Who can speak of joy without having known pain, or of peace without having seen and known strife?

Who can speak of joy without having known pain, or of peace without having seen and known strife? At dawn the day is parted from the night, and each is known in its own nature and strength, for without contrast nothing is revealed. No image appears in a clear mirror if one side is not darkened.

Adversity is the revelation of equality, which hovers elusively within itself in silent eternity, without light, without darkness, without joy, without sorrow.

But whence does adversity enter silent eternity, which knows, understands and has nothing outside itself?

Where a man wants to have what is not, desire, fear and pain arise. Thus a hidden life brings no joy: and since solitary eternity has nothing outside itself, it seeks the joy of its own revelation within itself; for strength, might and glory, in truth, are all contained in its bosom. The dark hell and the shining hell sound from one heart through the word, according to Scripture.

I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things, that both the rising of the sun and the setting of the sun may be known, that there is none beside Me.

Isaiah 45:6, 7

And so the all-one freedom is divided, yet remains an indivisible, gentle unity. It seeks light and power, and in desire is transformed into fear and darkness. Thus it begets light out of darkness, for darkness awakens fire, and fire awakens light, and light reveals the wonders of wisdom in the images which it led from its gentle freedom, from the mirror of wisdom and wonder, to the dark desire in which it was hidden