Finding Home In Our Hearts

Everyone is this world is looking for a home. We long for place of happiness, safety, shelter, connection. We yearn to belong deeply, to be embraced, loved, and known in the most profoundly intimate of ways. We search in this world for a place and people that will satisfy this longing for home, but fulfilling this innermost yearning of our heart of hearts can be elusive.

Often, we go through life finding and losing and finding again a variety of promising living situations without ever feeling that any of them are completely fulfilling. We may find friends and community we adore, but still feel empty and alone deep inside. We may find a certain amount of steadiness in a good career, a nice spouse and family, but not ever feel completely safe. We may find so much of what we desire, yet still intensely long for something vital that remains missing from our lives. Despite our best efforts to acquire the perfect life, we sense a constant restlessness in the core of hearts, a whispering deep within that reminds us we have not yet found the home we are searching for.

So, what do we do when we realize that the home we long for is not the one which we have built around us? Do we abandon yet another house, relationship, community, lifestyle and continue wandering and remain in subtle and gross sufferings? Do we simply try harder to find home and happiness in our current situation? Does our perfect home even exist – or is it just a fairy tale that has no truth?

The home we long for does exist, but it is not somewhere out there. It cannot be found in any external circumstances. It must be discovered inside, within the very truth of our being. If we want to find the home that has been calling to us from time immemorial, we must seek to understand who we are. Not who we are on the outside, but who we are inside – our true identity. Contained within our very nature is the way home – in which we will find complete comfort, shelter, love, and rest for our weary hearts.

So, who are we?

According to the ancient yoga scriptures and other bona fide scriptures of the world, we are not the material body or the mind – we are eternal spiritual beings temporarily wearing the material mind and body. The gross physical body can be compared to outer clothes and the mind or subtle energy body can be compared to under clothes. Just as we are not the clothes we are wearing, we are not the material bodies we are wearing either.

When we are aware that we are the spiritual self only wearing the mind and body, then we can grasp the futility of trying to make a home for ourselves through manipulating our external circumstances. Finding a pleasant physical environment to house our body or creating a desirable mental environment for our mind will never make us feel perfectly happy, safe, and at home because we are not these “clothes.” Material comforts may evoke some relief or pleasure in the mind and body, but for us – the spirit soul clothed in the coverings – they provide nothing. Material comforts do not actually touch us. Therefore, even the most opulent and enjoyable of material circumstances will not satisfy the restlessness in the core of our hearts. We long to be deeply immersed in that which is of our same nature. As we are spiritual beings, we need to be consciously linked up with our spiritual Source to find the perfect and permanent happiness, shelter, and love that we need to be fulfilled.

In the ancient yoga system, the recommended method for consciously linking up with our spiritual Source is mantra meditation. A true mantra is not something anyone makes up. It is the Absolute Truth in sound vibration. This spiritual sound vibration descends from the spiritual platform to the material world without losing any of its potency. In mantra meditation, a person hears and chants or sings this spiritual sound and thus is directly relating with the Supreme. This has a profound purifying effect on our consciousness.

Through mantra meditation, we are able to begin tasting the divine sweetness of spiritual connection. And with sincere, daily practice, our minds and hearts gradually become purified of material misunderstandings and misgivings. As we awaken to the reality of our spiritual identity, our relationship with the Supreme naturally blossoms. In this divine and most sacred of relationships, we are able to find all that our restless hearts have been longing for.

When we are happy within, fulfilled within – when our hearts are completely full with love of the Supreme – then we are at home in any material circumstance. We can reside in a nice house or be constantly traveling. We can have a big family, live in great opulence, be prominent members of a community, or be wandering mendicants. Our external circumstances do not at all determine the state of our consciousness and the condition of our hearts. Rather, it is our state of our consciousness and the condition of our hearts which determine whether we find a hole or home in our life.

By utilizing the timeless wisdom of the yoga scriptures, we can be successful in our search. There are no special mental or physical qualifications needed. Simply by faithfully following the process of mantra meditation, we can eventually find our way back to our true home within the heart of our hearts.