Question 4

Man has an inherent longing to enter into the Womb. Kindly explain whether or not man's lust for the Sexual act, Penetration, symbolizes his inherent longing for this return.

 

 

Yes. It is part of it. Everything in nature wants to return to the source. This is one of the laws. Whatsoever happens in-between is irrelevant, every circle comes to the end or to the very beginning -- to the original source.

 

Man is born out of the womb. Whenever he is in distress or depression, whenever there is too much responsibility in the world, too much burden, things become heavy, he wants to return back to the womb. Hence this attraction, lust, to enter the woman. You cannot enter, you cannot become a child again, so the sexual act becomes a symbolic act. The penetration becomes symbolic. You are again in the womb. That is why sex is so relaxing, so soothing. All the tensions are gone, your mind is unburdened. In this moment at least you are ecstatic. It is a catharsis: you are purged of much dirt.

 

So sex becomes a release, a relaxation. And the woman becomes a womb. This is part of the attraction, part of the lust. You may not be aware of it, but all that we have created for comfort is womb-like. In a room, closed, at body temperature, silent, you can relax easily. It is womb-like. And if all the qualities of the womb are there, in your sleeping room, you will sleep deeply. Even a clock on the wall helps you. It goes on tick-tock, tick-tock. It is the same as the heart of the mother going tick-tock, tick-tock, for the child in the womb. He goes on listening to it. The tick-tock rhythm is helpful; the mattress, the pillows, all the things we use are really womb-like. Now scientists are of the mind that sooner or later we will make exactly womb-like sleeping chambers, exactly the same, because they will give you the deepest sleep possible.

 

The ultimate conception of nirvana is also womb-like. In the womb the child is so free, free of all responsibilities. He never comes to know any desire. Before the desire is there it is fulfilled. That is what Hindus call KALPAVRIKSHA. In heaven there are trees under which you sit and when a desire comes to your mind, immediately it is fulfilled. There is no gap, no time gap, between desire, demand, and supply. There is no time gap. When the desire is there it is fulfilled.

 

This is happening in the womb, it is KALPAVRIKSHA, the wish-fulfilling tree. A child never becomes aware that he is hungry -- before there is hunger, it is fulfilled. The child never becomes aware that he is thirsty -- before there is thirst, the thirst is fulfilled. He never becomes aware of any strife, any strain; he is silently served by the cosmos around him. Psychologists say that that is why the child in the womb cannot be conscious. Because for consciousness, strife is needed, struggle is needed. Consciousness grows only when there is demand, then a time gap, and then supply. That time gap makes you conscious. If there is no time gap, if whatsoever you need is fulfilled immediately, you will fall asleep. So the child is asleep for nine months together -- not for a single moment does he become alert. There is no need to be alert. All needs are fulfilled. There is no pain, no suffering, no tension, so alertness is not possible.

 

The child sleeps, and when he is born it is such a shock that Freud says that no one ever recovers from it. It is traumatic. It remains like a wound in you. And I think he is right. When the child is born it is a shock! He is thrown out of the Garden of Eden, out of paradise. Everything was so beautiful -- it was so beautiful that he was asleep. It was so comfortable that there was no need to be awake for even a single moment. It was a dream land, and now he has been thrown out forcibly.

 

There is every possibility that the unconsciousness of the child struggles to remain in the womb. It is difficult to say whether it is so or not, but there is every possibility that the unconsciousness of the child struggles to remain in the womb. He creates every difficulty in coming out. Hence the pain and the struggle. He is being thrown out, expelled. And the first moment out of the womb is bound to be the greatest suffering that the child will ever suffer again. Even death will not be such a suffering. Because in the first moment on his own he will have to breathe -- and the world has started with all its worries.

 

Now he will be the center and he will be responsible and he will have to carry his own burden. He is thrown out of the mother. He will have to breathe and to cry when he is hungry. And now nothing is certain: whether when he is hungry he will be fulfilled or not, is not certain. It will depend. He has become dependent. Now for every need he has to struggle. But then we provide every comfort for our children, in every way, so the shock is not so much, not too much. The mother goes on fulfilling his needs immediately.

