Motherhood

Motherhood !

मात्रुत्व !

The Benefits and Challenges from a Spiritual Perspective 

As I try to put my thoughts together for this subject I find it one of the hardest ones I have had to summarize and present in a coherent manner. The experiences accrued throughout the entire life are so profound, diverse and complex, many times entering a territory where one could call them complicated and even dysfunctional, that the task of narrating them and in the end arriving at some sort of a palatable, rational and wise deduction poses a monumental challenge. But I take it exactly as that. 

The first question is where do I start?

It is perhaps appropriate to start from the time motherhood became a topic of conversation in my head. I almost paused when choosing between mind and head in the last sentence. The choice of head was deliberate. Head has a rigid undertone to it compared to the mind. Mind seems pliable. There was nothing much pliable about my thinking when I was younger. Head strong! That’s the girl I was. And for that girl, expectations from a mother were endless. To meet those expectations, the mother had to be perfect. I wish at that age someone would have had a candid conversation with me about what exactly was my idea of perfection. If they did, a lot of agony for me and my poor mother would have been averted. A lot of emotional circus that ensued for most of my childhood and adulthood would have been circumvented. The story of my life would be much different. 

But the key to the script of my life as it unfolded lay in that one sentence which I almost casually mused over. Which is:

“ I wish at that age someone would have had a candid conversation with me about what exactly was my idea of perfection.”

Fact is that I did not have any concrete idea of perfection. It was a projected and most vague idea in the brain of a child who didn’t know how to articulate her emotional needs better. 

I just needed a mother 24/7. I was a needy child. 

I had a mother. And my mother was busy with her professional commitments 24/7. 

It proved to be a very dangerous combination for a girl to have. A very strong head, big emotional needs and an absentee mother from early age. Academic intelligence was a redeeming factor or things could have been worse. Nevertheless, the emotional brain suffered tremendously. 

I used to write poetry since a very early age. 

One of the most damning lines that came from the heart in those days was :

जी मज वाचून राहिली

ती न माझी माय !

( one who stayed away from me is not my mother!)

The hurt was real. The loneliness was profound, yet not articulable. Poetry was a means for expression. But that was concealed in a diary that nobody would read. The suffering was real for the child. 

The consequences of the suffering were both constructive and destructive. 

Constructive outcome was that I turned to God for emotional needs. 

Destructive consequences were that my relationship with my biological mother became complicated. And my brain was confused about following in her footsteps in terms of profession as well as having children. The young brain believed that if it chose the medical profession it would keep from doing justice to kids. So either don’t become a doctor or don’t get married and have kids. 

It took a lot of people and lot of convincing to coax me into believing that even if I became a doctor, my mother’s destiny need not be mine or that my destiny as a doctor mom’s offspring need not be that of my kids. That I could have a different life. I could be both a good doctor and a good mother at the same time.

While this became the foremost priority once I took wedding vows and started a family, it did nothing to heal the ruptured relationship with my biological mother. All along I turned to God as a mother. The emotional void between me and my biological mother became more evident as time went by. 

Again, the same shortcoming was perpetuating. The inability to articulate feelings. To let the pent up hurt, resentment and frustration be released and allow healing to start. 

Concurrently the mind was getting deeper into spiritual search and becoming more aware of the workings of the mind than ever before. 

There was a rather strange phase when grievance against mom and empathy for mom coexisted side by side. Both were perceptible but hard to reconcile. I was beginning to acknowledge her as an inherently good woman. I just couldn’t connect to her as a mother. For me, God was my mother for all practical purposes. 

As spiritual progress continued, the suppressed anger towards mom started to come in the way of the progress. It was becoming obvious that unless the anger was permanently removed there would be no moving forward. 

It wasn’t easy. 

But I believe I have it all ironed out now and it’s all behind both of us. 

Generations inhabit the physical realm in an overlapping fashion. As one generation is headed toward the sunset of life, one has the sun directly overhead and the newest one is seeing sunrise. 

When my first child was born and I had just come home with her, I burst crying as I held her in my arms. I promised softly I would be there for her. I would be the mother that God had been for me. Always there when I needed. Always to be trusted to show the way. My mother-in-law told me something that day that I remember vividly until now. She said, “the next time you will cry like this is when she gets married. This is the longest residency of your life you are starting”.

I navigated my medical residency with the two young kids, totally conscious of my pledge to them. After residency I knowingly took a job that allowed me flexible hours. I only worked in the hours the kids were at school. I wanted them to have a happier childhood where having quality time with their parents took precedence over pricey toys, branded clothes or other things. The value of education that our parents had stressed on us we tried to pass down faithfully to the next generation.

Alas. The old problem was now in their lives with a new packaging. 

Their mother was not perfect!

Her imperfections were different.

