Chapter-2 Pregnancy childbirth infancy

If enlightened beings don’t have children, and we neurotic people are pronounced unfit for parenthood by you, when is the right time?
Enlightened persons don’t have children; neurotic persons should not have. Just between the two, there is a state of mental health, of non-neurosis: you are neither neurotic nor enlightened, simply healthy. Just in the middle — that is the right time for parenthood, to become a mother or to become a father.
This is the trouble: neurotic persons tend to have many children. In fact, in the West neurosis is more. People don’t have many children. That may be one of the causes that neurosis has become so prevalent: the old engagement with children is no longer there. In the East, people are not so neurotic. They cannot afford to be neurotic; children are enough. A joint family has so many children. You cannot have any time to go mad — impossible. They won’t allow you to. You are in such a mad state and so tuned with it, that you will not become aware that you are mad. In the West, the joint family has disappeared. Children have also disappeared, the way they appear in the East. There are one or two children, at the most. Much space is left. The whole old occupation is no longer there. People are becoming more and more rich, affluent, less and less work is there, more and more leisure, and they don’t know what to do with the leisure. They go neurotic. Just think about yourself if you have nothing to do, no children to work for.
Once I asked MullaNasrudin, “Are you still working for the same firm?” He said, “Yes, the same company: the wife and thirteen kids!”
If you have a family to support, to work hard for the whole life, from morning till evening, and you come home tired and go to sleep and in the morning you are again on the track, how can you afford to be neurotic? When will you find time to go to a psychiatrist? In the East the psychiatrist does not exist. Children are the only psychiatrists.
Neurotic persons tend, in their neurosis, to create a very occupied space around them. They should not, because that is avoiding. They should face the fact of neurosis and they should go beyond it.
An enlightened person need not have children. He has given the ultimate birth to himself. Now there is no need to give birth to anything else. He has become a father and mother to himself. He has become a womb to himself, and he is reborn.
But between the two, when the neurosis is not there, you meditate, you become a little alert, aware. Your life is not just of darkness. The light is not as penetrating as it is when one becomes a Buddha, but a dim candlelight is available. That is the right time — the twilight time, when you are just on the border, moving out of the world, moving in the other world; that is the right time to have children, because then you will be able to give something of your awareness to your children. Otherwise, what will you give as a gift to them? You will give your neurosis.
I have heard: A man with eighteen children took them to a dairy show. Included in the show was a prize bull worth 8,000 pounds and there was an additional charge of five pence to go in and see it. The man thought that this charge was exorbitant, but his children wanted to see the animal, and so they approached the entrance to its enclosure. The attendant said, “Are all these children yours, sir?”
“Yes, they are,” answered the man. “Why?”
The attendant replied, “Well, wait here a minute and I will bring the bull out to see you!”
Eighteen children! — even the bull will feel jealous.
You go on unconsciously reproducing your own replicas. First think: are you in such a state that if you give birth to a child, you will be giving a gift to the world? Are you a blessing to the world, or a curse? And then think: are you ready to mother or to father a child? Are you ready to give love unconditionally? Because children come through you, but they don’t belong to you. You can give your love to them, but you should not impose your ideas on them. You should not give your neurotic styles to them. Are you ready not to give your neurotic style to your children? Will you allow them to flower in their own way? Will you allow them freedom to be themselves? If you are ready, then it is okay. Otherwise, wait; become ready.
With man, conscious evolution has entered into the world. Don’t be like animals, just reproducing unconsciously. Now get ready before you would like to have a child. Become more meditative, become more quiet and peaceful. Get rid of all the neurosis that you have within you. Wait for that moment when you are absolutely clean, then give birth to a child. Then, give your life to the child, your love to the child. You will be helping to create a better world. Otherwise, you will be simply crowding the world. The crowd has already become maddening. There is no longer any need to increase the crowd. If you can give human beings to the world, not just like worms, crowding and crawling all over the earth, then first be ready.
To me, to become a mother is a great discipline; to become a father is a great austerity. Otherwise, you will leave somebody just like you, or even worse than you, in your place. That will not be a good gesture on your part. Enlightened people need not give birth to anybody; neurotic people should not. Just in between the two, is the point.
(Excerpt from: Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol-10, Chap-8, Q-3)
[A sannyasin says she’s pregnant. She’d I am pregnant. I had decided to have an abortion and thought she I was happy with the decision, but since then, whenever she I thinks about it she Ifeelssada tremendous amount of sadness.]
This will be a momentary sadness. If you want to become a mother then you want to get into deeper troubles, because it is not a question that can be easily solved once the child is there. I don’t think that you are ready to become a mother right now. But if you want to become one, that’s your choice, mm? — that’s your choice. But then you have to take the consequences also. Otherwise, everyday it happens, some sannyasin comes with two, three children, and they want…. Now what to do with those children? — somebody has to take care of them. The mother cannot have her own growth, she cannot work; she has to take care of the children. And then there are complications.
Once you have finished your growth-work then it is perfectly good. A child should be a leisure thing, mm? it should be the last luxury. Then you can treat yourself by being a mother, otherwise it will create complications. So you decide. Nobody is forcing you, it is for you to decide: if you want to become a mother then you want to become a mother. But then take the consequences also.
People are not aware of what they are doing when they want to bring a child into the world. Otherwise they will feel sorry about that, rather than feeling sorry about an abortion. Just think of both the possibilities: what will you give to the child? What have you got to give to the child?
You will bring your tensions into his being and he will repeat the same kind of life as yours. He will go to the psychoanalyst, he will go to the psychiatrist, and his whole life will be a problem — just as it is with everybody. What right have you to bring a soul into the world when you cannot give the person a whole and healthy being? It is a crime! People think otherwise: they think abortion is a crime. But the child will find some other mother, because nothing dies. And there are many, many women who will be happy to have the child; it is just that you will not be responsible for it.
