THE NATURE OF CHILDREN🔗

Most of us are trained to think about children as our assets, like our house and our car. We think of them as objects that complete our vision of a satisfactory life. But we spend less time and energy planning and preparing for children than we do in shopping for our cars. When we buy a car we compare models and prices, we get opinions from our friends and relatives, we spend a lot of time to get just the right design, the perfect product.

In the case of our children, however, we either leave the happening to accident, or at best we think wishfully, "If I have a boy, he'll be an engineer just like me" or "If I have a girl, she can be a doctor like I wanted to be." Most often, we don't think about the child as a reality until our pregnancy is confirmed, and then we simply follow along through the pregnancy process, being guided by doctor and family. While the doctor's advice is usually dependable, the advice of family can be influenced more by their own dreams and conditioned beliefs than by sound science and reason, or by enlightened thinking.

Few of us ask ourselves what the child might want from us, as parents who invite it to us the same way we invite a guest. What if we could frame our wishes for the child, and also our commitment to honor its needs? What if we received it into our lives as an independent being who has trusted us to shelter and care for it until, like a bird learning to fly, it springs from our nest?

This process is not only possible, it results in the highest understanding and loving communication between parents and children. It shifts our perception of children as objects, as assets that enhance our lives, to gratitude and wonder that these beautiful strangers are willing to share their destiny with us. And because we raise them with such reverence, they will respond by respecting and honoring us without sense of resentment or obligation.

Today we'll outline the process for stepping into pregnancy with awareness, taking the leadership of our childbirth experience, and creating a plan for conscious parenthood.

Just as we clean our homes before receiving a special guest, we can prepare to invite a divine soul into our lives by cleansing our bodies and minds. The more sincere and intense our preparation, the higher the vibration will be of the soul we attract to join us. We create the body of the child we desire, within the garbha, the dwelling-place or womb of the mother. That body is then available for occupation, at the spiritual level.

A soul searching to take form will be drawn toward a body that reflects its vibration. So the higher the consciousness of the parents, the higher the vibration of the body they create and the higher the consciousness of the child-soul they attract to them.

The nature of the garbha will determine the degree of nurturing it can offer the soul residing within it.

Boo Garbha , or Earth Womb, describes a physically responsive mother providing gestation and physical support after birth. At the most, this garbha can provide physical wellness and physical growth. It also determines the major part of the bio-memories, or samskaras, of the child's body.

Hrith Garbha, or Heart Womb, describes an emotionally responsive mother, attending the child's emotional needs and guiding it to maturity. Through love and care, the child's emotional body is nurtured as well as the physical level. At its peak, this garbha can steward moral and emotional responsibility. It can also work to prevent the creation of new samskaras. It cannot, however, relieve the being from already existing samskaras.

Gnana Garbha, or Wisdom Womb. In the presence of a spiritual teacher or healer, the soul's true maturation takes place. Each being becomes aware of its divine nature, through initiation and the transmission of energy. Through Gnana Garbha a complete human, a jeevan muktha, or enlightened soul, can be delivered on earth and can realize its full potential for conscious living. A mother aware of her own divinity in the presence of such a teacher or healer, can nourish her child's spiritual awakening, relieve the child's samskaras, and give birth to a jeevan muktha.

The intention of eN-Pregnancy is to shift from Boo Garbha to Gnana Garbha.

The mother's body can be prepared through meditation, prayer and deeksha, or spiritual empowerment, so that once she carries a new baby's body within her, it can attract a more highly conscious soul. This is what I call eN-PREGNANCY CARE.

Children have a clearer awareness of how they arrive and where they come from than most adults. Their connection has not yet been interrupted by conditioning and social pressure.

Here is a true story that beautifully describes the way a divine soul is invited to Earth. From the cosmic sea of possibility, the parents visualize the child they wish for. They strengthen their visualization with love and desire. They create a body for it to dwell in. And they birth it into the world of matter.

A mother phoned her doctor to check the results of a pregnancy test. The doctor confirmed that she was indeed expecting a second child. The mother put down the phone and said to her husband,

"Well, I am pregnant."

Her five year old daughter was playing nearby. The mother didn't realize the daughter knew the meaning of the word 'pregnant'. But the child put down her toys and ran to kiss the mother's stomach, shouting, "Mommy! You have a baby inside your tummy!"

Then suddenly the child said, "How did it get there?"

The mother asked gently, "What do you think?"

The child answered, "Oh, I know!"

"You do?" said the mother. "Tell me."

"Well, "said the child, "the baby comes from heaven."

"That's true, darling," smiled the mother.

"But then, you have to think about the baby to get it to come. So it comes from heaven into your head." She pointed to the sahasrara chakra.

The mother and father nodded, wondering what would come next.

“But then,” continued the child, “you love the baby, so it moves down into your heart. And then it moves to your stomach because there’s more room and it’s stretchy. And then, it comes down to the ground!”

The mother was amazed at the daughter’s wisdom. “You are completely right, sweetheart. That’s exactly how it happens.”

The parents hugged the child and went for ice cream to celebrate the new baby’s presence in their lives.

MUTUALLY FULFILLED LIVING

The way most people live now, the parents feel they are sacrificing everything for the child. They hope the child will care for them in their old age, but they have no security that this will happen. On the child’s part, he thinks that the parents are sacrificing so much that he feels pressured to oblige their wishes, even if they have a plan for him that doesn’t suit him well. So neither party is living a fulfilled life.

With the deep understanding of the true relationship between parent and child, and with preparation for conscious pregnancy, you will create a mutually supportive family. The child who comes to you will help you live a more fulfilled life. And you in turn will feel excited to help the child discover its life purpose.

