When you awaken your heart, you find to your surprise that your heart is empty.If you search for the awakened heart, there is nothing but tenderness.You feel sore and soft, and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world, you feel tremendous sadness.It occurs because your heart is completely open, exposed.It is the pure raw heart that has the power to heal the world.
At the mystical heart of each of the Abrahamic faiths lie teachings about the transformation power of fire and the identification of the Holy One with light. In Judaism, the Shekinah—the indwelling feminine presence of God—took the form of a pillar of fire at night to lead the Israelites through the desert. ....May we let ourselves down into the arms of fire and allow it to melt the armor of our hearts. The excruciating fire of our loneliness and our fear of intimacy. The sweet fire of our longing for union with the Beloved. The purifying fire of radical unknowingness, which all the great mystics assure us is the beginning of knowing God.