Vulnerability

 

Some feel it deep, some feel it deeper and some are superficially impervious to it.

 

Yet one thing that is common in all of us, in fact all living things is that we each have faced it. Whether human, animal, plant or microbe. All sentient life must feel the pangs of vulnerability to grow. I contemplated this. Here are my musings.

 

I felt vulnerable physically when I fall prey to illness and disease.

 

I felt vulnerable mentally when I feel that I do not know enough about a subject or field of interest.

 

I felt vulnerable in my relationships during arguments.

 

I felt vulnerable economically when my finances are a mess.

 

I felt vulnerable socially, when I am shunned by society for speaking truths or by those who I connected with who I thought were friends.

 

I felt vulnerable vocationally at a job that can replace me in a week and where there is no growth.

 

I felt vulnerable spiritually, when I have difficulty in connecting to divinity for guidance in prayer.

 

Life’s experiences get louder and louder with each passing day and push me to hide into the darkness. To feel invulnerable, I go deeper within, yet what I am actually looking for is just safety and security. I find none. I shun myself from the outside world, its dissidents, its causalities. Like in the wild, as a lion attacks its vulnerable prey and chokes its life, the glimmer of hope out of its eyes fades, I too resonate with the same.

 

I go deeper into the darkness, searching for its comfort, away from all the lights around. I feel what I am protecting. A tiny light in my heart starts to flicker against the howling loud winds of life’s torments. I try to shied it and protect it. What I fear is not death. But the loss of the chance for this light to reach its full potential in the world. For it to rise up and make a difference.

 

My fears push me down, down and down. Away from everyone and everything. The only way I know how to keep this light safe is to shun away and close my heart. Lock it. Seal it. Tight. I am not afraid of death or losing everything. I have already lost. I have experienced that already. I am afraid of losing myself, the death of this light, but not this body that houses it.

 

This infinitesimal light remains strong. No matter what, it remains. As a single twinkling star alone in the lightless sky. Solitary. It shines bright, realizing that only in the absence of other light can it shine bright and reveal itself. It is the darkness, the hard situations in life are exactly what is needed to create its brightness. It finds its invulnerability. It cannot be destroyed. It exists to serve and help others find their way by shining its own light as a beacon. A guide. A teacher. So that others way awaken and shine their own light on their own paths.

 

This is the alchemy of vulnerability into invulnerability. It must be felt. Experienced. To slow it down and go through that veil of unknowing and uncertainty. It is only by its piercing that I find that the future is pregnant with possibility. The light that was once a flicker becomes a roaring fire of aliveness and shares its wisdom with all those ready to receive its warmth. It can only do this by being true to itself.

 

It is the light that is invulnerable. Everything surrounding it, is but an illusion of time and space manifested by thoughts, judgments and emotion. The darkness , the challenges are the support yet also the catalysts for the light to take its place amongst all the luminous suns scattered about the cosmos. We are home.

…………….

 

I love you