# Off-Topic Discussion > Artists' Corner >  >  Is this being human really like a guest house?

## Mayflow

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

ps Didn't Ellen (I am just copying from another forum where Ellen and I have been bickering and calling each other bad names, but all of a sudden we are calling each other teachers) say something to the effect that we ARE all teachers? If you cannot handle disruption, what can you handle? Probably not much of anything. Only when the disruptions become your teachers, you can begin to grow and learn, and go beyond as in the following poem by Rumi:


Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva

and one by mayflow:

The mind of the awakened is clear and bright
as it thinks all day and it thinks all night
Letting the old thoughts go for the new ones to come
The asleep cannot go where the awakened have gone

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