Anonymous:
My wife's health is suffering as a result of putting up with the irascible behavior of her aging mother. Why is there no reciprocal love or gratitude coming back for all the care she's giving her elderly mother? She keeps waiting for something from her mother that isn't there? It's very hard for me to watch.
The Seer:
The first realization is:
When one takes care of an incapacitated person, there is no reciprocity. You give, she takes — don't expect anything back. Your mother-in-law needs to be in a care facility. She's draining your wife's life-force and is thereby keeping herself alive beyond her designated lifespan. Because there is unspoken guilt about putting her in a care facility, the universe isn't bringing solutions. There isn't enough effort from you and your wife to find them.
I cannot stress enough: find the solution, but get your mother-in-law into an assisted care facility or it will damage your wife's health.
The second realization:
Because of her religious beliefs, your mother-in-law has closed her heart years ago. She did this because she didn't value the importance of emotions and feelings. At this point she doesn't feel love at all. The love from her that your wife remembers receiving, was when she and her younger sister were little. At this point, her mother doesn't feel it anymore, but nobody wants to acknowledge that because of the negative light they think it puts an elderly woman in. Others associate enlightenment with love, which is not accurate. Enlightenment, as other traditions define it, is a mental state.
Compassionate Understanding
What we have aimed at achieving on our journey of spiritual evolution, is the silencing of the dialog of the mind — that creates a capacity for love that is so deep, that it brings one to tears to contemplate the preciousness of any life form. Love takes on a new form: compassionate understanding — a fusion of mental and emotional components. For those traditions that eschew love as invalid, the mental (in the form of expanded perception) dominates the emotional. The religious leaders of these traditions, may speak about love to pacify the expectations of others; they do this to hide the fact that they don't feel it.
marli says
Keeping one alive beyond ones designated life span! I didn't think that it would be possible
to life beyond ones deadline by caring too much!
My husband recently passed away and after years of caring for him, I am now feeling the
exhaustion of my body and mind! Guilt and family expectations placed a huge burden
on me!
Dhani says
Ahhh….so true. Thank you for these invaluable insights Almine. Yes, I thought as much as I am in a similar situation.