Krishna Dharajiya The Sanskrit terms garbh means womb and sanskar means ethics or values. As per the ancient Vedic culture and the Universal laws, the fetus can be and SHOULD BE conditioned – trained in mother’s womb itself of every physical, psychological and spiritual values. These values exists throughout the life of that child on the levels subconscious and conscious.
The endless cycle of entering into womb
The most inevitable ironies for every being are birth and death. The realm of our life exists between these two ends. From the very moment of birth of every living being, the death is been stamp hard on it’s fate. It’s unavoidable, and is succeeded by another birth, but in different form. The newborn forgets this cycle at the time of it’s birth. This reiterates in the Bhagavad Gītā 7.27:
इच्छाद्वेषसमुत्थेन द्वन्द्वमोहेन भारत |
सर्वभूतानि सम्मोहं सर्गे यान्ति परन्तप || 27||
“O descendant of Bharat, the dualities of desire and aversion arise from illusion. O conqueror of enemies, all living beings in the material realm are deluded by these. By the rising together of desire and envy by the confusion of duality, all beings, when born, fall into the state of forgetting”.
Garbh Sanskar and it’s significance
The essence of garbh sanskar is to educate the child in the womb. Garbh sanskar stems from the belief that a baby’s spiritual, psychological and behavioral development begins right from the time of conception.
Science has shown that a baby in the womb can benefit from garbh sanskar in early stages. The advantages of garbh sanskar not only limits to your child but it also develops a bond between a mother and a baby. This interconnection of a mother with her baby starts right from the moment you conceive.
There are huge scientific evidences that supports the practices related to garbh sanskar and their effects on an unborn child. Modern studies have proved that a fetus can respond to extrinsic stimuli. The hormonal secretions triggered by thoughts of a mother creates footprints on the psychology of a fetus. This is the reason why there’s a belief that a mother’s state of mind during pregnancy have ultimate huge impacts.
Follow your intuitions/inner guide
There is no SOP about what should be done as a part of garbh sanskar. In simple words, the mother should do anything and everything that can pass on “values”, “qualities” and “ethics” which she wants her baby to have in him/her..!
For example, a mother can do motivational reading, meditation, yoga, solving intellectual puzzles/brain games, listening to healing music/inspirational stories, spending time with mother nature, following authentic food intakes/lifestyle and everything else that can be done to inculcate powerful spiritual/psychological mannerisms into an upcoming child.
Garbh sanskar is an opportunity to pass on uplifting beliefs. Administer them into fetus in a way that achieving of ‘depleted material urges’ when it becomes an individual becomes easy for it (elimination of the “vasanamay sharir” is the ultimate aim for every soul). In simple words, use garbh sanskar to sow psycho-spiritual seeds in base for baby’s strong future.
State of mother affects fetus
The baby can feel it’s mother’s feelings even while it is developing in the womb. This is why it is important to share positive thoughts, energies and emotions with the pregnant woman herself as a part of garbh sanskar.
During pregnancy, a mother should be given balanced nourish diet. It adds to future strong health of a child in it’s adulthood. Foods/drinks consumed by a mother passes through her internal system into her baby and becomes the source of its contentment.
A mother also formulates her baby’s first impressions. As per garbh sanskar, the baby is able to respond to outside influences such as music and other sounds as well as the mother’s thoughts and feelings in the womb. The system of the fetus is in complete synchronization with its parents. Whatever conversations a pregnant woman does, affects her baby too.
Psychological and spiritual state of the couple
The couple SHOULD prepare themselves physically, psychologically and spiritually right from nine months before the time of conception. It is the most crucial time – being one of the phase of garbh sanskar.
“The state of mind the couple have during time of conception is the type of soul they attract in the womb as their progeny”.
Fetus can absorb every talk/thought of it’s parent. It vibrationally connects to you on subtle levels that you might not be aware of through normal senses. Be mindful of what you convey to your child. Your state of being indents onto your child in form of sanskaras. That means you can deliberately either MAKE or BREAK the mental makeup of your child while it is in womb.
Role of panch mahabhutas
The contribution 5 elements is very important in formation of a fetus. As per ancient scriptures, if at the time of impregnation, the parents are agitated, the child can be blind, crippled, hunch-backed or stunted. The couple should strengthen or worship the five elements on their personal level first for the upcoming child to develop healthy and powerful.
