The preceptor continued, “The world is composed of higher and lower things, greater or smaller and is in quest of peace and happiness, and all want to avoid misery; but you must know that there is no pleasure and happiness without misery. The two are, as it were, two sides of the same straight line, just as you cannot have one side of a straight line without other, or the night without the day, or the light without darkness, and pleasure and happiness without pain and misery. These are the necessary qualities of existence and are merely different aspects of the same underlying reality.”

Author: Swami Sambuddhananda

Source: VTS