Of Fireflies and the Core Made of Goodness and Love
A firefly has been always afraid that her light was not bright enough. Sometimes she even wonders whether she has any light at all. So she hides in a thick shell so nobody, including herself, will ever gets to see her light. One day a happy flock of shiny fireflies fly across her shell.
- What’s wrong? Why are you in there? Don’t you want to come out and play with us? We are flying to a green meadow and light up the tallest pine tree.
- But I don’t think I have any light at all…
- Don’t worry. Come out here with us. We love you no matter how much light you have! Don’t you want to find out what is made of you?
She is still afraid but the flock patiently waits. One morning, summoning all of her courage she says to herself “They are right. It’s time for me to experience what is really true, once and for all, come what may.” She is trembling because she does not know what she will find. The moment she finally comes out of her shell, she realizes that her light has been bright beautiful all along.
- We’ve always known that you have wonderful light. Look at us, light is who we are.
The flock takes her to the green meadow and the tallest pine tree, where they join the stars to light up the night.
I believe that we are all fireflies, carrying the light of goodness and love. You may doubt this because of your past wrong doings and ugly emotions like jealousy, hatred, fear.
What if my core is evil or a flaky mix of the two?
During my yoga practice, the postures move me to a thought-free state. In that place of stillness where emotions, thoughts, images, memories come and go like passing cloud, I always feel loved and loving. The more I practice yoga and meditation, the more myself I feel. The more loving and loved I feel. It is not the intoxicating so-called “love” that create sufferings like in romantic movies. It is the nurturing, forgiving, unconditional love that exists within me.
“What lies behind us and what lies in front of us pales in comparison to what lies within us,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. What lies within you is goodness and love. Pure goodness and pure love.
The pink heart of an artichoke is covered by layers of green leaves. So is the core of you. The more take off your artichoke layers – let go, unlearn - the more you see your pink heart, and become more of you.
When you forgive yourself for having done only what you knew. When you unlearn all the limiting lessons from the adults of our childhoods, and from the half-alive people in the society of our upbringing. You will understand, as I finally did, that you have goodness and love at your core. You will experience that loving actions and thoughts feel good. And that hateful actions and thoughts feel bad, because they are away from your core.
Goodness can do nothing but be good. Love can do nothing but love. When I face challenges in my day, especially with people, I ask myself how should I behave. For I know there is goodness and love at my core, I choose actions that spring from that place. Never to act from a place of hatred or fear. Never do anything when negative emotions are lurking. Always act from a place of goodness and love. That is the highest principle of living.