daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that
pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears.
“The Unseen” does not necessarily refer to God in the Abrahamic sense of the word, not yet. But there are so many godlike qualities of the universe that it needn’t be. Call it Destiny, Fate, the Universe, the Numinous, the Ineffable: what Kahlil is alluding to what the Greek philosopher Lucretius called  de rerum natura , the nature of things. 
 
 The popular spiritual writer  Eckhart Tolle  commented: 
 Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment. 
 Tautological, sure. But think about it and you may be able to see that it is destined that you should feel this pain: the heavy hand of your own instincts are guided by fate. God has a tough love approach.
On Pain