It is often true that pain opens the heart. No, not the pain of torture, but the pain of loss. All love is of God, yet no personal love is the answer to our deepest needs. Only the love of God, which is unconditional and impersonal, meets our needs without deliberation.
Lovers come and go. Material possessions come and go. Fortunes are made and broken. Great romances burn with desire and then die out. All this is of God: both the giving and the taking away.
The role of Shiva, the Hindu God of destruction, is to take away our illusions. Ironically, this aspect of God, however frightening, is the most compassionate aspect, for only one who loves us most deeply can take away from us that to which we are overly attached. Such a God must listen to our cries of violation, our anger, and our shame. Such a God must love us so perfectly that he endures our fury as He leads us beyond desire and attachment to a deeper wiser love.
No matter how much we resist, an essential aspect of the path of the heart is the ripping way of old beliefs and emotional attachments that prevent us from growing. These beliefs and attachments are developed out of resistance and fear. It is not surprising then, that when we are in the process of letting go of them, we re-experience the original fear behind them.
Experiencing that fear is never as devastating as we think it will be. This is because our defense mechanisms are not wrenched away from us while they still serve some purpose. Rather as a snake discards an old skin, or a butterfly sheds its cocoon, so do we release the mechanisms of self protection which we have outgrown. It is a natural process. It happens when we are ready.
To be sure there is always some resistance to the process and, as a result, some pain. But the pain is not unbearable, nor is it a punishment. Just as a woman in childbirth abides with the pain to give birth, so we too abide with the pain of loss as we are reborn in the Spirit.
Experiencing pain and fear are inevitable as we follow the path of the heart. Ironically, the Way of the Heart does not take us away from our suffering but right through it. It is not a path of renunciation or avoidance, but a path of experience. Whatever comes up in life is grist for the mill.
We must not exaggerate the pain nor minimise it. We must not run from it, nor hold onto it. We must be with it, and learn from it. Only by doing so can we leave it behind.
Extract from Following Your Bliss in Paul Ferrini’s The Wounded Child’s Journey into Love’s Embrace.
Emerging From The Dark Night 