I was trying to avoid the mistakes I thought my mother had made and yet I was making my own mistakes in the presence of my kids. The only difference was I was painfully aware of my shortcomings. As they were growing up, the long brewing tensions( between my mother and me )struggled to find meaningful solutions. I kept telling the kids to not take my bad habits, just take good things from parents (or anyone).

 I had a lot of work to do on myself. 

But in the process of that work I began to realize how hard life must have been for my mother. I realized the hardships she faced in her life. The emotional distance she endured from her oldest child. The grief of losing her young son was the hardest of all. She had survived through it all. And yet managed to find peace in her life. 

 

My mother-in-law was right about the residency analogy for motherhood. It’s a very long residency. Every day a mother is trying to be a better mother. The kids show her the mirror like nobody else does. 

When they fly out of the nest they leave behind for a mother a poignant lesson of nishkam karma yoga. You let go the fruits of your labor and set them free. 

And still it’s not as easy as one would think.

For even the most sincere sadhak in the woman who is a mother, everything else is easy to forsake but her kids make it difficult to break loose from the annamaya sheath. She can taste Bramhi Sthiti but she cannot cut off the umbilical cord from her sookshma sharir( subtle body). When the kids are sad, when they are suffering or feeling lonely or sick, she hurts with them. Their bond is coming through the physical body. 

What a defeat of the sadhana, right?

Nope. There’s a lesson in it for her. 

The same hurt she learns to feel for every other person who hurts. 

What I learned from this is much deeper. Despite all human shortcomings, a parent devotes himself or herself to the offspring in the purest form. It is really God manifesting through the parent. When the parent recognizes this part of themselves and begins to apply it to all, not just their offspring, that’s when they tear apart their human limitations. Sant Tukaram has concisely stated this in one of his abhangas: दया करणे जे पुत्रासी, तेची दासा आणि दासी. One who shows the same compassion and mercy to his servants as he shows to his own kid, is to be recognized as an image of God. तुका म्हणे सांगू किती त्यांची भगवंताच्या मूर्ती !

On the kids’ part they need to recognize that the special treatment they receive from their parents is a special and direct gift from God. Learn to recognize God मात्रा देव भव, पित्रु देव भव, ignore the rest or help you parents to shed the rest. Because they too are struggling with their shortcomings.

The lessons are too many to describe. If I were to summarize what I learned from my ever evolving experience of motherhood:

Tapasya: 

It is a penance like no other. 

I have heard from reliable sources about a well established spiritual teacher, who in an unguarded moment, when asked why he chose to be a sanyasi, put down grihasthashram as less important or worthy than sanyasashram. In my mind I said, how would you know the worth of grihasthashram ? Besides, if your parents thought in the way you do, you wouldn’t be here today to profess sanyasashram. 

It was just a bad comment coming from a learned man.

Learning: 

You learn whichever way. From your mother and from your kids. I don’t have the experience of grandkids but it would not surprise me if they too came out teaching me lessons. 

Learning never stops for a mother. 

When she holds a newborn for the first time she is totally inexperienced. From day one she is learning to feed the baby, trying to understand why the little one was crying all night, later worrying when some milestones were lagging, worrying when the knees were still unsteady taking the first steps. 

Then learning to adapt to the kids with every age they progressed to. God mysteriously forgot to send them with a manual. Even today I find myself making a phone call to God through the private line asking for tips on how to behave with the now adult kids. 

Besides the routine adapting , there is another, more important aspect of learning. And that is through suffering. 

Pain and suffering have immense value in spirituality. I’m very grateful for the suffering I experienced in my early years. I could never have found God if I had my mother in my childhood. You can’t have the cake and eat it too! That’s the relationship between God and worldly pleasures. I would keep God any day, that is choose God over personal gains, but I may still negotiate for the happiness of everyone. 

Finding Peace:

Finding God is finding peace. When I tell you my mother who is just shy of 88 has found peace, she has really found God. She just doesn’t know it. I want her to find God. 

My kids got a mother. Now I am having a hard time making them understand why it is important to have God in your life. 

But then I also know firsthand that I am a lousy mother. And God will step in for me just like SHE stepped in for my mother when the need arose.

So we are good! 

Everything will be fine. 

Because the world has a Mother! 

P.S

This post was focused on looking at motherhood from an angle of spirituality.

It is important to not miss out on a practical lesson I learned from my experiences. And that is the importance of communication. A good channel of communication that is established and nurtured since a very early age is the most important foundation for a rewarding experience of motherhood. 

Yet communication itself stands on the premises of human limitations. Despite the best efforts from both sides, communication can prove ineffective and break down. That’s where God gets an upper hand. What a human mother may not always understand, God unfailingly does. And that’s why, even those who have mothers who they have a good relationship with, can benefit from a relationship with God. 

Ultimately our peace comes from being heard, and understood before we are corrected. God understands the language from every soul. Each soul speaks their own language. And that’s why they don’t always understand what the other person is trying to say. God understands. Until you learn to talk to God you will not know the truth in this statement.