Question – Osho, Should Childten be told all the facts of Life, Irrespective of their age?

Osho – Govinddas, IT HAS always been a problem down the ages — what to tell children and what not to tell. Parents have been very much concerned. In the past the strategy was not to tell about the facts of life, to avoid it as far as possible, because people were very much afraid about the facts of life.

The very phrase ‘facts of life’ is a euphemism; it simply hides a simple thing. Not to say anything about sex, even to avoid the word ’sex’ they have made this metaphor, ‘facts of life’. What facts of life? — it is just not to say anything about sex.

The whole past of humanity has lived with that deception, but the children discover sooner or later. And in fact they discover sooner than later, and they discover in a very wrong way. Because no right person is ready to tell them, they have to do their work on their own. They collect, they become peeping Toms — and you are responsible for reducing them to peeping Toms. They collect from all wrong sources, from ugly people. They will carry those wrong notions their whole lives, and you are the cause of it. Their whole sex life may be affected by that wrong information that they have gathered.

Now there is as much wrong information prevalent in the world about sex as is possible. Even in this twentieth century people are living with immense ignorance about sex, even people who you would think should know better. Even your doctor does not really know what sex is, does not know its complexity. He should know, but even doctors live very superstitiously; they also know things from the marketplace. In no medical college is sex taught as a separate subject — such an immense, powerful subject and yet nothing is taught about it.

Yes, the physiology of sex is known by the physician, but the physiology is not all; there are deeper layers: there is psychology, there is spirituality. There is a psychology to sex and there is a spirituality to sex; the physiology is only the surface. Much research has been done there, and in this century we know more than ever before, but the knowledge is not becoming prevalent.

People are afraid, because their parents were afraid and that fear has become infectious. And you are afraid, Govinddas, and you don’t want to tell your children about it. You have to tell your children about it, you owe it to them. And you have to be truthful. Don’t shirk from truth — in the long run truth always pays — and don’t lie.

“Mom, do we get our food from God?”
“Yes, we do, Barbara.”

“And at Christmas time does Santa bring all our presents?”
“That’s right.”

“And on my birthday the good fairy brings presents?”
“Hmm… ”

“And did the stork bring little brother?”
“True.”
“Then what the heck does Pop hang around here for?”

It is better to be truthful! But I am not saying to jump upon your children and start being truthful whether they want it or not. Now that is happening — the other extreme — particularly in the West, because the psychologists go on saying that the truth has to be told. People go on telling the truth whether the children are enquiring about it or not. That too is wrong. Wait! If the child enquires, be truthful; if he does not enquire there is no need, he is not interested yet.

At the dinner table the old man almost choked when his little eight-year-old boy asked, “Daddy, where do I come from?”

Reddening, Pop said, “Well, I guess the time has come for you and I to have a man-to-man talk. After dinner I will tell you about the birds and the bees.”

The kid said, “What birds and bees? Little Frankie down the block told me he came from Chicago. All I want to know is where I come from!”

So wait a little. They themselves will ask, you are not to be in such a hurry. And remember, whatsoever is the case, be truthful, howsoever hard it seems to you. It will be hard for you because truth was not told to you by your parents; for centuries it has not been told. Everybody gathers it from rumors, nobody ever tells it to his own children. People feel embarrassed, afraid that the children may discover. Drop all these fears, and don’t try in any way to deceive the children. It can be dangerous.

The six-year-old Luigino comes back from school where he has learned three new words without knowing their meaning, so he asks his mother, “Mom, what do prick, puss and balls mean?”

The mother, extremely embarrassed, answers, “Well, dear, prick means cheese, puss means chair, and balls mean boots.”

After a few days the grandmother, a pious, prudish country lady, visits her daughter and nephew. She rings the bell and Luigino opens the door. The old woman hugs the child and Luigino, proud of his new vocabulary, says, “Granny, you must be tired. Sit down on this puss.” The woman almost faints, but Luigino goes on without hesitating. “And if you are hungry eat this piece of prick.”

Shocked and horrified the grandmother finally asks, “Luigino, where is your mum?”
“Ah, she is in the room polishing daddy’s balls!”

Source – from Osho Book “The Guest”

[A sannyasin, who is a mother, says: I feel this longing to have another child and I feel very split about it. I feel that it’s crazy and yet there’s this longing inside me to have a child.
Osho checks her energy.]

