Mind and Home

Imagine if one day we left home with suitcases full of stuff and wandered around indefinitely for years. Some places we would see would be beautiful, some not... In cold, heat and rain we would be out. At first it might seem like an adventure but after a while, how tiring, cold and lonely it would be... Unprotected by times and people, we would look for corners to huddle in, to gather energy, to feel familiar, but they would never have the warmth of our own home. 

This is what happens with ourselves... The mind takes its bags, its memories, its fears, its joys, its dreams and spins endlessly from one thought to another. To feel familiar it gets caught up in habits, patterns, recurring thoughts positive or negative. But he is always away from home, its center, its warmth. The body, surrendered and lonely, follows. And because the mind has nowhere to grip, how susceptible it becomes to external conditions... In yoga this mind is called 'distracted' and as a recent Harvard study says "a distracted mind is a miserable mind". 

"If you don't have a home, where will you go after the movie?" Swami Satyananda asks.

On the contrary, in yoga there is the concept of the "swinging" mind. It works like a pendulum, it always has a home, a core, it leaves its space a little bit and after a while it returns to the centre... And the question is, have we found a centre to return to? What practices do we have to bring the mind home? 

Fortunately for us, there is always something available to center us... And the more we practice it, the more readily available it becomes... It may be a connection to the breath, to the heartbeat, to gravity, to a mantra, to the body... The medium that transports us doesn't really matter. No matter how charming the outside may sometimes seem, sometimes the important thing is simply getting home...

I walked and walked until I saw you. Wrapped in a light, with love, with a soft perfume. Somewhat familiar, but with a majesty I'd never seen before. And then I stopped walking, though my mind insisted, I knew that the here and now was my home. It was a sudden, complete pause. And how beautiful it is to stop, after so much walking.