A Way Home 

When I was a child, my mother always said not to venture too far from home that  I could not hear her call to return.  Needless to say, in my youthful arrogance I would stretch my limits to see how far I could go without trouble rearing its head.  One could chalk that up to childhood stubbornness but the danger was that it did not seem to recede as I became older.    There was always this invincibility that came attached to my youth.  Old age, disease and the body’s wear and tear would never enter my mind.  I would hear the elders’ advice but I would brush it aside by employing the reasoning of changing times and dissimilar mentalities.  Stubborn in my habits I always wanted to do things my way.

As I reflect now at my childhood, I do not curse or hate it since it had to be the way it was for me to travel my path.  I was destined to learn lessons in life the only way I knew how; through my own experience.  

It probably happened around the late adolescent years.   Around the time when my mind was cementing its own shape, breaking away from the influence of family and leaning towards that of my company.   One can say I wanted to fit in with the rest of them.  I was willing to trade my membership to the lion’s den for an association to a flock of sheep.  It was as if I lost sight of who I really was. In an instant, I had bartered my soul so I could fit in with the crowd.  I had stretched my limits too far.  I finally fell victim to that which my mother had warned me about as a child; I had ventured too far and I could not find my way back home. 

I did not immediately realize what had transpired.  It took me a couple of years until I finally stopped, looked forward, glanced backwards and inevitably  came to the conclusion that I did not recognize this path anymore.  

I used to ask myself ‘Who am I?’

That followed with ‘I am…’ but all subsequent words ceased to formulate.  

The declaration of the words ‘I am..’ traditionally were followed by a list of characteristics to describe myself. My name, nationality, religion, education etc, all were seemingly first-rate ways to describe me, but they ended up failing to accomplish that which they set out to do.

Everything I based my introduction on was subject to impermanence.  I had been fooling myself for years, with my heavily defined boxes of self image.  Even with these definitions, I truly failed to understand that my boxes were composed of my transient ego. I grew up in a world where I was told who I was based upon a measuring stick that in itself was all illusion, all temporary, and all pointless.  In this misconception, I had forgotten who I was.  I ventured so far from home, I felt like the protagonist in a childhood story that my mother used to tell me.  The story relates to a mistaken identity developed by false nuturing.

∞

In the monsoon season of southern India, a lioness with child was on the cusp of delivery.  By the time of delivery, the rainfall was so immense, that upon giving birth to the cub, the lioness had to retreat for shelter. There in the middle of this storm, a lion cub was left; born with his eyes closed, shivering in the cold and drifting back and forth as the waters of the nearby river bank rose and retracted.  

With the passing of night, the rain halted and a farmer, while out grazing his sheep, noticed the cub lying on the river banks without any shelter or family.

The gentlemen sensing an attraction to the cub picked him up and brought him to the farm where he proceeded to raise the feline as one of his own.  The farmer nurtured the cub on cow’s milk, fed him fruits, grains and vegetables.  The farmer raised the cub to an adolescent the same way he reared his sheep.  

After the cub was able, the farmer thought to put the young lion in the stable with the sheep and goats.  The lion became very attached and fond of his companions and began to talk and walk as if he was a sheep.  Soon enough, when time permitted, the farmer thought it would be a good idea to graze the sheep, with the lion at the helm for their protection.  The farmer figured that the lion was born blind and had no idea who he was, so he would be the perfect shepherd to scare away other predators.  This shepherding would continue for many years.  For all  that the lion knew, he was an overgrown sheep with different physical attributes.  

So on the field one day, when the sheep were grazing, in the distant land, a load growl was heard.  At that instant, all the sheep lifted their heads up from their feed and began to stare right at their lion comrade, who himself was stunned gazing off in the direction of the roar.  The lion seemed to be shaken beyond mend as the sheep began to gaze upon his empty stare.  Again, in the distance, another growl was heard.  Then at the snap of a finger, a switch went off and the lion came to realize his own identity.  Seeing this scene, the sheep scattered and began to run back in the direction of their farm. After nature had taken its course on the lion, he began to match roars to his relatives in the distance and followed their calls back to his true home.

For the life of lion up to that point, he was raised in uncertainty; a mistaken identity. He did not, for one second, question his credentials as a sheep.  He had no idea what a lion was.  

Even though that story was difficult to comprehend as a child, it truly made sense to me at that moment in my life where I could not distinguish the path that I was travelling.  What was the veil placed on the true identity of the lion was also overcast on my mind during those adolescent years. I was tangled in a society that slowly nurtured me into a sheep; stewarded by my mind and its influencers.  I, like the lion, began to utter the vocabulary of the sheep.  I began to think and act like the sheep.  The notion of being free to act how I wanted was just a fallacy.

Although I was given different teachings intrinsically, I lost my way home.  The lion lived his entire life in misconception.  Yet, he was still able to snap out of his spell; all with the simple primal noise of his species.  The lion just had to listen to it.

Keeping in mind the primal sound of my kind, I needed to trek back.  I finally  understood why my mother always said not to journey too far that I could not find my way back. 

I knew that I needed to go back home but the task in itself was quite daunting.Like Faust, I contemplated how far I had gone and questioned whether it was even possible to turn back.  I thought I already reached a point of no return. Nonetheless, the hallow feeling did not disperse, so it drove me to find a way to accomplish this undertaking.  

When I was quiet enough, in a contemplative mood, I would hear the whispers of a guiding voice.  It was quite faint but it was very recognizable.  It was a beacon that was illuminating the path I was to walk on.  Once that first step was taken, the whispers became louder and louder.  For all the doubt I had whether or not it was possible to return, I came to realize that my home did not move a single inch from its position.  Where I left it, it still stood.

The path might have changed.  The landscape might have looked different.  Old trees were withering under the effects of cold winters.  But when I was overcome with uncertainty, I would just close my eyes and try to listen to the guiding voice.  It would grant me much power.  All the impediments and obstacles in my way would just seem like small twigs in the path of a blazing river.  Day by day, I would inch closer and closer to my return.  

The voice would intermittingly become louder and louder until that one day I began to recognize my surroundings.  Markers on the trail would trigger memories to alert me of the whereabouts of that precise location.  After a while, instinct kicked in.  The trek started to become habitual. My pace went from a walk to a power walk.  It then graduated to a jog. Eventually it became an all out sprint.  

I was overcome with joy.  The rush of emotion could not be contained as I began to make out what the outer building of my home. 

There was just one light on that seemed to give as much illumination as thousands of suns.  As I made my way in the direction of that light, the whispers that I heard finally became audible so that I could understand their origins.  

That voice, it was exactly the same; not even a  single intonation different.  All the doubt I had, vanished in an instant.  All I could see from this immense light was a figure standing on what seemed to be a porch. All I could hear as I inched closer and closer to the figure was the most welcoming of voices to these weary ears of mine: 

“Welcome Home.  What took you so long? ”