Osho – It is crazy in a way, and yet there is some rationale in it. A few things I would like to say to you – meditate over them…. The first is: you have not been able to love and you have not been able to be loved tremendously. Something is missing in your love, so you want to substitute it. You are not really fulfilled in your love. It is okay, but nothing like a crescendo, nothing like a peak. You have not been driven crazy by it – that’s why the hankering. You want to project your love onto the child.

The second thing: you feel empty so you want to make yourself full by anything…. And these are the two ways women try: either they start eating too much, stuffing their belly, or they start thinking of pregnancy. That gives a sort of fullness, one feels full… but both are dangerous! One should eat not because one wants to stuff the belly but because food is needed.

And you have a child, you are already a mother, so there is no point in creating many children. And this will not help – another child and again you will feel… because after nine months again you will be empty. And pregnancy cannot be a permanent thing. After nine months the child has to come out and again you will feel empty, and again you will want to fill the emptiness.

That has happened down the ages to millions of women: for their whole life they have been just getting pregnant and getting pregnant and getting pregnant. In india it happens too much: a woman is almost like a factory – she goes on producing; she is just like an assembly line. When she is pregnant she feels okay; when she is not pregnant she feels empty.

So you have a certain feeling of emptiness and this is no way to fill it. It can be filled; it can be filled in such a way that each moment of your life can become full, but pregnancy won’t do it.
It is enough that you have given birth to a child. Now, help the child to become a free man rather than bringing up many children whom you will not be able to take care of, whom you will not be able to help to grow.

[She answers: I already feel my child is leaving. She’s ten years old and she’s growing up.]

That’s very good! It is good, because now you have to do something bigger than giving birth to
a child, mm? And the third thing: your mind is very restless so it needs occupation – and a child
gives occupation, one is occupied continuously. It is a good occupation so that one can escape from oneself. One can focus on the child and forget oneself, but for how long? One day or other one has to encounter oneself, and the sooner the better.

It is good that you have come. Something can be done, and all these three things can disappear. Once they have disappeared you will find a totally new style of life. My feeling is that you have not really lived as you should have lived, you have not lived with intensity. Yes, everything has been comfortable, convenient, so-so, lukewarm. You have not come to the one hundred degree point where one evaporates.

But you have come in the right moment in a way – before you take some other step in which you again get involved for many years. A child is a long commitment. It is not a play. Mm? – again you will be getting involved for twenty years. By the time the child becomes mature, you will be involved… and! don’t think it is worth it. Something greater is needed.

You can become mother to yourself; that’s what is needed. You need a new birth yourself, you have to become a womb to yourself so you can become twice born. There are two types of people: once born and twice born. Those once born remain in misery, but those who are twice born become blissful. That’s what Jesus means when he says that unless you are born again nothing is going to happen. A rebirth is needed. You have the capacity and the energy is there, but blocked, fragmentary not one piece. It can come into one tremendous force.

[Osho gives sannyas to a baby, and addresses the parents.]

Osho – Prem Vega. Prem means love; Vega is the name of the brightest star – love, the brightest star. Every child represents love, brings love. Every child is a creation of love. Every child is a poem, and every child brings great hope into the world. If the society does not destroy the child, then each child is bound to become a Jesus or a Buddha.

But the society destroys, and destroys in beautiful names: in the name of the nation, church, in the name of religion, country. Beautiful labels, but all destructive. The society destroys in such subtle ways that the child is almost helpless.

Sannyasin parents have to be aware; they have to help the child to be himself or herself. Create a loving space around the child. Give your being unconditionally, but don’t impose your ideas on the child. Give your love but not your ideology.

If a child is given love, protection, nourishment, without being manipulated into being a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan, the world can become paradise, because then each individual will be really an individual and each individual will be a bright star.

We destroy intelligence, we create stupid people, because stupid people are obedient. The society is very much afraid of intelligence because intelligence is always radical and rebellious. The society wants as many slaves as possible; it wants machines not men.

Remember it: help the child to become a dignified human being who can risk all for his love, for his freedom; who can risk even his life just to remain himself. That’s the purpose of the real mother, the real father, the real parent. That should be the purpose of the whole education. Right now it is just the opposite.

