The Thorn and the Rose is for anyone who needs to learn how to deal with present suffering or who wants to know how others have viewed the role of suffering in human life. It includes nearly 1000 selections from over 300 authors, dating from ancient Greece up to the present time, and presents insights and advice that combine a down-to-earth common-sense approach to life with a sometimes surprising and often profound understanding about the nature and true meaning of suffering.

The authors quoted here have faced pain, tragedy and loss. But instead of becoming embittered and resentful, they have found another path through their afflictions that has changed their understanding of themselves and deepened their relationship to their fellow men and the world.

The theme underlying The Thorn and the Rose is that physical and emotional sufferings are not simply accidents and unfortunate occurrences to be forgotten, but are central ingredients in human life which, rightly understood, are meant to be a profound teacher and illuminator.

Suffering is shown to have the hidden potential as an experience that changes people, expands their emotional understanding of life, and ultimately leads to a spiritual and even mystical transformation.

These extracts further reveal that suffering, when taken in the right way, is able to increase one’s love for other people, thereby uncovering the mysterious and paradoxical connection–hinted at in both religious and secular writings–between suffering and love.

Selected from the sections on SORROW, JOYand LOVE

Does that mean I am never sad, that I never rebel, always acquiesce, and love life no matter what the circumstances? No, far from it. I believe that I know and share the many sorrows and sad circumstances that a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them, I do not prolong such moments of agony. They pass through me, like life itself, as a broad, eternal stream, they become part of that stream, and life continues. And as a result all my strength is preserved, does not become tagged on to futile sorrow or rebelliousness.
Etty Hillesum

Happiness you enjoy, what is wrong with it? When happiness has gone and you have become sad, what is wrong with sadness? Enjoy it. Once you become capable of enjoying sadness, then you are neither.

And this I tell you: if you enjoy sadness, it has its own beauties. Happiness is a little shallow; sadness is very deep, it has a depth to it. A man who has never been sad will be shallow, just on the surface. Sadness is like a dark night, very deep. Darkness has a silence to it, and sadness also. Happiness bubbles; there is a sound in it. It is like a river in the mountains; sound is created. But in the mountains, a river can never be very deep; it is always shallow. When the river comes to the plain it becomes deep, but the sound stops. It moves as if not moving. Sadness has depth.
Osho

Compiled by Anthony Williams
Published by Archive Publications, $19.50

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” –Anais Nin

Is there a dream in you that wants to bloom? Are you ready to share it with the world? Sometimes we have to reach a point where the pain and sadness of inaction is more overwhelming than the fear of taking the leap. Often we find it hard to move to our next level of greatness because it is easier to stay with “the devil we know”. What a beautiful thing it is, however, when we can turn the corner and embrace a new possibility. Sometimes it takes years–maybe even a lifetime to open up to true purpose. And sometimes, the shift can happen in an instant, especially in a new paradigm world:)