A big question, as we go back through the wisdom of Sufism and Sufi teachings, is how do we carry our wounds? Do we let our wounds define us, or are we simply an awakeness over which the wounds have washed?
This is one of the best practices that we can use to bring our flowering Sufi heart to the forefront, to aliveness. Wounds happen, of course. Here in this series we are going through the story of me having cancer, and all the terrible things that happened to me while I happened miraculously to live from it.
Yes, I have wounds. I had a very, very radical mastectomy that left me really unbalanced, funny-looking, and with lymphedema in my arm. If you’re wondering how come I’ve always got weird stuff on my arm and what’s going on with this that’s what it is. Compression for lymphedema. I have a physical physical wound that is so big and so tight it can’t really heal much. It seizes up my left side. Over time it can get a little bit better, but it’s an obvious feeling of pain all the time.
How I handle that wound is up to me, right?
We, in spiritual circles, tend to be very critical and self-absorbed. That’s because the spiritual search, as it’s been given to us over the past few decades, is self involved. It’s about self illumination, self healing, and therapy. That much self absorption is a recipe for disaster.
If you’re not caring about other people, if you’re stuck inside yourself, that’s what’s always going to be coming out in your thoughts, words and actions.
We all have wounds, I know you do. I had many wounds before I was cut, lots of things have happened to me, things still happen to me. But is that the thing that defines me? Does that make me who I am? Do the decisions I make around those wounds stick with me forever, or can I soften them and let them fly away or let them be unimportant?
We come back to the idea of the Sufi heart: Independence and indifference. Are you your wound, or are you actually independent of it and indifferent of it, so that it’s not constantly creating your actions throughout the day?
One of the very best practices you can do, to make sure that your wounds are not at the forefront of your life, is to think about others. Think first about how you fit into everything, particularly when annoyances come up.
There are going to be lots of annoyances as we go through life. If we let those annoyances grab us and make us crabby and selfish, then we’re not doing our Sufi practices. We shouldn’t ‘try’ to be more caring because then we are fake. Being more caring will arise naturally aas the result of understanding ourselves better.
If you understand yourself well, then you will see that everyone else also has these wounds. From that arises the natural caring of the heart.