The Guest House

Every day brings a different kind of joy, and every thought has a different effect each day.  
The body is like a guesthouse, and various thoughts are like different guests. The mystic, in acceptance, welcomes both sorrowful and joyful thoughts, like a hospitable host who welcomes strangers. Just as Abraham was generous to guests, always open to believers and non-believers, trustworthy and treacherous alike, he greeted all guests with a fresh face.  
This body is a guesthouse, young one, and every morning a new guest arrives swiftly.  
Don't say this guest is a burden on my neck, for it will soon fly back into nonexistence.  
Whatever comes from the unseen world is a guest in your heart; welcome it warmly.  
The story of the guest who stayed because of the rain, and the host's wife said the guest remained a burden on us.  
Suddenly, someone arrived, and it was like a collar around the neck.  
The host welcomed him with honors, and that night there was a feast in their neighborhood.  
The man secretly told his wife, "Tonight, dear lady, prepare two beds."  
Spread ours near the door, and for the guest, spread the other side.  
Both noble ones shared stories of good and bad until midnight.  
After that, the guest, from sleep and conversation, went to the bed on the other side of the door.  
The husband, out of embarrassment, said nothing to him, "This is your place to sleep, dear."  
"For your sleep, O generous one, I have spread the bed on the other side."  
The agreement he had with his wife changed, and the guest slept on that side.  
That night, heavy rain began, and the clouds were astonishingly thick.  
The wife came, thinking her husband was sleeping by the door and the guest on the other side.  
She went naked into the quilt, thinking it was her husband, and kissed the guest eagerly.  
She said, "I was afraid, O great man, it turned out to be the same, the same, the same."  
The man, the guest, was covered in mud and rain, like a royal soap remained on you.  
In this rain and mud, how could he leave? He would become a burden on your head and soul.  
The guest quickly jumped up and said, "Leave this woman, I have boots, I am not worried about the mud."  
"I am leaving, may you have good fortune. May your soul never be sad on the journey."  
So that he could quickly head towards the source, for this happiness on the journey becomes a thief.  
The woman regretted those cold words when the lone guest fled and left.  
The woman said much to him, "Finally, O prince, if I joked, do not take offense."  
The woman's prostration and pleading were of no use; he left and left them in that regret.  
After that, the man and woman wore blue clothes, and they saw his image as a candle without a holder.  
He was leaving, and the desert was illuminated by the man's candle, like paradise made unique by the darkness of night.  
The guest made his own house a guesthouse, from the sorrow and embarrassment of this incident.  
Inside, both secretly, every moment, they would say, "The thought of the guest."  
"I am the companion of Khidr, with a hundred treasures and generosity. I would have scattered them, but it was not your provision."  
The metaphor of daily thoughts that enter the heart as a new guest, arriving at the house from the start of the day, and the virtue of hospitality and cherishing the guest, and the command and ill-temper of the host.  
Every moment, a thought like a dear guest enters your chest every day as well.  
Consider thought as a person, dear one, because a person has value and life from thought.  
If a sorrowful thought blocks the way of joy, it creates the means for joy.  
It sweeps the house quickly of others so that new joy may enter from the source of goodness.  
It sheds the yellow leaves from the branch of the heart so that green leaves may grow continuously.  
It uproots the old joy so that new delight may stride from beyond.  
Sorrow uproots the crooked, decayed root so that the hidden root may appear.  
Whatever sorrow removes or takes from the heart, in return, it truly brings something better.  
Especially for those who are certain of this, that sorrow is a servant of the people of certainty.  
If the cloud and lightning do not bring a frown, the vine will burn from the smiles of the east.  
Good and bad become guests in your heart, like stars moving from house to house.  
When it resides in your tower, be sweet and agile like its rising.  
So that when it connects with the moon, it praises you with the sultan of the heart.  
For seven years, Job, with patience and acceptance, was happy in affliction with God's guest.  
So that when the harsh affliction turns away, he would say to God with a hundred kinds of gratitude.  
From love, the beloved did not turn away from me, Job did not frown for a moment.  
From loyalty and the embarrassment of God's knowledge, he was like milk and honey with affliction.  
Thought enters the chest anew, laugh and smile before it.  
"Protect me, my Creator, from its evil, do not deprive me, grant me from its goodness."