Home is where the heart is
I went to the San Francisco international airport a couple of days ago to pick up two guests. I was sitting on the floor in one corner of the domestic flights arrival lounge, waiting for my friends and watching people. I used to do it a lot when I wasn’t a monk, sit on a bench on a busy street or at the train station and observe.
Staying months on an end in a forest will make it a weird experience to be around a lot of people, what to speak of adding a strong spiritual practice into the equation. I was witnessing from the corner how the world spontaneously moves, and being fascinated by it.
What is driving us? Where are all these people going and why? What is it that pulls us to certain directions, situations, decisions?
It seemed kind of like a motorized wax cabinet to me ( and I don’t mean to say this in a derogatory way). I see life so differently now, and what for most people is a person’s real nature and characteristics is just the outer shell in my mind. All these people acting according to the physical and psychological makeup their previous karma has given them, and they completely identify with it. I felt like I was in a costume party (no music or free drinks, though) Hi, I’m a Korean businessman, I’m a West-Virginian goth girl, I’m a Swedish skater, I’m a Californian non-profit worker, I’m a Dutch farmer, I’m a single mom from Prague.
I’m a Finnish Hindu monk. That’s true too, and for most people that’s just another material identity. But my belief is that this particular wax cabinet figure is meant to take me above all material designations. Sure, you can be a Finnish hindu monk and be just as wrapped up in a material sense of identity than anybody else, but that’s just if you refuse to accept what being a Gaudiya Vaishnava, or any real spiritual practitioner, really means.
It’s so simple. Desire drives us. Desire to be loved, to feel connected, to feel home-comfort. But you won’t find that from a travel guide. You won’t find the full face of it from anything external, no matter how many stamps you have in your passport. Real love won’t further entangle us in this mess of material existence and make us feverishly move. Home is a lot closer than we think.
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