Conscious Womb Time
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light were the hours are suns,
Endless and singing.
--Stephen Spender
Individuals who have natural memories of womb-time relate a wide range of prenatal experience just as some adults experience pain, suffering and hardship whereas others live comfortably, without distress.
Each pregnancy is unique for both the mother and the unborn. The mother's transmits her inner state to the unborn via the umbilical cord and influences its experiences. The ability of each unborn child likewise varies in how it copes with any potential negativity coming from the mother and the outer environment.
According to teachings of the Sri Ram Foundation, the child may feel pain and discomfort in the prenatal state, however it may be like a dream like feeling something in a semi-conscious state. It's useless to worry about whether a child feels pain or pleasure inside the womb because it's the law of nature that we each must pass through those stages. If suffering comes, a strength to tolerate it also comes. If a child in the womb suffers pain, some pranic energy gives strength to tolerate it.
Stories and reports included here:
Prenatal Life: Pleasant or Unpleasant?
Is prenatal life pleasant, unpleasant, or a little of both? Experiences of suffering, in most cases, characterize the entire period of gestation according to Tibetan Buddhism. The pain of prenatal life is attributed to the karma of human existence as well as individual karma. An individual with virtuous karma, for instance, experiences more happiness and less suffering in the womb.
The baby becomes dimly aware of the confined, cramped conditions within its mother's womb towards the end of pregnancy, and just before birth experiences a sense of oppression and claustrophobia. Buddha taught: "if we even understood the pain and suffering a fetus experiences in its mother's womb, we would work hard in this lifetime to become enlightened and never experience such suffering again."
Kalu Rinpoche compares the pain during the development of the orifices and sensory organs to someone "sticking a finger into an open wound, probing it, and ripping it open." The pain experienced when the arms, legs, and head are developing are like a strong person pulling our arms out of their sockets while someone else beats them with a club.
The following excerpt from the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification) - an encyclopedic compilation of Buddhist doctrine and meditation written in the 5th century by Bhadantacaryia Buddhaghosa - elaborates on the suffering rooted in the descent into the womb. This passage is found in the exposition of the First Noble Truth - dukkha or 'suffering'.
When this being is born in the mother's womb, he is not born inside a blue or red or white lotus, etc., but on the contrary, like a worm in rotting fish, rotting dough, cesspools, etc., he is born in the belly in a position that is below the receptacle for undigested food (stomach), above the receptacle for digested food (rectum), between the belly-lining and the backbone, which is very cramped, quite dark, pervaded by very fetid draughts redolent of various smells of ordure, and exceptionally loathsome.
And on being reborn there, for ten months he undergoes excessive suffering, being cooked like a pudding in a bag by the heat produced in the mother's womb, and steamed like a dumpling of dough, with no bending, stretching, and so on. So this, firstly, is the suffering rooted in the descent into the womb.
When the mother suddenly stumbles or moves or sits down or gets up or turns around, the extreme suffering he undergoes by being dragged back and forth and jolted up and down, like a kid fallen into the hands of a drunkard, or like a snake's young fallen into the hands of a snake-charmer; and also the searing pain that he undergoes, as though he had reappeared in the cold hells, when his mother drinks cold water, and as though deluged by a rain of embers, when she swallows hot rice gruel, rice, etc., and as though undergoing the torture of the 'lye-pickling' when she swallows anything salty or acidic, etc. -- this is the suffering rooted in gestation.
When the mother has an abortion, the pain that arises in him through the cutting and rending in the place where the pain arises is not fit to be seen even by friends and intimates and companions -- this is the suffering rooted in abortion.
The pain that arises in him when the mother gives birth, through his being turned upside down by the karma produced wind's [forces] and flung into that most fearful passage from the womb, like an infernal chasm, and lugged out through the extremely narrow mouth of the womb, like an elephant through a keyhole, like a denizen of hell being pounded to pulp by colliding rocks -- this is the suffering rooted in parturition.
The pain that arises in him after he is born, and his body, which is as delicate as a tender wound, is taken in the hands, bathed, washed, rubbed with cloths, etc., and which pain is like being pricked with needle points and gashed with razor blades, etc., -- this is the suffering rooted in venturing outside the mother's womb.
