The Bowl of Saki Commentary
Commentary for:
By our thoughts we have prepared for ourselves the happiness or unhappiness we experience.
Commentary from Hazrat Murshid SAM (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti, Samuel L. Lewis):
The Bowl of Saki Commentary, copyright © 1981, 2012 Sufi Ruhaniat International. All rights reserved.
When there is no attachment to things or thoughts, happiness is the natural condition. Mind may begin by selecting conditions under which there is a greater relative amount of happiness, and as soon as it does this the other conditions have a lesser amount of happiness. This creates pain, suffering, and longing, and this longing is never satisfied until the heart is open.
Heaven and hell are one and the same, but the reactions to the experiences are different. Artist, scientist, artisan, and musician all are agents of good in the world, but if each had to work in the place of the other, instead of finding beauty they would find misery. This shows that mind is the root-seat of these various conditions of happiness or unhappiness.