Our True Home
By
Sarah Varcas
As we approach the end of the lengthy Uranus/Pluto square which has signalled so much powerful change in recent years, we may feel somewhat overwhelmed at the prospect of continuing onward, hoping, instead, that the completion of this powerful alignment will signal our arrival at our desired destination FINALLY!! Well, I hate to be the bearer of what may seem like bad news, but that’s simply not the way it works. If we find ourselves thinking in this way the heavens encourage us to take a wider view and remember who and what we actually are and where we find our true selves.
So what are we and where do we find ourselves?! First off, we are not who we think we are. No matter how much you may feel like [insert your name], who looks like [conjour up an image of your own face in your mind’s eye], and is currently in the middle of [insert whatever’s upper most in your life at the moment, be it a problem, a delight or the washing up!] these things are all relative truths, not ultimate ones. They are created by our perspective and held in place by our sense of self. As such we cling to them, even when they’re not helpful. We claim our problems as our own and in doing so allow them to separate us from others. We look at ourselves in the mirror and see this solid person looking back at us complete with back story and all manner of potential futures. We believe in ourselves, but not in a supportive, empowering way. Instead this very belief causes us to create a problematic identity out of passing experiences and complex issues out of changing conditions.
Alongside the message of Mercury retrograde the current alignments remind us that absolute truth is something other than anything we think we are. The stillness at our centre when we sit and meditate, the empty mind which gazes upon the most beautiful of sunsets, the spaciousness of the open heart which no longer makes enemies or allies out of ourselves or others: that is the unchanging ground of being at our core. Everything else can fall away – our name and identity, memories, hopes, dreams and desires – but stillness remains, spaciousness never leaves. It connects us with all beings via the ever-present circuit of energy flowing throughout the universe and beyond. Even the stillness that we believe we are isn’t what we are, for our true nature can only be experienced, not thought about, analysed or conceptualised. It lives beyond the point where words end, thoughts cease and we are simply just alive.
We may conceptualise this abiding presence in different ways. Some speak of the one mind, others the unified heart. Some speak of the light which radiates from our true being. Others conceive of it as empty of everything, pure space, infinite and unbounded. We may speak of the Holy Spirit within us, or the ever-present Buddha nature. Whatever we think and speak about it, we can only truly know ourselves at our very core by direct experience. And it is this direct experience which helps us put our desire to reach that destination we so long for into perspective. For once we touch our very essence and rest there we realise there is nowhere to go, nothing to be done and no one to be. We touch our essence from the inside. We do not arrive there. It is simply all around us and everywhere in each moment. The peace that we seek, the aliveness that we yearn for, the wisdom that we strive to know – it all exists in the spaciousness of the one mind, the open heart, the Buddha or Christ within and without.
As Mercury retrograde encourages us to let go of labels and allow identity to drop away, the heavens remind us that in doing so we become the destination we have sought for so long. We have already arrived. In fact we have been here for aeons and longer. We just lost our ability to recognise it amidst the ever present activity of the mind telling us this, making us that, creating form where none was needed and certainty where doubt was in fact the path to truth. Ultimately no matter our experience of them, all problems, trials and challenges have the potential to return us to our true home within if we allow them. No experience, however traumatic, can destroy the essence of who we are, the lasting awareness which lives at our very heart. If we allow life to reveal itself to us through the struggles as well as the triumphs, we come face to face with All That Is and simply discover our own face staring back at us, dissolving into everything along with all we thought we were.
This experience, of dissolution, of connection with the sacred field of awareness beyond self and name may not correspond with what we identify as the ‘goal’. Often we seek specific outcomes: a healthy relationship; fulfilling work; a happy home; insight into specific issues that continue to drain our energy and steal our joy; peace! And yet the very striving for these goals further obscures the source of the deepest and most lasting peace from which all life arises and to which it returns, moment by moment, formless and formed, pleasant and painful. This source is within us and all around. We are it and it is who we truly are. The notion of arrival is an illusion just as the notion we’re not ‘there’ yet is a lie. We are already home, immersed within the divine, we simply need to remember who and what we are and where our true self can be found.
Sarah Varcas
