The distant place that lies within.

The expression, “Home is where the heart is,” suggests that our home is located in union with another. The problem with that understanding is our sense of home is then wedded to the other’s wellbeing. So long as that union is well, our sense of wellbeing is likewise well. However, the opposite is also true. Tying yourself to another can be a dangerous matter, especially when the other jeopardizes our sense of stability and wholeness.

Another perspective is more favorably secure: The perspective that home lies within, right where your spiritual heart exists. The first view can be problematic, but so too can the latter. It all depends on how we understand and experience ourselves. If our view is one of self-love, that is one thing. If our view is one of self-hatred, that is even more dangerous than the first. In either case, wherever we go, our-self goes with us.

Both self-love or self-hatred can, and do, vary according to changing circumstances—everything, of a mortal nature, is constantly changing, and there is no way anyone can stop that flow of mortal change. Consequently, to get to the root of the matter, it is necessary to look beyond mortality.

Three different spiritual teachings point us to the resolution. The first comes from a familiar source (The teaching of Christ, as expressed by St.Paul the Apostle). The second and third sources are less familiar but dovetail with that of The Apostle. Let’s start with the second, move on to the third, and circle back to conclude with St.Paul.

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the French philosopher, paleontologist, and Jesuit priest who thought deeply on the meaning of our existence and relationship with the Divine. Chardin held this unorthodox view that within our mortal shell was our true home. To accept this perspective changes how we understand ourselves (and others) from a constantly changing mortal being that ends in death to that of a never-changing immortal being that never ends.

The third source comes from one of the greatest spiritual poets, artists, and educational theorists who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 (Rabindranath Tagore). Few in The West have ever heard of Tagore, but he shared the perspective of de Chardin and conveyed his view through many of his works, not the least is his poem Journey Home.

“The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my

voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,

and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,

and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said, ‘Here art thou!’

The question and the cry ‘Oh, where?’ melt into tears of a thousand

streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance ‘I am!’”

Like de Chardin, Tagore was persuaded that discovery of our true home—the one of spiritual essence, only came about on a quest within, where we find our eternal source.

Now, to tie all three together, let’s examine what St. Paul had to say in the book of 1 Corinthians. He said (metaphorically), “You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it” (the concluding point of 1 Corinthians 12:12-27), but when taken literally, it unites with the other two perspectives, that our true home—the one we can never leave lies at our spiritual core. There, alone, all of us can find the eternal spirit of love—our Divine essence. And when we find that core, we know that our essence is the same as the Divine. Short of that, we are all left with a self-understanding that bobs and weaves like a cork tossed about on the waves of change, sometimes loving and at other times with hatred. God is undivided love, and that is us.