The member endures, but that pleasure is forgotten, yet not all forgotten, but hidden from the senses.

Excerpt

How much pleasure has it seen, and how much pain? For no member grows and flourishes without pleasure, And each member is weakened by every pain. The member endures, but that pleasure is forgotten, Yet not all forgotten, but hidden from the senses. Like summer wherein cotton is produced, The cotton remains, but the summer is forgotten. Or like ice which is formed in great frost, The frost departs, but the ice is still before us. The ice is mindful of that extreme cold, And even in winter that crop is mindful of the summer.

Source Masnavi, Book VI, Story V, §7 · 📖 Read the full passage

✨ To meditate on today

According to Rumi, the Persian Sufi poet, each member of our body has grown thanks to the joys it has received: we forget them, but they are not lost, only hidden, as cotton keeps within it the summer that made it grow; a little further on, he says that each member thus tells of God’s bounties. This evening, remember a joy or a kindness received long ago that still lives in you, and thank God for it.

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