 

Because of this the child comes to feel that he is the center of the world and the whole world has to follow him. Just a cry and the whole world has to fall at his feet. This gives a very egoistic beginning. So every child is very egoistic. And then other shocks are bound to follow because this is only the first birth, just the beginning of births. Those who know human phenomena deeply say that the whole life is a continuous birth. There are many births. A day will come when the mother will refuse to breast-feed the child. Now he has to depend on foods. He has to chew it. Responsibility grows. Now the food has to be chewed, digested. The milk was something else. The child was not doing anything, simply sucking. He was a sucker.

 

Every day responsibilities will grow and he will be thrown away, away from the mother. And the further away he is thrown, the more the world surrounds him. The world is hostile -- the womb was never hostile, it was so friendly,. The world is not friendly: there is competition, and everyone is interested in himself and no one is interested in you. The world is not your mother.

 

When a child moves to the school he is moving into a hostile world, with traumas and traumas and many shocks. And it goes on. The ultimate break happens when the child falls in love with a woman. He is becoming grown up. This is the last break with the mother; now the last link is broken. But still this man-child will go on behaving as if his wife is his mother. She is not. She is interested in herself, and he is interested in himself. Both are interested in themselves. They are egos. And every husband goes on trying to get the wife to behave like his mother. That is the struggle. She cannot behave like that -- she has her own interests. The mother was totally devoted.

 

So every man is frustrated with his wife because no wife can be a mother. It is not a question of good and bad wives -- no wife can be a mother. Every man is frustrated. I have not yet seen a man who is not frustrated with his wife. It seems impossible not to be frustrated because the desire is so impossible.

 

But the husband feels good when he enters the woman, the wife. Again he is in the womb. This is a symbolic penetration. In those few moments he forgets all the worries, the world, everything. He is again a child. Look at a man deep in love with his wife, or beloved -- his face will look like a child. All the tensions have gone. So it is not just coincidence that when in love the wife will call the husband `baby'.

 

I was just reading an anecdote. It was midnight and a house was on fire. At the last moment a woman was pulled out of it. She was mad and crying, "My baby has remained inside." And then suddenly the baby appeared -- on the balcony stood a three hundred and sixty pound man and he said, "Don't get worried, I am alive and I am coming." And the whole crowd was wondering what the matter was! But they were deep in love, just lying together, and the man was a baby at that moment. In all ways mind is seeking a womb-like state again, but you cannot enter the womb, even in a sexual act. You just seem to be.

 

The only possibility of entering the womb again is not physical, it is psychological, or, on deeper layers, spiritual. If you can be one with the cosmos you will be in the womb again, and this is something which cannot be taken away from you. Then the whole existence becomes a mother. So to me, those religions that have said that God is not a father but a mother, are more scientific. Those who have called their God `father' are not so scientific. Because a father is not a very essential thing. It is just accidental. `Father' has not always existed. The word `mother' is very very much older than `father'. Even the word `uncle' is older than `father'. Because five thousand years back there was no marriage -- groups lived together. The child knew his mother but he didn't know who the father was, so all the male members of the group were uncles. `Uncle' is an older word than `father.' All the males were uncles because there was no certainty who the father was.

 

Father is a later arrival. When one male dominated a woman and pushed away all the other males, father came into being. And it is not certain whether it is going to remain, because the family is dispersing. It is not something eternal, just institutional. The father seems to be going; in the future he cannot say. For father there is no hope! He will drop. Uncles will again become important. Mother is basic; father is social and can be discarded. It depends on the institution, on the way society thinks. But mother cannot be discarded. So those religions that think of God as the Mother are really deeper -- when you enter God the mother, and become one with it, you have entered the eternal womb. Now there will be no pain, there will be no suffering. Now you will never be thrown out.

 

- Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2, #30, Q4"