Sometimes we may find ourselves thinking that a new awakening, to vocation, purpose, self-identity, in our lives is bound to require us to leave where we are. For some that may be true; not for all, though. Here is a story from Hindu tradition.
A young man had felt growing within him a sense of God's call. For months he wrestled with it, in the quiet moments in which he reflected and prayed. The call grew stronger, until in the end it could not be denied.
In the silent hours of darkness, as his wife and young children lay sleeping, he rose from his bed. Leaving behind all his possessions, he tiptoed from the house, and, long before dawn, he was away, out on the road, beginning his new life as a sadhu, as a wandering holy man.
Back in the young man's house, and as his family slept on, the God wept tears of compassion and bitter frustration. "Why is it," he asked, "that those who sense my call in their lives should feel the need to leave the place where I dwell in order to go out in the world to find me?"
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