When someone we love dies, many people turn to holy books. Here are lines on grief from eight traditions, in each book's own words. Every quote is checked word for word against the real text. Each one links to its full passage.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
18 The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazer says: Pacify not thy friend in the moment of his anger, and comfort him not while his deceased lies before him; question him not while he is making his vow, and endeavor not to see him at the moment of his disgrace.
Moses explained to them that to walk after God meant to imitate humbly his attributes of mercy and compassion by clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and comforting the mourner.
155 And surely We shall try you with something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth and lives and crops; but give glad tidings to the steadfast, 156 Who say, when a misfortune striketh them: Lo! we are Allah's and lo! unto Him we are returning.
Surely the eye sheds tears and the heart grieves and we do not say but what the Lord is pleased with; and we, O Ibrâhîm! are full of grief on account of thy separation.
Thou grievest where no grief should be! thou speak'st Words lacking wisdom! for the wise in heart Mourn not for those that live, nor those that die. Nor I, nor thou, nor any one of these, Ever was not, nor ever will not be, For ever and for ever afterwards. All, that doth live, lives always!
O Ubbirī, who wailest in the wood, Crying 'O Jīvā! O my daughter dear!' Come to thyself! Lo, in this burying-ground Are burnt full many a thousand daughters dear, And all of them were named like unto her. Now which of all those Jīvās dost thou mourn?
Lo! from my heart the hidden shaft is gone! The shaft that nestled there hath he removed. And that consuming grief for my dead child Which poisoned all the life of me is dead. (52) To-day my heart is healed, my yearning stayed, And all within is purity and peace.
This dear soul is driven off, when the pre-ordained Order is received, and all the relatives cry out in mourning. The body and the swan-soul are separated, when one's days are past and done, O my mother.
When Yen Yuan died, the Master bewailed him exceedingly, and the disciples who were with him said, "Master, your grief is excessive!" "Is it excessive?" said he. "If I am not to mourn bitterly for this man, for whom should I mourn?"
When she died, I could not help being affected by her death. Soon, however, I remembered that she had already existed in a previous state before birth, without form, or even substance; that while in that unconditioned condition, substance was added to spirit; that this substance then assumed form; and that the next stage was birth. And now, by virtue of a further change, she is dead, passing from one phase to another like the sequence of spring, summer, autumn and winter.
Every quote on this page is checked word for word against the stored text of its book.
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