[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.]
Osho – 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 here tonight], 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.
Source – Osho Book “Believing the Impossible Before Breakfast”