Birthing Ayurveda: Week 12—Become a Trustee

Welcome to Birthing Ayurveda, where we follow one woman's pregnancy experience week by week—from a positive home pregnancy test all the way to delivery.

We met with our spiritual teacher this week when he began his US trip. After a day of satsang, all revolving around the idea that our true Selves are beyond this physical body and the ego that is called Vrinda, my husband and I went up to him to share the news and ask for his blessings. Though my husband and I are doing really well and are in a much greater place of acceptance and excitement, being the spiritual being that our teacher is, and knowing who we are, he knows the internal struggle that we still face time-to-time.

He succinctly spoke to us, reminding us that this too is a pure Soul, just like the Soul in each one of us. We are trustees of this Soul, responsible for its growth and nurturing for the next several years until it has grown into itself, at which time we are simply his or her friend and companion in life. At the end of his or her growth with us, we hand the Soul back to the Universe, hopefully with the satisfaction that we lived as solid examples and nurtured the Soul to its fullest expression.

There is this notion that the people in our life belong to us. But it is my belief that we are all simply passengers on this journey of life and evolution to our purest Selves, and we encounter different Souls along the way. There is no one Soul that we can say is permanently with any one of us—people come and go, are born and then die—everything is impermanent. We can only do our best to serve and grow ourselves in the process.

I was reminded of Kahlil Gibran’s chapter “On Children” from his beautiful book The Prophet.

I am a trustee. I pray to rise to the calling every moment, offering my best to this Soul. I pray to be able to smile at the Universe when I freely hand the Soul back, confident that both my husband and I have provided our best.

On Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
— Kahlil Gibran