Mother’s Love and God. By Dr. Mourad Rashad

The word love had been used indiscriminately to denote a very wide range of feelings according to the spiritual maturity of man.

However, due to the fact that man is glamorized with the word love and always trying to experience love, man uses the most sublime meaning of this word nonchalantly and indiscriminately; to the extent that he calls the basest type of attachment love and takes jealousy as an indication of love instead of a sign for possessiveness and control. While true love means the unrestrained and unconditioned self-giving of the lover which transforms his old self-assertive ego into a prayerful caring being for his beloved; a prayerful and caring being that is willing to sacrifice everything dear to him for the welfare of his beloved. This beloved now magnificently and gloriously occupies the whole field of affective vision of the lover. This sublime meaning of the word love is manifested and expressed by the love of the mother to her newly born child.

The state of the love of the true mother to her infant is almost a Spiritual and Divine experience, that puts her under the feet of God, because she knows fully well the frailty of her infant as well as her own helplessness. Therefore this mother is in a continuous prayerful mood asking for the Grace of God; otherwise the infant will not survive.   This state of love temporarily releases the mother from the grip of her ego, a state which transcends and surpasses all emotions.

Moving away from the above described sublime state representing True Love to what we humans name as love, we come face to face with attachment.   Humans name attachment love; what a mistake! This mistake prevents humans from knowing True Love.      The feelings of   attachment   that we usually take as love depend entirely on what I am going to take from my -so to say- “beloved”.  Actually attachment is a deal, a commercial transaction between a potential buyer and the one who offers to sell a certain merchandize. What you buy are these emotions that quickly evaporate after the deal is sealed and you own or possess the commodity. What really remains after this commercial transaction is a hidden feeling of pride that becomes manifest only when threats of losing the commodity arise and the feelings of jealousy set in and eats your heart.

Apart from the experience of true love which can be undoubtedly described as ego-deflating, all other forms of attachments -which we term collectively love-, are highly ego-inflating.

Now, regarding the statement which says “God is Love” where does it fit here in the above exposition? It is what the newly born child experiences. The mother with that unending immeasurable care and concern in an attempt to bring uninterrupted comfort and protection to the child could be compared to the Love of the Lord God. From the stand point of the child, his mother is his God.  When the mother fails to comfort or protect the child, the whole existence will move to carry on the job.

If we can return again to the position of the child with his mother, the Grace of the Lord God will pour on us from every possible and impossible direction