"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." -Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan: Life is differentiated by the pairs of opposites.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/say/gayan_boulas.htm 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.    ~~~ "Supplementary Papers, Miscellaneous VII", by Hazrat Inayat Khan (unpublished)  There is the sun and there is the moon, there is man and woman, there is night and there is day.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.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XIV/XIV_2_12.htm

"Death is a tax the soul has to pay for having had a name and a form." - Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan: All that is constructed is subject to destruction; all that is composed must be decomposed; all that is formed must be destroyed; that which has birth has death. But all this belongs to matter; the spirit which is absorbed by this formation of matter or by its mechanism lives, for spirit cannot die.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XI/XI_I_12.htm That which the soul has borrowed he must give back when it has done its work; it was borrowed for a certain time and for a certain purpose. When the purpose is fulfilled, when the time is finished, then every plane asks for that which the soul has borrowed from it, and one cannot help but give it back to that plane. It is this process which is called assimilation. Since man is born greedy and selfish he has taken all things willingly, enthusiastically -- he gives them back grudgingly and calls it death. ... Death is nothing but the taking off of one garb and giving it back to the plane from which it was borrowed, for the condition is this: one cannot take the garb of the lower plane to the higher plane. The soul is only released when it is willing -- or compelled -- to give its garb to the plane it has taken it from. It is this which releases the soul to go on in its travel. And as it proceeds to a higher plane, after its stay there it must again give its garb back and be purified from it in order to go further. ... This knowledge also throws a light upon the question of death. Death is not really death; it is only a passing stage, it is only a change, as changing clothes.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XIV/XIV_2_3.htm