The third question:

Question 3

IF ENLIGHTENED BEINGS DON'T HAVE CHILDREN, AND WE NEUROTIC PEOPLE ARE PRONOUNCED UNFIT FOR PARENTHOOD BY YOU, WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME?

Enlightened persons don't have children; neurotic persons should not have. Just between the two, there is a state of mental health, of non-neurosis: you are neither neurotic nor enlightened, simply healthy. Just in the middle -- that is the right time for parenthood, to become a mother or to become a father.

This is the trouble: neurotic persons tend to have many children. In fact, in the West neurosis is more. People don't have many children. That may be one of the causes that neurosis has become so prevalent: the old engagement with children is no longer there. In the East, people are not so neurotic. They cannot afford to be neurotic; children are enough. A joint family has so many children. You cannot have any time to go mad -- impossible. They won't allow you to. You are in such a mad state and so tuned with it, that you will not become aware that you are mad. In the West, the joint family has disappeared. Children have also disappeared, the way they appear in the East. There are one or two children, at the most. Much space is left. The whole old occupation is no longer there. People are becoming more and more rich, affluent, less and less work is there, more and more leisure, and they don't know what to do with the leisure. They go neurotic. Just think about yourself if you have nothing to do, no children to work for.

Once I asked Mulla Nasrudin, "Are you still working for the same firm?" He said, "Yes, the same company: the wife and thirteen kids!"

If you have a family to support, to work hard for the whole life, from morning till evening, and you come home tired and go to sleep and in the morning you are again on the track, how can you afford to be neurotic? When will you find time to go to a psychiatrist? In the East the psychiatrist does not exist. Children are the only psychiatrists.

Neurotic persons tend, in their neurosis, to create a very occupied space around them. They should not, because that is avoiding. They should face the fact of neurosis and they should go beyond it.

An enlightened person need not have children. He has given the ultimate birth to himself. Now there is no need to give birth to anything else. He has become a father and mother to himself. He has become a womb to himself, and he is reborn.

But between the two, when the neurosis is not there, you meditate, you become a little alert, aware. Your life is not just oP darkness. The light is not as penetrating as it is when one becomes a Buddha, but a dim candlelight is available. That is the right time -- the twilight time, when you are just on the border, moving out of the world, moving in the other world; that is the right time to have children, because then you will be able to give something of your awareness to your children. Otherwise, what will you give as a gift to them? You will give your neurosis.

I have heard: A man with eighteen children took them to a dairy show. Included in the show was a prize bull worth 8,000 pounds and there was an additional charge of five pence to go in and see it. The man thought that this charge was exorbitant, but his children wanted to see the animal, and so they approached the entrance to its enclosure. The attendant said, "Are all these children yours, sir?"

"Yes, they are," answered the man. "Why?"

The attendant replied, "Well, wait here a minute and I will bring the bull out to see you!"

Eighteen children! -- even the bull will feel jealous.

You go on unconsciously reproducing your own replicas. First think: are you in such a state that if you give birth to a child, you will be giving a gift to the world? Are you a blessing to the world, or a curse? And then think: are you ready to mother or to father a child? Are you ready to give love unconditionally? Because children come through you, but they don't belong to you. You can give your love to them, but you should not impose your ideas on them. You should not give your neurotic styles to them. Are you ready not to give your neurotic style to your children? Will you allow them to flower in their own way? Will you allow them freedom to be themselves? If you are ready, then it is okay. Otherwise, wait; become ready.

With man, conscious evolution has entered into the world. Don't be like animals, just reproducing unconsciously. Now get ready before you would like to have a child. Become more meditative, become more quiet and peaceful. Get rid of all the neurosis that you have within you. Wait for that moment when you are absolutely clean, then give birth to a child. Then, give your life to the child, your love to the child. You will be helping to create a better world. Otherwise, you will be simply crowding the world. The crowd has already become maddening. There is no longer any need to increase the crowd. If you can give human beings to the world, not just like worms, crowding and crawling all over the earth, then first be ready.

To me, to become a mother is a great discipline; to become a father is a great austerity. Otherwise, you will leave somebody just like you, or even worse than you, in your place. That will not be a good gesture on your part. Enlightened people need not give birth to anybody; neurotic people should not. Just in between the two, is the point.