Home is where the heart is

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his  home.

Johann Wolfgang Van Goethe

I am going to ask you a question and it may seem that the answer to that question is going to be a "no-brainer". But really think about it.  

If you had a choice of living in an eloquent mansion, with everything your body needs or wants a reach away,  and being very, very unhappy or  living in  a cardboard box, never knowing where your next meal is coming from, and being very, very happy...what would you choose? 

I asked D. that question today and he had to think.  He was really leaning towards the mansion, reciting all kinds of reasons about how external circumstances make   the cardboard box a terrible choice.  I reminded him that he was blissfully happy while in the box and terribly, terribly unhappy while in the mansion. He has yet to give me an answer. 

What does this question really ask? 

It asks how much do you still believe that our circumstances determine our happiness and inner wellness? It asks, after all our learning, which path do you believe is the way to go : the horizontal or the vertical? It asks you to think about what needs are driving you at the present moment: the artificial needs of the personality or the authentic needs of the soul? It asks you to determine what it is you value most: outer or inner, body/ mind or soul, external comfort or internal peace.  It asks you to consider how much do you trust Life to provide what is really important? 

Hmm! 

I now know what I would choose.  I  know where inner wellness and happiness come from.  I know what path will take me farther in the long run. I know what needs I want to have driving me, even if at this part of my journey,  I may slip quite a bit. I know what I value most.  I am also wanting so very much to trust Life. 

Though I have never lived in either a mansion or a cardboard box, I have a tiny bit of life experience in the form of such decisions.   I have trusted Life before in some of my decision making and it was oh so scary to let go of certain things I thought I valued and needed. But I did! Did I manifest a life of  instant happiness, freedom, and enlightenment out of that choice?...no. 
Did I get aptly rewarded with comfort, ease and material abundance  for my oh so evolved decision ...definitely not. Did I encounter some suffering on the horizontal plane after that decision.  Big time!   Would I make the same choice again?  Yeah! I am confidant it was the best decision for me at the highest level. It was a huge step towards my "true" direction in Life. 

Now most of us will never have to choose between a mansion or a cardboard box, Thank God.  Most of will find ourselves living somewhere between those two points.  The question is then, regardless of your housing situation, regardless of your external circumstances...are you as happy and as well as you are meant to be?  Regardless of external environments  can you  find and fully experience the peace that is already right here and right now? 

Are you home? 

If not...maybe you need to have a good long look, not at the walls that surround you, but the walls you have built in your mind. Maybe, you like so, so many of us have to learn to let go and to trust Life a little more. Maybe, we all need to close our eyes and fall back into the circumstances Life  knows will take us to where we really want to be, that will nourish our souls even if it challenges our bodies and minds. . Who knows, maybe a few months in a cardboard box is exactly what our soul needs and wants in order to accomplish what it is here to do.  

Well that is something to at least think about, isn't it? 

All is well in my world.