OPENNESS

I find some comfort in the words of Indian Nobel Prize winner, Rabindranath Tagore: “For undisguised pursuit of self has its safety in openness, like filth exposed to the sun and air.”

In my search for a deeper sense of identity and purpose, I have discovered that there is, indeed, some security in openness, for what else do people have to take away from me or accuse me of when I have already laid it out there for everyone to see? There is no secrecy, there is no guilt, there is no tension between what the mind knows and what the Self experiences.
Conversely, I find that the more closed I am—the more I deny myself of my thoughts and feelings—the more vulnerable and exposed I feel. It’s like I’m always second-guessing others and myself, always paranoid about whether my words were revealing much more than they should, always tiptoeing, afraid of stepping on broken glass and hurting myself. But then, you see? The act of hiding, the act of tiptoeing, the act of denying—that, in itself, is hurtful. It’s hurtful not only to me, but also to the people whom I hold dear. Nobody likes to be around a volcano that’s always about to erupt.