Baba says, “The Father has explained to you children that you now have to return. This here is not your home.“

There are times when everything seems to be okay in my life. Things are good at home and at work, I am serving and yet, there is a small part in me that still seems to not be fully content. it almost makes me feel guilty because I think: I have everything anyone could hope for, I have come to God Himself and yet how come I feel this discontentment? I should be the most contented person in the whole world! As a Brahmin soul, I think: Maybe if I served a little more, put in a few more hours of meditation, perhaps that feeling might go away. Souls in the world think: Maybe if I got that promotion, bought that house in that neighborhood, joined that exclusive club…perhaps then, the feeling will go away.

The thing though is: I will never be fully content as long as I am in this world because this world is not my home. I came here to play my part in the unlimited drama; this here is the stage, not my home. My home is the soul world, the sweet silence home, where I reside with my Father. The soul longs to return home. Unfortunately, my brothers and sisters in the world don’t know this truth and so they keep trying to make it better for themselves in this world. But according to the drama, the world is only going to get worse, not better. It will get even more peaceless, and sorrow will increase. And so the more souls try to find happiness and contentment, the more their efforts fail. Then, there are the sannyasis who recognize that there is no happiness in the world and so they leave to go to the forest. There, they connect their yoga with the Brahm element thinking it is God and seek eternal liberation. First of all, the Brahm element is our home, not God; and two, there cannot be eternal liberation. No one can leave the cycle in between and return home. This is the reason why committing an unnatural act like suicide doesn’t help either. People who have unfavorable events happen to them suddenly- like losing a loved one, falling gravely ill, or going bankrupt- decide to end their life because they cannot take the sorrow. However, the soul will simply take another birth, it cannot return home until the cycle ends.

Why not? Because the home is the land of purity and I, the soul cannot return home unless I become pure. Every soul, without exception, is impure at this time in the cycle. Every soul has all five vices in them and so until I become pure, I cannot return home. How can I become pure? By considering myself a soul and remembering the Father. Only the Father is the Purifier and He alone can perform the act of purification of souls. Why? Because only He is Ever Pure; an impure soul cannot purify another impure soul. God is Ever Pure because He never comes into the cycle of birth and death like souls do. And so He never forgets who He is; He always remembers, He is always conscious. I, on the other hand, forget about mid-way through the cycle that I am a soul and start to consider myself a body, that is, I identify as a role, a relationship, a position, a social status, nationality, gender etc. Of course, none of these bodily things, including the body itself, is permanent; they are all temporary. And because I attach my identity to a temporary thing, I live in fear, worry, anxiety, and stress because I am afraid of losing what I believe to be me. God comes and reminds me that I am a soul, not the body– this is lesson 1. The rest of the journey is about becoming an embodiment of that truth by shedding all the attachments.

But even though I now have been reminded of the truth by God Himself, I still find it difficult to embody that truth about who I am. I find it hard to be soul conscious as I get pulled down by the gravitational forces of people, old sanskars and situations. “You have to remove all of your attachment from everything including your own bodies.“, teaches Baba. The body itself is neutral, it’s my attachment to the body, my consciousness of being a body that is wrong and harmful. This is the part that sannyasis get wrong. They think the body is to blame and do all kinds of unnatural acts to subdue the body by force. That doesn’t help at all. The effort is to realize who I am and Whose I am and stay in that consciousness. Then, I will be liberated in life no matter where I am. Even when it is time to leave the body, I will be fearless because I recognize that I am separate from the body. How do I know this? Because it’s how things were in the golden and silver ages. Then, because I was soul conscious, when it came time to leave one body and take another, I did so happily. It was a cause for celebration both for the one leaving the body and for the family members because everyone was aware that the soul is continuing its journey, it is simply leaving an old costume and taking on a new costume to play it’s part.

This, however, is my last birth and so I won’t take on a new costume this time; I will return to the Father’s home with the Father. “The Father will seat you on His eyelids and take you back home“, He says. So there is no question of fear! It is even more cause for celebration! “You should have the happiness that you are now to return to Baba. You no longer have any connections with your bodies.“, He explains. “Each of you is a soul. You receive that long tail of a body afterwards. So, why have we become trapped in them?” Body consciousness makes me the most weak. Now, I stay in remembrance and become strong. There is strength in purity and only when I become pure can I return home with the Father. Not just that, this strength of purity lasts me for the next cycle and I experience limitless happiness. So Baba says repeatedly, “Manmanabhav!, it’s time to return home.”