I am not saying not to become a mother; I am saying become a mother, but be aware that becoming a mother is a great art, it is a great achievement. First create that quality, that creativity, in you, that joy, that celebration, and then invite the child. Then you will have something to give to the child — your celebration, your song, your dance — and you will not create a pathological being. The world is already too crowded with pathological beings. Let some other planet suffer! Why this earth? In fact right now to think in terms of bringing a child is really criminal. The world is overcrowded. If a person has a little awareness, he will not bring a child into it at any cost; he will sacrifice his motherhood and fatherhood. The world is starving, people are dying and food is not there, the whole ecology is disturbed and life is going to be more and more ugly and hellish; this is not the right time.
And even if you think that it is okay, that the world will look after itself, they will find some way, you still have to think about your child. Are you ready to be a mother? — that is the thing. And I don’t mean by being ready to be a mother: are you ready to become pregnant. That is not being ready to be a mother; any woman can become pregnant. Pregnancy is not equivalent to motherhood. Pregnancy is a biological phenomenon. Every girl, a healthy girl, physically healthy, is able to become pregnant; but just because you can conceive it doesn’t mean you have to have a child. Just think of many other things: you have to give a psychological womb to the child, a spiritual womb to the child. Is it ready? If it is ready, if you think it is you areready, go ahead: have a child.
I will start telling my people to have children, but let me prepare my people first. Then When you are prepared you will be happy to have a child and the child will be happy that he was fortunate to have a mother like you. Otherwise just go to any psychiatrist and ask ‘What are people’s problems?’ They can be reduced to one thing: the mother. You ask [the Primal therapist here tonight], you ask our therapists, ‘What is the problem with people?’ All problems can be reduced to the mother, because the mother was not capable of giving a psychological womb, the mother was not capable of giving a spiritual womb. Psychologically she was neurotic, spiritually she was empty, so there was no spiritual food for the child, no nourishment. The child comes into the world as a physical being, without a soul, without any centre. The mother was not centred; how can the child be centred? The child is simply a continuation, a continuity of the mother’s being.
You are young so there is no hurry. You can become pregnant again; there is no problem in it. But still, if you feel, ‘No, this abortion is going to be very bad for me’, have the child. I can only suggest, there is no order in it. Finally you have to decide on your own. Nobody can ever throw responsibility on me because these are just suggestions. Take it or leave it; that is up to you. And you are always responsible. If you take my advice, then you are responsible; if you don’t take it, you are still responsible. I am just outside it. For me it is perfectly good, whether you become a mother or not is not a problem for me. But one should see all the implications of it.
If one sees all the implications of it, very few people will decide to become fathers and mothers. And it would be a better world if fewer people decided to be mothers and fathers. It would be less crowded, less neurotic, less pathological, less crazy.
Think about it. And don’t be worried, just think; there is no hurry. For three days think, and then come to a decision and do whatsoever you feel.
(Excerpt from: Believing the Impossible Before Breakfast, Chapter #3)
[A sannyasin says: We don’t have any children yet and I have some feeling to have a child. I’m thirty-two now and I feel ready, but I would like your advice.
Osho checks her energy.]
Just one thing. You can become a mother, but whenever you make love, always make love after meditation. Make it a point that you meditate, and only when the energy is very meditative, only then make love. When you are in a deep meditative state and the energy is flowing, you conceive a higher quality soul. What type of soul enters you depends on where you are.
This almost always happens — that people make love when they are sexual. Sexuality is a lower centre. It happens sometimes that when people are angry and fighting, they make love. That too is very low, very low. You open your door to a much lower soul. Or people make love as a routine, a mechanical habit, something that has to be done every day or twice a week or whatsoever. They do it just as a mechanical routine or as part of physical hygiene, but then it is very mechanical. It has nothing of your heart in it, and then you allow very low souls to enter you.
Love should be almost like prayer. Love is sacred. It is the holiest thing that exists in man.
So first one should prepare oneself to move into love. Pray, meditate, and when you are full of a different kind of energy which has nothing to do with the physical, in fact nothing to do with the sexual, then you are vulnerable to a higher quality soul. So; much depends on the mother.
You can become a mother — you are ready — butif you are not very alert about it, you will get entangled with a very ordinary soul. People are almost unaware of what they are doing. If you go to purchase a car, even then you think much about it. If you go to purchase furniture for your room, you have a thousand and one alternatives and you think about this and that, which one will suit. But as far as children are concerned, you never think about what type of children you would like, what type of soul you are going to invoke, invite.
And millions are the alternatives… from Judas to Jesus, from the darkest soul to the holiest. Millions are the alternatives and your attitude will decide. Whatsoever your attitude, you become available to that sort of soul. If you go higher, you become available to higher souls. You go lower, you become available to lower souls.
(Excerpt from: A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Chapter- 14)
The woman says: I feel thatI’m pregnant since we’ve been here. Is there any meditation or thing to do that will be helpful for the baby or for usas the parents?
Just remain as happy and loving as possible. Avoid negativities — that’s what destroys the mind of the child. When the child is in formation he not only follows your body, he follows your mind too, because those are the blueprints. So if you are negative, that negativity starts entering in the build-up of the child from the very beginning. It becomes almost built-in, and then it is a long, arduous journey to drop it. If mothers were a little more careful, no primal scream would be needed. If mothers were a little more careful, psychoanalysis as a profession would disappear.
Psychoanalysis is doing great business because of mothers, because according to psychoanalysis man’s only problem is the mother. If all the schools of psychoanalysis could be reduced to one single problem, it would be the mother. The mother is really of great significance because for nine months the child will live in the climate of the mother; he will imbibe her mind, her whole mind.
So don’t be negative. Be more and more in the yes mood — even sometimes when it looks hard. But that much sacrifice has to be made for the child. If you really want to have a child of some value, of some integrity, of some individuality, and a happy child, then that sacrifice has to be made. That is part of being a mother — that sacrifice. So don’t be negative at all; avoid all negativities. Avoid anger, avoid jealousy, avoid possessiveness, nagging, fighting, avoid these spaces. These you cannot afford — you are creating a new being! The work is of such importance that one cannot be silly and stupid.
