Being Vulnerable

Kathleen Jacoby © 2001

The Grail journey is internal. The outer clues are presented to direct us inward so that we can refine our own energetic field. In last month's column, we talked about the necessity of releasing attachment to emotions or events that block us from moving forward. Our assignment was to identify the negative elements within our psyches that block light from entering, and to remove them, just as we would wipe away dirt and grime that blocks the light from shining through a pane of glass.

Once we are aware and open to the next step, we are given our next task. We are asked to give up our need to know. This requires willingness to be vulnerable and to drop our defenses. So much of our defense system is built on the fear of reprisal or penalty. As children, if we did not know the right answers at home or in school, we may have been reprimanded, or punished, or made to feel stupid. Because we are oriented to survival, most of us learned early to adopt attitudes of defense. With time and self-observation, we see that our defenses keep us from receiving. The need to control outcome limits possibilities, and the need "to know" or to be "right" is a hindrance to our own growth. Therefore, as we alter the inner perception from a defensive stance to openness, we allow questions to arise. We can become curious and see not knowing as a positive instead of a negative. We lift the myth of the need to be perfect from our shoulders, and open the door to real soul growth and development.

If I have to defend myself against you, and you have to defend yourself against me, we will never be able to receive what each of us might have to offer the other. But if we are both able to come together "not knowing", we can find wonderful points of opportunity to share our vantage points of life that enrich and support our personal and mutual growth.

As we take each clue and integrate it, the next clue emerges. What we perceived as strength is now shown as hindrance. And being vulnerable, which we perceived as weakness, becomes our greatest strength. Not reacting defensively, we are open to possibilities, and can gain deeper insights that will guide us to meaningful answers in our lives.

Our task in the Grail journey is to identify the elements that keep us separate, and having found them, to journey inward toward the unifying consciousness from which we all originally come and to which we will all eventually return. Our goal is to find and live in this state of union sooner rather than later, and that is why we are embarked on the quest for the Grail.