A Safe Haven


Thieves broke into my house one night in 2010. They did not disturb anybody, not even our dog. They came into the bedroom where I was sleeping with my wife, Martina. My daughter Sujato and her husband Henrik were there, visiting us for the weekend. They did not hear anything either. I am thankful that we all slept through this. My mind still ponders over the possible consequences had we woken up while the thieves were still there.

 I see that this invasion into my personal private space is taking time to digest fully. It is something that I still stop and think about. It has robbed me of my equilibrium, my sense of harmony and relaxation in the place that I call home. I am currently working to restore this sense. It feels like this intrusion has knocked me out of my centre. When I wake up at night to use the toilet, it is with alertness, even though I know that since the burglary our alarm system is switched on every night. There still remain the after effects of restlessness and insecurity, in the place I call “home”. Osho says, “A house is a physical thing, a home is a spiritual thing. A house protects you from the outside – its function is negative -- from rain, from wind, from the sun. It is just negative, it does not nourish you, it has no positive function. A hotel can do, a caravanserai can do…. any house will do. Its function is negative, it is just a shelter. In itself it is not nourishment. A home is more than just a house. It protects you, that’s okay – that’s not its basic function. It nourishes you…it feeds you. It is a love space” (excerpted from Above All Don’t Wobble)

 My home is the place to which I retreat between my business trips and private excursions. There is a lot to be said about sleeping in my own bed, no matter where I may travel. My home is a place where guests are welcome on a regular basis. My parental home was also a place where my friends and those of my siblings were always welcome.

 As a teenager, I began to practice my interior design and decorating skills in that house. These skills were to be refined later when I went on to study interior design. I have maintained these skills wherever I have lived since then. I live in a much larger house now, it is a place for rejoicing as well as for carrying out the modern-day equivalent of the Zen concept of “chopping wood and carrying water from the well”.  There is pleasure to be found in the many household maintenance tasks: cleaning, gardening, cooking. Home cooked food somehow taste better that that in any restaurant. Cooking dinner every night when I am there is one of the rituals that create a sense of home for me.” Home” is something that I have come to understand as a state of serenity inside, a place from which I have an overview of whatever is happening, while remaining centered in my being. My home is where I write, paint and get totally carried away in my creativity, where I expand my being. More than ever, there is a sense of spaciousness. Very often there is music playing in the background ranging from classical to modern, depending on the mood. I now see myself in my life phase of the householder. I have been here long enough to develop a sense of community with some of our neighbours. It is a sign of putting down roots. 

 The Taoist sage Lao Tsu says that “the reality of a building is not within the walls and the roof, it is the space inside”. His philosophy, the Tao Te Ching, forms the basis of Feng Shui, an ancient oriental system, used to create harmonious buildings. Tao does not have a Godhead figure; instead, reverence is paid to the flow of life itself. Incorporating Feng Shui principles in living with material possessions has become popular in the west since the early 1990’s. The main difference between the East and the West consists in their attitudes towards change.

 In ancient China all things were explained in terms of energetics. The placement of buildings and the objects within them have an effect on the environment. All matter has energy. Europe, on the other hand, began from a notion of substance. While China accepted change and expressed change in terms of energetics, the West resisted change and searched for the permanent substance underlying change.

 I have put into practice the vision of Feng Shui in all of the places I have lived in since I discovered this ancient art. The principles of Feng Shui can be used to enhance the quality of life in all of its aspects. One of its principles is about living without accumulated clutter in the house, giving space to the circulation of energy. For example, storing clothes that are no longer in constant use, has the effect of keeping us caught in an old outdated image of ourselves in the back of our minds. This can affect the clarity in our thinking and self-expression.  It has always been important to me to create an atmosphere in my outer surroundings that reflects my inner being. However humble or grand the dwelling place, this quality of serenity within is essential.

 I have heard myself say jokingly on many occasions that I can fit in anywhere and belong nowhere. But this sense of being a misfit is one that has been acute. I felt completely at home during my years of communal living with Osho in the company of the members of that ever-changing caravanserai. Within that international community, there was a sense of rightness and belonging that I had missed since my childhood. It had the flavour of community that had once existed in Sri Lanka.

 The island where I was born was one where my ancestors had sailed to from Portugal, Holland and Britain. It seems that wandering is in my blood. The first house that I ever called home stands directly at the cargo entrance of Colombo harbour. It is the only house left standing in the street. The others have long been mown down to make way for this gateway, which used to be further down the road. It may be that starting life next to that harbour has a prolonged effect. These days I live close to the second largest harbour in Europe.  The sight of Hamburg harbour, whenever I drive past it, is like an anchor.

 The journey in between these two harbours has been long and adventurous. As a boy of twelve, I stood on the deck of the steamer SS Fairsky, watching Colombo harbour slowly slipping into the distance. The politics in Sri Lanka took a somewhat national socialistic swing after independence. Families like mine formed 1% of the population. Our ancestral history turned us into strangers in the land where we were born. The troubles that have led to a civil war, which became international news, had already started then.  It was a severe disruption in my sense of well-being.

 I sailed with my family to Southampton, to start a new life in England.  To adjust to this change in circumstances during puberty was no joke. Looking back I think I made the best out of going through the changes. My whole sense of identity was challenged without my full understanding of what I was going through. It gave rise to the question of who I really am. In London the family house I grew up in was small for a family of six.  Yet we manage to create a similar close-knit atmosphere whenever my family members gather here, as they do whenever there is a special occasion such as my 60th birthday recently. It may be for this reason that I took to communal life so easily, later on. Sharing limited space was a basic requirement of communal life, as I experienced it. To find personal space within was mostly a challenge in the face of interaction and sharing. To ride with the ups and downs of life and remain true to my own life flow has been something that has flourished in this kind of structure.

 In subsequent years whenever I have visited Sri Lanka, it has been with tears in my eyes as my plane lands upon arrival and takes off on departure.  As much as I have travelled, there is no place I have seen which is more beautiful. Sadly, it has been a land of civil unrest and terrorism. The harbour is now guarded in a manner that reminded me of the Berlin wall.

 In the German Bakery in Pune, a terrorist bomb once ripped apart the bodies of several young people of assorted nationalities, making international headlines. It saddened and shocked me into thinking about how Koregaon Park has been transformed from a once tranquil suburb. It was a place where, at the time that I lived in Pune, I felt very much at home. This suburb continues to play host to one of the greatest experiments in human consciousness on the planet, which still attracts seekers from all around the world.

 “A sannyasin is one who goes on wandering, a constant vagabond, a gypsy, who makes no household anywhere. Even if he lives in a house he knows that it is a caravanserai, it is an overnight stay – and in the morning we have to go. So he never clings to any relationship. He always remains open. If it is there, good. If it is not there, goodbye, that too is good.”(God Is Not For Sale, Osho)

 My wandering spirit moved, to a smaller place is much easier to manage: a flat in Hamburg. Much as I love having so much space, that large house kept me busy with all the maintenance.  It is nearing the time to let go again and create something that fits the changing needs of Martina and myself.

 “A ship in the harbour is safe, but that is not why ships are built…”