Rejoice more and more, pray, dance, sing, listen to great music — not pop music. Listen to classical music, which is soothing and goes very deep into the unconscious, because the child can hear it only from there.
Sit silently as much as you can, enjoy nature. Be with trees, birds, animals, because they are really innocent. They are still part of the garden of Eden — only Adam and Eve have been thrown out. Even the tree of knowledge is still in the garden of Eden; only Adam has been thrown out. So be with nature more, and relax so that the child grows in a relaxed womb, non-tense; otherwise from the very beginning the child starts becoming neurotic.
(to the manfather): And help her in these days so that she can be more positive. Don’t provoke her into negativity. Give her more and more time so that she can sit silently, be with the trees, listen to the birds, the music. Avoid any situation in which you think it can become a provocation for her to become negative. Be more loving, rejoice in each other’s silence more, because you are both giving birth to something which is divine. Each child is divine, and when something great is going to happen, a great guest is going to come to your home, you don’t fight. And this may be the greatest guest that will ever come to you, so for these nine months be careful, cautious, watchful.
Be more loving and less sexual. If sex happens out of being loving, it’s okay — but not for sex’s sake itself. From the very beginning that gives the child a deep-rooted sexuality. Sex is perfectly good in the context of love, as part of love — just as you hold hands and hug each other, as a part of love. One day you make love too but as part of love. It is not sexuality then; it is just a communion. You have not been thinking about sex; it has happened on its own. Playing with each other, being with each other, it has happened. You were not thinking of it, you were not brooding about it.
If for these nine months you can avoid sex as sex, that will be a great gift to the child. Then his life will not be so obsessed with sex as people’s lives are. Either they become too indulgent — which is obsession — or they become too repressive, too holy, too saintly; that too is obsession. In the world only these two types of people exist, and both are ill, both are pathological; the sinner and the saint are both pathological.
A totally different kind, a third kind of human being, is needed. And that third kind of being will have this quality: no obsession with sex this way or that — neither against nor for; he will be exactly in the middle. Out of love sometimes he will move into sex, but then sex has a spiritual quality. It is not for sex itself. Because there will be no obsession with sex indulgence he will never become repressive. And because sex will have a spiritual quality it will give him glimpses of samadhi and he will start moving upwards, very slowly, very gradually, with no fuss about it. Otherwise spirituality makes so much fuss.
A real spiritual person will not make much fuss; there is no need. He simply enjoys it, so he is not renouncing, he is not doing something great. He does not expect the whole world to give him attention and come and pay homage saying, “You are a great man because you have renounced this and you have renounced that.” He does not renounce anything at all. He enjoys everything and because of his total enjoyment his energy starts becoming more and more delightful, and finally more and more lightful.
So just these hints — you have to work them out. Good!
(Excerpt from: God’s Got a Thing About You, Chap-7)
[A sannyasin, eight months pregnant, asks: There is one thing I wanted to ask — if there is any possibility,is there something that the mother can do to reduce the break of memory that the child has through the birth and to make it the process of birth as easy as possible for the child?
Certainly the mother can do much, — but you can do only by non-doing. So simply relax. Non-interference has to be remembered, and when you start feeling the pain simply go with the pain. When you start feeling the movements in the womb, and the body starts getting ready to give birth, and there is a rhythmic pulse inside…. That pulse people think is painful; it is not painful — it is our wrong interpretation that makes it painful.
So when the pulse arises, simply accept it, float with it. It is just like breathing in, breathing out, so — the womb and the birth channel start expanding, shrinking. That is just a way to make a passage for the child. When you feel it is pain, when you decide it is pain, you start fighting with it because it is very difficult not to fight with pain. When you start fighting you start an interference with the rhythm. That interference is very destructive to the child. If the mother simply helps the child, if whatsoever is happening the mother goes with the body — expands with the body, shrinks with the body, allows the pulse and simply enjoys it — it is really a great delight. But it depends how you take it.
For example, now at least in the West people have more advanced ideas about sex. Otherwise in the past all down the centuries the first sexual experience for the woman was very painful. She was just trembling because from the very childhood it was taught that it is very ugly, animalistic, so she was just shaking with fear. The honeymoon would come close and the woman would be trembling. She has to go through the ordeal — it was an ordeal, and of course then it was painful. But now in the West at least, the pain has disappeared. It is a beautiful experience — it is orgasmic.
It is exactly the same thing with childbirth. It is greater orgasm than sexual orgasm, because in a sexual orgasm your body takes a rhythm: expands, shrinks, expands, shrinks, but it is nothing com-pared to when you are giving birth to a child. To give birth to a child is a million-fold bigger orgasm. If you take it as an orgasm — happy, delighted, rejoicing in it, that’s all — then the child simply comes out of the passage, helped by you. Otherwise if the mother is fighting — the child wants to come out and the mother is fighting, and she is not allowing the movement that is needed for it, the necessary movement. Sometimes the child isgets stuck, the head is gets stuck. If the head is stuck, the child will suffer his whole life. He will not be as intelligent as he would have been, because his head is very soft and the brain is still developing. Just a little shock, just a little closing, and the brain is no more as healthy as it could have been.
So help it, enjoy it. Just take it as if you are moving in a great orgasm — nothing else. No interference on your part is the greatest help for a child. Then the child comes easily, relaxed, in a let-go. And then your child will not need Primal therapy, otherwise each person needs Primal therapy because everybody has suffered a birth trauma, and it has been so painful for the child. It is just the first experience, and the first experience is so ugly, suffocating, almost killing the child: the passage is narrow and the mother is tense and the child cannot come out of the passage.
This is his first experience. So the first experience is of hell, and then the whole life becomes miserable. Let the first experience be of a beautiful flowing, and that will be the foundation for the child.
(Excerpt from: The Shadow of the Whip, Chapter-6)
What else can be done so that the birth of a child is made as gentle as possible?