The pain that arises afterwards during the course of existence in one who punishes himself, in one who devotes himself to the practice of mortification and austerity according to the vows of the naked ascetics, in one who starves through anger, and in one who hangs himself -- this is the suffering rooted in self-violence.
And that arising in one who undergoes flogging, imprisonment, etc., at the hands of others is the suffering rooted in others' violence.
So this birth is the basis for all this suffering. Hence this is said:
Now were no being born in hell again
The pain unbearable of scorching fires
And all the rest would then no footing gain;
Therefore the Sage pronounced that birth is pain.
Many the sorts of pain that beasts endure
When they are flogged with whips and sticks and goads,
Since birth among them does this pain procure,
Birth there is pain: the consequence is sure.
While ghosts know pain in great variety
Through hunger, thirst, wind, sun and what not too,
None, unless born there, knows this misery;
So birth the Sage declares this pain to be.
In the world-interspace, where demons dwell
In searing cold and inspissated gloom,
Is pain requiring birth there for its spell;
So with the birth the pain ensues as well.
The horrible torment a being feels on coming out,
When he has spent long months shut up inside the mothers womb --
A hellish tomb of excrement -- would never come about
Without rebirth: that birth is pain there is no room for doubt.
But why elaborate? At any time or anywhere
Can there exist a painful state if birth do not precede?
Indeed this Sage so great, when he expounded pain, took care
First to declare rebirth as pain, the condition needed there.
This is the exposition of birth.
Tibetan Masters Enter Physical Reality
A Tibetan Buddhist Lama does not experience the sufferings of an ordinary child when he is reborn. When in the womb, he typically sits in meditation posture, totally absorbed, with no awareness of the pain of growth or the size of his body. His mother equally enjoys ease and happiness. She witnesses wonderful omens and signs. She may dream of a dorje (holy ritual object) piercing her heart, or perhaps she has auspicious dreams of a counter-clockwise conch shell or golden wheel. She frequently hears mantras, such as Om Mani Padme Hung.
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The Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje felt like a god in one of the high desire realms, enjoying a most pleasant existence throughout the pregnancy.
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A young child spontaneously sat in the position of the Buddha Amitabha, the embodiment of deathlessness. He explained to his mother, "This is the way I sat when I was seated in your womb." When someone asked the young prodigy about his previous lives, the six-year-old recounted historical details of his lives as the 1st Gyalwa Karmapa, Dusum Khyenpa and the 2nd Gyalwa Karmapa, Karma Pakshi. The boy's memories were confirmed and he became the 4th Karmapa Rolpe Dorje (1340-1383), head of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.
Paramahamsa Yogananda and Life in the Womb
Paramahamsa Yogananda explains that once the soul enters the womb, it wonders, "What have I done? I have been free from the confining mortal body for so long, gliding along in a weightless body of light, and now I am caught again in a physical form."
"That is the punishment. It is nine months of living in a dungeon in which you have to breathe through someone else, eat through someone else, receive your blood, and the power for its circulation, through someone else. You are dependent. Your soul cries to the Lord, 'Let me out of this prison! I can't see, I can't hear, I am bound.' If there is a hades or purgatory it is those nine months in the mother's body -- helpless, in darkness, bound to one spot like a tree, with only occasional memories of the past coming in, and then lapses into sleep. It is when memories of the past life come that you struggle in the mother's body. I have transported my consciousness into these prenatal states and I know what I am saying."
The baby's waking/sleeping cycle is independent of the mother's cycle.
"The child's will to move is a memory coming from the soul's past. So he stirs restlessly in the mother's body until he tires and goes to sleep. Then he wakes up for a while and moves again."
Puranas and Charaka Samhita
Most souls enter the womb unknowingly and stay there unknowingly. Due to divine ordinance, the embryo possesses consciousness/knowledge only near the end of the prenatal period. Each embryo temporarily recalls thousands of previous births and is tormented by former deeds. The embryo feels disgusted with the pains of rebirth and sighs deeply. He makes the sublime resolution to never experience human birth again. He contemplates spiritual teachings and prays for divine refuge.
