What can sadness be but a temporary illusion? A visitor in your heart only for a while. A sad stranger who wants to make a home for himself with you and doesn't know when to leave. Most assuredly, sadness overstays its welcome.

Of course, sadness must be some comfort to you, or why would you have it?

No one would nurse his wounds unless he thought he had been wounded. This is where sadness comes in. A part of you feels deprived, and that makes room for sadness. It invites it. Perhaps you relish sadness, the way you might enjoy a cold because it is familiar and gives you a chance to stay home. Perhaps you contemplate sadness as restorative, something you must have every now and then. Even at the height of sadness, you know that it will inevitably lead to absence of sadness and the entrance of joy. It is ever so.

The sadness I am speaking of is low-key, the kind that enters your heart, and you don't know why. You didn't notice when it arrived but there it is. This is not major grief but slow-burning winding hanging-on sadness that seeps into your life, curls up in a nest, and encourages you to feel sorry for yourself. But you are not a character in a melodrama who pulls down the shades and bravely lives a sodden life in a darkened room.

Nothing has transpired but sadness. You have held it in your mind. It can leave as effortlessly as it came. It requires no fanfare.

Even in sadness, you can let the light in. Even in sadness, you can go into the sunlight. Even in sadness, you can celebrate life. Even in sadness, you can let sadness go. Sadness is really a trifle. It only makes itself big. It is really nothing at all, something borrowed for a while, not really yours.

Sadness is not inherent. It really has nothing to do with you. It's just there until it leaves. It is truly not your partner. You owe no debt to sadness. You have no obligation to it. You do not need to be patient with it. Nor impatient either.

Consider sadness like the weather. Inclement weather is always followed by sunshine.

Consider your beating heart a radiant sun that emanates light. Receive the light your heart shines. Allow its rays to shine out and come into your awareness. The light will dry up your sadness. The light of the sun will wipe your tears. Look to the sun. Remember the light of the sun and bask in it.

Even thoughts of the sun have sun energy. Picture your heart as a sun the color of butter. With every breath, the sun gets bigger until you are totally yellow sun. You are a ball of sun. Your sun now extends beyond you. It keeps going out. Its rays encompass everything. The whole earth becomes a bright yellow sun, a twin to the sun in the sky. This great sun absorbs the little sadness. Sadness disappears in the light of the radiating sun-heart that dispels all illusion.

When sadness enters your heart, remember your heart is a beautiful sun that shines beautiful light and fills you. The sunlight will quietly and graciously usher sadness out, and it will be gone. Sadness cannot be located in bright sunlight. Sadness cannot even be remembered in the light of the sun. The sun sees no cause for sadness.

Sunlight swirls through you now. The light of your heart beams out. You succor the world. You hold the world close to you. You brush off anything from the world that does not belong.

Sadness is to be enjoyed only for a little while. Its time is over now.