The fifth practice is entitled,
Remember,
There's No Place Like Home.
And the key lesson to introduce the main idea goes as follows.
The wish to know the truth of ourselves,
To make the soul's journey back to its celestial home,
Originates from within a part of us that is already there,
As it's impossible to long to return to some place where we haven't already been.
Years ago I wrote a book whose central character was a wise old owl by the name of Solomon.
And Solomon's task,
At least in the story,
Is representative of a certain task that we have and must always fulfill within ourselves.
And that is that he was to see that there was a continual balance kept in the woods amongst all the creatures.
And whenever he heard of some discord,
He would fly down and find out what was going on,
And then always,
In one way or another,
Was able to supply some information or an insight that would restore and reconcile the lost harmony.
And in this particular story,
He hears an argument going on in the woods and he swoops down and apparently there's an eagle,
A rabbit,
A fox,
And a bear,
And a turtle.
And they're all arguing amongst themselves about who's the happiest,
Who is the most fearless of all the creatures.
The eagle screeching,
I soar above all things,
I have no fear,
I'm happy wherever I am.
The rabbit says,
Well that may be,
But I can outrun anything.
The fox says,
Well that's fine,
But I have intelligence,
I outwit whatever frightens me.
That's why I'm happy,
Because I'm always able to outsmart anything that intimidates.
And the bear says,
Speaking of intimidation,
I'm the happiest because I'm the most intimidating.
And Solomon listens to all this and he finally says,
Stop all of you,
You're all wrong.
What do you mean we're all wrong,
Said the creatures.
And then Solomon says,
The happiest,
The most secure amongst you,
Is Peter the turtle.
Well you should have heard what happened when he said that.
Why him?
Why is he the happiest?
Why is he most secure?
And Solomon looked at them and with his great wise owl eyes said,
Because wherever he goes,
He takes his home with him.
When it comes to realizing our highest spiritual possibilities,
If it's our hope to discover and to reclaim them,
Then we must place ourselves where they are continually being revealed.
And by agreement,
Enter into a conscious relationship with the ever-changing conditions within which these profound and transformative possibilities continue to unfold.
Perhaps that's why Meister Eckhart,
One of the greatest mystical theologians in the early 13th and 14th century in Germany,
He taught the following.
He said,
Mark how to know yourself.
To know oneself,
One must ever be on the watch over oneself,
Holding his outer faculties,
Meaning constantly aware of one's senses,
Including the thoughts and feelings that describe them.
One must be ever holding his outer faculties.
And then he continues to say,
And this discipline must be continued until one reaches a state of consciousness.
What Eckhart was saying,
In other words,
Is that one must continue to know themselves by being ever on the watch of all of one's faculties and continue that discipline until that man or woman becomes aware of the fact,
And this is important,
That by that awareness he realizes he is more than the sum of all the creatures,
Qualities,
Characteristics and proclivities that he had formally mistaken to be the same as himself.
So that when all is said and done,
In truth,
Isn't that the realization that we seek?
That we are more than our reactions,
More than our fears and our regrets.
That something within us,
Our true self,
Is greater than the sum of the parts.
Which is why we must understand,
And relate it directly to the last exercise,
That these practices that we're working at are intended to show us that no one part of us can ever know the whole of us.
And we must not seek the whole of ourselves through any one part.
We are of another world than this one we are born into.
And in some ways,
Isn't that part of what Walt Whitman tried to teach when he wrote that beautiful passage,
The central urge of every atom is to return to its divine source.
Really,
That's what these practices are all about.
A way in which we can begin in practice,
Holding ourselves to account,
And holding the awareness of all of those parts of ourselves in a single awareness.
So that little by little we can start this return journey,
Which takes us nowhere other than back into the whole of ourselves.
And it is the whole of ourselves that is the true home of ourselves.
In virtually every myth or legend surrounding what has often been called the hero's journey,
Are found certain key elements,
Similarities really,
That are shared by each and all of the characters,
And all of the creatures they meet along the way.
