Spiritual concepts
Adversity
Adversity is any event that hinders or prevents something you want to do. It is a set-back or a block to your goals. It can result from three main things
- If you are performing a task which is in line with the Great Work it may mean that another person is acting outside the Great work exercising free will and thus hindering you by their actions
- It may indicate that what you are doing is not in line with the Great Work that all you are doing is exercising free will
- It may indicate that you are performing a task in the Great Work but that you have taken a wrong direction and need to take a different course to achieve the goal
Adversity causes Pain.
BUT, there is also another way of looking at adversity, it can be the time to transcend the hurt and the pain and produce something extraordinary. There are people like Delius and Tennyson whose pain - physical and emotional drove them to create heaven from hell. Adversity has inspired the creative to produce some of the most wonderful poems, music, paintings, photos, buildings and other works of art that we enjoy.
Observations
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- Abbey Curran on Ellen (full)
- Abu Menba Carawash, Sultan of Mousel – To Adversity
- Aeschylus - Agamemnon - Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way
- Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness - 13 Adversity and illness as a means of ‘opening the door’
- Albertus Magnus – On union with God - Adversity
- Amy Purdy: Living beyond limits
- Angela Morgan - Work
- Anon - Adversity
- Ashtavakra Gita - 11 Wisdom
- Attar, Fariduddin - God Speaks to David
- Bailey, Philip James - from Festus I - Adversity
- Bailey, Philip James - from Festus I - Good and evil
- Barrett Browning, Elizabeth - Quote
- Benjamin, Walter - Theses on the Philosophy of History - The storm is what we call progress
- Berlioz - chorus from l'Enfance du Christ
- Berlioz - Harold en Italie
- Berlioz - Le carnaval romain
- Berlioz - Les nuits d'été
- Berlioz - Les Troyens 01
- Berlioz - Messe des morts [Requiem]
- Berlioz - Roméo et Juliette
- Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique
- Berlioz - Te Deum
- Berlioz - The Tempest overture
- Berlioz - Waverley overture
- Bhagavad Gita - Destiny
- Bill Withers - Ain't no sunshine
- Blake, William - I heard the fury of the wind
- Blake, William - Whilst Virtue is our walking staff
- Boehme, Jacob - Aurora - Demons and adversity
- Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy - On good and evil
- Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy - Providence stings some people to avoid giving them happiness for too long
- Book of Five Spheres - On Rhythm in Martial Arts
- Book of Five Spheres - The Fire Scroll - Crossing a Ford
- Book of Job - 01 Prologue
- Book of Job - 23 Job's sorrow at not getting clearer help from God
- Book of Job - 33 Elihu how to get guidance - dreams and visions
- Bose, Sir Jagadis Chandra - Thy will be done
- Bronte, Emily - No coward soul is mine
- Bronte, Emily - The Old Stoic
- Browne, Sir Thomas - Religio Medici - Now for my life
- Browning, Robert - from Bishop Blougram's Apology
- Brunton, Dr Paul - The Quest of the Overself - Mystery of the self
- Buddha - Diamond sutra - 16 Karma and its meaning
- Buddha - The Dhammapada - Magga-vaggo
- Carlson, Chester – Trust in God, ‘Thy will be done’
- Carlyle, Thomas - On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic - Smoke and fire
- Chesterton, G K - Orthodoxy - Life is as precious as it is puzzling
- Chesterton, G K - Orthodoxy - What drives change
- Chuang Tzu - from The Flight of Lin Hui
- Clare, John - O I never dreamed of parting or that trouble had a sting
- Cohen, Leonard - First we take Manhattan
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - This lime tree bower my prison
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - To an unfortunate woman at the theatre
- Conquering and Preventing Stress - By Judith Lynne Hanna
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Lies - Buttons and Rosettes
- Dante - Inferno [self pity]
- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion - David Hume – The effects of inspiration
- Dickinson, Emily - Experience is the angled road Preferred against the Mind