Any relationship in life is intended to nourish mutual internal development. This ultimately leads to self-realization.

SECRET OF BIRTH

Let us now talk a little about how each soul chooses a body. How does the soul of our child become attracted to the body we create for it?

Once the life force leaves the body at the end of one lifetime, within three kshanas it chooses the next body.

A kshana is a Vedic unit of time. It measures the space of time between one thought and the next thought. Therefore, it is a subjective measurement and is different for each person.

If a person has few thoughts and spacious thinking, with much rest between the thoughts, the kshana will be long. The searching life force will have more time to find a body to jump into. If the expiring person has crowded thoughts with little space between, the soul will have to search much faster for its next body.

Meditation decreases the amount of thoughts and expands the spaciousness between them. In this way it promotes a more desirable rebirth, because it expands the length of the kshanas and provides the life force more time to seek a new body.

What guides the life force in its search? How does it decide what kind of body it would most like to occupy?

At the time of death, the three most enjoyed experiences in that lifetime stand out as one’s last thoughts. The choice of the next body arises from the mindset based on these three experiences.

These three thoughts will be based on one from each of the total karma (sanchita), this birth karma (prarabdha) and gathered karma (agamya). Based on this, the prarabdha karma will take shape for this birth.

Practicing spiritual life solutions in one’s lifetime will reduce the gathered sanchita karma of that life because these understandings will help one to live with awareness.

Meditation helps to reduce the prarabdha karma. It acts not only upon the conscious and physical levels but also has the capacity to penetrate and clean the unconscious on a physical, mental and being level.

However, the largest balance in the bank of karma, the total sanchita karma, can only be dissolved through the master’s grace.

The more these three karmas are reduced, the less the constraints of choice for the next body. Since each of the three karmas will dictate a corresponding intense experience to be lived, the next body will need to provide a space for these experiences to be lived.

It is like this. If I say, ‘Let me meet a person who can speak English,’ I have more choice than if I say, ‘Let me meet a person who can speak English, Spanish and German.’

Similarly, if you have all the three types of karma, of this birth, gathered and total, there are more constraints on your next birth.

For example, the desire influenced by your total sanchita karma may be, ‘I want to be beautiful.’ The desire influenced by your karma of this birth, prarabdha, may be, ‘I want to be rich.’ The desire influenced by your gathered or agamya karma, may be, ‘I want to settle down in USA.’

It is more difficult to get a body for the life energy’s next birth that will lead to the satisfaction of all the three desires within the short gap of three kshanas. So, it ends up choosing a body that satisfies the strongest desire amongst the three desires. The combined desires, the mind set, with which the life energy leaves the previous body is the vasana, the seeds of desire we earlier talked about.

These three desires, these three thoughts will be seen in one glimpse in three kshanas, as one vasana . The vasana is like a television channel and the body that attracts the vasana is like the television set tuned to this channel. The depth of the vasana and the body that matches the vasana attracts the life energy. Just like a television set tuned to the satellite channel’s frequency receives the corresponding electromagnetic waves, in the same way, the vasana is attracted by the body.

The life energy, the spirit, departing from the previous body enters the new body that it selected as that body leaves the womb of the mother. It enters the body in the birth canal. The darkness of the causal layer that it left from the previous body corresponds to the darkness of the mother’s birth canal. Since the body has been prepared by the energies of the parents, the life energy chooses the combined energies of the parents based on the desires, the vasanas, the mental attitude, with which it leaves the previous body. So the parents do not choose the child. It is the child that chooses its parents.

Having chosen a particular body, the spirit or life force has to satisfy the other two desires it had but could not choose an appropriate body for. However, during its transition through the darkness, the deep pain experienced by the spirit erases all memories of the vasana it carries before it enters the new body. The new entity no longer remembers the desires with which it left the previous body. Instead of fulfilling the desires with which it left the previous body, it begins to accumulate new desires based on its experiences and exposures in the new body. This agamya karma is now added to the entirety of the sanchita karma. Thus, the new life may actually increase the totality of karma and require more rebirths.

As conscious parents, we can assist our child to live with awareness, avoiding the distractions of agamya as much as possible, and developing clarity about its prarabha karma.

Once this is understood, we can see how much trouble is created when we decide the child’s career, or marriage partner, or other future before welcoming it into our lives. By forcing our unfulfilled wishes and intentions on our children, we complicate their karma and create confusion and unhappiness for them.

Now, of the three types of karma, if one of them is resolved, the choice constraints are fewer and the soul can be more focused in its choices. Cleaning the gathered agamya karma and this birth’s prarabdha karma can be done by the individual through understanding about life and through meditation. The master’s grace will reduce the total sanchita karma.

Once the total sanchita karma is cleansed, there is no reason to take another body. Then, if the next birth still happens, it is for no reason but out of overflowing joy and bliss. The birth is thus chosen consciously because there is no pull of karma. The life lived is a leela or reasonless play of an avatar or incarnation.

Re-living to Relieve

As a curative for karma, I will give you a simple technique. Right from this moment, try and remember all the incidents in your life. Start going backwards from this moment to your childhood days. Remember what you can. Do not the bother about what you cannot. Understand: what you cannot remember is only a hangover. It has not touched you deeply. That is why it is not retained in your memory. Try this technique for a year. Re-living is a wonderful way of relieving.

Our second level Life Bliss meditation program – the Nithyananda Spurana Program (NSP) is focused on just this method of exhausting one’s karma. It is like a complete spiritual bath in the presence of an enlightened master.

Once the would-be parents overcome their karmas they would understand the purpose and importance of attracting a higher conscious soul.