“Frequently the experience that sets people on the spiritual path seems to come “out of the blue.” It is an experience of intense happiness or joy, or unity or love that has much in common with the “mystical” visions described in traditional literature…
For some people, the spiritual journey begins with what may first seem to be a “negative” experience…
This sort of entry point may range from a nagging sense of discomfort and boredom – the feeling that there must be something more …
Yet one senses that there is a source for this deep restlessness; and the path that leads there is not a path to a strange place, but a path home…”
No matter the entry point, no matter what moves us from the comfort or discomfort of our lives to a more spiritual awareness, it seems that we spend much of our time lost in toilsome workings far from “home.” Poet Robert Frost once opined that home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in! There is a place of sorts where we belong, where our entry is guaranteed, where it is right for us to be. What this says to me is that this place we now occupy, planet earth, is not that place, and that this body we wear while here is not our lasting apparel.
I try not to think about our temporary status in this life, and I do all I can to make my life here as homey as possible, but in my quieter moments I sense my impermanence, and I feel the nostalgia (a word that means homesick) that comes with the inevitability of moving on. Perhaps like you I’ve become attached to my body, flawed as it is, to my relationships with my fellow humans, and to this amazing terrestrial sphere upon which we are dependent in so many ways. The older I get the more I find myself pondering – pondering what, I don’t know, just pondering…
I’m grateful for the sense of happiness, joy, unity, and love that sometimes intrudes on my complacence, and for the discomfort, boredom, and the deep restlessness, too. It’s all part of the experience of being alive, and a reminder that impermanent as our life on earth may be, as long as there’s a breath to take, there’s a life to live.
Attuned to Soul 
This definitely hits “home” for me in multiple ways. But I’ll just hang on that ‘pondering ‘ point. There’s a humorous Canadian show called Corner Gas, where the final song sticks with me: ” I don’t know the same things that you don’t know. I just…don’t know.” But I am ever hopeful and longing for ” home”. Thanks for this. Have a glorious holiday season, Rudy
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As I sit here trying to get used to my new hearing aids, I am quite conscious of the infinite wonder of life even under certain limitations.
The Word of God made flesh. Vic Clore
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This reminds me, Tom, of a song lyric that lingered with me after David’s death and still does. The depth of the quieter moments and sense of our impermanence, realized by some already but by us all eventually.
“Trying to make the most of the air that’s left. Counting every minute, living breath by breath by breath.”
From songwriter David Grohl.
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Love the lyric
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