It is desires that are born as a child || Acharya Prashant (2016)

Listener: When we are born, the first thing that we absorb into us is it the Truth or the desires?

Acharya Prashant: It is not as if desires come to you after you are born; only desires are born!

It is not as if desires come to you after you are born; only desires are born!

The thing that you call as just born is nothing but a bundle of desires. Only desires are born—the desire of the father, the desire of the mother, the resultant of those desires is the desire of the whole evolutionary process.

In the father, is the history of all evolution; in the mother, is the history of all evolution, all evolution that is crying for fulfillment. Two unfulfilled beings – a man, and a woman meet each other in hope of fulfillment; two beggars embrace each other in hope of becoming millionaires.

And then, from that, a little mass is born. What do you think that mass is? You may call it a product of love or whatever but it is arising out of unfulfillment. The man wants to go back to the womb, the woman wants to fill up her internal hollow. And from that, that little crying thing, wailing and weeping is born. It’s already a bundle of desires that is born.

Only the ego is born, nothing else is born.

Giving birth is not such a profound act. Two unfulfilled beings, I repeat, are giving birth to more unfulfillment. What is great about this?

Please be very cautious before bringing another body of flesh to this world.

L: When you give birth to bring up a child, the rapture is infinite so you feel complete. I do not see it just a product of unfulfilled desires.

AP: Don’t you see that you won’t be saying this had you not been carrying a body of a woman? Don’t you see that men very rarely make this statement? Don’t you see that if some hormones are just withdrawn from your body you would no longer be making this statement? Don’t you see that if the same hormones are injected even more into your body you will feel even more like becoming a mother?

Don’t you see it’s all so very chemical?

Take away the reproductive juices from your body and where will be the desire to procreate?

L: When you see your child in front of you, that love is there..

AP: It is not love, it is hormones.

The proof is—withdraw those hormones and the love is gone.

I will give you another example, just a few years back there was this case: The lady gave birth to a child, a child was brought to her, and she lived with the child for a year. A year later it was disclosed to her that her child got swapped with another child. For one year she was in absolute love with this child. The moment it was made known to her that her own biological offspring is somewhere else, she gave up this one and got that one, where is the love now?

Is it love at all?

Or, is it just an attachment to what has emerged from your body? Is this love? Just as you say my mobile phone, my house, my salary, you also say my kid. ‘My’ is important, the kid is not important. It took that lady no time to give up the kid because it was proven that it was not her kid, and her kid was somewhere else.

There is no rapture in giving birth, there is only biological fulfillment. The same kind of biological fulfillment, to put it very crudely, that one gets on itching. Let’s say you have eczema, you know what a relief it is to itch. Have you experienced it? It is bliss, it is deep spiritual attainment, ‘Ah!’ That is that rapture of biological this or that. You give birth, you nurse the child. Don’t you see that it is very physical, in fact sexual?

That is that rapture of biological this or that. You give birth, you nurse the child. Don’t you see that it is very physical, in fact sexual?

L: Fathers?

AP: Ask the fathers.

L: Sir, we have grown up believing that the mother-child love is the most selfless form of love?

AP: The mother-child love is not Love at all.

This is not what I have to say, this is what every single wise man has always said; our trouble is that we have never gone close to the scriptures. All that we know is the pop media, all that we know is television serials.

The Bhagwad Geeta continuously says that you must get rid of mamta (mine-ness), and, in your culture, Mamta is a virtuous word. You use the word mamta to indicate the relationship between the mother and the child, and Bhagwat Geeta continuously says mamta alone is your enemy.

Mamta means a feeling of mine. Mamatva! Mam! (mine)

L: Does true Love in any form exist?

AP: It does.

But that will become possible to you only if you first stop believing that relationships of the body have anything to do with love.

In love, you can have a relationship of the body but a relationship of the body doesn’t have anything to do with love as such.

A body is born; a relationship of love has to be brought up. The child is born as a genome, a biology. The child has to be enabled to love.

Instead of enabling the child to get rid of his physical conditioning, his biology, we impose upon him another layer of social conditioning.

Is that love?

The child is already born with physical desires—he eats, he sleeps, he wants comfort, food, milk, nourishment. He is already physically conditioned and the mother makes the child socially conditioned as well by giving him a name, a religion, a belief, education, relationships, name of a father, and the rest of it.

Now, is that love?

What would be a truly loving relationship between a mother and a child? You need to figure that out, especially, if you are a mother or would be a mother.

You really need to take this very very sincerely. What it is that would constitute a truly loving relationship between a mother and her child?

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