…………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………….
When the child comes out of the womb, it is the greatest shock of his life. Even death will not be this big a shock, because death will come without warning. Death will come most probably when he is unconscious. But while he is coming out of the mother’s womb, he is conscious. In fact, for the first time he is becoming conscious. His nine months’ long sleep, peaceful sleep, is disturbed — and then you cut the thread which joins him with the mother. The moment you cut that thread that joins him with the mother, you have created a fearful individual.
This is not the right way; but this is how it has been done up to now.
Unknowingly, this has helped the priest and the so-called religions to exploit man. The child should be taken away from the mother more slowly, more gradually. There should not be that shock — and it can be arranged. A scientific arrangement is possible.
There should not be glaring lights in the room, because the child has lived for nine months in absolute darkness, and he has very fragile eyes which have never seen light. In all your hospitals there are glaring lights, tube lights, and the child suddenly faces the light. Most people are suffering from weak eyes because of this; later on they have to use glasses. No animal needs them. Have you seen animals with glasses reading the newspaper? Their eyes are perfectly healthy their whole life, to the point of death. It is only man…. And the beginning is at the very beginning. No, the child should be given birth to in darkness, or in a very soft light, candles perhaps. Darkness would be the best, but if a little light is needed, then candles will do.
And what have the doctors been doing up to now? They don’t even give a little time for the child to be acquainted with the new reality. The way they welcome the child is so ugly. They hang the child upside down with his feet in their hands and they slap his bottom. The idea behind this stupid ritual is that this will help the child to breathe. In the mother’s womb he was not breathing on his own; the mother was breathing for him, eating for him, doing everything for him. But to be welcomed into the world hanging upside down, with a slap on your bottom, is not a very good beginning.
But the doctor is in a hurry. Otherwise the child would start breathing on his own; he has to be left on the mother’s belly, on top of the mother’s belly. Before the joining thread is cut, he should be left on the mother’s belly. He was inside the belly, underneath; now he is outside. That is not a great change. The mother is there, he can touch her, he can feel her. He knows the vibe. He is perfectly aware that this is his home. He has come out, but this is his home. Let him be with the mother a little longer, so he becomes acquainted with the mother from the outside. From the inside he knows her.…
And don’t cut the thread that joins him till he starts breathing on his own. Right now, what is done? We cut the thread and slap the child so he has to breathe. But this is forcing him, this is violent, and absolutely unscientific and unnatural. Let him first breathe on his own. It will take a few minutes. Don’t be in such a hurry. It is a question of a man’s whole life. You can smoke your cigarette two or three minutes later; you can whisper sweet nothings to your girlfriend a few minutes later. It is not going to harm anybody. What is the rush? You can’t give him three minutes? A child needs no more than that. Just left on his own, within three minutes he starts breathing. When he starts breathing, he becomes confident that he can live on his own. Then you can cut the thread — it is useless now — and it will not give a shock to the child.
Then the most significant thing is, don’t put him in blankets and in a bed. No, for nine months he was without blankets, naked, without pillows, without bed sheets, without a bed — don’t make such a change so quickly. He needs a small tub with the same solution of water that was in his mother’s womb — it is exactly ocean water: the same amount of salt, the same amount of chemicals, exactly the same.
That is again a proof that life must have happened first in the ocean. It still happens in ocean water. That’s why when a woman is pregnant she starts eating salty things, because the womb goes on absorbing the salt — the child needs exactly the same salty water that exists in the ocean. So just make up the same water in a small tub, and let the child lie down in the tub, and he will feel perfectly welcomed. This is the situation he is acquainted with.
In Japan, one Zen monk has tried a tremendous experiment to demonstrate that a three month old child can swim. Slowly he has been coming down: first he tried with nine month old children, then with six month old children, now with three month old children. And I say to him that you are still far away. Even the child just born is capable of swimming, because he has been swimming in his mother’s womb.
So give the child a chance, similar to the mother’s womb.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpt from: From Unconsciousness to Consciousness, Chapter-25, Q-1)
FEEDING AND LOVING THE CHILD
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
When a mother is feeding her child, she is not only giving milk as was always thought. Now biologists have stumbled upon a deeper fact, and they say she is feeding energy — milk is just the physical part. And they have done many experiments: a child is raised, food is given — as perfect as possible, whatsoever medical science has found. Everything is given, but the child is not loved, not cuddled; the mother does not touch him. The milk is given through mechanical devices, injections are given, vitamins are given — everything is perfect. But the child stops growing, he starts shrinking, as if life starts moving away from him. What is happening? … Because whatsoever the mother was giving is being givenbut the child does not thrive.
It happened in Germany that during the war many small orphan babies were put into a hospital. Within weeks they were all almost dying. Half of them died — and every care was taken; scientifically they were absolutely right, they were doing whatsoever was needed. But why were these children dying? Then one psychoanalyst observed that they needed some cuddling, somebody to hug them, somebody to make them feel significant. Food is not food enough. Jesus says, “Man cannot live by bread alone.” Some inner food, some invisible food is needed. So the psychoanalyst made a rule that whosoever came into the room — a nurse, a doctor, a servant — had to give at least five minutes in the room to hug and play with the children. And suddenly they were not dying, they started growing. And since then many experiments have been done.
When a mother hugs a child, energy is flowing. That energy is invisible — we have called it love, warmth. Something is jumping from the mother to the child, and not only from the mother to the child, from the child to the mother also. That’s why a woman is never so beautiful as when she becomes a mother. Before, something is lacking, she is not complete, the circle is broken. Whenever a woman becomes a mother, the circle is complete. A grace comes to her as if from some unknown source. So not only is she feeding the child, the child is also feeding the mother. They are happily ‘into’ each other.
