Home

I took part in a Zen meditation circle last year. Not so much because I see myself as a Zen Buddhist, but because I was looking for a quiet community to pursue my practice. During the Dokusan, I got involved in actively exploring my questions. I gave up a lot and left a lot behind. It was surprisingly easy. The 'teacher' drew my attention to the fact that the homelessness that I was actively initiating was also a spiritual state. That was liberating.

Instead of binding one's self to an identity embedded in societal structures, my philosophical and spiritual journey leads me to a consciousness that tries to free itself from this illusion. Home, in this context, has no meaning, or if it does, a completely different one – living in harmony. This harmony is infinitely complex and co-present. A physical reference point for the body is not home – perhaps the social, cultural, political, spiritual is, rather. Yet, even here, the point of reference in Buddhism or Hinduism is different. The core is to understand oneself as part of a diversity and immanent unity; this contradicts the concept of a home.

Being homeless is a spiritual state. It is not negative, but a goal. I have always felt homeless, I have always had difficulties with the concept of self. I have always been searching for an answer that is not based on a location, but on a realization. This realization is beyond the mind, it is intuitive and in its overcoming. Sri Aurobindo wrote a lot about fire. Its flame is light, it transforms. Its energy: destructive, giving, universal, mystical and spiritual.