You have a certain fear in you, which is bound to be there. It started from the moment you came out of your mother's womb — that separation. Before that separation there was no fear in you, because you were not lonely.
The mother's womb is the most comfortable situation… you were just floating in your mother's womb. All your needs were fulfilled, without any work on your part. There was no anxiety, no problem, no starvation, no unemployment, no war, no death. You were completely isolated, protected, and all your needs were fulfilled.
The child in the mother's womb has no fear, there is no reason for it. But once he comes out of the mother's womb, a great fear runs through his whole being. He is being taken… as if you take a tree out of the earth, uproot it. The whole tree is shaking and trembling; you are taking out its roots, you are destroying its very base. It knows no other nourishment, it knows no other way to exist. The earth has taken care of it, and you are uprooting it.
When the child comes out of the womb, it is the greatest shock of his life. Even death will not be this big a shock, because death will come without warning. Death will come most probably when he is unconscious. But while he is coming out of the mother's womb, he is conscious. In fact, for the first time he is becoming conscious. His nine months' long sleep, peaceful sleep, is disturbed — and then you cut the thread which joins him with the mother. The moment you cut that thread that joins him with the mother, you have created a fearful individual.
This is not the right way; but this is how it has been done up to now. Unknowingly, this has helped the priest and the so-called religions to exploit man. The child should be taken away from the mother more slowly, more gradually. There should not be that shock — and it can be arranged. A scientific arrangement is possible.
There should not be glaring lights in the room, because the child has lived for nine months in absolute darkness, and he has very fragile eyes which have never seen light. In all your hospitals there are glaring lights, tube lights, and the child suddenly faces the light. Most people are suffering from weak eyes because of this; later on they have to use glasses. No animal needs them. Have you seen animals with glasses reading the newspaper?
Their eyes are perfectly healthy their whole life, to the point of death. It is only man…. And the beginning is at the very beginning. No, the child should be given birth to in darkness, or in a very soft light, candles perhaps. Darkness would be the best, but if a little light is needed, then candles will do.
And what have the doctors been doing up to now? They don't even give a little time for the child to be acquainted with the new reality. The way they welcome the child is so ugly. They hang the child upside down with his feet in their hands and they slap his bottom. The idea behind this stupid ritual is that this will help the child to breathe. In the mother's womb he was not breathing on his own; the mother was breathing for him, eating for him, doing everything for him. But to be welcomed into the world hanging upside down, with a slap on your bottom, is not a very good beginning.
But the doctor is in a hurry. Otherwise the child would start breathing on his own; he has to be left on the mother's belly, on top of the mother's belly. Before the joining thread is cut, he should be left on the mother's belly. He was inside the belly, underneath; now he is outside. That is not a great change. The mother is there, he can touch her, he can feel her. He knows the vibe. He is perfectly aware that this is his home. He has come out, but this is his home. Let him be with the mother a little longer, so he becomes acquainted with the mother from the outside. From the inside he knows her….
And don't cut the thread that joins him till he starts breathing on his own. Right now, what is done? We cut the thread and slap the child so he has to breathe. But this is forcing him, this is violent, and absolutely unscientific and unnatural. Let him first breathe on his own. It will take a few minutes. Don't be in such a hurry. It is a question of a man's whole life. You can smoke your cigarette two or three minutes later; you can whisper sweet nothings to your girlfriend a few minutes later. It is not going to harm anybody. What is the rush? You can't give him three minutes?
A child needs no more than that. Just left on his own, within three minutes he starts breathing. When he starts breathing, he becomes confident that he can live on his own. Then you can cut the thread — it is useless now — and it will not give a shock to the child.
Then the most significant thing is, don't put him in blankets and in a bed. No, for nine months he was without blankets, naked, without pillows, without bed sheets, without a bed — don't make such a change so quickly. He needs a small tub with the same solution of water that was in his mother's womb — it is exactly ocean water: the same amount of salt, the same amount of chemicals, exactly the same.
That is again a proof that life must have happened first in the ocean. It still happens in ocean water. That's why when a woman is pregnant she starts eating salty things, because the womb goes on absorbing the salt — the child needs exactly the same salty water that exists in the ocean. So just make up the same water in a small tub, and let the child lie down in the tub, and he will feel perfectly welcomed. This is the situation he is acquainted with.
In Japan, one Zen monk has tried a tremendous experiment to demonstrate that a three month old child can swim. Slowly he has been coming down: first he tried with nine month old children, then with six month old children, now with three month old children. And I say to him that you are still far away. Even the child just born is capable of swimming, because he has been swimming in his mother's womb.
So give the child a chance, similar to the mother's womb. He will be more confident; and no priest can exploit him so easily, telling him about hellfire and all that nonsense. But ordinarily, as humanity exists now, on the one hand it needs a God, protector, guide, help; and on the other hand a hell, so that he remains afraid of all the ways that the priest thinks are wrong. And what is wrong and what is right? In every society it differs. So right and wrong are determined by a particular society; they don't have any existential value.
Yes, there is a state of awareness when you go beyond mind and you can see things directly without any prejudice, without any ideology covering your eyes. When you can see directly you immediately know what is right and what is wrong. Nobody needs to be told. No commandments need to be given.
And each society goes on propounding: this is right and that is wrong. But how to prevent you from doing what they call wrong? The trouble is, whatever they call wrong is mostly natural — it attracts you. It is wrong, but it is natural, so the deep attraction for the natural is there. They have to create so much fear that it becomes more powerful than the natural attraction. Hence hell has to be invented.
OSHO Even the child just born is capable of swimming, because he has been swimming in his mother's womb.
Give the child a chance, similar to the mother's womb. He will be more confident..OSHO