And there is no other relationship which is so close. Even lovers are not so close, because the child comes from the mother, from her very blood, her flesh and bones; the child is just an extension of her being. Never again will this happen, because nobody can be so close. A lover can be near your heart, but the child has lived inside the heart. The mother’s heart has been beating, and that was the heartbeat of the child, he had no other heart; the mother’s blood circulated in him, he had no independence, he was just part of her. For nine months he remained as part of the mother, organically joined, one. The mother’s life was his life, the mother’s death would have been his death. Even afterwards it goes on: a transfer of energy, a communication of energy exists.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpt from: The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus, Chapter #1)

*****

…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
The childmother becomes from the very beginning associated with the idea of food and love. They become almost like two aspects of the same coin, because he gets the love from the mother and also food from the mother.His The child’s love object and his food object isare the same. Not only the mother but the breast in particular: he gets the food from the breast and the warmth and the feel of love.
There is a difference: when the mother loves the child, the breast has a different feel and different vibe. The mother enjoys the child feeding on her breast; it is stimulating to the mother’s sexuality. If the mother is really in love with the child she goes almost in an orgasmic joy. Her breasts are very sensitive; they are the most erotic zones of her body. She starts glowing and the child can feel it. The child becomes aware of the phenomenon that the mother is enjoying. She is not simply feeding him, she is enjoying it.
But when the mother gives the breast just out of necessity, then the breast is cold; there is no warmth in it. The mother is unwilling, she is in a hurry. She wants to snatch the breast away as quickly as possible. And the child feels that. It is so apparent that the mother is cold, she is unloving, she is not warm. She is not really a mother. The child seems to be unwanted, feels unwanted.
The child feels wanted only when the mother enjoys the child feeding on the breast, when it becomes almost a loving relationship, almost an orgasmic relationship. Only then the child feels love from the mother, needed by the mother. And to be needed by the mother is to be needed by existence because the mother is his whole existence; he knows the existence through the mother. Whatsoever is his idea about the mother is going to be his idea of the world.
A child who has not been loved by the mother will find himself alienated in existence; he will find himself an outsider, a stranger. He cannot believe in God, he cannot trust in existence. He could not even trust in his own mother, how can he trust in anybody else? Trust becomes impossible. He doubts, he is suspicious; he is continuously on guard, afraid, scared. He finds everywhere enemies, competitors. He is every moment afraid of being crushed and destroyed. The world does not seem to him to be a home at all. He cannot be religious, remember.
Religion is born, the first glimpse of religion happens to the child in his relationship with the mother. If that relationship is poisoned then something in the very source is poisoned. Then it becomes very difficult to bring religion to the child. Then he needs great psychotherapy. then he needs a long, long, arduous. painful process of moving backwards so that he can unwind all his ugly memories, 50 he can become free from all his old associations. Unless that happens he will not find himself attuned with any religious approach towards existence.
Atheism is born with his relationship — the first relationship. the first acquaintance — and that is with the mother, particularly the breasts of the mother. If the mother is happy, rejoices in feeding the child. then the child never eats too much because he trusts; he knows the mother is always there. Any time he is hungry his needs will be fulfilled. He never eats too much.
A well-loved child remains healthy.He is neither thin nor fat; he keeps a balance.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpt from: Zen: The Special Transmission, Chapter-8)

*****

…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
Just look at a small child. Whenever he feels tense he will put his hand in his mouth, he will start chewing his own hand. This is his substitute for smoking. And why does he feel good when his thumb is in his mouth? Why does the child feel good and go to sleep? This is the way of almost all children. Whenever they feel sleep is not coming they will put the thumb inside the mouth, feel at ease, and fall asleep. Why? The thumb becomes a substitute for the mother’s breast, and food is relaxing. You cannot go to sleep on a hungry stomach, it is difficult to get sleep. When the stomach is full you feel sleepy, the body needs rest. So whenever the child takes the breast in his mouth, food is flowing, warmth, love.He is relaxed, he need not worry; tensions are relaxed. The thumb is just a substitute for the breast; it is not giving milk, it is a false thing, but still it gives the feeling.
When this child grows, if he takes his thumb in public you will think he is foolish, so he takes a cigarette. A cigarette is not foolish, it is accepted. It is just the thumb, and more harmful than the thumb. It is better if you smoke your thumb, go on smoking to your grave; it is not harmful, it is better. No harm is done but then people think you are childish, juvenile, then people think what you are doing is stupid. But there is a need so it has to be substituted.
And in countries where breast-feeding has stopped, more smoking will automatically be there. That’s why the West people in the developed countries smokesmore than the East people in underdeveloped countries— becauseno mother is ready to give her breast to the child because the shape is lost. So in the West smoking is increasing more and more; even small children are smoking.
I have heard that one mother said to her child, “I don’t want neighbors to tell me that you have started smoking. Be truthful and whenever you start smoking, tell me.” The child said, “Don’t bother Mom, I have already stopped. It is one year now, that I have stopped smoking. It is one year now so don’t you bother, don’t you get worried about it.”
Small children smoking, and the mother is not aware that it is because the breast has been taken away.
In all primitive communities a seven-year-old child, or even an eight or nine-year-old child, will continue breast-feeding. Then there is a satisfaction and smoking will not be so necessary. That’s why in primitive communities men are not so much interested in women’s breasts; there is no problem that somebody will attack them. Nobody looks at the breasts.
If you had been given the breast for ten years continuously, you would get fed up and bored, you would say, “Stop now!” But every child has been taken away from the breast prematurely, and that remains a wound. So all civilized countries are obsessed with breasts. Even an old man, dying, is obsessed with breasts, goes on searching for breasts.
