I still have resistance and it has to do with my
mother and my father.
And I realize I love them less than everybody less.
I was in a meditation
about few months ago, I was with my partner
and I had this opening up and it was this:
I just realized I love everybody the same
and it was just this 'I don't love you more.'
You know, like my partner. I was telling him 'I do not love you more, I love you the same as everyone else' and then I ...
over the last few weeks I started realizing
I love my parents less.
And I am not sure and I am looking for practical steps on how I can
open my heart to them again.
Have you ever heard of the Indian Sage Anandamayi Ma?
It's not important.
She is an Indian teacher
of the caliber of Ramana Maharshi and Atmananda Krishna Menon
and
her husband was her student
and she was talking one day
in her ashram in India to a group of students and disciples
about her love for everyone being equal.
And apparently
he [her husband] said to her afterwards - one of the attendants told the story later that -
he [her husband] said to her afterwards:
'I understand what you were saying about love
but
you do really love me more than everybody else, don't you?'
And she said 'No.'
Love is not something that can be divided up and portioned out
to different people.
So if you have discovered that in your life you have
you have discovered
a great thing about love.
We can like people more or less, that is natural.
Some bodies prefer coffee, some bodies prefer tea.
That is just conditioning.
So it is natural that certain body-minds are drawn to certain people and not drawn to other people.
That is a natural conditioning of the body-mind, but it has nothing to do with love.
Love is something that is absolutely equal and indivisible.
So, you have discovered that.
But there is obviously just this one area of your life where your parents seem to be excluded from that.
I would say two things.
First of all,
the reason we tend to have conflict with our parents is because of what they did or didn't do to us.
And
the important thing to realize about our parents is:
the reason that they did or didn't do certain things to us is because their parents did or didn't certain things to them.
And the reason why their parents did or didn't do certain things to them
is because their parents did or didn't do certain things to them.
In other words
there is no personal responsibility!
At the level of the body-mind we are all conditioned.
Understanding that takes the personal judgement out of the situation.
Our parents are the products of their conditioning, at one level.
Just as we are.
That may not mean that we like them more because of their conditioning, but
nevertheless
we don't held them personally responsible.
Removing that, removing the personal judgement and blame
is a large part of the issue!
So that is the first I'd say.
Really see, don't just pay lip service to the idea, but really see:
your parents are not responsible!
There is no entity there that is responsible!
And the second thing I would say
is
not to judge yourself,
not to give yourself a hard time for not being able to
totally accept your parents as they are.
That itself is part of your conditioning.
If you try to force it
you're
accentuating the separate self in yourself,
you are judging yourself,
you're setting yourself up for failure.
'I should be able to love my parents, but I can't, therefore I am failing.'
Etc., etc.
You're just reinforcing the separate self in yourself,
which means reinforcing that part of you
that cannot truly love your parents.
So
don't really work on your love for your parents,
work on that part of yourself that feels a failure,
that feels you can't love them, that you should love them, even that you want to love them
and see what happens when you give that part of yourself a break,
what happens to your love of your parents when you
stop judging yourself for not loving them,
when you stop feeling a failure,
when you stop even desiring for things to be different.
See how the love for your parents evolves.
That in combination with the understanding that they're not responsible.
They are not personally responsible for whatever they did or didn't do!
Thank you!
I didn't feel that I really loved my father
until I no longer wanted anything from him!
As long as I wanted something from him, as long as I needed something from him,
I was setting him up for failure and me up for disappointment!
For resentment, for judgement, for blame.
It wasn't until I really genuinely felt
'I need absolutely nothing from you!'
'You have given me everything you had to give.'
'I have no more demands of you, I feel ...'
'I want nothing from you, I need nothing from you!'
And it wasn't until I felt ...
until I realized that
that I felt I really loved him for who he is.
I couldn't have loved him for who he is before I came to that realization!