“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” ~ Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

I saw a picture of the above photo the other day as a social media post. I stopped and stared at it for a long while. It made me feel, it made me listen and it made me hear the sound of my own true voice; the drum of my soul.

What does it mean to become? Why would becoming hurt? Why would this resonate so deeply with me? These questions are trivial at best, moreover it is the feeling that trumps the question even as I ask myself why. This sphere is quite unequaled, singular. It stands alone in both thought and feeling. The act of becoming must hurt, because it is the true pattern. It is the original form; the gestalt of creation and the act of growth.

Think about life and all moments of growth and realization. Some of these are sweet and full of joy. These moments where you have epiphany, when we see the truth set apart from all that is. We stand in wonder and smile at our new found fruits. We bask in our discovery; we are happy to have found this innocence of life shining vibrantly for our eyes to witness.

Other times these moments hurt. They pang, they sting. But these are the most important. These moments of facing the true self are often the most painful, when we see ourselves set apart from all that is, our true face and feelings revealed; this is the nakedness of soul, this is accepting who we are and all of our faults when shown to us. This becoming is painful, yet necessary to achieve brilliance; to become a star.

We are all perhaps at our very essence a splintered point of perfect awareness yet not realized. An imperfect being becoming perfect again, on the path to realizing perfection, growing, walking and traveling back to the singularity, to the origin of all that is. This path must contain all the foils of becoming that exist.

A perfect being must become, he must grow, he must mistake, he must hurt, and he must face himself. Otherwise he cannot become, he cannot grow, he will never know he is truly divine unless he hurts, unless he faces himself; his imperfection personified by toil and mud. He must look upon the waters and see his reflection, his imperfection; otherwise, how would he ever know he is?

In this sphere we must all realize, becoming is truth. Pain accompanies strength, and we must all grow toward this point. Without becoming we have no growth. We are stagnant, still and unmoving. Life does not continue. We must strive to become, to feel our soul when it stings, to hear our heart when it sounds the drum, and to do our work to become our true self; to embody our soul.

The sun still hurts, it is still becoming, and though the light shines bright and gives life… one day, again, it will become all that is.. once again together with the whole. Though it appears separate, it always is part of the whole; a whole that “becomes” in unison, alongside it.

The sun may become as we do.. We become slowly, and we become in a flash, in a sudden violent explosion of light, love and vibration. This energy, this becoming, is both painful and soothing, both comfort and sadness; hard and soft, dark and light. It is the way of the divine; of the angel growing his wings and soaring above the universe.

Today… begin to become. Feel the pain, and the joy. Feel life.