What are your thoughts on this?

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I believe it means, we will never succeed in Life if we do not fully feel alive, if we do not have Belief that one day we would be able to fly.

with love and respect,
A.Pinski

I know that we have opposing emotions, but I don't believe that most of us turn from one to the opposite. I think that both are important; yin-yang...without opposites, any emotion has very little meaning, at least deeply. If we've never felt great anger, it is very hard to fully understand peace and tranquility.

I agree with this 100%. You put this very eloquently, Rex.

I think that Rumi is pointing out the necessity of examining the depths of existence, not merely the heights. Put another way, with +1 and -1, the range of your experience effectively doubles.

" God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one. Mevlana Rumi "

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Maybe not all learning is from the "opposite" perspective . Ofcourse it is understood that you can turn your head one way and then turn it the other or opposite way . This is normal accepted behaviour ,whatever ,,ofcourse we do have those who's head turn completely around ,ouch .

Since my last car accident l can't turn my head completely around anymore lol.

Perhaps Mevlana Rumi means that we error and we learn from our errors and this manifests Wisdom for us and as well as the regular way to be we can be with great Wisdom by continually making mistakes lol but also by learning from those mistakes .

We have our normal accepted life and then with the opposite factor we get life with bonus and that bonus being wisdom .

In the Baha'i Faith we have a saying "It takes two wings to fly.." and that can be a reference to the equality of men and women...or the oneness of humanity...that we need each other to ascend into the heavens.

- Art

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

A few things come to mind, first many Sufi's are considered, drunk or sober,
meaning they are found in an intoxicated or non intoxicated state. By intoxicated i mean they are drunk on remembering God, intoxicated by God, feel close to him.
So perhaps Rumi was saying God turns them or moves them close to Him and far from Him, so they learn to remember Him in both these states.

Another is that we do learn to appreciate things by their opposites, when we are sad, we appreciate happiness more, or when we are wet we appreciate dryness more, etc. By knowing different states or opposites, we have more knowledge to draw from.

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Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do ~Rumi

I hate it when people say what God does with no evidence that this is so.