Why do people have kids? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Listener: Why do people have kids?
Speaker: Let us try to understand this. The brain that you have, the brain that you are and about which you have read so much in the duration of this course, is what? A product of time. Please understand this. Brain is a product of time. In what sense is the brain a product of time?
Listener: It is full of memories.
Speaker: That is composed of memories, past and experiences, right? Brain is time. Now you will tell me, what is time?
Listeners ( Everyone): Past and future.
Speaker: Good. The brain is time and if the brain must exist, time must exist. Time is past and future. Now, can the past be brought again?
Listeners (unanimously) : No.
Speaker: So, if the brain wants to exist, what must it do? It must keep rolling into the future and that is called as security.
Security is the desire of the brain to keep continuing into the future.
Off-course the future, where else it can continue? So the brain has an overwhelming desire for security and the desire for security comes from what the brain is. We can’t even call this a desire of the brain, it is the very substance of the brain. That the brain is time and if the brain has to continue then time must continue. This is called security that I must feel secure, in time, that I do not evaporate, that I do not get annihilated. Now the brain has an obsession with security. And who is trying to be secure all the time, the one who is….?
Listener(Everyone): Insecure.
Speaker: So the brain is insecure and hence is always afraid. Please note it down.
(Everyone starts noting down the points)
Speaker: The brain is always afraid with an appetite, a desire for security. Now if the brain must exist, if it must continue in the future, there are only two ways possible. Security comes to the brain in two forms.
One is that its own physical existence must be guaranteed. This is called physical security of the body because brain is a part of the body. So the brain is obsessed with physical security of the body.
So, brain wants security in two ways. One: ‘Physical security’ of the body and second, ‘Psychological security’. And this second point is tremendously important. Because the brain knows that this body will anyway vanish one day due to death, the brain seeks another kind of security that is ‘psychological security’. So the first security is physical security, and what did we say security is? What does security mean?
Listeners(Everyone) : The desire to continue in future.
Speaker: Yes. The second one that is ‘psychological security’ says that even when the physical being is not there, that is even after the body is not there, I must exist. Even after the body is gone, I must still exist. And that is the reason why there is a tremendous urge in the human organism to produce kids. Even after this body is gone, I am still existing.
So kids are the product of the insecurity of the human brain.
Because the brain is always afraid that it would be lost, hence there is a deep inner urge to reproduce so that I exist even after I am gone. We produce kids for the same reason as we want to preserve our body, which is physical security. That is the reason why even the smallest single cell, an amoeba or a paramecium would reproduce. That tendency to keep rolling into the future is contained in our very physical existence, is contained in our brain. That is why even the most dumb, most stupid animal surely does two things: One, it eats, it hunts for food and why does it eat? So that its physical security is taken care of and second, it reproduces so that its psychological security is taken care of. Every animal surely does these two things.
Kids are a product of an insecure brain and if you just look around there are ample evidences. The more insecure people feel, the more impoverished they are, chances are they will produce more and more kids. The more famine stricken, the more poor the country is, its birth rate will be correspondingly higher. Are you getting it?
Listeners (unanimously) : Yes sir.
Speaker: The most secure mind will have a very little urge to reproduce. Now this part of the answer was in very very technical terms. Let us look entire thing from a very different angle.
The question is why do people reproduce? Why do people have kids at all?
People have kids because they have nothing else to do with their lives. Most of you sitting here are of 18-20 years of age, you will graduate from college in another two years. After that you will work for an year or two and that is the regular pattern of our lives. Then you will go for an M.S. or an M.Tech or an MBA and you will again work for 2-3 years and by that time you will be 27-28 years old and it will be incumbent upon you like a mandate, like a compulsion to marry. So you will marry. Why would you marry? Because everyone else is getting married. You can’t even talk to your friends, they are not available even on weekends, everybody has a partner to go around with and you have nobody. So you will say I am so lonely, let me get married.
You have read the article on ‘Loneliness’, you have, right? So loneliness will get you into marriage.For first 6 months you will have good sex and everything, so you will have good entertainment, you will not remember anything else. But after 6 months again you will feel lonely. How long can you have sex with the same woman? 6 months, 1 year. And then what will you do? To bring some cheer, some excitement back into your life, you will….produce a kid; and if you don’t, your wife will be up your throat. Get me a baby! So it will come by the time you are 29-30 years old. Simple!
Actually this story is not different from the first story. I have just narrated this in a different language. But this story is the same as the first one. Just the angle is different. Situation is just the same. What I am saying is not what I AM saying, if you look around with your eyes open, you yourself will see this happening. You may have the most ignorant man, most stupid woman who are not good enough to do anything else in life, who are not fit for any other work, absolutely dumb and stupid people but there is one thing for sure they are good at. And what is that?
Listeners (Everyone) : Producing kids.
Speaker: And they can’t live without it. In fact the chances are, the dumber you are, the more you are inclined to have kids. Look at animals. You have seen the dogs and bitches on streets. The dog knows nothing. It is a stupid animal; but with great punctuality, with great regularity it goes to the bitch and produce kids. It knows nothing else but production of kids is something he is very very immaculate in. The bitch will be highly ignorant but when she comes to her season, that heat, she knows that my time has come. All of that is pure physical conditioning. This, even society doesn’t need to teach you. That is pure physical conditioning. The brain strives for security because it is product of time, it wants to go forward in time, so it says give me kids…give me kids!!
The more insecure the brain is, the more inclined it will be to ask for kids. That is why the more stupid you are, you produce in dozens. You have not heard of people like that? Have you ever heard of a wise man having a dozen kids?
Listeners(unanimously) : Yes sir.
Speaker: So you have kids for the same reason that you are often afraid. You have kids for the same reason that you want a job. Why do most of us want a job?
Listeners(unanimously) : Security.
Speaker: And you want kids for the same reason. Apparently these two things appear so unrelated, wanting a job and wanting a kid; but they come from the same root that we are insecure and lonely. They come from the same root.
Listener : But sir, a dog doesn’t have an option but we have.
Speaker: Yes. We have an option only if we exercise it and that option is called Intelligence. You have it only when it shows up, otherwise it lies sleeping. All of us are potentially very very intelligent but does that show up? No. Exercise it, and then only you will have that option. Right?
Listeners (unanimously) : Right sir.
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
