Love Piercing

Unleash Your Heart Course, 2012

So there’s an experience out of time when the heart is moved and it has nothing to do with any action or any potential relationship on earth. It’s not earthly. Suddenly in a moment we see someone’s beauty and pow! There’s that bowing. I think of Teresa of Avila when the angel comes and pierces her with an arrow. It’s like a swoon. When you’re at the height of devotional singing and it’s just too much, so you go, “Ohhhhh!” It’s like breaking open to something way beyond what’s here on earth. There’s a lot that comes when we see and are inspired in that way by another human being. It’s like a cookpot, like stew that has all these ingredients.

So the first thing is the leaping of the heart, the “Ohhhh!”. Before it hits the mind, and invokes the fears, the desires and everything else, there’s that pure “Ohhhh!” And it is devoid of self. There is no “me” in it. It’s just, “Ohhhh!” And the beauty of marinating in that is that the hands are off it, the mind is off it, it is a naked on-your-knees swoon to the Beloved. Now that alone, you could just park your jeep there and have a picnic, you know? Ahhhhh. What pours through the door to the other world into this one in that experience beautifies, purifies, humbles.

It can be uncomfortable to stay there. We can feel young, stupid, caught, get-able, foolish. It can feel unbearable to be that naked before Love. So I want a pause here for that. I want to say, “Ohhhh! That!” That is beautiful in another-worldly way that does not connect with anything in your so-called life. It’s an experience of the ineffable. It’s an experience of piercing!

We can, if we’re lucky in a moment, allow ourselves that, allow ourselves to be taken by that, razed by that, ravaged by that. And as it comes and meets our instrument, boy is that a meaty place! ‘Cause here comes desire, here comes fear, here comes self-loathing. Here comes wanting to hide. Here comes wanting to grab. Here comes wanting to find out, find some reference points, nail it down so we don’t have to feel so exposed! Like, hi, here I am, and here’s my mess. How’s it going, duh? Do you like me? Do you want me? Please?

If we can stay with our paws off, attempting to nail things down, and instead stay in the unknown, what a cookpot, to not try to push the love away, manage it, master it, explain it, say “Oh no, she has a husband! So I don’t have to bother being open to that door.” Or, “Oh no, he’s 50 years older than me.” Or, “Oh forget about it, I’m too ugly for her.” You see all the little doors we escape out of to nail a reference point and get safe from that feeling of, “Holy shit!” instead of allowing ourselves to burn in the fire of that. So to unleash your heart in the world, this realm of utter devastation, utter ravaging, utter beholding and being rendered completely dopey, becomes your home. You are perpetually caught in being dumbstruck by beauty and love.