Vulnerability

Thus there are two aspects of the experience of narcissistic vulnerability: The first involves a sense of lack or loss of support; the other, loss, weakness, or lack of identity. The student experiences the loss of external support as a weakness of a certain kind. He may feel as if his bones are getting soft and losing strength and solidity, and hence cannot support him. He may feel spineless or that his backbone is soft or brittle. He may feel that his legs are weak and unable to support his weight, or they feel small and skinny, or soft and mushy. He may feel small, helpless and unable to support himself, or structureless and amorphous like a jellyfish. (The Point of Existence, pg 248)

Vulnerability and permeability

As far as I can tell, we are the only beings who are permeable to everything that exists, from the most painful to the most sublime. We're sensitive not only to experiencing the pleasures and pains of our bodies, to feeling our emotions, the painful and pleasurable, and to sensing our thoughts, but our vulnerability also gives us the possibility of experiencing, and being aware of, being in contact with all levels of reality. We're permeable to not only physical, emotional, and mental stimuli, but to essential and spiritual stimuli as well. So, not only are we vulnerable in the sense that our feelings, our preferences, even our identity can be influenced, but we are also vulnerable to being aware, conscious, and permeable to our true identity, and to the nature of all existence. So you see, our uniquely human quality of vulnerability is a disadvantage from one perspective and a great advantage from another. We’re wide open to all influences, all possibilities if we allow ourselves to be -- if we don't defend ourselves, if we don't build a shell and hide behind it. Our human consciousness is so vulnerable that we can actually know who we are. We're so conscious, so permeable, that we can experience the very nature of all of reality -- the nature of a stone, a tree, the nature of ourselves. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 197)

Vulnerability and space

When one finally allows the state of vulnerability, it can manifest as a state of defenselessness. This indicates the dropping of the defensiveness of ego. Such letting go means the abandonment, usually transitory, of certain deep identification systems. These constitute the core of the defensive structures of ego. The result is again the manifestation of emptiness, this time vast and of immeasurable depth. It is a deeper dimension of space. (The Pearl Beyond Price, pg 382)

Vulnerability and true nature

But if the personality understands what vulnerability actually means, then we become receptive to our deeper nature and it acts on us. We are no longer the actor; we are a permeable membrane. We are acted upon, we are penetrated by our nature, and we allow it to come out. And the work on the personality, which can be seen as refining it, allows that membrane to become increasingly vulnerable to our Essence. The less defended and opaque the personality is, the more it is permeable to Essence. And as Essence manifests through the personality -- as it permeates it, influences it, as the personality becomes completely one-hundred-percent vulnerable to our truest nature and -- we begin to see that there is no difference between them. We experience oneness, unity. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 202)

Love and vulnerability

You’re most vulnerable when you're experiencing love. Beyond love is unity, where vulnerability and invulnerability become one. Love is the first emanation, the first particularization of the supreme reality, which is unity. The first expression, the first breath of the unity is divine universal love, with its sweetness and delicacy. That is where you are the most vulnerable, before your vulnerability becomes invulnerability. When you’re loving, you still feel at the mercy of everything. The step beyond that is to become even more vulnerable, and then you’re completely invulnerable. So we’re seeing how love can lead always to complete vulnerability and thus to invulnerability. Love is the highest, the deepest, the most intense, the most expansive possibility of feeling. Love is the heart. Beyond love is the supreme reality, which is beyond feeling or no feeling. So vulnerability is vulnerability to love, and extremely deep vulnerability is love. If you really are vulnerable, you’re loving. You can’t help but be loving. And if you’re very loving, you can’t help but feel vulnerable. If you allow yourself to feel, your heart is completely open. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 206)