Education Begins in the Womb
Our earliest teacher is the mother. -- Rousseau
The prenatal stage requires at least as much attention as postnatal development. Humanity's future depends upon the education of children. And this education must begin from the moment of conception in the baby's first classroom. The expectant mother is her child's principal instructor even before the baby leaves the womb.
A child learns and recalls even what is heard while in the womb. The most important education for the child are the impressions created in the womb (womb impressions). According to ancient scriptures and modern day scientific research, the fetus registers everything that the mother goes through -- mental, emotional, physical, etc. It registers everything in the form of impressions that form the basis of life. The fetus registers what makes the mother happy and what brings her unhappiness.
True education is character building that begins with conception and continues throughout pregnancy. Once out of the womb, the child learns about concrete concepts and experiences. However, the foundation of human character is laid in the womb, through the pregnancy tenure.
Judaism: The Womb as the First Classroom
A Jewish mother approached a Torah Sage and asked, "When should I begin the education of my child?" "How old is your youngster?" "Five months old," she replied. The Sage explained, "You are already fourteen months too late."
The Jewish perspective recognizes the influence of inner and outer environment on the development of the fetus. A mother's womb is the first space in the child's life. The sanctity of this first home is hallowed by a Jewish ritual before conception where the Almighty is invited to become the couple's partner in conception and creation of their future child.
According to the Talmud, the great master Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakai identified the unique essence of his five outstanding disciples, citing specific attributes such as: dazzling brilliance, power of retention and going beyond the call of duty. However, when he attempted to assess Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Chanina, the master declared: "Blessed is the mother who gave birth to him."
Rabbi Yehoshua was so exceptional that his teacher was unable to isolate one prominent feature. Instead he blessed the mother who had produced such a great individual. His mother deserved this praise because throughout pregnancy she had visited houses of Torah study and elicited prayers from the Sages that the baby would be endowed with wisdom. Furthermore, following her son's birth, she placed her son's cradle in the study hall where -- by osmosis -- he absorbed the sounds of Torah learning and Jewish ethics.
Angel in the Womb
A special angel named Lailah assists conception according to Judaism. This angel brings the embryo before the Divine throne where God decides the child's future, station in life and spouse. God then bids a soul to enter the embryo, and Lailah transports the child to its mother's womb.
The womb is the first critical environment for formation of the child. The Talmud relates that two angels are dispatched to study Torah with the fetus in utero for nine months to prepare the unborn child for earthly existence.
The unborn child lies folded up in the womb with its head between its knees. The angels keep watch so that the child does not prematurely leave the womb. They position a light above his head, by which he sees from one end of the world to the other. The child is shown and taught all the things which he will experience in life. He gains insight into all the rules of life whereby, if a man observe them, he will live the veritable secrets of Almighty Wisdom.
Each morning an angel carries the child's spirit into Paradise to see the righteous who had lived a good life in this world. In the evening the angel transports the child to hell to see the torments of the wicked.
Finally the angel orders the child to be born. Upon birth, the angel extinguishes the light and with a flick of a finger to the indentation of the lip, causes the child to forget everything he had seen in the womb. Though the child may not remember what he learned, the information is at a unconscious level, programmed into his being, waiting to be downloaded and recalled.
"On the strength of these dim recollections, the new-born is adjured thus: 'Be thou righteous, be not wicked! Understand that the Almighty is pure, His messengers are pure; and the soul which He has placed within thee is pure.'"
Life of the Unborn In Traditional Cultures
Ancient and traditional cultures seem to have pregnancy and childbirth practices that are more humane and enlightened than those followed in modern society. They are attuned to the concept of conscious parenting. In conscious parenting, a family becomes a reality from the moment of conception. Parents are consciously aware that their thoughts, attitudes and behaviors influence their child's development and health from the idea of conceiving a baby through its pre- and postnatal development.
A prime example is an east African tribe who foster true intimacy before birth. (Story attributed to Jack Kornfield in the book, A Path With Heart.) This tribe begins talking to the baby before conception, to create a relationship and to bond before birth.