These stories always begin with the fact of some incarnation of a divine spark.
And we mustn't think that sits outside of us because it is our spiritual nature,
That which exists in each and every human being,
That is in fact that incarnation.
And like all heroes,
Meet some form of an early threat,
Thrust upon it by whatever it may be that individual encounters in this material world.
Following that there is always this journey,
And we're all on it,
Where the hero,
You and I,
Must be made one way or another to go into some unfamiliar world whose discoveries are essential in fulfilling the purpose of that journey.
Recall our last exercise,
Take the step you're sure you can't?
That hero and the journey requires all kinds of struggles,
Meeting temptations that often,
By the way,
Include the loss of faith,
A certain sense of hopelessness even,
But that we always see,
Including with ourselves,
That if the hero is persistent,
He or she will be taken into and through some form of grace,
Helped in one way or another,
That leads them to what is the purpose of these practices,
Which is in one way could be called a kind of metaphysical death,
The surrender of oneself,
The subsequent rebirth,
And that rebirth symbolizing what?
A return to their heavenly home.
So many stories all of us are familiar with,
The Wizard of Oz,
Dorothy,
Somewhere over the rainbow,
She was looking for a way to get past the pain that she was in living there with her auntie and the terrible person who was going to take away her dog,
If you know the story,
And so she's looking not just over the rainbow,
But somewhere over the pain that she knows,
Something that she hopes will help her find a way to be at peace with herself,
And to have the wholeness that her heart of hearts longs for.
And the story,
Of course,
As she goes carried over the rainbow into the strange land of Oz,
Meets these unusual characters,
Each of whom represent a part of herself that she is yet to know,
And that like herself feel inadequate to the task.
Going through all of that until at last,
Having gone through all of the trials and temptations,
Including the almost loss of herself,
She's able to return back home.
She returns home someone other than the person who left it.
This story just tells itself over and over again.
Buddha discovering at last that his home was nothing like it was made out to be,
Sets out to understand what is the nature of this impermanence,
Of this sickness,
Of this death that he never even knew existed.
And he goes through this journey,
As must all of us,
Until he recognizes that there is nothing that he is going to do with his mind that imagines a way to find a home that is whole and safe,
But ultimately discovers,
Again,
Shifting gears,
Like the story of the prodigal son.
Where did he go after all of his struggles,
All of the things that led to that moment where he realized what?
There's no place like home.
He returned home.
And the same holds true for us.
We must return home.
That's why the exercise is called.
Remember,
There's no place like home.
But the issue is,
And the point of the practice,
We really just don't know where our real home is,
Let alone where to find it.
In the Old Testament,
In Jeremiah,
He writes,
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
Whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes,
Its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.
Doesn't that sound good?
It does not fear when heat,
Meaning trouble,
Tribulation comes.
Its leaves are always green,
Meaning something is always being reborn.
Because why?
Because its roots are in the stream.
So it never fears the years of drought and it always bears fruit.
And it always bears fruit.
Here's the main idea.
Our home isn't what we imagine it to be.
Home is where we find what completes us.
Let me repeat it.
Home is where we find what completes us.
Our true home is the invisible,
Unknowable place where our true self is forever being revealed and reborn at the same time.
How are we to understand something like this?
Well,
First it begins with observing what is around us at all times.
Perhaps you've heard the idea,
As above,
So below,
As within,
So without.
One moment of simply contemplating the creation that is all around us at all times,
We realize it is in a state of ceaseless change.
And in that ceaseless state of changing,
It is revealing to us through its own condition that it is forever being acted on and renewed by an invisible source by an invisible source of divine energy.
Its divine origin allows it to be in relationship with that which divinely gives it rebirth.
We too are in that same place.
We can either realize our existence within this movement as a designated part of this same divine design or continue to struggle with unwanted moments,
As we always do,
In the false belief that our resistance to any unexpected turn in life somehow proves that we already know the right way back home.
