Love, Pain, Cure

Today a friend sent me this poem by Rumi (1207-1273 A.D.), the Persian mystic:

“One day your heart will take you to your lover.
One day your soul will carry you to the Beloved.
Don't get lost in your pain –
Know that one day your pain will become your cure.”

I agree completely, but it’s not quite so simple…

“One day your heart will take you to your lover.
One day your soul will carry you to the Beloved.”

I agree – someday we will rejoin our most beloved soul and souls. But it may not happen in this particular human lifetime, that’s not always the Plan. Knowing life as eternal, knowing death as just ‘passing over’ (crossing dimensions), longing and loneliness are softened in the waters of faith -- this is our testing, and someday we will return home.

Those who come from Light return to Light; those of Light shall one day reunite in Light. This is not emotional hope, it’s a Law of Creation – those of like-nature evolve and join.

For those who long to meet their soul mate or feel discouraged in painful relations today, it’s good to take the long view, in truth -- this human life is temporary, a series of challenges to see how well we hold fast to love/wisdom, moment by moment.

3D incarnation is basically a training, a testing, a sacrifice in service to all – but an incarnation is not forever. Forever awaits when we depart this dimension; without doubt, then our Beloved appears. One teacher said:

“There is no remedy for love, but to love more.”

Broken-hearted, longing for love, regretting the past, ashamed of such failures… There is no remedy but to love more – loving self despite rainstorms of distress. To “love more” is the way of self-healing, leading to release of painful mind process – it is slow and difficult, but we have no other spiritual path. Rumi agrees:

“Don't get lost in your pain – know that one day your pain will become your cure.”

It seems strange, how can my pain become my cure?

Not rejecting pain, I accept it as a friend – and my total responsibility for creating it. I experience this pain due to inner emotional blockage, personal desires, spiritual confusion. If I were more evolved, such pain wouldn’t arise – but I am what I am, with no one to blame. Such is self-forgiveness, the solace of a wounded heart.

Getting “lost in your pain” is the opposite of using pain for self-healing. We get lost by circular thinking, self-punishment, wallowing in emotional distress and self-pity. Lost in our pain, we fall into a dark hole of self-rejection – hating ourselves and our mind process. Hating inner pain or darkness, we build ever more walls and cells of self-limitation and woe.

“…your pain will become your cure.”

Tears fall, eyes open pouring salt streams of sadness. Innocence and ignorance crying; we’re all spiritual children. Heart opens to receive the falling teardrops, and pain is my cure. May we find our cure in the heart of true forgiveness.

February 19, 2008