They count the birth date of a child not from the day of physical birth or conception. The birth date is fixed by the first time the mother thinks of the child in her mind. When a woman intends to conceive a child with a particular father, she sits alone under a tree. There she listens until she hears the song of the child who wants to be born to her. Once she has heard it, she teaches it to the father so that they can sing it together as they make love, inviting the child to join them.
After conception, the mother sings it to the baby in her womb. She teaches it to the old woman and midwives of the village, so that the child is greeted with its song throughout labor and at birth.After the birth all the villagers learn the song of their new member and sing it to the child if it falls or hurts itself. They also sing it in times of triumph, in rituals and initiations
This song becomes a part of the marriage ceremony when the child is grown, and at the end of life, his loved ones gather around the deathbed and sing this song for the last time.
Another illustration comes from Anne Maiden's cross-cultural studies on birth. Three important cultures -- Tibetan, Balinese and Aboriginal Australian -- for example, embrace the idea that fetuses are capable of interacting with and being deeply imprinted by their social environments.
For instance, Tibetan Medical Paintings, an illustrated medical text from the eleventh century, deal with each week of life in the womb. In the twenty-sixth week, the child's awareness becomes very clear and it sees its former lives. It can see if it was a pure being or an ordinary being, and what type of birth it had before it took this birth
In Bali, as soon as a woman becomes pregnant, she consults with the village healer. He helps her enter into a dialogue with the child in the womb in order to discover the child's identity and purpose in life. Those two questions -- of identity and purpose -- follow through all Balinese education and spiritual training, which aim to assist the incarnating soul to fulfill its destiny.
In Aboriginal Australian society the spirit of the child is believed to exist prior to conception. Robert Lawlor writes: "To the Aboriginal mind, the modern explanation of conception as the collision of a tiny sperm and egg is absurd. In their view, sperm may prepare the way for the entry of the child into the womb, but the spirit of the child appears in the father's dreams or inner awareness before conception." Aboriginal women provide a temporary haven for a being with its own pre-existing spiritual identity. From the moment of conception, the child is made to feel that it is a valued part of its social and natural environment. The spirit does not fully enter into the fetus until roughly ten weeks after conception.
Another researcher of traditional cultures, Jean Liedloff, was impressed by the psychological health and resilience of the Yequana Indians of Venezuela whom she visited. She concluded that Yequana birthing and childrearing practices were responsible for their humor and equanimity: the child is made to feel that it is a valued part of its social and natural environment from conception.
Similar attitudes are found in Cherokee childbirth practices. Dhyani Ywahoo notes: "We choose a family wherein our gifts may flourish, through which we can complete a cycle of learning. Even when we are within our mothers we begin to hear and feel our family around us. Within the womb the young person is sensing the qualities of its parents' minds and responding to the thoughts directed by other people toward the mother. For this reason it is important that mothers-to-be have a loving support system and an environment as free from anger as possible."
Prenatal Conditioning
Spiritual teachers emphasize that the most formative period of our character is when we are in our mother's womb. Her thoughts and feelings help or hinder the development of our talents, capacities, taints or weaknesses. As the saying goes, "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."
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Murshida Vera Justin Corda -- A pregnant woman gives up being master of her own body to the domination of the developing fetus, with its needs and demands. She stands apart from her old single-minded self to become the servant of and first guide to the incoming soul.
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Torkom Saraydarian -- The mother's influence, while the child is in the womb, is greater than the sum total of the unborn child's strivings and failures in previous lives and the influences gathered from past life relationships. She conditions him and either gives him a chance to overcome his hindrances and live as a cause, or continue to be the effect of the causes of the past.
If a mother is physically and emotionally healthy and radioactive with love, if she is mentally creative and educated, and if she is spiritually advanced and her nature is in tune with the greater nature of the planet and of the Cosmos, the generation that is coming from that mother will uplift and transform this planet.
An expectant mother must avoid violent or criminal movies as well as negative, painful, and sensationalistic books. Bad news, upsetting events, or exposure to ugliness, condition the child in the prenatal state to have poor health and a confused mind in the future. These negative images or events create posthypnotic suggestions in the growing baby which condition his future psychological and physical nature and responses.