This seems mad, and it is, but the basic cause is there —children should be given the breast otherwise they will become addicted to it, the whole life they will be in search of it.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpt from: A Bird on the Wing, Chapter- 6, Q-1)

*****

…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
Scientists have experimented with young children to see what they will do if they are left near food. You will think they would over eat. You are wrong, they don’t over eat. Their mother and father over feed them saying, “Eat more. Eat, get a little more robust. Show a little radiance, look at you? Eat a little more.” The mother is sitting on your chest saying eat more, just a little more. The child is crying and somehow managing to eat. You often see children crying. His body is saying no. His body is saying go outside, jump and leap a little, go climb trees. And you go on feeding him. The doctor says that every three hours the child needs to be given milk. The child is not drinking, and he turns his face this way and that. But the mother goes on feeding him milk because three hours have passed. This following the average time does not work. When the child is hungry he will cry, he himself lets you know. There is no need to look at the clock. The child has his inner body clock. But you go on ruining his clock. And each child will feel hunger differently. One will feel it in four hours, another in three, another in two hours. Now it is a great problem, a rule has been established — the rule of the average.
Beware of the rule of averages. Averages work like this: five hundred people are sitting here. We measure everyone’s height and count everyone. All the heights are added up then divided by five hundred. Suppose the height comes to four feet three and a half inches — the average height. Now there might not be anyone here who is four feet three and a half inches, it is unlikely. There are many small children who are only two feet and some gentleman who is six feet. But adding them both together the average height becomes four feet each. No one is four feet. Neither the six foot man nor the two foot child is four feet. But adding a man of six feet and a child of two feet, gives eight feet, divided by two gives an average of four feet. Now there is trouble, now stretch the child, make him four feet then he becomes average. Now cut the six foot man. Or tell him,”Draw in your feet, pull your head inside a little, pull your limbs in like a turtle, you are a little too big.”
In Greece there is the story of Procrustes. He was an emperor. He was a very terrible emperor. He had his own custom. Procrustes was a great mathematician. He lived by mathematics. Everyone was afraid to be a guest at his house. No one wanted to be his guest. He had a bed of gold — valuable — studded with diamonds and stones. He would put his guests to bed on it. And the danger was that if the guest was too long he would cut his limbs, because the bed was precious. The bed could not be made longer, could not be made shorter, it couldn’t be done so quickly. But the guest could be made smaller or bigger. And if someone was too short for the bed then Procrustes’ two strongmen came and stretched him, trying to make him longer. No one stayed at his house.
This story is meaningful. But this is the story of all mathematicians. All children have been combined: one gets hungry in four hours, one in three hours, on in two hours, one in two-and-a-half hours, one in two-and-three-quarter hours. All are combined, the calculation is made: in three hours all are hungry! Now it is fixed at three hours. Procrustes is set! Now he watches the clock, if three hours have passed, then feed milk. If the child takes two hours, at two hours he will cry. But three hours have not yet passed on the clock, let the child cry. You will slowly slowly destroy the natural sensitivity of his body. Slowly slowly he also begins to watch the clock to see when he is hungry, because hunger should come from the clock.
This has become your condition. If you receive food every day at twelve o’clock, you are watching and when the clock strikes twelve you are hungry. Whether you are really hungry or not. It is possible that the clock stopped in the night. It was striking twelve all night. Now it is only eleven but seeing the clock strike twelve all at once you are hungry. This hunger is false. The food you eat listening to this false hunger is a transgression of the body. It will be hungry, there is no need to look at the clock. The body has its own inner clock.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Death is Divine, Chapter- 4, Q-4)

*****

…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
Listen to the body. Follow the body. Never in any way try to dominate the body. The body is your foundation. Once you have started understanding your body, ninety-nine percent of your miseries will simply disappear. But you don’t listen.
The body says, “Stop! Don’t eat!” You go on eating, you listen to the mind. The mind says, “It is very tasty, delicious. A little more.” You don’t listen to the body. The body is feeling nauseous, the stomach is saying, “Stop! Enough is enough! I am tired!” but the mind says, “Look at the taste… a little bit more.” You go on listening to the mind. If you listen to the body; ninety-nine percent of problems will simply disappear, and the remaining one percent will be just accidents, not really problems.
But from the very childhood we have been distracted from the body, we have been taken away from the body. The child is crying, the child is hungry and the mother is looking at the clock because the doctor says that only after three hours is the child to be given milk. She is not looking at the child. The child is the real clock to look at, but she goes on looking at the clock. She listens to the doctor, and the child is crying, and the child is asking for food, and the child needs food right now. If the child is not given food right now you have distracted him from the body. Instead of giving him food you give him a pacifier. Now you are cheating and you are deceiving. And you are giving something false, plastic, and you are trying to distract and destroy the sensitivity of the body. The wisdom of the body is not allowed to have its say, the mind is entering in. The child is pacified by the pacifier, he falls asleep. Now the clock says three hours are over and you have to give the milk to the child. Now the child is fast asleep, now his body is sleeping; you wake him up, because the doctor says the milk has to be given. You again destroy his rhythm. Slowly, slowly you disturb his whole being. A moment comes when he has lost all track of his body. He does not know what his body wants — whether the body wants to eat or not eat, he does not know; whether the body wants to make love or not, he does not know. Everything is manipulated by something from the outside.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpt from: The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol-2, Chap-3, Q-2)
ALLOWING THE CHILD TO CRY
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
From the very beginning the child wants to cry, to laugh. The crying is a deep necessity in him. Through crying, every day he goes through catharsis.
The child has many frustrations. This is bound to be; it is of necessity. The child wants something, but he cannot say what, he cannot express it. The child wants something, but the parents may not be in a position to fulfill it. The mother may not be available there. She may be engaged in some other work, and he may not be cared for. At that moment no attention is paid to him, so he starts crying. The mother wants to persuade him, to console him, because she is disturbed, the father is disturbed, the whole family is disturbed. No one wants him to cry, crying is a disturbance; everyone tries to distract him so that he may not cry. We can bribe him. The mother can give him a toy; the mother can give him milk — anything to create a distraction or to console him — but he should not cry.
