Motherhood

I shall never tire of writing about motherhood.

I was at a well-respected friend’s place recently and in our discussion, I recounted about attending a talk by a Christian teacher from Spain (call him Jose) who was telling us his majorly African audience about certain aspects regarding Africans’ spiritual reservations that he is yet to understand. I told my friend about Jose’s experience of how he ventured into a shrine in a particular community which no one was permitted to enter under the penalty of mysterious death within 7 days. Jose mentioned how even the most advanced Christian in the community would simply shrug off the quest to venture into the shrine and would maintain a public denial about the community threat by disregarding any conversation towards that fact.  Jose narrated how he broke the rules and entered into the shrine for some academic researches. He said, here he was, alive after more than 20 years. He wondered how such dread could permeate in the mind of people, even of the intellectuals in the community.

At the end of my account, my friend whom I was visiting responded that Jose probably did not die because the community could not get hold of the name of his mother. We laughed it off.

It is on this basis of observation from my friend that I would like to focus my essay of motherhood in our contemporary society upon.

I consider myself privileged to hail from a ‘mind before matter’ culture, but within this culture of mind there permeates two extremities: That of a mind that is either fixated on producing results through manipulations of components from natural laws; or that of a denial of this prevalence of this natural manipulations through an unwillingness to involve in the inherent cultural and the importation of other more permissible cultures, leaving vacant any experience that would occur from a sincere attempt at verification of the extent and potency of this manipulations. (This vagueness is similar to the artificial dichotomy created between reason and faith.)

For me, this manipulative contact of children through motherhood is not just a mind game but a mind reality. Many spiritual manipulations happen through contact with mothers, and it is easier so for this agents to do this if such mother is aligned more into a competitive arena of rules and laws and the manipulations of matter aimed at material conquest, much more when she does this with a view to a physical annihilation of an opposition.

Destiny has made it possible for us to be children of our mothers. No human entity lives on earth except through a mother. We are bound towards an eternal obligation then to take care of our mothers, for what she becomes in the mind rule, is tied to that which we would be in the future. If we neglect our mothers, we are neglecting our destiny in the rule of the mind. If we do not take care of our mothers, we face unpalatable consequences. What we are now, they were and what they are we shall become. It is a cyclic responsibility. We do a right and justified thing to defend our mothers, in life and at death, for what happens to her vibrates into the core of our being and into our eternal destiny.

Apart from our natural mothers, there are two other mothers that we have which are not immediately apparent: 1) The Lands of our Births and 2) The Sources of our Mind Evolvement (This can be church, mosque, shrine or school). It is from these Sources of mind evolvement that the future of the other mothers lie, that is, - The Lands of our Births and Our Natural Mothers- are tied. If the sources out of which we renew and evolve our minds operate in mediocrity, then we shall always have the land and our natural mothers subject to the manipulations within the confines of rules of labour. We often assume the spiritual arena to be operating on the dictates of our methodologies. There is an infinite prevalence and variations in (or out) there, but these are, and must be subject to one Truth.

The authentic mark of a true mother is in her inclusivity. She is an adept at utilizing the concept of unity amidst the scopes of diversity without fear or favour. A real mother expands her bosom, she is welcoming, she never says ‘me and my children alone’ for she knows that ends in nihilism and that what brings forth fruitfulness is in inclusivity. Such is the prosperity of a motherland that welcomes visitors and immigrants and a Mind source that is universal by nature. That is why the afterlife is often referred to as the City of God, for it operates under an inclusive canopy. It is neither a town, much less a village.

Mothers work so that their children advance more than them. If that be not the case, there is no point vying, for the battle would have been lost from the onset.

Children, on the other hand, need be entirely focused on the well-being of their mother. If that is entirely bereft of the reality, then the battle has been lost, well before fighting.

Of what then should consist motherly devotion on the part of the children? Apart from the material care which is very important, the mind care of the mother is of utmost necessity, for on it depends her future, our destiny and the evolvement of posterity. Gently, slowly but firmly, matured children must work at the mind renewal of their mothers. This is a reciprocal activity, for if the mother has only had a material outlook and has not brought up the children on the mind work of renewal, it would be herculean for the children to derive the capacity of doing this utmost important work. When mothers purely raise their children up to focus on the material, they are simply digging up their own grave.

Change is tough for mothers, in comparison to their children. Mothers can be bent on ‘leaving things as they are’. Don’t leave your mother to leave things as they are. This motherhood hierarchy, of the family, of the land, of the mind source are often reluctant to change. Everything moves, everything changes, only Truth remains. Firmly, slowly but gently, make your mother see the reason at moving, at letting go, if not, there is the danger of mothers turning into Principalities; this is horrible, it is hell! Mothers should beware of complacency. This is why politically it is not plausible to keep recycling old Politicians without bringing in fresh blood. But a child who would want the mother to move could leave the mother wondering, where to? If the child doesn't know where to, and in the name of change forces the mother deeper into mediocrity, then stagnancy and poverty could linger long in the household.

It often happens that children know but mothers wouldn't bulge, then crisis looms. While this crisis is sometimes necessary in other to save motherhood (or childhood as it were), it is important to be gentle but firm and always keep reconciliation as an ultimate focus. I tremble when I see how at the slightest crisis, people leave their families for good, or their land of birth forever, or change churches or mosques at the slightest provocation. Destiny knows why it has positioned you there. Work towards renewing it, only as a last result must you leave. Then you shall be vindicated and your destiny would be a favoured path. Not when you leave erratically.

There are two parallels of motherhood; both are hierarchical and are material, but while one material has succumbed to the spiritual and has transcended rules and laws through faith, the other is at the mercy of manipulations from natural components in an arena of toil and perpetual competition. I am talking of Mary and Eve, and between this, every mother, in every land, in every place of worship, must decide on whose side of the parallels to align.

 It is so wonderful how today, the whole world is revisiting the importance of motherhood and how this is reverberating in the consciousness of humanity. When you connect to an authentic mother, you’ll be inclusive, you’ll value unity even in diversity, you’ll have a passion for the land and you’ll value all women.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the women that matter in my life. I love you all. You give meaning to my life