When a pregnant woman watches criminal movies that are mostly anti-survival, the child in the womb is impressed with them. all the impressions of death, crime, and degeneration accumulate in the unborn child, and he will have anti-survival tendencies by the time he is born. As he grows up, he will desire to further those efforts.
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Dr Thomas Verny -- a young mother who sang a particular lullaby to her unborn child in the seventh month of pregnancy later reported that whenever she sang the same lullaby after birth, the child was calmed no matter how upset he was or how hard he cried.
Noted musicians Arthur Rubinstein,Yehudi Menuhin and Boris Brott are convinced their musical interests were awakened in the womb. For example, the renowned conductor of the Hamilton (Ontario) Philharmonic Symphony, Boris Brott believes music became part of his life during his fetal existence. As a young man, he had an unusual ability to play certain cello pieces sight unseen. Brott knew the flow of the piece even before he turned the page of the score. This puzzled him. The mystery was solved when his mother, a professional cellist, explained that those musical pieces were the ones she practiced during pregnancy.
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Swami Satchidananda -- The pregnant woman is the baby's first teacher. Her womb provides materials for the child's soul to build itself a physical body, and she molds her child's character by adding new impressions. Caring for a child's mind is more important than caring for his body. If an organ becomes diseased, another organ can be transplanted in its place, "but you can never transplant the mind. And the mind is built up first by the mother. She can make it or break it."
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Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -- The heart of the mother determines the consciousness of the child.
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Helen P. Blavatsky -- As Pheidias, gathering together the loose particles of clay and moistening them with water, could give plastic shape to the sublime idea evoked by his creative faculty, so the mother who knows her power can fashion the coming child into whatever form she likes.
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Marie R. Hotchener -- The mother-to-be focuses on teaching the child in the womb different things as the unborn advances through various developmental stages. The three elements of the personality -- physical, emotional and mental -- develop at different times during gestation. Therefore, during first trimester, the mother should focus on physical growth of fetus -- diet, exercise, clothing, etc. In second trimester, nourish his emotional growth as well. In final trimester, put attention on child's mental development along with physical and emotional elements.
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Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov -- The unborn child is aware thus providing the mother an opportunity to begin teaching her child. Aivanhov's book, Education Begins in the Womb, advises parents to remember that whatever takes place within their hearts and minds will take physical shape in their offspring. A father's consciousness determines the quality of the sperm which contributes to conception; the mother's thoughts determine how that seed is nourished.
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The father's cells retain a memory of his thoughts and feelings. So if he constantly works for righteousness, he is more likely to pass a sperm to his wife which is slated to bring about a child who is a saint or genius. If the father harbors negativity, his seed will be programmed to bring forth an ordinary child, even an alcoholic or a criminal.
The pregnant mother who nourishes a sperm of exceptional quality with lofty thoughts and feelings, births a robust, healthy, beautiful baby capable of overcoming difficulties, diseases and negative influences. If her thoughts fail to nourish that exceptional sperm, she births a pessimistic, sickly child who brings nothing but trouble. In other words, even if the father's seed bears the stamp of a magnificent likeness, if it is reproduced in base metal it will lose all its value.
Aivanhov further teaches:
A child who comes into this world is not born out of nowhere. And if you ask me why your child was born I will tell you, 'so that you can see the living proof of what existed in your own mind.' This is how men and women get to know themselves: through their children.
Wake up to the task that God has entrusted to you. You have untold secrets in your keeping which you could use to regenerate the human race. Be conscious of your mission, and ask men to prepare the best possible conditions for you so that you can accomplish your great, magical work. Unite for the regeneration of the human race. It is women, mothers, who have been entrusted with this mission, for it is they who have been given the power of influencing the child in the womb.
Nothing will make a woman happy and full of light until she fulfills this ideal of contributing to the happiness of mankind. Heaven expects her to fulfill her God-given mission.
Learning Begins in the Womb
Until recently, our beliefs about the limitations of fetal awareness and intelligence seemed well grounded. After all, the fetal nervous system is incomplete: At birth, the infant brain is one quarter of its eventual weight, with whole neural systems undeveloped. Moreover, the myelin sheathing of the neurons is partially formed. Since the brain is involved in suffering, pleasure, learning, memory and thinking, neurologists assumed that these functions were as undeveloped as the physical structures that supported them.
