— Rumi (1207-1273); a popular English rendering, not a literal translation
About this quote
हिन्दी में
दुख से भर जाओ, ताकि तुम आनंद का पर्वत बन सको; रो लो, ताकि तुम हँसी में फूट पड़ो।
What it means
Both halves are imperatives for things no one can obey on command. Nobody can decide to be full of sorrow, and weeping is not a task you can be assigned. So the line cannot be an instruction to manufacture grief; read as an order it is simply unfollowable. What it can be is permission — a licence to stop interrupting sorrow that has already arrived, to let the weeping finish rather than cutting it short at the socially acceptable length.
The other word doing quiet work is may. Not will. The popular use of this line turns it into a payment schedule — suffer now, collect joy later, with interest — and that reading makes grief into an investment and leaves the mourner waiting for a return that was never promised. The sentence offers a possibility, not a receipt.
What it teaches you
Watch for the moment you start managing a grief rather than having it — checking how long it has been, wondering whether this is too much, arranging your face. That management is usually what turns a finite sorrow into a long low one. And when comforting someone, notice how fast you reach for the silver lining; this line, read honestly, offers no timetable, and neither should you.
अर्थ और सीख
दोनों वाक्य आदेश के रूप में हैं, पर दुख और आँसू किसी के आदेश से आते नहीं — इसलिए यह पंक्ति दुख पैदा करने को नहीं, बल्कि आए हुए दुख को बीच में न काटने की अनुमति देती है। और ध्यान दीजिए, इसमें कहा गया है ताकि हो सके, यह नहीं कि होगा ही। इसे सौदा मान लेना — आज रो लो, कल हँसी मिलेगी — इसका सबसे कमज़ोर पाठ है।
Where it comes from
Rumi’s characteristic reversal: sorrow is not the opposite of joy but its precondition, the way a valley is what makes a hill possible. He returns to this again and again — the wound as the place light enters, the grief that hollows you out into a larger vessel.
A popular English rendering. The Masnavi’s own version of this teaching — “Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies” — is on this site with its source named. Rumi (1207–1273) wrote in Persian; almost every English line shared online is a modern rendering rather than a literal translation. Sourced passages from the Masnavi, with their selection titles, are collected under Rumi on Love.
