The game isn’t to be high, it’s to be free. And that freedom comes through our incarnation, not in spite of it.
In an attempt to touch our true nature, we may start to remove the masks and layers. We come to see the suffering as a gift to show us where we are stuck.
The secret to compassion lies in the ability to embrace darkness into light, to allow suffering to transform us.
I’ve been sitting with this amazing teaching by Ram Dass for the past couple of days. What if my suffering is truly a reflection of the very places in me where I am stuck, small, constricted? I thought of it some more this morning, while walking through bare botanical gardens, and found this rose. So very much alive in December cold.
Life and death coexist. Darkness and light coexist. Expansion and contraction coexist. Ease and struggle coexist. Pain and love coexist. I don’t need to choose, give importance, attach or favorite. I can see my pain as my gift, teaching me that love can be found even in the darkest of places. Because it can. 🌹
