LOVE AND VULNERABILITY

… In the afternoon I go to Angela's house and we talk about women's natural openness and vulnerability, and the need to allow this openness as much as possible, for it is the way love enters into the heart.

"We are loved, all of us," she says. "Love is the divine energy within us; love is the fuel for the journey, the beginning of the journey, the end of the journey. Love is the energy of the path, the fabric of the universe, the way God lets Himself be known in the world. Our longing to go Home, our longing for God, our longing to be ourselves completely will guide love to us, will increase the love within us, and will love allow to transform us. But we know the tendency to turn away from love; there is always the danger that we don't trust it.

"It is so important that women allow themselves to be loved. That is the way we give ourselves in complete trust. For many of us it is much easier to identify with someone who loves, who is actively giving. But how is it to be loved, without control, without limiting what flows to us in abundance? And to not care about being vulnerable to love, to accept the bewilderment of love, and even to accept the violation that comes with love?

"We like the side of love that is tender, soft, and embracing, the love that gives us what we want," Angela says, smiling. "But love has this other side as well that we sometimes forget. It is the violent quality of love, uncompromising and allowing nothing but the truth. Love is a quality of light, and when light enters the darkness it can hurt. A ray of light can be very painful for eyes that are used to the dark. Light can come in and split us open. In this way, the violent side of love destroys our sense of wholeness. But even our sense of wholeness evolves, and there is a transformation into a consciousness of oneness in which even more can be included.

"Once we have tasted the sweetness of love, we want it always and forever. But it is not in our hands, not a matter of choice or will. Love is unpredictable, and it is given and taken away as God wills. Our part is to give ourselves unconditionally, give ourselves to union and to separation equally, for together they hold the tension of creation. And the more we love, the more we feel that we are loved, the more we will suffer from separation. We become more and more conscious of love, of its intensity, and this goes together with the dynamic of feminine longing, with passion and power coming from deep within the feminine nature.

"When we face separation, when we face that we might not get what we want, this is the place of incredible opportunity. Here, we choose to give ourselves unconditionally, or we go back to patterns of power dynamics to protect ourselves and control our environments. Women know how to be creative; they can often create what they want. This is the feminine shadow, how we use our understanding of creation to create for ourselves.

"Just as individual women face these moments of choice, so have ancient feminine traditions faced these moments in the past, when the power of the feminine spirituality was used for self-protection because it was threatened by changing times. These patterns within the collective feminine must be let go of, for we all stand at a point when something new can come into consciousness. There is an essence within the feminine ways that will always remain, but the essence has to be freed from the power structures that come along with those traditions.

"You see, violation on an individual as well as collective level will deepen the longing and lead us to new states of consciousness. The longing is always there, but longing needs to be increased by love, and this process is not always easy, or safe, and can go against deep conditioning in women, conditioning that serves to protect her wholeness, her security. So there is a fearlessness involved, a willingness to be loved and to love without conditions, to accept unconditionally what God gives you, even when it is painful."

I ask Angela to speak a bit about the dangers for women to become abused, to give themselves to love in an unhealthy way. "It is very important not to confuse the vulnerability before God and the acceptance of violation through love with taking abuse from people," she tells me. "Psychologically, women have been conditioned by a great deal of abuse. This is why the topic of vulnerability in a spiritual context is very delicate. But what I mean by the unconditional acceptance of love's violation is something beyond psychological dynamics. Women need to cross a certain threshold in order to enter into this land of freedom - an aspect of their own nature in which they are naked, pure, powerful, and vulnerable all at the same time.

"I think a certain degree of psychological integration is required in order to live this potential of freedom which leads to a surrendered state - in which one unconditionally accepts what is given before God. On the level of the soul, there is a place within all women that is uninjured and inviolable. It is from here that psychological wounds of violation and abuse can be healed. Yet some wounds might never be healed, and this does not matter because we belong to God, and in His hands we do not suffer self-pity. A woman bust be very mature to live from this place of vulnerability that is far removed from being a victim. It has nothing to do with being in an abusive relationship that continually keeps one from growing or living who one truly is. It is a place of surrender and freedom, in which the power of the soul flows in.

"It can be helpful if women are conscious of this difference, and women themselves will know the difference between the vulnerability of the soul before God and the psychological patterns of being a victim. Just ask your heart and you will know. Are you living who you really are? Also, this is why it is important to have an experienced spiritual guide whom you can trust. She or he will take you to this threshold. This is so important in the current spiritual atmosphere, where there is so much abuse."

Later, Angela and I speak about this state of vulnerability as a natural state, a state of freedom and power. "Women are vulnerable," she says. "Vulnerability is a state of being that we discover in time, as we let go our defenses, as we allow the path to reveal our basic nature which is simple and vulnerable. This state of vulnerability, our capacity to bear what love brings us, cannot be attained through spiritual practices. In fact, it often reveals itself as we let go of our dependence of practices, as we let go of our identification with discipline, and let go of our compulsion to do. Then we become aware of who we really are.

"We do so much to protect ourselves. Women are used to carrying so many forms of self-protection. And we know there are good reasons to protect ourselves. It is very difficult for women in the present time to open up to this aspect of their nature because there are so many experiences of violation of the feminine on a collective and individual level. They are stamped so deeply into the psyche of women. So we build habits to protect ourselves from even ourselves, from our very own nature. But if we live our vulnerability before God, consciously, in the light of His love, it is a state of real spiritual strength and power. As the Tao Te Ching says, 'The softest thing in the universe overcomes the hardest thing in the universe.'