BuildHome Behind Your Eyes #11

Build Home Behind Your eyes
​The recent hurricanes, fires and loss of precious life have reminded me of the fragility of our physical home.

The desire for home is a universal calling.  We all yearn for that place of safety, support, contentment, santośa in sanskrit.  Truly as Dorthy discovered at the end of her journey, ‘there is no place like home’.

It is deep in the human soul to want a permanent stable home and outward circumstances continually change; it is the nature of things, to change.

I started meditating seriously 10 years ago with the intention of “building home behind my eyes”, a stronger never to be lost home because the earth kept being pulled out from under me. I wanted to be finally grounded within to such an extent, that no matter what the world throws at me, I will always have an anchor, always be home.  Here too, as Dorothy learns, we always have the power to go home.  We just need to discover it for ourselves.

The practice of meditation invites us, allows us to know the light in ever deepening ways.  A true ‘stumba’, a column of support, that permits an inner strength and stabilization in the light of our own sweet consciousness; to know the great heart as source and true nourishment. To be so held and supported by this, that come what may, nothing can ever truly tear us from our home.

And then to begin to recognize its luminous quality shining everywhere, in everything. In effect bringing us home wherever we may be.

Home, held, supported, unconditionally loved.  We sit to build home behind our eyes, to recognize, nurture and become ever more stabilized in the light of our hearts and in doing so, recognize that we are this light.   As this knowing grows, we begin to recognize the light everywhere.  And then even as we celebrate our physical surroundings, the knowing of “wherever I hang my hat is home” comes to be our authentic experience.  In this we are freed.

There is great pull within me though, a pull to stay home, to barricade myself behind the doors until the storm passes.  These days the storms are becoming more frequent and more powerful.   There is a risk of catastrophe fatigue and I am aware of the danger of it all becoming ‘normal’.
 
It is truly painful to see suffering and feel the incapacity to effect positive change; to even know where to begin.  So turning away often feels the kindest thing to do.

Home in the highest sense is not a place to hide but a place to refresh, rejuvenate, refine.  From the householder yogic perspective, it is a refuge from the storms but only so we may settle, nourish and gather the best of who we are so that we may come out and serve.

There are times I think it would be lovely to be a true renunciate.  To sit on top of a mountain or by the sea's edge and meditate, read, contemplate, write and offer prays to the world.  But I am not such a one.  I live in the world.  I have worldly responsibilities, people who count on me.

No matter how much I would like to stay in with my eyes closed, I must open them and engage with the world.  What then are the practices that will permit me to do so with all the intelligence I possess?  To continually refine my understanding and deepen knowledge of every sort I am naturally taken home to my heart, to know the source of every creative impulse.

Resting here, in the vibrating silence of deep meditation, I am home.  We carry this home with us no matter where we go.  It is the pulsation of time spent within and engagement with the world without, that permits us to bring the truest qualities of home out into life.

We meditate for ourselves, yes.  But in its natural, evolutionary expansive capacity, we meditate for those we love and for the world.