This month's focus A Mother's Love is relevant to me personally, because my relationship with my mother and my family in general has its fair share of strains and struggles. What I found comforting and useful in my practice are the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child, from which I base the words that are to follow which I used in my Jivamukti classes in the last 2 days. The first time we were in a fetal position, it was not in some yoga class we attended. The first time we were in a fetal position in this physical body in this lifetime was when we were in our mother's womb. In those nine months, there was nothing we needed to worry about. Our mother ate for us both, drank for us both, breathed for us both. We were more akin to one person than two. We were even connected physically through the umbilical cord. When we were born, that cord was cut. But for some time, we still depended on our mother. We were still attached to our mother as though the cord were still there. Time passed though, and we started to have our own identity. Our relationship with our mother started to have multiple dimensions. It was no longer as simple as it was before. We grew more and more separate from our mother, the distance between us growing further and further. Some of us may even think that we and our mother are nothing alike. Despite that, the universe understands us as still a continuation of our mother, an extension of our mother. Just as a seed will grow into a plant, the fetus that was inside the womb will grow into a person. Just as the plant still has that seed inside of it, we still have our mother inside of us. We can never really separate from where we came from. And so, however it is that we feel towards our mother we feel inadvertently towards some part of ourselves. If we ignore her, it means we ignore a part of ourselves. If we hate her, it means we hate a part of ourselves. If we see her for all that she was and is, and feel compassion towards her, then we are compassionate towards ourselves. There is no other way. We are still our mother. If we have conflicts with our mother, we can start the healing process simply by putting the intention out to the world. How we heal is only secondary to our sincere desire to heal. It is said that if we feel pain in our lives, it is likely because we are still in the habit of projecting our past. If we are impatient, needy, angry, jealous, envious etc, it is likely because we are projecting our past unmet needs. In many teachings including the fields of psychology and spirituality, it is acknowledged that a child exists within us. We may have ignored this child for a long time, but he or she is still there, wanting the same things as he or she did before. Invite your child to spend time with you in this practice. See him or her as the five-year-old you, who simply wanted attention, to feel loved, to be valued. See this child clearly for who he or she is, someone who deserves all the care in the world. Now be the adult who will take care of this child. Next, invite your mother to spend time with you in this practice; but not the version of your mother that you fit into a role. Instead, invite the five-year-old version of your mother. She too simply wanted attention, to feel loved, to be valued. Your mother was once this child, no different from the child you once were. Now see both children-- you and your mother-- walking hand in hand, as peers, as friends, as equals in this world filled with complexities and challenges. See both children walking the same path, wanting the same happiness, seeking the same love. Your mother is also you, you are also your mother. The idea of home is a place where we feel safe and secure and protected. Our home, we will find out when we heal the inner child, is simply here right now, right where we are, inside of us. Our home is where we let the child feel loved and worthy, where he or she need not look further. And so reconciliation is coming home to this truth, coming home to ourselves, coming home even to and especially to those parts of us that we think are broken. May we remember the cord that connects us to our mother, how our mother is connected to her mother, and how all of our ancestors are connected to us, cord by cord, in this lineage of existence. We are never isolated. We are never alone. We are connected to all of life. This is what it means to discover inter-being.
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A mother's love rings of nurturing and compassion; we've elevated it so much that in some ways we equate it to the perfect kind of love. And while it is true that love itself is perfect, participants of this love are far from perfect. It is for the simple reason that we are human beings and our role here is not to be perfect, but simply to grow.
Some of us may be mothers feeling the pressure to be perfect; some of us may be adult children still wishing and hoping for that perfect mother's love. Either way, what do we think happens when our starting point is perfection? We create a vicious cycle of suffering as a result of unfulfilled expectations. If we want to be free, we then reframe all love-- including mother's love-- into something real that we experience. It is sincere and it is compassionate, but it is also human in that it has room for human struggles and imperfections. Love is perfect when it acknowledges simply that the ones who love try their very best. There are people who have never given birth, but are mothers in their own right. One such person is named Julia Butterfly Hill. For 738 days, she lived in the canopy of a thousand year old tree. Her act of civil disobedience is intended to protect this tree, and she succeeded. Why would this environmentalist be likened to a mother, you might ask. And the answer is that she chose to protect life, even if it is not human life. If we go beyond our conventional definition of motherhood, we can find innumerable ways to be a mother. We can feed the homeless, we can adopt, we can provide for the needs of another. Embodying motherhood is an experience of cherishing all of life.