Our understanding of the first space of the unborn has now changed due to studies using intrauterine photography, ultrasound imaging, the scanning electron microscope and other technologies. Dozens of experiments over several decades have given us a direct view of the evolving human being in the womb.
Neurological research shows that a baby's cerebral cortex -- the seat of thought -- is sufficiently developed to support learning and awareness between the twenty-eighth and thirty-second weeks in the womb.
A striking example of fetal awareness are the reactions of the unborn child to amniocentesis. Babies in the womb react fearfully, defensively, and sometimes aggressively during amniocentesis when a needle enters their private territory. In one instance, the husband, doctor and ultrasound technician witnessed the fetus bat the side of the needle! The technician advised the doctor, "Take the needle out!" When the doctor reinserted the needle, the baby attacked it again. The doctor was in a nervous sweat and removed the needle. Everyone was shocked to watch an unborn baby sense the intrusion of a needle (and with eyelids fused), have such strong feelings and take such effective action.
Modern reports indicate that the unborn baby can see, hear, feel and is capable of learning. Psychological research indicates that the unborn baby can remember sounds of speech, recognize a story heard repeatedly in utero and recognize his mother's voice. The unborn move in response to pleasant or unpleasant stimuli. They express and respond to emotions. They smile and cry in the womb. They are social beings who can interact with others. They can imitate and show affection. They are already learning about themselves and their environments.
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One study of premature infants who received sensory stimulation before birth showed an average increase of 13 points in IQ scores over those in a control group.
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Dr Beatriz Manrique -- a study of pre- and postnatal stimulation in Venezuela found that stimulated babies exhibit accelerated visual, linguistic, and motor development skills as well as higher intelligence and creativity over the first six years of their life.
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Dr Bea Bergh -- a mother's stress level during pregnancy can have significant impacts on the unborn. Mothers-to-be who experienced prolonged stress between the twelfth and twenty-second weeks of their pregnancies were more likely to have children who exhibited anxiety and attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorders.
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Dr David B. Chamberlain -- Recognition learning of musical passages, stories, voices, native language sounds and even children's rhymes have been shown during intra-uterine life and at birth.
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Anthony DeCasper et al, 1994 -- Expectant mothers in France repeated a child's rhyme three times a day from week 33 to 37 gestational age. After four weeks of daily rhymes, babies recognized the rhyme they had heard but showed no recognition of a different rhyme.
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Dr Thomas Verny - Unborn children are sensitive, intuitive, emotive individuals. They have developed their perceptual and mental capabilities, and sustain, at least, a memory of in utero development and birth. These earliest experiences shape human personality as profoundly as subsequent life events.
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One study demonstrated that women who desired their babies had the easiest pregnancies and healthiest offspring; women who did not desire their babies had increased medical problems, a greater number of premature deliveries, and infants having low birth weight and emotional disturbances.
Womb Time Memory
Children who recalled what they learned while in the womb peel back the mysteries of the first nine months of life in this world:
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We can trace conductor Boris Brott's ability to play cello pieces sight unseen to his fetal existence. His mother, a professional cellist, practiced those musical pieces when he was yet in the womb.
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When tabla maestro, Zakir Hussain was in his mother's womb, his father, Ustad Allah Rakha used to beat lightly with his fingers on his mother's abdomen.
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A mother read courageous stories from the Ramayana, and Maharana Pratap to her son when he was in her womb. Her son became of India's great freedom fighters, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
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Dr Thomas Verny -- Susie's mother jokingly asked three-year-old Susie, "Do you remember those pajamas I wore when I was pregnant with you?" The toddler answered, "I couldn't see what you were wearing. I could only hear what you were saying."
Susie's response inspired her mom to ask, "How did it feel in Mommy's tummy? Susie explained, "It felt dark and crowded, like a big bowl of water."
Her mother asked, "What was your favorite food?" Susie recalled, "I did not get any food." Susie even remembered her first impression following birth: "It wasn't crowded anymore. I could stretch."
Susie's prenatal memories included only experiences of what she had heard and felt. She did not remember "seeing" anything.
