Guru Mahan’s Discourse on “How to have a gracious child”
Birth is the start of everything. But “Birth” is a term which most of us perceive outwardly. If we go deep into the term, we can understand that one comes to know about the “Birth” only when it is happened. But there are many factors before the “Birth” influencing it that are not realized using our five senses.
For example, take a plant. We realize that the plant has grown only after seeing the green shoots outside the soil. But really what happened is, the seed is already inside the soil and due to its tendency absorbs the nutrients, ground water from the soil and also gets the warmth of the temperature, emerges out of the soil as a shoot and grows into a plant guided by the sunlight. We do not know all these internal process until the contributions from research conducted by various Biologists.
Similarly most of us are unaware of the true essence and various intricate processes involved in pregnancy and childbirth. If we take a piece of land and wish to cultivate a crop we shall not just go ahead with throwing the seeds and pouring water. We shall adopt a system and methodology for successful cultivation, quality produce and high yield. We shall first prepare the soil for the desired plantation by properly treating it with organic manures. Then we shall choose the high quality seeds or shrubs. We shall plough the soil in the desired manner, sow the seeds or plant the shrubs in an organized format, in a favorable season. Then we shall enrich the process with the desired fertilizers; irrigate them in a chosen method at optimum level. We shall regularly monitor the land for any harmful insects and use respective insecticides based on the requirement. We have to adopt all these measures to get the desired quality and quantum of yield. If we are not intended about any particular cultivation, then still, plants will grow on the land but in a stray manner that will not serve any purpose.
The situation is so poignant that humanity is giving birth to children just like the stray plants growing on any soil. That is the reason why Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Gandhi or Teresa is so rarely born. Bhagavad-Gita says God descends to Earth in the form of Man to perform certain duties. Those births are called Avatars. Can’t every woman bear an Avatar? Possible!
When we discuss about the causes of birth beyond the five senses, we come to know that there are numerous Divine souls in this universe that want to take birth. The normal tendency of those Divine souls is they chose the womb that they wish to be born. The characteristic of the womb is a direct derivative of the Mother and Father. So those who wish to bear a child, if they regulate themselves in Yogic way, they certainly become potential to attract one such Divine Soul that eventually takes birth as their child.
Like a plantation that needs procedural preparations, the pregnancy and childbirth also has to be planned with certain ethical codes. Our ancestors of the Indian subcontinent were very much cognizant about the entire life cycle. They have already prescribed the ways to bear a child with beauty, divinity, personality, valor, intellect, moral, ethical, loving that have been evolving into a Purposeful Human Being. If you study the History of our country, we can make out that most of our ancestors were highly ethical and lived a life of highest purpose that made this subcontinent rich in material wealth, natural wealth, tradition, culture and morality. We can realize that in this present fast growing economic world where monitory status is considered as the symbol of prestige and prime medium of Happiness or comfort, the ancient methods have gone deep into burrows.
People now stick to only the symbols left behind and not the true philosophy that postulate those symbols. The religious practices have become just mechanical rituals without the essence of purpose. This is the reason why people of the present lead a meaningless life searching for happiness and satisfaction outside. So the process of child bearing has also become mechanical.
It is fact that the scientific advancements and modern medicines have brought the whole health factor in small capsules. But those can take care of only biological needs and nothing more than that. The science would have gone to such a great extent that it can enable a suitable environment for the sperm and ovum to fuse by various modern artificial fertilization methods. But it all serves the purpose like taking the horse to the water but cannot make it drink. No science till now could make a sperm to impregnate an ovum.
It can be easily recognized that we have gone too far from the path laid for us by our great ancestors. But it is a solace that still we have got great Gurus and Self- Realized souls to bring us back on track and recover the last glory. They relate the ancient child bearing process to the modern research that is being conducted in this field.
Our Vedas and Puranas say that a fetus is less different to a born child and it can SEE, listen and feel as a new born. We can quote several examples from our epics such as the case of Abimanyu in Mahabharatha, who learned the art of penetrating the Chakravyuha
Modern day researches also concur this as a fact and indicate that behaviorally, there's little difference between a newborn baby and a developing fetus. In the Magazine “Psychology Today” published by Janet Hopkins’ University research, it says birth of a child is just a grand occasion in the part of the development cycle, but the real birth has started somewhere in the fetus. Armed with highly sensitive and sophisticated monitoring gear, Janet Di Pietro and other researchers today are discovering that the real action starts weeks earlier. At 32 weeks of gestation - two months before a baby is considered fully prepared for the world, or "at term" - a fetus is behaving almost exactly as a newborn. And it continues to do so for the next 12 weeks.
So it can be realized now that the modern scientific world has started harmonizing with facts that has been defined for thousands of years in our ancestral hierarchy. So any couple who want to have a child shall be blessed with a gracious, divine, healthy, beautiful, shrewd, active child, if they take initiative to change their present mode of monotonous living and adopt certain useful and result oriented methodology. They are sure to be blessed with a child no less than an “Avatar”.
The ways prescribed are very easy to adopt if a couple is determined to bear not an ordinary child but an Avatar. The present world needs numerous Avatars to take care of the Mother Earth more responsibly than us. Our Ancestors safeguarded the Mother Earth and her Natural Wealth and they left in our hands the most precious of all treasures. But we sought after more sophistication and took the tool of scientific advancement and ruined the Empire of Nature.
Now it is time, we become more responsible not only to ourselves but also to the Mother Nature. We shall adopt the corrective measures on war-footing basis to save the Nature. We shall also be more responsible in creating responsible heirs who will get the torch from us to illuminate the future world.
In our Foundation, we offer the program for Childcare and development in which one can learn the most precious aspects of pregnancy and ways to be adopted to bear an “Avatar”(child).
My blessings to one and all for attaining immaculate health, unbound wealth and everlasting happiness. Let this world be at peace and happiness.
Santhosam
