Discovering and living in balance in an increasingly expansive way is not easy. It takes courage, humility, intention, support, vulnerability, rooting into the Sacred, and so much more. This process of opening to the beauty, wisdom, compassion and peace of our true nature is often not easily discovered - even though it is ever present. First many of us find ourselves blindly traveling on painful paths that become deadends... again and again and again. So often the peacefulness, love, and connection we yearn for remains illusive.
I certainly did not know that the peace I was desperately seeking outside of myself was to be found within. And in the experience of interbeing. Then, in the earlier years of my healing and awakening, I was given the gift of this metaphor: I was to visualize that the peace I/we yearn for is like the stillness of the deep sea. While great storms arise, the turbulence of the surface does not disturb the quiet depths. This great stillness within is always there for us....
I had hoped to be two years, in and out (of 12 Step Programs, therapy, grief work, etc.), then done, fini, graduated and living happily ever after. Of course, there was no magic, no way to snap out of all that I carried inside and teleport myself into an awakened being living in blissed out wonderfulness. There was no fast track to enlightenment, no special prayer tht could suddenly get rid of all that I had wanted to shed. Quickly. No, instead there has been this life, death, rebirth process of gradually lifting the veils of my distortions, my wounds, my fears and losses, and going deeper to embrace what scared me and what I had been denying and neglecting for decades.
Certainly, I needed to learn about forgiveness, which I had been confusing with denial. I was gifted with this anonymous quote 25 years ago:
"Forgiveness does not change the past. It does not make what happened a non-event. It doesn't erase something that has been done. Forgiveness is an offer to reestablish a broken relationship. It says that loving is more important than nursing a wrong. It doesn't correct the past, but it does give back the future. It permits restoration of relationship."
Of course, what I learned is that the primary relationship that first needed to be restored was the one with myself. I had gotten so lost, I had become so much the stranger to my own being. And I certainly knew very little about forgiveness, and even less how the journey through the doorway of my tears would lead me beyond forgiveness to compassion, understanding, and love.
Miracles happen. Somewhere on this amazing journey, as I awakened to remember more and more pieces of a much larger story, so much began to be transformed, deeply, and continues to be. At some point I crossed over a line and there simply was no going back. Ever. The pull to go back to the darkness of my ignorance, judgments, addictions, unhealed wounds, and disconnect from myself and others has been replaced with this passionate gratitude and joy of living a rich, full life. Right down there in the thick of things, I found the love that will not die.
Blessings... Molly
*****************
The Love That Will Not Die
Spiritual
awakening is frequently described
as
a journey to the top of a mountain.
We
leave our attachments and our worldliness
behind
and slowly make our way to the top.
At
the peak we have transcended all pain.
The
only problem with this metaphor is
that
we leave all the others behind --
our
drunken brother, our schizophrenic sister,
our
tormented animals and friends.
Their
suffering continues, unrelieved
by
our personal escape.
In
the process of discovering our true nature,
the
journey goes down, not up.
It’s
as if the mountain pointed toward the
center
of the earth instead of reaching into the sky.
Instead
of transcending the suffering of all creatures,
we
move toward the turbulence and doubt.
We
jump into it. We slide into it. We tiptoe into it.
We
move toward it however we can.
We
explore the reality and unpredictability
of
insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away.
If
it takes years, if it takes lifetimes,
we
will let it be as it is. At our own pace,
without
speed or aggression,
we
move down and down and down.
With
us move millions of others,
our
companions in awakening from fear.
At
the bottom we discover water,
the
healing water of compassion.
Right
down there in the thick of things,
we
discover the love that will not die.
~ Pema Chödrön
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