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This Too Shall Pass

Updated: Jan 27

The saying 'This too shall pass' is believed to be based on a Persian adage passed down throughout time and made famous in 1852 with Edward Fitzgerald’s “Solomon’s Seal”. The fable retold by FitzGerald usually involved a nameless "Eastern monarch". Its origin has been traced to the works of Persian Sufi poets, such as Rumi, Sanai, and Attar of Nishapur. Attar records the fable of a powerful King who asks assembled wise men to create a ring that would make him happy when he was sad. After deliberation the sages hand him a simple ring with the Persian words "This too shall pass" etched on it, which had the desired effect.


This story also appears in Jewish folklore. Many versions of the story have been recorded by the Israel Folklore Archive at the University of Haifa. Jewish folklore often casts Solomon as either the King humbled by the adage, or as the one who delivers it to another.


Philosopher Voltaire used a similar mantra in his book, 'Candide': "Tout passera." It’s French for ‘everything passes’. When life feels unbearable, remember what you feel is temporary. It keeps me sane.


The Stoics, like Marcus Aurelius, taught that change is the nature of life. He saw everything as temporary. “The Universe is change; life is opinion,” he wrote. To him, nothing deserved total despair. The idea goes back centuries. Ancient philosophers, poets, and spiritual leaders all spoke of it. Buddhists taught it. “Attachment is the root of all suffering,” Buddha said.


“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like,” notes spiritual teacher Lao Tzu.


If I ever get a tattoo it will be "This too shall pass" as it is a spiritual Truth that everyone must live by. Nothing lasts forever, nothing.


This too shall pass


In1859, Abraham Lincoln recounted a similar story to the one above: It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!


But that reality cuts both ways. If pain passes, so does happiness. Every experience of happiness, every peak experience, will also shift. You will get back to baseline joy, which is the imperturbable inner happiness. Psychologists call it “hedonic adaptation.” It’s the mind’s way of returning to balance and baseline joy after extreme events.


We may feel tempted to hold onto happiness, to hold onto it as tightly as possible. But that only creates suffering. Trying to freeze joy kills its magic.


We don’t stay in happiness forever, but we also don’t stay in sadness. Our brains adjust. Even pain and sorrow lose their intensity over time. What feels overwhelming now may feel different tomorrow, next month, or next year. Sad experiences may leave scars, but the pain shifts if we can let it go. Don't have a bad day, have a 'bad moment'.


Life kicks you around sometimes, it scares you and beats you up but there's one day when you realise you are not just a survivor, you are a warrior, you are tougher than anything it throws your way. You can't change the way you feel, you can only change the way you react. Tough times don't last, tough people do! Winners are not people who never fail but people who never quit. Keep going because you did not come this far just to come this far. 


2 Corinthians 4:17-18 talks about troubles being temporary. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” This points to the things that we see and believe, our fears, which are mostly illusions, compared to what is unseen but is actually the energy of the Universe, otherwise known as love. I refer again to the quote from Pierre Teillhard de Chardin's quote, which I give fully here: "We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge." It is quite the view. You will see...


Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you: Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.


George Bernard Shaw wrote that “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Are you ready to change your mind?


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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