The Original Wound

There is a moment in the mystery of becoming human—subtle, primordial, untraceable—when we forget. We forget what we are.

In that forgetting, a fracture appears. Not in truth, but in perception. Not in soul, but in awareness. We begin to believe we are separate.

Alone.

Small.

Unworthy

At best, we imagine we might be a drop in the vast ocean of being. But we cannot fathom that we are the ocean entire, clothed in form, dreaming we are lost. And so the search begins.

Sacred at first. Fierce. Necessary. We search for God. For love. For home. We seek meaning, light, purpose, union. We name it in different languages—but always, we are reaching toward that which we already are.

And here lies the paradox—perhaps the most painful truth of all:

Every step of the search, if rooted in the belief that we are broken or separate, takes us further from what we are seeking.

This is the fundamental conundrum. The original wound. The source of all suffering that follows. It is not the absence of love that causes our pain. It is the belief that we are not it.

This forgetting gives rise to all striving, all shame, all illusion of unworthiness. We create lives around it. Spiritual systems. Goals. Identities. And while much of it is beautiful, it often keeps the fire of seeking alive… just enough to keep us circling the truth, but never resting inside it.

The truth? There is nothing to become. There is only something to remember. You are not a drop.

You are the sea itself, momentarily shaped by wind and form and time. And when the seeking softens, when the longing bows down into stillness, something ancient is recalled.

You were never separate. You were never outside of love. You only forgot. And in this remembering, the wound begins to close—not with explanation, but with presence.

The original wound does not need to be solved.

It needs to be seen. And then—gently, without striving—you return.

Not to something new,

but to what has always been.

Nigel Lott teaandzen.org

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