After a Tragedy
After a Tragedy, how can we allow ourselves to feel joy or to love again?
How can we allow joy to slip back in to our heart without feeling we are betraying our love for who we have lost? We would not suffer if we did not love.
I don't know for sure but I do see this remarkable transformation courageously arise in so many people who have lost loved ones, dear possessions or aspects of their health! I ask myself how is it done? The heart is broken and it must take time to heal, healing is not forgetting it is integrating and it is also remembering. Memory is a very, very special and important connection of heart that endures and joins us beyond the boundaries of time and space.
Anyway, I feel we cannot, must not, give up on feeling joy or love again, though it would be a common feeling to have. Deep in our broken heart, in the core of our being, Joy and Love have never left, for they are an inherent part of our very soul, our very existence. Joy arises as a combination of suffering and love, both being allowed to exist together in the heart.
There is no way we can force joy or happiness to come, but it will come of its own accord and alight upon us as a butterfly. Looking, touching, allowing this butterfly to be, this is not a denial of tragedy or betrayal of a loved one - it is an affirmation of Life - that Joy lives on within us to spite all that has happened.
How can we allow joy to slip back in to our heart without feeling we are betraying our love for who we have lost? We would not suffer if we did not love.
I don't know for sure but I do see this remarkable transformation courageously arise in so many people who have lost loved ones, dear possessions or aspects of their health! I ask myself how is it done? The heart is broken and it must take time to heal, healing is not forgetting it is integrating and it is also remembering. Memory is a very, very special and important connection of heart that endures and joins us beyond the boundaries of time and space.
Anyway, I feel we cannot, must not, give up on feeling joy or love again, though it would be a common feeling to have. Deep in our broken heart, in the core of our being, Joy and Love have never left, for they are an inherent part of our very soul, our very existence. Joy arises as a combination of suffering and love, both being allowed to exist together in the heart.
There is no way we can force joy or happiness to come, but it will come of its own accord and alight upon us as a butterfly. Looking, touching, allowing this butterfly to be, this is not a denial of tragedy or betrayal of a loved one - it is an affirmation of Life - that Joy lives on within us to spite all that has happened.
Befooled not oh night, the dawn will break;
Be aware oh darkness, the sun will shine;
Be not vain oh mist, it will once more be clear;
My sorrow forget not, once again joy will arise,
once again joy will arise. Hazrat Inayat Khan
