Hazrat Inayat Khan tells us that hope may be of two types, dependent and independent. Dependent hope requires results to stay alive, and if results are not forthcoming, hope dies; this is the hope of the pessimist.  Independent hope, the hope of the optimist, does not rely upon results, and so rather than needing sustenance, it sustains us.  In the Gathas, (Tasawwuf I, 3) Pir-o-Murshid Inayat says, Hope is more than a faculty or a quality, hope may be called the substance of life. Wise and foolish, rich and poor, all live in some hope. Hope can prolong life and lack of hope can shorten it. The joy that one gets from hope is greater than the joy that comes from the possession of the object hoped for. Therefore there is a Sanskrit saying that Brahma in the creation took honey from all the flowers and that this honey was hope. The interpretation is that out of all things that are beautiful and that give joy and happiness the essence is taken and that essence is hope.

But the journey is long, and hope must be sustained by patience if we wish to arrive at our destinaton. Patience is a form of self-control, and when our aim is to deny the small self, it is an essential discipline to develop. In the Gathas, (Tasawwuf I, 4) Hazrat Inayat Khan speaks of four kinds of patience – patient control of action, of thought, of speech and of feeling, and tells us that patience may be exercised in relation to others, or towards ourselves.  Enduring the unwelcome action or speech of another, and holding ourselves back from acting or speaking or even feeling anger in response is very difficult, but Pir-o-Murshid says that this is the first lesson of mastery and the last, and that our efforts to be patient will always reward us.  He says, Patience always wins something great, even when to all appearance it loses. Sometimes a patient person seems a vanquished one, but in reality the victory is his. In the path of mastery, as in the path of renunciation, patience plays the greatest part.

We must admit, though, that being fixed in place by patience can try our nerves and feel like torture, and  Hazrat Inayat Khan likens it to crucifixion; although we may long to rise upward, we are pinned motionless on earth.  Nevertheless, he says, one must remember that resurrection is always reached through crucifixion. Patience often seems like the effacement of self, and it is true that it is self-effacement, and yet nothing is lost, for by this practice of control a far greater power is attained. The Persian poets have called patience death. Doubtless it is to all appearance death, for it causes activity to cease, but in reality it is a greater life.

Disillusoned by the mirages of life, therefore, and confronted by worldly pains and difficulties, the spiritual seeker may learn to turn the experience inside out, so to speak. Instead of fleeing from the difficulties, which in any case cannot be avoided, if we accept them and learn to profit from them, that can open the way to paradise.   Mystics have written poems about welcoming the bowl of poison; it does not mean a morbid wish to end the life of the body, but rather a wholehearted acceptance of whatever will enable us to free ourselves from the burden of our small self.

But the image of drinking poison can be misleading, perhaps suggesting that there is an external solution to our plight.  The forgetting of our small ego is not a process that falls upon us from without – it is something we ourselves work on, day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute. To gain the victory, we must cherish hope and strtegthen our patience to accept without flinching whatever comes upon us. And when we are steadfast, and follow the trail to the end, we shall recognize that in the course of the journey two wings have unfolded from our heart, the wing of independence, and the wing of indifference. From that moment, no earthly trials can deprive our heart of its celestial freedom.

In Gayan Boulas we find : 
The greatest love in life is often that which is covered under indifference.
Indifference and independence are the two wings which enable the soul to fly.