I am writing a post after a long time. I had gone home for a week. I had a great time and ate all the good food and relaxed a lot. I hope life could always be like that...eat, sleep and make merry. I know it cannot be and it is fine because I don’t have any major regrets about the way life is right now.
On the flight home, an old man was sitting next to me. He had a bag full of papers. He was going through the papers and discarding some of them and putting some of them back...hopefully arranging it. He finished doing it about 15 mins before landing. But he was the most restless person I had seen, He couldn’t sit still for even the few minutes. He opened the tray table and started looking at the papers again and then writing something. The air hostess had to ask him to put up the table and sit straight. He looked really sad about sitting without doing anything. He must have been glad to get off the aircraft.
I also had a nice time shopping there in Gujarat. It was a great experience compared to the shopping experience here in Bangalore. You can bargain, you can choose from a huge variety. The shopkeepers there are really interested in selling their stuff and they try to make a personal connection and help you decide among a mountain of clothes. That's what makes shopping fun.The biggest problem with buying clothes in Bangalore is that in sometime everyone around you will be wearing similar dresses.
There is one more purpose to this post as the title suggests - a survey :) If you have read the blog, you have a fair idea on what I feel about babies. I want to know from you - married, or unmarried, with children or without children, men or women, boys or girls :)
Do you want to have babies? Why?
Please leave your comments with your views on why would you want to be a parent/why would you not want to be a parent.
I just want to know the thoughts in general. Because I am not able to figure out reasons for having children. I really feel people with children are not able to live the way they would like to. Also, there is already enough stress in our lives, why add the stress of raising children. I know most of you would not agree, that is why I want to know why you think I am wrong. And those of you who agree with me, please leave those comments also. I would be glad to know we share similar views.
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5 comments:
Kids add meaning to our lives.
We have lot of things to do, lot of things to look ahead ..
They give us a reason to live.
Suggested Reading: http://www.boloji.com/humor/042.htm
- Mukta
May be u might not get all the freedom and time for urself. But may be the feeling as a mother you will get which you can not get otherwise. It is not just about whether you give time for yourself but in various age how you are feeling and if u are satisfying yourself completely is wot matters. hmm also you shud nt regret that I dint hear my child cry in the latter part of ur life...may be he wil make you cry too but as mother you wud enjoy ur child cry too :-) hey am givin too much advice or speech I believe :-) u need to experince of being a mother then may be u wud realise that...... - non-mother
Mukta - Good read that you suggested. Liked it
Non-mother - You seem to be suggesting children would cause satisfaction in our lives. Maybe Mukta can tell if this is true :)
Here is something on it by Osho-
People ask me—sometimes a young man, sometimes a young woman—whether it would be a good thing for them to have a baby. I say to them, "First go deep into meditation, then you can become parents; otherwise, what will you have to offer your child? And if you don't have meditation, the child's presence will reveal all your weakness and all your poverty, because you will find you have nothing to give. So it is better that you first go deep into meditation and then become parents, because then you will be able to fulfill the responsibility of parenthood—and not as a duty, but blissfully."
Give your children meditation as well as thinking.
Thinking will help them to be successful in the world, and meditation will help them towards success in the divine. Give them thought to sharpen their intellects, give them meditation to nurture the sacred in their hearts. nowher10
A sannyasin says she's pregnant. She'd decided to have an abortion and thought she was happy with the decision, but since then, whenever she thinks about it she feels a tremendous amount of sadness.
Mm mm. 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 ready, go ahead: have a child.
I will start telling my people to have children, but let me prepare my people first. Then 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, 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. believ03
A sannyasin says: I feel that I'm pregnant since we've been here. Is there any meditation or thing to do that will be helpful for the baby or for us?
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 JUSTIFY">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.
-Achyut Telang
Wow Achyut, Thanks for posting Osho's answers to related questions. Exactly the way I feel...Why crowd the world with more pathetic beings like myself.
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