The Vastness of Love: Reclaiming our Wholeness in the Depths of our Chasm

"O my Lord, if I worship You from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell. And if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your own sake, do not withhold from me Your everlasting Beauty." - Rabia al-Basra

Rabia al-Basra, the Sufi mystic, offered a prayer that pierces through the illusions we hold about love: "If I worship You from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell. If I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your own sake, do not withhold from me Your everlasting Beauty."

Her words carry the weight of surrender. They strip love down to its essence—not a transaction, not a comfort, but a raw and boundless force that shatters all pretense. Love, in its truest form, is not safe. It does not soothe. It does not coddle. Love unmakes us.

Ten years ago, during my Ayahuasca journey, Mother Spirit whispered a warning: “To feel love fully would kill you.” I didn’t understand. How could love—the thing we are taught to long for, to seek above all else—be too much to bear? But as I sat in ceremony, I began to feel it: love that was not confined to what I knew, love that was vast, infinite, and unrelenting. It shook me to my core, and I realized that to truly experience its fullness, I would have to give everything.

For a decade, I unknowingly walked deeper into this truth. Every meditation, every ceremony, every heartbreak drew me closer to the edge of what I thought I could endure. And then, in the past few months, love broke me open in a way I had never known.

In the chasm of my recent breakup, I encountered love in its rawest form—beautiful and unbearable all at once. It was not just the loss of love; it was the enormity of what that love had revealed about me. Love had shown me my heights, my depths, and then left me standing on the precipice of a vast emptiness. A part of me—a part that believed I would not survive the pain—ran from it. She fled to the farthest reaches of my soul, unable to bear the magnitude of what I had felt.

For years, I didn’t know she was gone. I moved through life with a hollowness I couldn’t explain. I sought her in my work, in my relationships, in every attempt to make sense of the grief that lingered like a shadow. And though I didn’t realize it, every step I took was pulling me closer to her.

This morning, after years of searching, something shifted. Anchored in the stillness of meditation, I went into the dark, silent depths of my soul—the place where she had hidden. My body became a sanctuary, my breath a steady anchor, as I descended into the place I had avoided for so long. She was there, trembling, curled in on herself, still believing that love could destroy her.

I spoke to her softly. I told her she was safe now. That I had built the strength to hold her, to hold us, even in the face of love’s vastness. With every breath, I called her home. With every exhalation, I let go of the fear that had kept her away. And as she began to return, something extraordinary happened.

I realized that the pain I had been running from, the pain that had fragmented me, wasn’t separate from love. It was love. Love in its most unrelenting, transformative form. Love that doesn’t just uplift—it cracks open. Love that doesn’t just heal—it remakes us.

I had spent years fearing this love, believing it would destroy me. But as I reclaimed that lost part of myself, I saw the truth: love doesn’t destroy—it reveals. It lays bare everything we are, including the parts we’ve cast away. And when we face it, when we embrace it, love doesn’t just make us whole. It makes us new.

In that moment, I understood what Mother Spirit had tried to show me all those years ago. Love isn’t something to be managed or contained. It isn’t something we do or receive. Love is a state of being. It is the fabric of existence, the thread that binds us to ourselves, to one another, and to the infinite.

Today, I no longer grieve the loss of love. I celebrate its fullness. The fullness that demanded I break open, so I could remember what it means to be whole. The fullness that taught me to anchor myself, to ground my nervous system, and to widen my capacity to hold the vastness of existence. The fullness that reminded me, even now, that I am not broken.

I stand here, no longer afraid of the chasm. I see now that it was never a void. It was a mirror, reflecting the vastness of my own capacity to love, to endure, and to become.

Rabia’s words echo through me: “Do not withhold from me Your everlasting Beauty.” Love, in all its rawness, is that beauty. It is terrifying and sublime. It asks everything of us. But in return, it gives us the truth of who we are: infinite, whole, and deeply, irrevocably alive.

And for that, I am endlessly grateful.