One of the prerequisites for the soul to go within the eye center is that the mind be stilled. In order to overcome the wayward and wandering tendencies of the mind, people go so far as to renounce their families and retreat to the forests, but fail to make the mind stationary. Kabir says that the mind has ruined many homes; that is, whenever the soul is given a human body, the mind leads it off the true inner path of God-realization and keeps it involved in worldly pleasures and pursuits, thus wasting the rare chance of human birth. Kabir points out that the true home, the Lord's abode, can be found only within the home of the human body. Guru Nanak expresses the same idea when he says that the true Master is the one who shows us that Home within this home.

My mind does not stay still
Within my own house.
This mind has ruined
Many a home, O Lord.

It renounced the family
In its search for peace,
It made forests its abode;
But whether at the hearth
Or in the wilderness,
In its quest it met
With despair and failure.

Yet the mind does not stay still,
O Lord, within its own home.

Wherever I go, I find
Nothing but grief and woe;
All are afflicted with the misery
Of old age and death.

Yet the mind does not stay still,
O Lord, within its own home.

Beloved Lord, at Thy lotus feet
Kabir, Thy slave, bows and prays:
Within this home of mine
Show me that Home of bliss.

K.G., p. 88:79
Man thir rahai na ghar hwai merā