Let's make ourselves comfortable.
Whatever posture we want,
Wherever we want to sit,
There are no rules.
If your eyes naturally close,
Let them close.
Let's become aware of ourselves in this room.
It's just a simple recognition.
Oh,
I'm here.
Not that I was somewhere else to begin with,
But I didn't know consciously that I'm here.
All the journeys we venture into in our minds,
Travelling in space and time.
Let's come home.
Let's go home.
Let's go home.
The word home is a very complex word.
Maybe not for most of us,
But for someone like me,
Who's come from India to the US.
Home has become a very complicated idea.
Even if physically I'm here in a house,
The idea of home is still there where I'm from.
So life moves on.
It has moved on for over 14 years here.
But home is,
It's still not natural.
Even when I do go back home,
I realise my home is here.
So my heart is not at peace there either.
A similar thing happened to me a few years ago.
Seven years ago to date.
When I was in New Zealand and someone asked me,
Where are you from?
As I was saying,
I'm from America.
I realised I'm not from America.
But I couldn't say I'm from India either.
So I had this complicated answer devised.
I'm originally from India,
But now from America.
And that stirred something in me.
This idea of home.
The restlessness in the heart.
As I realise it now,
Is not because of being or not being in the right geographical space.
But it is about a lack of reconciliation between the definition and what my heart is longing for.
The definition of the word home and what my heart is longing for.
The more I define the word in terms of geography,
My heart remains restless.
And this is not just limited to the geographical location.
Many of us have defined something to be our home professionally,
Socially,
Personally.
We are either on our way towards what we are looking for,
Or we have been there,
What we were looking for,
Where we were looking for.
But the heart may not be at peace still,
Because the home is somewhere else,
The goal is somewhere else,
Rest is somewhere else,
End of search,
Longing is somewhere else.
Now is just a means to an end.
It's very common to hear people say,
At least in the work that I am in,
I still don't know what I want to be after I grow up,
Or I started this as a temporary thing and 20-25 years later I am still doing this.
Because at some subtle level there is still longing for that goal or home.
And even if I were to probe someone about the specifics of what they want,
One or two questions in,
It will become a very difficult question.
And I have asked others,
There is a longing,
Such an intense longing that doesn't allow us to be truly at peace here,
Because we want to be somewhere else.
Yet we don't know the specifics of it,
We can't describe it.
There are surveys,
Questionnaires,
Workshops,
Seminars that will ask you all these questions for your ideal life etc.
But that is still throwing the anchor in the future based on what we imagine our life should be like.
And imagination is a recycling of what we know most of the time,
We are imagining what we have seen,
What we have heard,
What we have experienced in the past,
Or what we have seen other people experience.
But what if,
What if,
If this anchor in future is the cause for lack of peace?
The idea that home is at the end of a struggle makes the struggle,
The struggle.
We started off by coming home from our imagination,
From our excursions to in space and time back here.
This geographical location may not be your house or maybe temporarily your house,
But only you can tell if you felt like you came home regardless of what geographical location you were in.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Maybe being at peace is home.
Or you may say being at home is peace.
Being at home,
Being at peace is an internal experience.
Being at home can be anywhere.
Doing anything.
Peace.
Most of the times whatever we do,
And I'm making a wide generalization here.
Most of the times whatever we do is to reach the end of whatever we are doing.
The anchor is in the future for peace.
Let's imagine we have 20 things to do today.
So our entire day is aligned towards finishing those 20 things.
More often than not,
We will not finish 20 things.
And it will leave us exasperated,
Disappointed.
Peace is a far-fetched word on a daily basis.
But once in a while,
When we arbitrarily decide that I have five things to do today,
And we end up doing those five things,
We quote-unquote reach peace.
That ephemeral experience is finally achieved.
I'm sure that's not our goal.
And when I say our goal,
I mean the goal of the heart,
Not the goal of the mind.
Can we see clearly that throwing the anchor of peace in the future deprives us of the peace now?
And if we are lucky and we do reach this anchor of peace in the future,
It deprives us to stay peaceful at that time as well.
Thank you.
A natural question that might arise after this exploration would be,
Then what do I do?
We need to isolate doing from being.
We can't do our way to peace.
We can be at peace.
The act of doing is deeply rooted in this idea of becoming.
The dynamism of doing taints our experience and makes it an idea of becoming.
Somehow,
Someone was smart enough to name us human beings,
Not human becomeings.
But the only context I've heard anyone say human being is in the context of flaws,
Something shortcoming.
Never in terms of the majestic experience that we are having of being a human being.
If you don't do something right or you mess up,
We are all humans.
But maybe there is a deeper meaning in being a human being.
Maybe that's the key.
Our activities are constantly becoming in dynamism.
Whatever art,
Craft,
Profession,
Endeavors that we are undertaking,
Things are evolving or deteriorating.
The amount of things we do keeps growing.
The ideas we foster today are very different from two years ago.
The kind of mental food we consume in terms of books,
Interactions,
Media,
Social media is slightly or drastically different from two years ago.
And those are the human aspects.
But what if we added the being aspect to the human aspect?
The peace aspect to our struggle aspect,
Struggle or effort aspect.
The goal is not the destination.
The goal is the walk.
Walking is the goal.
And the road on which we walk is the peace.
Peace is not the end of the road.
It is the road.
We can be always at home.
The metaphorical home.
Maybe if we attempt this,
If we try this,
The internal struggle will quietly dissipate.
Our minds will be a little clearer.
Our bodies will be a little calmer.
This constant state of hustling,
Not the hustle of the body,
But the hustle of the mind.
This wanting to reach somewhere.
Will just leave us like a headache leaves us.
It doesn't tell us when it's leaving.
It just leaves.
We may not even know that it's left until a long time later.
Let's keep this anchor deeply rooted here.
As we walk or we run or we sprint,
Know that the road is peace.
So no matter what destination we choose or no matter what destination we end up at,
We're never deprived of peace.
We're never disappointed.
No regrets.
All destinations are the same.
So the heart will not be longing for any other destination.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