Last weekend, I took a break and went to Sagada. I was surrounded by lush greens, fresh air, and the view of the rice terraces was of course stunning. But more than the view being pleasing to the eye, what struck me was that nature contains all the elements necessary for our existence and survival. We take it for granted because it has always been so, and it always will be, but think about it for a moment. The air that we breathe, the plants that we eat, the water that we drink are all part of nature's design in nourishing us. It is no surprise then that nature is associated with a feminine energy-- we call nature Mother Nature, earth Mother Earth.
These days, most people act as if nature is something to be exploited: we cut down trees to use the land for animal agriculture, we eat animals and animal products not being aware of the harm it causes both the animals and the environment, we consume plastic because of the perceived convenience it gives us, we buy things excessively thinking we need to accumulate everything from clothes to cars to our sense of security. It is timely that yoga is now gaining popularity all over the world. Yoga is needed at this time. The word yoga means "to yoke". It is union. It is a practice of remembering that we all belong to each other. It is a practice of introspection, experiencing what it is like to be deep within ourselves. It is a practice of empathy, understanding what it is like to take on the shape of another. When we do asanas, we learn to embody the characteristics of nature by taking on the form of nature for a few minutes at a time. We stand sturdy and strong like a mountain, rooted and uplifted like a tree, loyal and honest like a dog, fearless and intelligent like a crow. My teacher Sharon Gannon often reminds us that the Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth. And the truth is, nature does not need people; people need nature. It is time that we make space in our lives to love Mother Nature, to show gratitude for all that she provides, and in return to take care of her and protect her and safeguard her interests. It is time we return Mother Nature's love. Don't you think nature is amazing? There's this natural law that governs the way in which things work-- how seasons come and go, how flowers bloom, how animals know when and where to migrate as conditions change. We human beings are governed by this natural law; our very existence follows Divine nature.
When human beings are conceived, they stay in the mother's womb for about 9 months, more or less, and during this time, all sustenance of the unborn child is received through the mother. When this baby is born, he or she continues to thrive the best when the food is his or her mother's milk. The love of a mother, then, is not only something emotional that the mother feels, but this love is hard wired in the very biological makeup of our physical bodies. It is almost as if nature itself acknowledges this close bond, showing that love is the most natural thing that fulfills our needs. Isn't that inspiring? This mother's love, though-- whether emotionally or biologically expressed-- is not exclusive to human beings. Nonhuman animals experience the same bond; and their bodies indicate just as much. A mother cow also carries her baby for a term of 9 months, just like us. When her baby is born, her milk is meant for her baby, just like us. The sad reality is that we have forgotten this natural law, and through disconnection, we mistakenly think that a mother cow's milk is "given" to us. When we make this grave mistake of consuming animal milk, we become an accomplice to the tearing away of the baby from his or her mother, and we dishonor the mother's love. Being a yogi means becoming aware of the impact of our thoughts, words, and actions. First, we honor our own mother. We honor the life our birth mother has given to us, providing us with our first food and our first shelter. Then, we honor those who stood as our mothers through their nurturing and compassion. Lastly, we bear witness to this mother's love occurring all throughout nature; and not only that, we acknowledge this love by allowing this love to be expressed from mother to child, regardless of circumstances, regardless of species, regardless of convenience to us. A significant way for us to be part and parcel of mother's love across species is to choose to be vegan. It is in respect to the natural law that we let all mothers love their children with the freedom both mother and child deserve to have. Note: Dairy products have the result of breaking a mother's heart. As much as the mother loves her child, her calf is kidnapped from her so that the milk of the mother can be used for commercial products instead of food for her baby. Kindly watch this: https://youtu.be/SYJPbrxdn8w When we think of mothers, we have the image of a nurturing figure, someone who would give all that she can, someone whose love is so big we are wrapped in unconditional acceptance. That is the image, and while that is not untrue, it is also not a complete picture of everyone's relationships with their mothers.
For some of us, the relationship we have with our mother is complicated. It is sometimes characterized by conflict, some long-standing ones or even existing ones. And because our relationship with our mother is the very first one we have ever had, our mother the first person we ever had an interaction with even as we were inside her womb, our view of the world has at least something to do with this first relationship. Whether we feel safe and protected or scared and threatened might rooted to our early experiences. Regardless of how perfect or challenging our relationship with our mother was or still are, we are all capable of receiving the unconditional nurturing that we deserve-- and as adults, it becomes our responsibility to give it to ourselves. Healing our relationship with our mother or mother figure means that we see our own mother not just as a mother but also as a person, who like us, has her own struggles in life. Our relationship with our mother may have given us a head start or a set back, depending on the nature of our relationship. But as yogis, we see that it is our own responsibility to create our present and future. All that we deserve that are encapsulated in the mother figure are qualities we have within ourselves. And the more we see ourselves with kindness, the more we treat ourselves as a loving mother would her child, the more that we can look at the world with the same set of compassionate eyes. |
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