But crying is a deep necessity. If he can cry and is allowed to cry, he will become fresh again; the frustration is thrown through crying. Otherwise, with a stopped crying, the frustration is stopped. Now he will go on piling it up, and you are a “piled-up” cry. Now psychologists say that you need “a primal scream.” Now a therapy is developing in the West just to help you to scream so totally that every cell of your body is involved in it. If you can scream so madly that your whole body screams in it, you will be relieved of much pain, much suffering that is accumulated.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpt from: VigyanBhairavTantra, Vol-1, Chap-40, Q-4)
TOILET TRAINING
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
Then a few people change from oral and they become stuck at the anal, because the secondgreat damagecanhappenswith the toilet training.When children are forced to go to the toilet at a certain time. Now, children cannot control their bowel movements; it takes time, it takes years for them to come to a control. So what do they do? They simply force, they simply close their anal mechanism, and because of this they become anal fixated.
That’s why so much constipation exists in the world. It is only man who suffers from constipation. No animal suffers from constipation; in the wild state no animal suffers from constipation. Constipation is more psychological; it is a damage to the muladharenergy system of the body. And because of constipation many other things grow into the human mind.
A man becomes a hoarder — a hoarder of knowledge, hoarder of money, hoarder of virtue — becomes a hoarder and becomes miserly. He cannot leave anything! Whatsoever he grabs, he holds it. And with this anal emphasis, a great damage happens to muladhar because the man or the woman has to go to the genital.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpt from: The Tantra Vision, Vol-1, Chap-8, Q- 5)
WHEN THE CHILD IS ILL
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
From the very beginning, from the very childhood, one thing almost always goes wrong, and that is that whenever a child is ill he is paid more attention. This creates a wrong association: the mother loves him more, the father takes care of him more; the whole family puts him in the center, he becomes the most important person. Nobody bothers about a child otherwise — if he is well and okay, it’s as if he is not. When he is ill he becomes dictatorial, he dictates his terms. Once this trick is learned — that whenever you are ill you become in some way special — then everybody has to pay attention, because if they are not paying attention you can make them feel guilty. And nobody can say anything to you, because nobody can say that you are responsible for your illness.
If the child is doing something wrong you can say, “You are responsible.” But if he is ill you cannot say anything, because illness is not in any way concerned with him — what can he do? But you don’t know the facts: ninety percent of illnesses are self-created, generated by yourself to attract attention, affection, significance. And a child learns the trick very easily, because the basic problem for the child is that he is helpless. The basic problem he feels continuously is that he is powerless and everybody is powerful. But when he is ill he becomes powerful and everybody is powerless. He comes to understand it.
A child is very sensitive about knowing things. He comes to know that, “Even father is nothing, mother is nothing — nobody is anything before me when I am ill.” Then illness becomes something very meaningful, an investment. Whenever he feels neglected in life, whenever he feels, “I am helpless,” he will get into illness, he will create it. And this is the problem, a deep problem, because what can you do? When a child is ill everybody has to pay attention.
But now psychologists suggest that whenever a child is ill, take care of him, but don’t pay much attention to him. He should be taken care of medically, but not psychologically. Don’t create any association in his mind that illness pays, otherwise his whole life, whenever he feels something is wrong, he will be ill. Then the wife cannot say anything, then nobody can blame him because he is ill. And everybody has to pity him and give affection.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpted from: The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus, Chapter #14)
THE THREE STAGES OF SEX
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
The first stage IS AUTOSEXUAL.
When the child is born he is a narcissist. He loves his body tremendously, and it is beautiful; he knows only his body. Just sucking his own thumb, and he is in such euphoria. You see the child sucking his own thumb — what euphoria is on his face, just playing with his own body, trying to take his toe into his mouth, making a circle of the energy. When the child takes his toe into the mouth a circle is created and the energy starts moving in a circle. The lightenergy circulates naturally in the child and he enjoys, because when the light circulates there is great joy inside.
The child plays with his own sexual organs not knowing they are sexual organs. He has not yet been conditioned; he knows his body as one whole. And certainly, the sexual organs are the most sensitive part of his body. He utterly enjoys touching them, playing with them.
And here is where the society, the poisonous society, enters into the psyche of the child: “Don’t touch!” ‘Don’t’ is the first dirty, four-letter word. And out of this one four-letter word, then many more come: can’t, won’t — these are all four-letter words. Once the child is told “Don’t!” and the angry parent, mother or father, and those eyes… And the child’s hand is taken away from his genital organs, which are naturally very enjoyable. He really enjoys it, and he is not being sexual or anything. It is just the most sensitive part of his body, the most alive part of his body, that’s all.
But our conditioned minds…. He is touching a sexual organ; that is bad, we take his hand away. We create guilt in the child.
Now we have started destroying his natural sexuality. Now we have started poisoning the original source of his joy, of his being. Now we are creating hypocrisy in him; he will become a diplomat. When the parents are there he will not play with his sexual organs. Now the first lie has entered; he cannot be true. Now he knows that if he is true to himself, if he respects himself, if he respects his own joy, if he respects his own instinct, then the parents are angry.
And he is helpless against them, he is dependent on them, his survival is with them. If they renounce him, he will be dead; so the question is of choosing whether you want to live. The condition is that if you want to live you have to be against yourself, and the child has to yield.
The child is the most exploited phenomenon in the world. No other class has been so exploited as the child. He cannot do anything: he cannot make unions to fight with the parents, he cannot go to the court, he cannot go to the government. He has no way to protect himself against the parental attack.
And when the parents stop him, they are stopping him because of their own conditioning; their parents had done the same to them. They are very much embarrassed by the child’s touch ing his own genital organs and playing with them, and so unashamedly.
Now the child knows nothing of shame, he is innocent. The ‘don’t’ has entered; the energy recoils. The first trauma has happened. Now the child will never be able to accept his sexuality naturally, joyously. Repression has happened and the child is divided in two; his body is no more whole. Some part of the body is not acceptable, some part of the body is ugly, some part of the body is unworthy to be part of his body; he rejects it. Deep down in his psychology he starts castrating himself, and the energy recoils. Energy will not be flowing as naturally as it used to flow before this ‘don’t’ happened.
And the natural outcome of this stupidity that has been perpetually practiced on humanity is that first the child is no more a natural being, hypocrisy has entered. He has to hide something from the parents or he has to feel guilty.
