A friend of mine about ‘Being at home’

An excerpt from the book, Janken naar de maan (Crying at the Moon), by Flemish author and sculptor, Bruno de Roeck

The fact that there is a place within me where I extend beyond myself is the most important discovery of my life, because it is through that place that I find my place in the world. There, connected to the universe, to all people of all times, to the ineffable Being, I can simply be, so that it no longer matters whether I am important or unimportant. World-improving ambitions, career, ideology or religion have no existence there…

When I am in that place nothing can happen to me. When I was deeply wounded and went through terrible experiences, and I could find my way to that place, I had to acknowledge: they could not wound me here.

And when I was wounded even more deeply, I discovered that, in that place, I still remained untouched – that there is a ground within me where I am invulnerable, where pain cannot truly reach my essence, even if I am dying from pain. I believe that even death cannot touch me there, because it is a place where Life itself, Being itself exists, beyond my individual life.

In that place I am not a neurotic or a person with a disability, no one’s rival, no one’s enemy, no one’s superior or inferior. In fact, the “I” does not even exist there, only the immeasurable Being remains. “Un immenso ser, encubierto en mi alma,” as Juan de la Cruz writes: “An immense Being, hidden within my soul.” During my brief existence I am an unimaginably small part of it, connected with all people throughout the ages.

In that place nothing changes when I die; life simply continues without me. There I am part of the universe, part of human history, and more than that, insignificantly small and infinitely vast at the same time, a drop in the ocean, yet also the ocean itself.

I cannot always enter that place at will, but experience has taught me that it exists and that it is close by. Sometimes I feel tainted, sorrowful, lonely, unhappy and lost. Yet, because that place exists, I am never completely alone, never completely tainted, unhappy or lost.

From: Bruno de Roeck, Janken naar de maan (Crying at the Moon), 2002, pp. 141–142
Featured image: sculpture by Bruno de Roeck, credit to kunstvestdagen.be
Translated from Dutch by Shanti

Bruno-Paul De Roeck (1930–2012) was a Flemish writer, sculptor, and Gestalt therapist. A former Carmelite monk and priest for 17 years – during which he learnt the art of watching and witnessing – he left the church due to his progressive views. He was best known for his accessible, self-help style books in which he introduced Gestalt therapy concepts to a broader, mainstream audience.