Your food habits and thought process becomes part of your sperm/egg. The couple should incorporate specific routines and lifestyles well in advance before conceiving. Practicing celibacy from quite months before conceiving can prove to be very powerful tool. Stop wasting them (sperm) unnecessarily to improve its potency and to strengthen it’s quality – as a part of pre-paration for an upcoming “standard” child.
What fetus thinks while in womb
According to Shrimad Bhagavat Mahapurana, the fetus remembers the good/bad karmas of all his previous births. It thinks,
“I have been through thousands of wombs, sucked many breasts. If I count the amount of mother’s milk I drank in my past births, it will extend than amount of water in oceans. I take birth and die again and again. This immerse me in grief and I cannot see any remedy. This cycle of birth and death is causing so much pain to me. I am suffering alone. The bodies that enjoys every birth is perishable. When I get out of this womb, I will take refuge in Sānkhya-Yoga, which destroys misery and yields liberation…..!”
Being in womb, the fetus resolves to remember the divine. It resolves to study and practice good deeds both mentally and physically after birth because all these bestow the reward of liberation. The fetus resolves to meditate and contemplate on Atman after birth.
However,
When the fetus is in the process of birth, the squeezing out of the womb causes it to forget its resolutions. It reaches the birth passage and comes out of it with tremendous difficulty. It is affected by an all-pervading veils of illusion (MAYA) that causes him to forget previous births, knowledge of its past lives as well as intuitive sense of discernment.
Garbh Sanskar during ancient periods
Ancient vedic scriptures like Mahabharata describes how Arjuna taught Abhimanyu the battle tactics and methods to enter ‘Chakravyuha’ (the war formation) while he was in the womb of his mother, the Yadava princess Subhadra.
There is a well-known narrative in Ramayana on garbh sanskar. Before the birth of Lord Rama, Lord Agni gave King Dashratha the ‘payas‘ (the holy food) during the ‘putra kameshti yagna,’. It is one of the part of garbh sanskar. The type of food that mother eats, affects development of the child she bears in her womb.
Moreover, Prahlad, Ashtavakra, Shivaji Maharaj and many other historical characters were given pre-natal education by their mothers and it strongly showed effects on their personality in adulthood despite of the adverse circumstances. Feeding necessary qualities right from the womb can make the base of the child’s mental makeup strong. Thus history, too, proves the fact about existence of idea of garbh sanskar during vedic and mythological period.
There’s also a record in Mahabharata,
about how the state of mother while insemination contributes to her child’s final makeup. Once upon a time, when Vichitravirya died of being sick and Bhishma was bounded not to rule the throne because of his vow, the Mother Queen Satyavati made a royal commandment, in order to carry forward the Clan of Kurus. Two Kashi Princesses along with one maid were made to impregnate by Sage Vedvyasa through niyoga with valid reasons.
During the process, the two princesses Ambika and Ambalika found the sage terrifying by his looks. At the time of niyoga, Ambika closed her eyes and a blind child was born to her whom we identify as Dhritarashtra. Moreover, Ambalika shivered at the sight of sage during the niyoga. This made her to give birth to a pale child whom we know as Pandu. But the maid was happy with her niyoga with the revered sage and felt it as a moment of fortune. So a healthy, wise and intelligent child was born to her, the Vidur…!
Hiranyagarbha
As per Shrimad Bhagavat Mahapurana, this whole Universe has emerged out of the golden womb – “hiranyagarbha”. Metaphorically, concept of womb and creation at the individual level is comprehensive in a sense similar to that at the cosmic level. “Human body is the miniature version of Universe”.
Significance of Garbh Sanskar in present context
Every human suffers the lack of love. There are only two core emotions in this whole universe – love and fear. If we address our fears, the path to decriminalize this world becomes easier.
We do not have control over our outer circumstances. What we can control is how we are from within. We do not have control over what kind of circumstances we can provide to our children beyond certain extent. They are anyhow going to get exposed to negative situations in their life that may lead them to learn abnormal behaviors.
To avoid chances of them to get prone to such behaviors despite of their surroundings, pre-natal education can turn out to be most powerful tool. We need to impart emphasis on “Garbh Sanskar” that has been praised thoroughly in ancient Indian scriptures.
Strengthening our inner selves through pre-natal education is the strongest and surest way to the regenerated world. Garbh sanskar is the gift we can give to our upcoming generations by sowing it’s seeds in current period.
Imparting values to our children right from the womb itself is the quality solution for entire humanity.
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Love & Light
Krishna