- Dr John Ross on adversity
- Dr Seuss - Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
- Dr Seuss - Oh the Places You’ll Go
- Eliot, T S - Four Quartets - 05 East Coker III
- Faithfull, Marianne - Flaming September
- Faithfull, Marianne - As Tears Go By (1987)
- Faithfull, Marianne - Bored By Dreams
- Faithfull, Marianne - I'll keep it with mine
- Faithfull, Marianne - She
- Faithfull, Marianne - Strange Weather (1989)
- Faithfull, Marianne - The Stars line up
- Faithfull, Marianne - Who Will Take My Dreams Away
- Faithfull, Marianne - with Joe Jackson - Love got Lost
- Faithfull, Marianne - Working Class Hero - live
- Fenelon, Francois - On adversity and humiliation
- Fleetwood Mac - Don't Stop
- Fleetwood Mac - Landslide (Video)
- Frost, Robert - Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
- Gaudi - Professional work - 04 The Sagrada Família
- George Harrison - This is love
- Goethe - Selected poems - Who never wept to eat his bread
- Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The House of the Seven Gables - On adversity
- Henry Austin - Perseverance conquers all
- Hesiod - Works and Days - The two kinds of Strife
- Hugo, Victor - A Villequier
- James - James 1 verses 1 to 27
- James - James 5 verses 1 to 20
- James, William - The Varieties of Religious Experience - On adversity
- Jeremy Bentham - The Principles of Morals and Legislation - On Adversity
- Judee Sill - Jesus was a Crossmaker
- Judee Sill - Soldier of the Heart
- Judee Sill - The Archetypal Man
- Judee Sill - The Lamb Ran Away with the Crown
- Judee Sill - When the Bridegroom Comes
- Keats, John - from Letters
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat - The Art of Being and Becoming - Blessed are the pure in heart
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat - The Art of Being and Becoming - On adversity
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat - The Art of Being and Becoming - On why are we here
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat – The Art of Being and Becoming - On criticism and your destiny
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat – The Art of Being and Becoming - The eradication of suffering
- Leibniz - On adversity
- Lewis, C S - Quote
- Lowell, James Russell - Envy’s harsh berries and the choking pool
- Lowell, James Russell - He who hath felt life’s mystery
- Lowell, James Russell - Through suffering and sorrow I have passed
- Maeterlinck, Maurice - The Invisible Goodness
- Maier, Michael - The Secrets of Alchemy - The phoenix
- Marvin Gaye - The world is just a great big onion
- Mascaro, Juan - For Anandam, pure joy
- Masters and Houston
- Meister Eckhart - Selected writings - No one comes to the Father except through the Son
- Meredith, George - Modern Love [complete poem]
- Nazeer Akbarabadi - Each blossom
- Nietzsche - The Gay Science - The poison which destroys the weaker nature, strengthens the stronger
- Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra - Humility hath the hardest skin
- Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra - Those who grave new values on new tables
- O'Reilly, John Boyle - In this brief life despair should never reach us
- Ovid - Metamorphoses - The Transformation of Ino and Melicerta to Sea-Gods
- Plato - Republic X - 05 Tale of Er
- Plotinus - The Enneads - A powerful frame, a healthy constitution
- Plotinus - The Enneads - As for violent personal sufferings
- Plotinus - The Enneads - It is certain that we shrink from the unpleasant
- Poetic Edda - Sayings of the High One [extract]
- Porter, Cole - All of you
- Porter, Cole - From this moment on
- Porter, Cole - I love you Samantha
- Proust, Marcel - In Search of Lost Time Volumes VI & VII - On Grief and suffering
- Proverbs 3
- Qu'ran - Good and bad - Al-Baqarah:216
- Qu'ran - Good and bad - An-Nisā':19
- Quincey, Thomas de - Suspiria de Profundis
- Qu’ran - Black, White and Adversity - Surah Al An’am
- Ramdas, Swami - Just as an unshapen stone can be fashioned
- Ramdas, Swami - When sadness and suffering become intense
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - About Colours
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - Almost a Conjurer
