everything that comes, they take it. They look into thorns and see that they are flowers. With praise and with blame they are contented. They are contented with rise and fall; they take all that comes, they take Life as it is.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This shows that ordinary people are buoyed by the waves of Life and rise or fall with them. They cannot understand the nature of Life. The wise, keeping the rhythm of their breath steady and concentrating their heart upon Unity, may be washed by these waves but never compelled by them to turn their course in life. They are above the pair of opposites and all duality, in their vision of sublime Unity.