In the last couple of weeks I have been listening to Osho’s discourses on the songs of Kabir that have been compiled under the title “The Path of Love”. These discourses were given between Dec 21st to 31st, 1976. Just ten discourses, but I feel like listening to them again and again … Interestingly we bought the book way back in 1992 at the Chennai Book Fair :).
The following excerpt is from discourse number 1 titled Love is the Master Key.
“….. KABIR SAYS:
THE HOME IS THE ABIDING PLACE…
You are born home; there is no possibility of being born without home, home is your natural element.
Be in the home. and remember the difference between a house and a home: a house is a place where you live without love; a home is a house where you live with love. When the house is infused with love, it becomes a home. All houses are not home. Many people live in houses and they think they live in a home. Don’t be deceived: all houses are not homes, although all homes are houses.
Home has something more than a house – a house is just a structure; it has no soul in it. When there thrives love, warmth, closeness, intimacy, openness, friendship; when there is love, then the house becomes a home, then the house becomes luminous.
And you can see the difference: when you enter a house you can immediately feel whether it is a home or a house. If it is a home, you will feel a welcome, you will feel warmth. You will feel a different vibe, a different milieu. If it is only a house you will feel a cold structure – cement and concrete, but no soul. It may be coldly beautiful too, good architecture, but you don’t feel any warmth, you don’t feel any vibration that the people who live here live in love; that people who live here live in celebration; that the people who live here live in delight; that the people who live here are grateful to God. Cold, uninviting – then it is a house; warm, welcoming… you will suddenly feel a warmth surrounds you.
Maybe there is nobody in the house, but if love exists there, then the house goes on vibrating with love.
Once I used to live with a very beautiful man, a poet, a mystic, and we used to travel together. He had a very curious habit: whenever we would go into any house he would go to this corner and that and sniff. I asked, ‘What do you do?’ He said, ‘I try to see whether it is a house or a home.’ And he had exact clarity about it; he was absolutely certain. I had never found him to be wrong. Immediately that he would sniff, he would say, ‘This seem to be a home; we can stay.’ And he was always right.
Or sometimes he would say, ‘Escape from here; this is a house. It will kill!’
On the surface you may not see the difference, but a house is also an alive thing. If there is love, then it is alive; the difference is the same. You may see a body lying there; how do you decide whether it is a corpse or an alive body? You go and touch, you feel the warmth, you put your hand close to the nose, you feel the breathing, you can see the heaving heart, you can listen to the beat; then you say it is not a corpse. In exactly the same way, a home has a beat, has a sound, breathes, pulsates. A house is dead; it is a corpse.
Now in the world there are many, many houses, but homes have disappeared.
KABIR SAYS:
THE HOME IS THE ABIDING PLACE; IN THE HOME IS REALITY…
You are born in the home, you are rooted in the home; you should live in the home and you should die in the home – and there is no need to go anywhere else. God has destined it this way. Just as a tree is rooted in the earth, you are rooted in home, in love, in community…….”
Note : the highlights and change in font is done by me.
I always felt that some houses have the right energy and you feel uplifted and some others just dampen your spirits. Well, the Master of Masters says that “feeling” is right. The houses with the uplifting energy are homes and the ones that dampen your spirit are just houses.
We always say “I feel at home” for a city, for a house… but never “I feel at house” :). For once the English language has got it right.
Do you live at home ? Well that’s for another day !
Thank You Master 🙏🏿
Thank you mam 🙏 nice one