The Quality Of Motherhood

Mother is the first connection for you to this manifest world. You came into this world through mother, and of course because of your father too. There is motherhood in each and every one of us. Motherhood is wanting the best for others and not expecting anything in return. Every mother wants the best for their kids. Sometimes kids don’t recognize it.

There is a verse in Sanskrit written by Adi Shankara in which he said, “Bad sons are born, but a bad mother has never been born”.
So there is a certain sweetness with mother, and whatever she says, we take it.

My mother was a perfectionist. Whatever I would do, she would say, “You did not do it properly. You could have done it better”.
She never said sorry to anybody in her whole life. Can you imagine this? She was very thorough and alert in anything she did. She had no regrets and she did not do anything that she would have regrets about. At the same time she was also very sharp. So there is one lady who always said that I could have been better. She thought I didn’t know how to run an ashram.

Usually, in my talks, I say drop all your problems here at the Ashram. Once in our ashram in Bangalore, a devotee asked, “My biggest problem is my mother-in-law. Can I leave her here and go?”
I said, “Let me ask your mother-in-law first, what is her biggest problem.”
Then I asked her, “Has there been many times when you been in conflict with your own mother?”
She said, “Yes. All the time she finds fault with me”.
Mothers find faults in their daughters and they fight a lot, but that doesn’t get into the heart. If a mother scolds you, it doesn’t really get into your heart. But when the mother-in-law says just 10% of what your mother said, it touches you so deep in your heart. Is it not the case?
After hearing this she said, “Oh yes, I never thought of it like that before.”
I said, “See, they are of the same generation. If the mother-in-law finds some fault in you, then why do you react differently towards her than you do with your own mother?”

You know, this one thing has saved many families. Just making a shift in awareness has made a huge difference. Seeing the patterns in mothers and mothers-in-law and seeing that they are the same makes the daughter-in-law take things in a much lighter manner. They feel much better in dealing with their in laws. So it should not be just mother’s day. It should be mother-in-law’s day too.

In 2011, I saw that there is a world toilet day. At that if you remember, I had tweeted, “There is a world toilet day but there is no world yoga day. It should happen”.
Of course now they have declared 21st June as World Yoga Day. The purpose is just to create a little awareness about this. I am happy that finally after a long time, yoga has found a place and 177 countries from around the world have endorsed the World Yoga Day.

Suffering is like a knot. What happens when you remove the knot? Does it go somewhere? It is like a shadow. Does shadow go somewhere when there is light? No. Did you get it? Just think about it.

I cannot say no because this universe is so unfathomable. It is so vast. How can anybody say that there are no beings elsewhere. If somebody says so then they are completely unscientific.

Of course there are other beings. There are different levels of existence. Our brain is nothing but a frequency analyzer. Therefore we know only some things. There are many things hidden right here, now which you are not aware of. And if you want to know more about it then you can go deeper and study consciousness.

It is an amazing and thrilling experience every time you go deeper. For that you need to be free of things that bother you here - like your profession, your daughter, your money, your bills, your rent, the opinion of others.

All these worries and preoccupations in your mind are a hindrance to going into that depth. When you are completely satisfied with everything here then you can have easy access (to that deep state).

You are correct. There is a physical body and a casual body. The casual body is much larger. What is your experience when you are happy? An expansion happens. There is something in you that expands, and when that expansion happens you feel happy. And when the same thing contracts, that is the time when you feel frustrated.

What happens whenever you are upset or unhappy? There is something in you that shrinks. This something that is contracting and expanding, it is non-physical or ethereal. This is an obvious experience with everybody. They cannot deny it.

There are a number of things but I think we are short of time. Do not make them sit in the virtual world for too long. Kids usually sit in front of television or computer for hours. Please do not let that happen. They live in a virtual world. And also the video games. I do not think that it is very good for them. Don’t you think so?

But you cannot totally avoid that. Take them out in the real world with real people around. The interactions with people will strengthen their personality. Ask them to make one new friend every day. There are a number of such things.

Deal with them with patience and compassion. They are going through some rough patches. Do not pay much attention to what they say, and do not say too much to them. Take anything they say with a smile. Give them some space to calm down and get rid of whatever they are into.
If possible, then slowly bring them into meditation. If you cannot do it directly then do it through someone they trust. Make them meditate and listen to knowledge.

Prayer is asking God, “God, give me this” or saying, “Thank you God for giving me this. God you gave me water. I thank you. You have given me food. I thank you. You gave me pleasure, joy and happiness. I thank you.”
In prayer you are either thanking God or asking something from Him. Meditation is saying, “I am here for you. What do you want to tell me?” Meditation is about listening. Prayer must culminate into meditation. If it doesn’t, then it has not reached its goal.

Astrology is the study of connection between macrocosm and the microcosm. Everything in this universe is connected. But astrology is not fatalistic. It is about probabilities. It just gives you a road map. It gives you an idea or an overview of how things are.
But there are many free choices of yours, like there are many exits on the highway. If you take a picture from the sky, you can see the entire highway, but there are many exits and the car can take any exit. That choice is there.

So life is a combination of freewill and destiny. It is not only freewill or only destiny and astrology is a way to know about it. But the more important thing is the impact of your practices. Your meditation, compassion, work and attitude can change things.