Ecstatic Childbirth

In the old days, particularly in the East, hypnosis was used in every ashram. The master used it in every way to help you, because consciously you may take years to do a particular thing but in hypnosis, through hypnosis, within seconds it can be done. Unnecessary effort can be saved. But only masters were allowed to hypnotize. Hypnosis remained a secret science in the East; it was not used publicly because there are possibilities of misusing it.

In the West Mesmer brought hypnosis into the market, and then everything which was associated with it became condemned. But now again the wheel is turning. In the West also universities are studying it; there are scientific projects to study hypnosis, and new research is again bringing hypnosis to the status of a science. It can be used now, it is already used, in hospitals in surgery – because there is no need to give an anesthetic; that is destructive to the body, it unnecessarily harms the body. There is no need, simple hypnosis can make you unconscious. There is no need for chloroform or any poison, any gas, to make you unconscious; only your cooperation is needed. And any operation is possible under hypnosis. Even if it takes hours, even if many hours are needed, hypnosis is enough, no anesthetic is needed.

Many hospitals have started using it. Childbirth can be made absolutely painless; not only that, it can easily be made pleasureable, ecstatic, under hypnosis. The mother just has to cooperate and trust, and then she can be hypnotized and it can be suggested that there will be no pain when the child comes out of the womb, but rather on the contrary there will be intense pleasure. And it is possible that the woman, the mother giving birth, can have such a deep orgasm through birth that no sexual orgasm can be any comparison to it – because the same mechanism is involved. The same mechanism which gives the sexual orgasm, the bliss that comes through sex, is involved, and involved more totally. The child passes through the same passage.

Once the woman feels – and the suggestion is there – that this is going to be a very ecstatic feeling, she will achieve a peak. And I think that in the past women used to achieve that peak; they have lost that capacity. Not only lost – birth has become painful. This is again a suggestion.

You can see: the more civilized a society, the more pain in childbirth; the less civilized a society, the less pain. In India there are many primitives who don’t know any pain in childbirth, no pain at all. And there are some tribes on the earth even today in Tibet and in other interior parts of Mongolia, where women go simply mad in ecstasy when the child is born. And that may be the reason why every woman deeply longs to be a mother. No man longs to be a father, he wants to be a husband; no woman simply longs to be a wife, she wants to be a mother. That’s a basic difference.

I think the reason is that in the old days, in very ancient days, women used to achieve the supreme pleasure of their life through childbirth. That has remained in their unconscious still – they want to be a mother. A father is just a formality. You don’t achieve anything through becoming a father; you don’t give any birth, you are just a spectator. So the father is just a social convention. The mother is a natural phenomenon. The father can be discarded any day, it is just institutional; the mother is a natural phenomenon.

Every woman longs to be a mother, only then does she feel fulfilled. This feeling must be based on some ecstasy that was there in the beginning and which women have lost. It is just a suggestion that childbirth is painful, but through centuries it has gone deep. It can be changed.

Many illnesses can simply disappear through hypnosis because really they don’t exist, they are just in your mind. Fifty percent of illnesses are just in the mind, they don’t have any organic existence. They can simply disappear. There is no need for any medicine, any injection or any “pathies” to be worked on you, because then those medicines poison you, your body goes toxic, and then you suffer. You suffer less from your illnesses, more from your medicines. And there are so many doctors that you can escape death but you cannot escape the doctors – they will kill you in the end. Whatsoever you do they will kill you. Fifty percent of diseases can simply disappear from the earth.

Hypnosis is a great force, but with every force there is danger – it can be misused. But just because a force can be misused you need not go against it… because anything can be misused, and if it can be misused that shows it can be used also. So become more vulnerable, become more suggestible, become more available to hypnosis. That means you will become more intelligent, more cooperative, more trusting.

Osho, Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, Ch 9, Q 3 (excerpt)

This excerpt accompanies the following articles by Sarita: Anatomy of Abuse and Methods to Heal Abuse