This is the autosexual state: many people remain stuck there. That’s why so much masturbation continues all over the world. It is a natural state. It would have passed on its own, it was a growing phase, but the parents disturbed the energy’s growing phase.
The child becomes stuck: he wants to play with his genital organs and he cannot. Repressing, repressing, one day it is too much and he is POSSESSED by the sexual energy. And once he has started masturbating, it may become a habit, a mechanical habit, and then he will never move to the second stage.
And the people who are responsible are the parents, the priest, the politicians — the whole social mind that has existed up to now.
Now this manHe may remain stuck at this stage, which is very childish. He will never attain to full grown-up sexuality. He will never come to know the blissfulness that can come only to a grown-up sexual being. And the irony is that these are the same people who condemn masturbation and make much fuss about it. Andthey make such statements which are very dangerous: they have been telling people that if you masturbate you will go blind, if you masturbate you will become a zombie, if you masturbate you will never be intelligent, you will remain stupid. Now all the scientific findings are agreed upon one point: that masturbation never harms anybody. But these suggestions harmpeople. Now this is an absolute agreement; there are no two opinions about it. All the psychological researches agree that masturbation never harms anybody, it is a natural outlet of energy. But these ideas — that you will go blind — may make it dangerous to your eyes, because again and again you will think that you will go blind, that you will go blind, that you will go blind…. So many people are using glasses, and the reason may not be in the eyes; the reason may be just somewhere else. So many millions of people are stupid, and the reason may not be that they are stupid — because no child is born stupid, all children are born intelligent. The reason may be somewhere else: in these techniques. You will remain ill, you will lose self-confidence. And so many people are afraid, trembling continuously, have no trust, no self-confidence, are continuously afraid, because they know what they have been doing.
Now thousands of letters come to me: “We are caught up in this trap; how can we come out of it?”
And let me repeat: masturbation has never harmed anybody. But the moment when a person masturbates is a very sensitive and delicate moment; his whole being is open and flowing. In that moment if some suggestion is dropped in his mind — and he himself will drop the suggestion, “Now what if I go mad? if I go blind? if I remain always stupid?” — these constant autohypnotic suggestions are the cause of a thousand and one illnesses, of a thousand and one psychological problems, perversions.
Who is responsible for this?
And people who come to me come with all these perversions. And I try to help them, and MANY are helped and many grow beyond it. But the society thinks I am teaching people some perversions. This is just unbelievable. I am helping you to grow beyond your perversions; the society has given you perversions. You live in a perverted society!
If the child is allowed the natural phase of autosexuality, he moves on his own to the second phase, the homosexual — but very few people move to the second phase. The majority remain with the first phase. Even while making love to a woman or a man you may not be doing anything else but just a mutual masturbation. Because very few people attain to orgasmic states, very few people come to the glimpses that are bound to be there if your sexuality is mature. Very few people come to know about God through their lovemaking, which is a natural phenomenon. In lovemaking, meditation happens naturally.
But it doesn’t happen, and the reason is that millions, the majority, are stuck at the first stage. Even if they have got married and they have children, their lovemaking is not more than mutual masturbation. It is not real lovemaking.
Lovemaking is an art, a great art; it needs great sensitivity, needs great awareness, meditativeness, it needs maturity.
The second phase is homosexual. Few people move to the second phase; it is a natural phase. The child loves his body. If the child is a boy, he loves a boy’s body, HIS body. To jump to a woman’s body, to a girl’s body, would be too much of a big gap. Naturally, first he moves in love with other boys; or if the child is a girl, the first natural instinct is to love other girls because they have the same kind of body, the same kind of being. She can understand the girls better than the boys; boys are a world apart.
The homosexual phase is a natural phase. There society helps people to remain stuck again, because it creates barriers between man and woman, girls and boys. If those barriers are not there, then soon the homosexual phase fades away; the interest starts happening in the heterosex, the other sex. But for that, society does not give chances — a great China Wall exists between the boy and the girl. In the schools they have to sit apart or they have to be educated separately. In the colleges they have to live in separate hostels. Their meeting, their being together, is not accepted.
That is one of the problems that is happening to me and to my people in this so-called educated city. If this city is educated, then I wonder what city can be called uneducated. The only problem to the Poonaites is that my people are moving together, man, woman. It should be a natural phenomenon; people should be happy that men and women are moving together, creating a love-vibe around. But they have never moved together; they start feeling disturbed. They start feeling jealous, they start feeling angry, because who are these people to enjoy what has not been given to them? If it has not been their joy they will not allow anybody else to have it either. But they will not say it that way. They will talk great philosophy. They will hide their jealousies behind great words of morality, of religion, of culture — and they don’t know anything of morality or religion or culture, because all culture, all religion, all morality has to be based on love. If it is not based on love it is not there at all. It is just a game, a pseudo-game that you go on playing on the surface. Deep down you remain just the opposite of it.
Homosexuality is perpetuated by the society and condemned by the same society. These strategies have to be understood. The same society condemns the homosexual, calls him perverted, criminal. There are still countries where homosexuality is punished, you can be sent to jail for ten years. There have been countries where a homosexual could have been sentenced to death! And it is the same society that creates it!
You divide man and woman apart so much, you create watertight compartments. And when the man wants to love he cannot find the woman, and the woman wants to love and she cannot find a man. Then, whatsoever is available… she starts falling in love with a woman, he starts falling in love with a man. And it is not satisfying either, but it is better than nothing. Nature has to find its way. If you don’t allow the natural course, it will find some roundabout way. Otherwise homosexuality is a natural phase; it passes by itself.
And the third phase is heterosexual.
When a man is really out of autosex, homosex, then he is capable and mature to fall in love with a woman — which is a totally different world, a different chemistry, a different psychology, a different spirituality. Then he is able to play with this different world, this different organism.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………
(Excerpted from: The Secret of Secrets, Vol-2, Chap-15, Q-1)