The Home We Forgot

We all know the saying: “Home sweet home.” Nothing feels sweeter than home. But if we pause and ask ourselves where home actually is, the answer turns out to be simpler than we think. Home is wherever our loved ones are. It is the place where our parents and the people dearest to us live.

So the real question becomes: who are our truest loved ones?

An old Sanskrit verse answers this beautifully:

Twameva mata cha pita twameva, Twameva bandhu cha sakha twameva.

“You alone are my mother and my father; you alone are my friend and my companion.”

These words are addressed to God, the Supreme. They remind us that beyond all our earthly ties, God is our mother, father, friend, and family, all at once. God is our truest loved one.

And where does this loved one live? In holy places: the pilgrimages and sacred lands where the divine is honored. That, then, is our real home.

When We Travel Away

Life sometimes calls us away from home. We journey far to care for the people we love, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Think of Hanuman. When his beloved Lord departed from this world, Hanuman chose to stay behind on earth. He did this not out of attachment, but out of service, so he could keep helping the Lord’s devotees. So yes, genuine service can be a perfectly good reason to live far from home.

But Is It Always Service?

Here is the honest question: is service always the real reason we stay away?

Often we leave with a clear purpose, to serve and to support our loved ones. Yet somewhere along the way, we forget. We grow comfortable in the faraway place, build a new “home” there, and slowly lose sight of the very people, and the very God, we set out to serve. But a house built on forgetting is not truly a home. Home is still where our real loved ones are, and our truest loved one is God.

Coming Back

So who truly belongs away from home? The one who is deeply devoted to service, like Hanuman, who stays out of love and duty.

And who truly belongs at home? Everyone else. Those with no real service keeping them away, who have simply grown attached to passing, worldly bonds and mistaken them for home.

If that quietly describes us, perhaps it is time to remember the way back.