About Coming Home to YourSelf
From self to Self
There is a challenge we all must negotiate at some point in our lives. It might come from a crisis or a more gradual dawning that who we thought we were, with all our aspirations, achievements and attachments, simply doesn’t cut it anymore. Something is missing. We have a feeling of yearning, a need to travel back, or maybe it’s forward, to our true home. We might double down on our old ways of coping with challenges, which used to work, but somehow don’t anymore.
We might change jobs, or even partners and families, devote ourselves to causes, or invest our funds, time and energies in building a bricks-and-mortar ‘forever home’. But it probably won’t work, because, as we learn in Hebrews, ‘For here we do not have an abiding city, but we are seeking for the coming one.’ What we are seeking is our true forever home, a feeling of belonging to Life, which miraculously bestows Life belonging to us.
Perhaps there’s a pull at work here, hard-wired into all of us just like migratory birds. Following instinct, they know exactly how to fly home, but we are more complicated than that and we can lose sight of our purpose. Homeward bound for us means travelling in to our destined Self, ‘the glory of God, a human fully alive”. We all recognise people who radiate life and light, who have surrendered their small self, their ego, to that larger Self we call God. We warm ourselves at their fire, and somehow sense that they have traversed some difficult paths to get here. We long to do the same, to slough off the restrictions of our old identities and expand into our altogether more spacious selves. That would be wonderful…. but where to start, and how do you do it?
This is only part of the answer, I’m sure, but ‘in the company of others’ must be there somewhere. We belong in communities, because, well, we can’t always do it on our own. As I set out on this pilgrimage from little self to infinite Self, I invite you to join me. It feels right we should be fellow travellers, because in that Self which is God, all is unity and there is no division. If I want this for me, I want it for you, too. Of course we must remember to be compassionate towards the ego, the small self rooted in the anxious child, who feels quite panicky if it cannot assert itself as separate, as special and individual. It may be quite needy on our journey, so just be aware. We have other companions on our camino; not just the present friends selflessly invested in our happiness and with whom we shall check in regularly, but also the clouds of witnesses dear to us; no longer here yet still cheering us on.
And in my rucksack, I have treasures to resource us, which have nourished me over a lifetime and which I would like to share with you, if you would allow. There’s poetry, insights from psychology, the wisdom of spirituality, images - a whole hotch-potch of writings, images and observations which have struck home and lodged as something significant to my purpose. It is my dearest wish that they can enrich your journey, too.
I have arrived. I am home.
In the here, in the now.
I am solid, I am free
In the ultimate I dwell.
Thich Nhat Hanh