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Dr Thomas Verny -- A mother marvelled at her two-year-old son's artistic ability. He automatically drew eyes, ears, nose and mouth on the correct location of a human face. He obviously remembered what his mother had been doing when he was in the womb. She had verbally and explicitly instructed her grade-school class to render the human face again and again.
Seven Lessons in the Womb: Torkom Saraydarian
The mother's womb is most precious schoolroom. Her life, thoughts, and visions are the child's supreme teacher. She can instill seeds of creativity, purity and righteousness within the unborn child. Then no matter what adverse conditions he faces later in life, the child will find his way. He will shine like a jewel in the mud of his surroundings and will never lose his beauty.
The mother's influence, while the child is in the womb, is greater than all his strivings and failures in previous lives as well as influences gathered from past life relationships. The mother conditions him and either gives him a chance to overcome his hindrances and live as a cause, or continue to be the effect of the causes of the past.
The pregnant mother and unborn child are most sensitive to suggestions between the third and fourth months and during the eighth and ninth months. That is when the pregnant mother must be especially careful about what she sees, hears, and is exposed to.
The expectant mother can teach her unborn baby seven lessons everyday of the pregnancy. As she touches her abdomen, she tells her child:
"Listen carefully to me, my baby, many good things are waiting on your path. I, your mother, will prepare you so that your life will be full of beauty and blessings. I will teach you seven lessons everyday until your birth so that you, as a soul, fully grasp it. My beloved baby, these are not hard lessons. God will be with you. And I will repeat these lessons to you until the day I depart from you."
Lesson1: Beauty and Goodness "Have beauty, goodness,and truth in your life. Love and protect beauty. Be physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually beautiful."
Lesson 2: Courage "Be a good, harmless, loving and helpful person. Be courageous and fearless. Never allow anyone to misuse you for their pleasures and interests. Stand like a lion when the rights and freedom of your friends and humanity are under attack."
Lesson 3: Joy "Never abandon your joy. No matter what, always spread and share joy."
Lesson 4: Excellent Health "Be healthy and remain healthy even when you grow old. Accept no sickness.
Lesson 5: Truthfulness "Be truthful to your conscience, God, and the highest good and welfare of humanity. The spirit of self-interest and exploitation will stay away from you."
Lesson 6: Compassion "Be courageous and fearless to defend the weak and the sick, guide the blind, and strengthen the arms which work for the construction of a new world."
Lesson 7: Creativity "Be creative. Bring inspiration with you from the higher realms."
Noise: Curse of Civilization
Sensitive mothers have observed their unborn child become more restless during a concert or pop festival or when they stand near near a passing train or a door when it slams shut. That is why spiritual leaders advise the pregnant woman of the negative effects of noise on the unborn:
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Dr Norbert Glas -- Pregnant women are more open to dreams and revelations during sleep. Yet, how can they remember their visions if the noise of a radio program wakes them up in the morning? Nobody interested in inner development should be exposed to the noise of the radio first thing in the morning. The radio destroys whatever experience they can bring out of sleep, even if it is only the feeling of being refreshed.
Furthermore, it is difficult for a mother to surround her unborn child with loving thoughts before falling asleep just after she has attended the cinema or watched a television movie. Those impressions are still dancing in front of her eyes. Similar evil effects result from falling asleep to the noise of the radio.
For these reasons, pregnant women must avoid entertainment which disconnects the human being from his spiritual origin.
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Torkom Saraydarian -- Ancient societies protected pregnant women from noise in order to keep peace and health in the embryo and the mother. A modern woman should protect herself to a certain degree. No one should make loud noises or play loud music around a mother-to-be.
Noise is the curse of our civilization. It distracts the mind and causes fatigue. It disturbs the electrical set-up of the glands and cells. Heavy noise can overstimulate, crack, and split cells and permanently damage the senses. Noise also creates a partial disconnection between the physical and etheric brain, resulting in irritation, anger, cruelty, violence and hyperactivity.
Eliminating noise increases the spirit of courage, daring, fearlessness, manliness, freedom of expression, joy, clear intellect, vigor and health in the souls of the babies.
