Entertaining Guests

"This body is a guest house: every morning a new guest comes running into it.
Beware, do not say, "This guest is a burden to me," for presently he will fly back into non-existence...
Every day, too, at every moment, a different thought comes, like an honored guest, into your heart.
O dear soul, regard every thought as a person, since every person derives his worth from thought and spirit.
If the thought of sorrow is waylaying joy, yet it is also making preparations for joy.
It violently sweeps your house clean of all else, in order that a new joy, from the source of goodness, may enter in.
It scatters the yellow leaves from the bough of the heart, in order that continual green leaves may grow.
It uproots the old joy, in order that a new joy may march in from the Beyond...
Good and ill fortune become guests in your heart, like the stars that move from one planet in the zodiac to another."

Rumi (Vol. 5, 3644-3686)

Commentary: The rule of spiritual hospitality: graciously welcome reality.