Kahlil Gibran: The Prophet, "On Pain"

And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."
 
And he said:
 
Your pain is the breaking of the shell (ego) that encloses your understanding (consciousness).
 
Even as the (philosophical) stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun (where the light of Christ illuminates the soul after the ego is broken in profound meditation), so must you know pain.
 
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
 
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
 
And you would watch with serenity (your mind and internal states in meditation) through the winters of your grief (the dark nights of the soul).
 
Much of your pain is self-chosen (through fascination, identification, and the sleep of the consciousness).
 
It is the bitter potion by which the physician (your Innermost Spirit, intimate Ruh or Ruach Elohim) within you heals your sick self (your soul that commands to evil or egotism: Nafs al Ammarra).
 
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity (through the cup of perfect concentration in profound retrospective meditation):
 
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen (الله Allah, the Absolute),
 
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter (the Holy Spirit) has moistened with His own sacred tears (the creative sexual waters of transmutation).

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