When the man cries the tear, he has come upon his pain, and he knows it when he touches it. He sees how his life has been lived protectively because of the wound. He sees what of life he has missed because of it. He sees how he hamstrings his love for life, for himself, and for another.
Only a hardness of heart inhibits weeping and union. There is a saying I translated from the Sufi long ago, a prayer really, asking God to break one’s heart: “Shatter my heart so a new room can be created for a Limitless Love.”
The psychological and physiological center is the heart. In Hindu Lauras, which are instructions from the Gods to humans, the heart is the Anãhata chakra, the nerve center that encompasses feeling for another human, feeling for oneself, feeling for the earth, and feeling for God. It is the heart that enables us to love as a child loves: fully, without reservation, and with no hull of sarcasm. depreciation, or protectionism.
Clarissa Pinkola Este