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - Another Time
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - Emergence
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - Evening
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - In Foreign Parts
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - One Night
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - Submission
- Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - Unconfirmed
- Romance of the Rose – Lady Fortune
- Rosenberg, Isaac - Dead Man's Dump
- Rumi - Quote - On adversity
- Russell, George William - Song and its Fountain
- Russell, George William - The Man to the Angel
- Saadi - The Gulistan of Sa‘di – 10 from The Manners of Kings Solitude
- Samuel Johnson - On adversity
- Schrodinger, Erwin - Mind and Matter - Testing creation
- Schulz, Charles - Adversity
- Sefer ha-bahir – Para 34 – The Hebrew letter Chet
- Seurat, Georges - Bathers at Asnières
- Seurat, Georges - Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque) 1888
- Seurat, Georges - Drawings in Conté crayon
- Seurat, Georges - Jeune femme se poudrant
- Seurat, Georges - La Maria, Honfleur
- Seurat, Georges - Le Chahut [Can can] 1889–9
- Seurat, Georges - Le Cirque
- Seurat, Georges - Models (Les Poseuses), 1886-88
- Seurat, Georges - Profiles of a Model 1887
- Seurat, Georges - The Beach of Le Bas Butin, near Honfleur 1886
- Seurat, Georges - Un dimanche après-midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte
- Shakespeare, William - King Richard III Act IV
- Shakespeare, William - Short Quote
- Shelley, Percy Bysshe - The colours of his mind seemed yet unworn
- Silesius - The Cherubinic Wanderer – 10 Love 237
- Smetana - Dreams
- Smetana - String Quartet No 2 in D minor
- Smetana - The Kiss - Hajej, můj andílku
- Socrates - Epictitus The Enchiridion - Learning from experience
- Socrates - Misc. Quote - Prosperity and Adversity
- Sri Anandamayi Ma - The purpose of suffering
- Sri Aurobindo - 04 Savitri Book IV Canto I
- Sri Aurobindo - Invitation
- Sri Aurobindo - To Weep Because
- Stapledon, Olaf - Starmaker - The cosmos
- Steiner, Rudolf - How to Know Higher Worlds - Finding your destiny
- Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Infinite - Why are we here?
- Tarot - 05 Minor Arcana - 05s Adversity [purification]
- Tennyson, Alfred Lord - In Memoriam A H H - Life is not as idle ore
- Tennyson, Alfred Lord - In Memoriam A H H - Tis better to have loved and lost
- The Book of Baruch
- The Kybalion - The Law of the Pendulum
- The Lotus Sutra - 12 Encouraging Devotion - 1 The trials and opposition to be expected
- Theodore Roethke - In a dark time, the eye begins to see
- Thoughts of suicide became a thing of the past
- Twenty five Chinese poems - Winter - In the Field
- Vaughan Williams - Job, a Masque for dancing (1931)
- Waller, Edmund - On the foregoing Divine Poems
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd by
- Watts, Alan - To strive for pleasure to the exclusion of pain is to strive for the loss of consciousness
- Wei Boyang - The Canton of qi
- Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass - The pleasures of heaven are with me
- Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass - This is the trill of a thousand clear cornets
- Wilcox, Ella Wheeler - As you go through life
- Wilcox, Ella Wheeler - But whatever is – is best
- Wilcox, Ella Wheeler - It might have been
- Wilcox, Ella Wheeler - The Winds of fate
- Williams, Margery - The Velveteen Rabbit - 01
- Williams, Margery - The Velveteen Rabbit - 02
- Williams, Margery - The Velveteen Rabbit - 03
- Williams, Margery - The Velveteen Rabbit - 04
- Williams, Margery - The Velveteen Rabbit - 05
- Williams, Margery - The Velveteen Rabbit - 06
- Yeats, W B - Per Amica Silentia Lunae
- Yeats, W B - Selected poems - Among schoolchildren
- Yerka, Jacek and André Maurois - On suffering
- Yerka, Jacek and Arthur Clough - Say not the struggle naught availeth
- Yerka, Jacek and Etty Hillesum – An Interrupted Life
- Yerka, Jacek and Luigi Pirandello - Six characters in search of an author
- Yerka, Jacek and M Kathleen Casey – The Promise of a New day
- Yerka, Jacek and Rashani Rea - The Unbroken
- Yerka, Jacek and William Ernest Henley - I am the captain of my soul