Isn't that what goes on when there's a problem?
Something tells us,
Here's what you have to do,
Here's where you have to go to restore yourself to the peace that you think was just lost.
And yet,
Over and over again,
We find ourselves again like the prodigal son,
Suddenly realizing that we have not found this home we seek for,
Because that home already exists.
And in this instance,
It already exists within us.
All of that's to say we can never really be truly happy until we learn how to fulfill the true purpose of life.
And we can't fulfill this higher purpose without agreeing to play our part in this divine web of relationships through which our life purpose is ceaselessly being revealed in the awareness of a ceaselessly renewing now.
It's not complicated.
In fact,
It's so simple as to be almost missed.
This relationship with the present moment is our home.
And we will never,
We can never really be at peace with ourselves,
Let alone with the world around us until we have found ourselves not just in the matrix of this eternal creation,
But as an essential part of it.
Without some form of unconscious identification to nourish its painful proliferation.
No negative state,
No fear,
No anger,
No worry.
None of those things can grow beyond the boundaries of the level of consciousness from out of which it appears.
That's the point,
Is that we're living in a world where these pains and problems are always popping up because we believe that who we are depends upon the world that we're living in in a matter of imagination.
We must end our imaginary life by entering into the real world and all that it reveals.
Do you remember the three little pigs?
It was a story most of us heard when we were growing up.
And the big bad wolf and how the three little pigs in their fear of being consumed,
One of them ran and built his home from straw,
The easiest possible thing to do.
The second one built his home from sticks,
Equally easy,
Requiring no real effort.
But the third little pig built his home out of stone,
Which by the way is the symbol of truth.
The first two lost their lives,
Their chance to realize their highest possibilities because they didn't understand what a real home was made of or from.
The third one lived to realize his possibilities.
You and I have such a home.
It's with us right now as I'm speaking to you.
It is a kind of an awareness that is impenetrable by fears and worries,
That isn't afraid of wolves,
Whatever that form may be that some comes along and seems to threaten to take from us all that we hold precious.
This is why,
And to the point of the practice,
That whenever we hear the howling begin,
Meaning that somehow we that somehow we sense or feel or are told that a moment's coming where all that we have made of ourselves is about to be consumed,
Our task in that moment is to remember there's no place like home,
To remember the whole of ourselves.
And let me add that when I'm using the word remember,
There's no place like home.
I made it in the sense that we must re-member ourselves.
We must collect all of ourselves,
All of our attention,
All of our awareness and bring it back into our own awareness so that when and as we are actually in our body,
When we are aware of that anxiety,
That anger or that rushing worried feeling,
Trying to get us to relive some past painful event,
When we are really in our body fully aware of all the wolves prowling around outside the door,
Only when we are fully back home do we realize without requiring any thought at all that that house is a spiritual house.
That house cannot be knocked down by any thought because no thought can enter in to that awareness unannounced.
Which is why incidentally when we leave the house of thought and return home into the awareness of all that we are in that moment as opposed to all of the thoughts and feelings about what's wrong and what we have to do,
When we remember,
Bring all of ourselves back into our body,
We return home.
We return home because now we are in a place where everything about creation is meeting all at once to bring about the birth of something new all at once that cannot be threatened,
That nothing can harm and that includes you and I when we are in our spiritual home.
So here's the practice,
Put first things first.
You hear the you hear the howling,
You feel the fear,
You get caught by some anxiety,
Something goes wrong somewhere,
You remember yourself,
You collect yourself and in that awareness you'll understand there is no place like home.
To understand that that urgency or that anxiety is trying to draw you into some conversation with yourself that ideally out of which you're going to restore some lost sense of peace and security.
To be at home is to recognize that the very attempt,
The temptation to try and save yourself through thoughts and feelings or plans,
That all of that is in fact what is keeping you from understanding that when you are really home,
When you remember yourself,
There is nothing that can come along and take from you that safety,
That security and incidentally that one place where all of your highest spiritual possibilities are realized.
