"Only two things can reveal the great secrets of life: suffering and love" - Paulo Coelo, El Aleph
I'd also like to add wine, pearls, and dark chocolate to this list *wink*
For me personally, experiencing everything that comes with the notion of falling and being 'in love', allowed me to feel unique moments touched by grace, and through that, it enabled me to discover dimensions within my own self that I didn't even know existed. It was what initially provoked me to unknowingly start off on this spiritual journey I had embarked on since over half a decade ago. Discovering the ability of unconditionally loving someone else other than myself - irrelevant of the circumstances, served its expanding, bright, and strong purpose as the initial guide that opened the path to everything else that was to follow.
Then, through experiencing limitless emotional (and loads of professional and financial) hardships due to the unfortunate unraveling of events within another relationship and in the world economy in the years that followed, I've gotten the opportunity to feel what there is to feel in a contracting, dark, passive and cold environment. In my own personal way I've wholly experienced both the Yin and Yang (Yin Yang are not opposing forces/dualities, but complementary opposites), which truly makes me appreciate my journey even more because it is complete this way.
** I also think that it has been my own inclination or personal tendency to receive and interpret these experiences in a spiritual manner, because like with everything else, there's always free will. Events manifest in our lives, but it is up to us how we decide to react to them. I could have interpreted these moments either in a purely physical, or financial, or administrative or whichever other way possible. They would have equally materialized in my life and existed because that's the way it was meant to be, but different reactions would create different personal results. I am still in the process of things, but am very content with the way things have worked out so far, as the gains I truly needed in my life were spiritual in nature.
