Pairs of Opposites

by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Life is differentiated by the pairs of opposites

If there was no pain one would not enjoy the experience of joy.

It is pain which helps one to experience joy.

Everything is distinguished by its opposite.

The one who feels pain deeply is more capable of experiencing joy.

And personally, if you were to ask me about pain, I should say that if there was no pain life would be most uninteresting to me.

For it is by pain the heart is penetrated, and the sensation of pain is deeper joy.

Without pain the great musicians and poets and dreamers and thinkers would not have reached that stage which they reached and from which moved the world.

If they always had joy, they would not have touched the depths of life.

There is the sun and there is the moon, there is man and woman, there is night and there is day.

The colors are distinguished by their variety and so are the forms.

Therefore to distinguish anything there must be its opposite; where there is no opposite we cannot distinguish.

There must be health in order to distinguish illness; if there were no health and only illness then it would not have been (distinguished as) illness. ... Life is a puzzle of duality.

The pairs of opposites keep us in an illusion and make us think, 'This is this, and that is that'.

At the same time by throwing a greater light upon things we shall find in the end that they are quite different from what we had thought.

Seeing the nature and character of life the Sufi says that it is not very important to distinguish between two opposites.

What is most important is to recognize that One which is hiding behind it all.

Naturally after realizing life the Sufi climbs the ladder which leads him to unity, to the idea of unity which comes through the synthesis of life, by seeing One in all things, in all beings.

Joy and sorrow both are for each other. If it were not for joy, sorrow could not be; and if it were not for sorrow, joy could not be experienced.

Opposites

Praise cannot exist without blame; it has no existence without its opposite.
-- Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

There is a pair of opposites in all things, and in each there exists the spirit of the opposite: in man the quality of woman, in woman the spirit of man, in the sun the form of the moon, in the moon the light of the sun.
The closer one approaches reality, the nearer one arrives at unity.
Life is differentiated by the pairs of opposites.
Praise cannot exist without blame, for nothing has existence without its opposite, just as pleasure cannot exist without pain.
No one can be great and not small; no one can be loved and not hated.
There is no one who is hated by all and not loved by some-one; there is always someone to love him.
If one would realize that the world of God, His splendor and magnificence, are to be seen in the wise and the foolish, in the good and the bad, then one would think tolerantly and reverently of all mankind
How does the Sufi struggle?
He struggles with power, with understanding, with open eyes, and with patience.
He does not look at the loss; what is lost is lost. He does not think of the pain of yesterday; yesterday is gone for him.
Only if a memory is pleasant does he keep it before him, for it is helpful on his way. He takes both the admiration and the hatred coming from around him with smiles; he believes that both these things form a rhythm within the rhythm of a certain music; there is one and two, the strong accent and the weak accent.
Praise cannot be without blame, nor can blame be without praise.
He keeps the torch of wisdom before him, because he believes that the present is the echo of the past, and that the future will be the reflection of the present. It is not sufficient to think only of the present moment; one should also think where it comes from and where it goes.
Every thought that comes to his mind, every impulse, every word he speaks, is to him like a seed, a seed which falls in this soil of life, and takes root.
And in this way he finds that nothing is lost; every good deed, every little act of kindness, of love, done to anybody, will some day rise as a plant and bear fruit.
by Hazrat Inayat Khan