Golden Thread
Our true home is available in every moment we choose to surrender what we want or don’t want to that which life has brought us.
The Elusive Kingdom
Do you remember the first time you went to summer camp or spent some time away from your parents when you were a child? Regardless of how you felt about your family, you eventually became homesick. Try to remember that feeling.
All of us are born with an attachment to home—wherever that might be. In scale this attachment is a reflection of a greater longing for our eternal home, which is often referred to as the “kingdom of Heaven.” Even if you don’t believe in Heaven as the physical home of God to which humans return when they pass from the earth, you can relate to the concept of an earthly and spiritual home and their relationship to one another.
Developing Awareness
So, if it’s true that we’re all born with this longing, how do we go about fulfilling it? The first step is to determine where it is. Where is this eternal home we call the Kingdom of Heaven? Does anybody have a roadmap?
The New Testament gives us a clue in Luke 17: 20-21. Jesus is approached by the Pharisees, a group of middle-class Jews who represent people who are attached to obtaining exterior riches (powers and possessions). They ask him when the Kingdom of Heaven is coming, and Jesus replies, “The Kingdom of Heaven is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is! or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” Alternate translations use different prepositions like “within,” “amidst,” or “inside.”
The point Jesus is making is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t reside somewhere “out there,” and it can’t be obtained through the usual worldly means of toil and labor. There are no road signs announcing its exact location. If we want to arrive, we must perceive this elusive destination through interior work of an entirely different order. This Work belongs to another world, and what is required is awareness.
Awareness is the product of directed or focused attention. Its development, which is largely lost in human beings today, is a result of a concerted effort to gather and reclaim our attention, which if left to its own devices will be drawn out and away from us at every turn.
On the Inner Path, we are asked to awaken and return to ourselves, when we become aware that we’ve wandered off into thought, emotion, or physical sensation. Instead of allowing ourselves to be drawn out, we attempt to hold the majority of our attention inwardly, while reserving a smaller amount for practical, exterior use. We are asked to return and remain in this state as often as we must to maintain a sense of ourselves existing in the Presence/present moment.
This is another way of describing, what St. Paul was trying to convey to the Romans when he said, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be confirmed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God— what is is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12: 1-2