The expectant mother should not work or drive on freeways or in congested traffic. She should be under no stress or irritating conditions. She should stay away from factories, railways, or busy, noisy surroundings.
Prenatal research verifies what the ancient traditions taught about a baby's reaction to loud noise or music:
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Dr Alfred Tomatis -- The unborn's earliest experience of sounds can either stimulate or discourage the baby's desire to listen and communicate.
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Dr Thomas Verny -- Babies begin hearing as early as the eighteenth week of pregnancy and can respond to voices and music. The mother's voice is important since the unborn child is never beyond the range of his mother's voice. Singing a lullaby, speaking softly, humming or crooning creates a positive bond between mother and baby. If on the other hand, her voice is chronically shrill, expressing anger or alarming, the preborn may learn to dread it.
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Dr Thomas Verny -- At five months, the child in the prenatal state will react to a loud sound by raising his hands and covering his ears.
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Dr David Chamberlain -- One pregnant woman attended a loud rock concert. The baby kicked so hard that the mother came home with a broken rib. In another case, a mother reported how wildly the fetus kicked during a movie thriller. In a third example, an expectant mother attending a movie about the Vietnam War left the theater because the unborn reacted so intensely.
Guidelines for a Gifted Child
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Torkom Saraydarian -- Heroism stands for truth, self-sacrifice, justice, unity, beauty, goodness, and the brotherhood of humanity. A pregnant woman who reads about great people immediately transmits these impressions to the embryo and evokes greatness and heroic tendencies within the baby. That is why pregnant women in some Asian villages gathered together and listened to wandering poets, musicians, and troubadours who sang with their beautiful voices and music.
Admiration and ecstasy have an alchemical effect on the aura. They produce a kind of fiery substance which invigorates, transforms, and heals the body, purifies the emotions and expands consciousness. This charges the embryo with a spirit of striving and creativity.
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Ohiyesa (aka Charles Alexander Eastman) -- A pregnant woman within the Native American tradition chooses a great individual from her family line and tribe as a model for her child. She contemplates on this hero daily during pregnancy and feeds her mind with lofty thoughts.
"She gathers from tradition all of his noted deeds and daring exploits, and rehearses them to herself when alone. In order that the impression might be more distinct, she avoids company. She isolates herself as much as possible, and wanders prayerful in the stillness of the great woods, or on the bosom of the untrodden prairie, not thoughtlessly, but with an eye to the impressions received from the grand and beautiful scenery.
To her poetic mind the imminent birth of her child prefigures the advent of a great spirit -- a hero, or the mother of heroes -- a thought conceived in the virgin breast of primeval nature, and dreamed out in a hush broken only by the sighing of the pine tree or the thrilling orchestra of a distant waterfall."
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Paracelsus -- A pregnant woman who persistently thinks about a wise and great man such as Plato or Aristotle, a great musician, a famous painter like Durer, works upon the plastic tendencies of the unborn child so that her offspring exhibits similar qualities. But there must be something in the mother which shall correspond to the special talents which she has imagined.
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Ayurveda -- The child's mental development begins around the fifth or sixth month of gestation. The fetus begins to develop the power and faculty of attention and is then affected by the mother's thoughts. Reading devotional stories, spiritually-oriented books, or humorous writing, rather than disturbing news, television themes of violence, or negative conversation sows seeds in his newly forming mental body.
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Ella Wheeler Wilcox -- Avoid reading or thinking or talking cruelty, sin, folly or sorrow. Think about the lives of noble people who have made the world a better place. Read biographies of great humanitarians, philosophers, poets, musicians and artists.
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Swami Satchidananda -- A pregnant woman who desires a saintly child reads scriptures, holy books, and biographies of saints and heroes. She fills her room with photographs of saints, rather than reading crime novels and watching sensational movies.
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Murshida Vera Justin Corda -- Reading sacred literature places a pregnant woman in humble submission and receptivity before creative, inspiring holy beings who serve humanity in exceptional ways. Total comprehension is not essential -- it is the impress that counts. She will reverberate with certain secrets of spiritual living that she receives and impart these messages through the subtle bodies to the fetus. Years later her child will manifest the attributes her spiritual reading engendered.
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