THE CLOUD BREAKS TO REVEAL THE SUN.

The clouds break to reveal the sun. The seed breaks so the tree can stretch towards the sun. The shell breaks so the bird can reach the sky.

So it is with you. Your heart must break so the river in you can flow to the ocean.

When we see a thing, really it for the first time, our hearts break a little. If our hearts don’t break, we are not really seeing at all. And only when our heart breaks are we really fully here.

Why is that?

What really happens when our “hearts break”? We are finally seeing another person as they truly are. We’re not just seeing them as a pretty face or a body to desire, a mere thing, representation, idea in our minds anymore. We’re witnessing. Them. As they truly are. We really see them for the first time. Their struggles, their fragilities, their flaws. Their sadness, melancholy, desperation, shame, guilt. In that act of witnessing, really seeing, something magical happens.

It’s easy to feel happiness, pleasure, delight for someone else, right? But it’s hard, difficult, to witness another person’s sadness, grief, pain, despair. Because we feel it, deep in our bones, too. So mostly, we don’t. We say, “I’m so happy for you!!”, all the time. But we don’t say, “I feel your sadness. I sense your struggle. I celebrate your fragility”, do we? So we rarely really see people, witness them as they truly are, at all. Mostly, we see what we want to see, what we’ve been conditioned to see, expect to see. Which is to say that we avoid, escape, do almost anything not to witness people as they really are.

So many of us struggle and soldier on in silence, alone, through the deserts of our lives. No one is there to witness us. And we are not there to witness anyone else’s march through their desert.

But we can never really see the beauty in people that way, can we? Beauty is the fragility of a thing, its weakness and frailty. The rose is beautiful because it is as fragile as a sunset. The sunset is beautiful because it is delicate as a newborn. And so is each and every one of us.

Beauty is fragility. It is what is broken, desperate, hurt in us. Why? Because We are each broken, incomplete, hurt. Only now can we love. We cannot really love what is whole, perfect, complete, can we? Love is giving. When a thing is perfect, complete, there is nothing to love, because there is nothing we can give to it, right?

Love is the experience of beauty. Beauty is seeing the fragility of a thing. Seeing the fragility, frailty, delicacy of a person, place thing must — must — break our hearts, if we really witness it. Sometimes, it splits them wide open. Sometimes, it cracks them here and there. Whether big or small, love is heartbreak. Not in the naive sense that “someone will break up with you” or even “you will lose this person one day”. But in the true sense, that you have really witnessed someone, and seeing the struggle and frailty in them has broken your heart. Now and only can you really love them, because you experience them as truly beautiful.

Whether that love is romantic, platonic, friendly, collegiate — it really doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about sex, romance, and so on. We’re talking about really witnessing people, seeing everyone and everything around you as beautiful, so it can be loved. When you experience the beauty of fragility, then and only then do you really love.

You have witnessed a person’s struggle, frailty, fragility. It has broken your heart. What has really happened? You have grown into the possibility of love, have you not? The act of witnessing was the reward. Love began the instant there was the experience of beauty in fragility.

Maybe you know, in the sense that you can recite: love is beyond judgment, condemnation, love is acceptance, gratitude, and so on. But do you really live it? How do you enact all this? Here is how. By witnessing fragility, and experiencing beauty. Now — and only now — are you beyond judgment. Now and only now can you really accept, celebrate, be grateful for someone. Anyone. Not as a means. “I am grateful this person was here to give me X”. But as an end. “I am grateful this person is”.

Go ahead and try it. Think of an enemy, someone that you really don’t like, even someone who has hurt you. Try to witness them, really see them. See their struggles, their fragility, their hurt, their frailty. Now you see some beauty in them, do you not? Now you are experiencing them as they really are. There is love being born now.

What is not being born anymore? What is being taken out of existence? The anger you had. The fear you felt. The anxiety that crept. The guilty and shame that weighed you down. Every instant of love is an instant where anger, fear, guilt, shame are being uncreated. The act is the reward. Every moment that you really witness, you are really alive. You have taken off the masks of negative emotion. And now you are really you. Capable of all things. Compassion, imagination, defiance, creativity, kindness, humility, wisdom. Growth.

What has really broken is not just your heart. It is the shell of your old self. Now you are really a new and different you. Because you have broken the shell of the old you. Heartbreak has broken you wide open. The old you could only experience one side of people. The easy, comfortable side. But that is why it could never really see them as beautiful. You don’t really see a rose as truly beautiful if all you see is its color, not its true nature, which is fragility.

The clouds break to reveal the sky. The seeds break so the tree can stretch towards the sun. The shell breaks so the bird can reach the sky. And so it is with you.

You have broken wide open. So the river can pour out of you. Towards the ocean. The oneness in all things. The new you can witness, celebrate, share the fullness of people. Now this new self is capable of love as mighty as a river. Which washes away the guilt, fear, anxiety, shame, that weighed you down, and made you as desolate a desert.

Umair
London