Source: from Osho Book “The Rainbow Bridge”

[The new sannyasin is seven months pregnant.]

Osho – Then just be here and absorb as much of my energy as possible. Be open and vulnerable. But go to meditations – even if you can’t do them. Just sit by the side. Be a part, just silently participate. Go to the music group and sit silently by the side. Let the music shower on you. And wherever many people are meditating a subtle vibe of meditation is created. Remain silent and become attuned to that vibe, and that will be enough.

Osho – Veet means beyond, shankaro means conditionings. Man is born unconditioned, man is born as freedom… just an open sky, with no clouds, with no boundaries, with no adjectives, no definitions – neither Hindu nor Christian nor Communist – just pure existence, an emptiness.

But immediately the society starts closing in on you, starts making boundaries; those boundaries are conditionings. Then one forgets one’s original face. Slowly slowly one becomes identified with all that has been said, told, repeated again and again. This is a kind of hypnosis that is being practised on every child.

It is a violation of the most fundamental human right, but it seems very difficult to know how to fight it because children themselves cannot fight it. Children’s liberation is needed. It is the greatest need in the world because no other slavery is so deep and so dangerous and so destructive. The child is not allowed to know his self; rather, the society creates a false self – that he is this, that he is that, to behave this way….

The society gives ideals, ideas and very soon the child becomes accustomed to the fact that he is a Christian, that he is a man and he has to behave in a manly way, that he should not cry because that is sissy. The girl starts behaving in a feminine way – she learns that she should not climb on trees, that that is boyish. Slowly slowly more and more boundaries, more and more boundaries, and they go on becoming narrower; then everyone feels suffocated. That is the situation: everybody is suffocated and everybody hankers deep down to be free. But how to be free?

It seems that the walls that surrounded one are really very powerful and strong. And people live in this kind of imprisonment for their whole life. They live in prison and they die in prison, never having known what life was, what life was meant to be, never knowing the glory and the grandeur of existence.

Buddha has called this state ’shankaro’, the conditioned state of mind. The whole process of meditation is to uncondition it, to withdraw those walls. What the parents and the society and the priests and the politicians have done has to be undone by the master. So the master is basically against the society. If the society poisons Socrates it is not accidental. If it kills Jesus it is very logical.

To be initiated into sannyas is to be initiated into a world of unconditioning; drop, slowly slowly, become more aware and go on dropping all adjectives and all identities. In the beginning it is painful because you will feel confused. You will not know who you are because all that you have known about yourself will start disappearing; you will be in a kind of chaos, in a limbo.

And that is where courage is needed. If one can go on dropping all the boundaries, all the definitions, all that has been told, all that is borrowed and has come from the outside, one day suddenly one is free. In that freedom is joy… and that freedom is god! My work here consists of destroying your conditionings; it is a painful process but the end result is tremendously beautiful.

It is arduous, but when one has reached to the top for the first time one starts being really alive. And that aliveness I would like to give you. That is your birthright – it has to be attained. The man who is not trying to attain it is not worth much – is not worth being called a man. The search for freedom is the most important value; it is the summum bonum.

Source: from Osho Book “The Tongue-Tip Taste of Tao”

[A sannyasin says: I’m going to be a mother... Yes, I want it.]
Osho – Do you understand what it means? If you want it, it is okay, mm? But one should be more conscious about it. To be a mother means a great revolution, and a radical change. To be a woman is one thing, and to be a mother is totally another. You are entering into a commitment with somebody you don’t know, and you will have to plan your life accordingly. Then your freedom is gone… so just think about it.

If you take the responsibility of the whole perspective clearly, you will not be able to be as free as you have been. The responsibility of the child will be on you – and not as a duty. If it is a duty, it will become a burden, and then one starts to take revenge on the child.

Right now you don’t know, so everything is good, but when the child comes there are responsibilities. Your freedom is cut completely. You have to think about the child first, and then yourself. The child becomes more important than you who will be secondary. Now you can go on changing lovers and doing whatsoever you like, but once the child is there, things will become
different. So think about it because it is a great decision.

If you take it consciously, it is perfectly okay, but don’t move into motherhood unconsciously – becoming pregnant by just drifting into it. Before, it was okay, because there were no methods available and pregnancy was always an accident, but now it need not be.

[She answers: It wasn’t.]
Then it is okay. If you have taken the step decisively, it is okay and there is no problem. You go into it!

Source: from Osho Book “Hammer on the Rock”

Osho – First move as deeply into love as possible. Till then avoid having children, because children should come out of a tremendous love, otherwise not. You can give birth to ordinary children, who are just by-products of a physiological and biological meeting of man and woman, but they are anonymous.

When two people move higher and higher in love, and a point comes where their personalities are no longer separate and boundaries dissolve, then they give birth to children. Then the children come from a higher plane. They have a personality of love – they are not only by-products of sex.

They carry a deep harmony within them, and if you become aware, you can see whether the child is a by-product of a sexual meeting or a by-product of love. A different aura surrounds the child, a different vibration, because he has to carry that original quality of oneness.

When a child is born out of love you give something to the world. When a child is just from a
sexual meeting, you simply over-populate the world; you don’t give anything. Remember also, that when you give birth to a child out of deep love? out of surrender and meditation, something is simultaneously born into you. You become a mother.

Every woman who gives birth to a child is not necessarily a mother; it is not enough just to give birth. To become a mother your own heart should have bloomed. There are many women who have given birth to children, but there are very few mothers. To be a mother is a rare harmony and a unique experience. This is my observation: that if a woman can become really motherly – she may give birth to a child or not, that is not the point – if she can become motherly, that is her enlightenment and none other is needed. That is her buddhahood.

So love first and don’t be worried about children, because then sooner or later you will start thinking about marriage. (laughter from the group) First love each other, and give each other total freedom. Don’t be possessed and don’t possess. Give the other full space to flower. Mm? Share as much as you can, and the sharing itself becomes a very very subtle possession which has no possessiveness about it; you are so certain of the other, you can trust.

Meditate, love, and one day when you feel that you are overflowing now, that you cannot contain it any longer and you would like a soul to carry your burden, your fulfillment, then give birth to a child, not before. One should wait till one has become perfectly grown up. The world would be so beautiful if people would wait for the right moment.

And it seems that you are dominated too much by your family… By and by one has to move away from the family. Not that you should not love them; this is how you can love them. It is the only way. It is just as when a child is born and he moves away from the mother, then one day he moves away from the breast.

Then he is ready one day to move to the neighbourhood to play, and then to school. One day he
comes home and he is totally different from when he left; he has become grown up. When he falls
in love with another woman, that is the furthest he will go from the mother. In fact the day the child chooses his or her partner, that day he is really born, he actually comes out of the womb. Before that, the womb surrounds him in a thousand and one ways.

Everybody has to come out of the family otherwise they will not become themselves; they will always remain immature. One has to understand that to come back one has to first go away. When you have become your own, an authentic being, then you can come back to the home. Then you can again love your father, your mother and your brothers. But now you are there to love them, and before you were not. How can you love when you are not?

This is the trouble – that the family dominates the child too much, and is always afraid that he will go too far away from them. So they force him, they try subtle ways to influence him, condition him. The child goes on resisting deep down, and because of that resistance he cannot love them, cannot really love them.

Only an independent person can love, and a family is fulfilled when a person has become grown up. So just listen to your heart. You are grown up, and whatsoever your heart says, risk.

Source: from Osho Book “Hammer on the Rock”

Osho on Responsibility of a Mother, Good Mother

[A sannyasin brings her baby and says she has been screaming a lot which upsets her.]

Osho : That is part of being a mother…. It is not an easy job….

But now it is too late! Every woman wants to become a mother without knowing the responsibilities. It is a long commitment. And remember: never think of what is right and what is wrong. Do whatsoever is spontaneous. If you decide what is wrong and what is right you will go nuts. And then she will suffer.

Just be spontaneous. Sometimes to be annoyed is perfectly right… perfectly good – nothing is wrong in it. The whole idea of right and wrong is wrong. You are a mother so you know from your inward core what to do and what not to do; this should not be decided by the mind.

It is just like a cat knows how to catch the rat… no school is needed for the cat. So just be a good mother to her and by ”a good mother” I mean a spontaneous mother. And sometimes screaming is good, because life will scream at her, so she has to be prepared for that. Her husband will shout, so she has to be prepared for that….

When she is relaxed, be relaxed; when she is annoyed, be annoyed, but don’t make it a program – that you have to do this. Whatsoever happens, let it happen.