The fetus plagues his mother, and he often finds her diet acidic, bitter, pungent, hot, and saline. The embryo suffers during the final trimester. With his head placed in his belly and his back and neck curved in the womb, the unborn is conscious of who he really is and becomes disgusted with the suffering related to human life. He wishes to escape his dark, doorless chamber, but is incapable of moving his limbs.
Shukdeo's Prenatal Consciousness
The ancient Indian rishi Ved Vyas requested that his son Shukdeo come out of his mother's womb to be born. The child replied, "I am happy over here. Maya will take me over if I come out." Ved Vyas reminded his son, "You are already enlightened." Shukdeo finally came out after twelve years. He was beautiful, of shyam color and his eyes were half opened.
In early childhood, Shukdeo left home and walked into the deep forest. Ved Vyas followed his son to get him back. Ved Vyas noticed how Shukdeo's presence did not disturb the women bathing in a pond, yet, they moved into deeper waters to hide when he came by. Ved Vyas asked, "Why do you hide your bodies from an old man and not from my young son?" The women replied, "When Shukdeo passed, his soul was in union with God and he did not see us, however you notice everything."
The father then realized Shukdeo's destiny so he returned to his hut. Ved Vyas wrote a sacred text, the Bhagwatam after this incident. None of his disciples were capable of learning it so he asked one of his disciples to find Shukdeo in the forest and recite the verses to him.
The verses went right through Shukdeo's mind and heart, past the deepest layers of samadhi. He asked, "Who taught you these verses?" The disciple replied, "My teacher. Come with me and he will teach you more such verses."
Shukdeo came to Ved Vyas and said, "Oh, my father! Teach me the entire Bhagwatam." In this way, Shukdeo learned the Bhagwatam and revealed the text for the benefit of others such as King Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna.
Salvador Dali's Amniotic World
The famous Spanish painter Salvador Dali's prenatal memories reveal that he was aware of his family's thoughts and emotions.
My older brother died at seven, three years prior to my birth. His disappearance was a terrible shock. My mother was never to get over it. My parents' despair was assuaged only by my own birth, but their misfortune still penetrated every cell of their bodies. And within my mother's womb, I could already feel their angst. My fetus swam in an infernal placenta. Their anxiety never left me.
The excess of love lavished on me by my father from the day of my birth was a narcissan wound, one I had already felt in my mother's womb. Only through paranoia, that is, the prideful exaltation of self, did I succeed in saving myself from the annihilation of systematic self-doubt. I learned to live by filling the vacuum of the affection that was not really being felt for me with love-of-me-for-me; I first conquered death with pride and narcissism."
Dali recalls the intra-uterine realm, as a Lost Paradise. Dali enjoyed a goo of sperm and phosphorescent eggwhite in which I am suspended like an angel fallen from grace.
Indeed if you ask me how it was "in there," I shall immediately answer, "It was divine, it was paradise." But what was this paradise like? Have no fear, details will not be lacking. But allow me to begin with a short general description: the intra-uterine paradise was the color of hell, that is to say, red, orange, yellow and bluish, the color of flames, of fire; above all it was soft, immobile, warm, symmetrical, double, gluey. Already at that time all pleasure, all enchantment for me was in my eyes, and the most splendid, the most striking vision was that of a pair of eggs fried in a pan, without the pan; to this is probably due that perturbation and that emotion which I have since felt, the whole rest of my life, in the presence of this ever-hallucinatory image. The eggs, fried in the pan, without the pan, which I saw before my birth were grandiose, phosphorescent and very detailed in all the folds of their faintly bluish whites. These two eggs would approach (toward me), recede, move toward the left, toward the right, upward, downward; they would attain the iridescence and the intensity of mother-of-pearl fires; only to diminish progressively and at last vanish.
Prenatal Memory of a Shankaracharya
"I spent nine months in intimate contact with you womenfolk. How shabbily was I treated! Hung upside down in solitary confinement in a dark, damp, dingy cell -- I can never forget those days. That is the reason why I have lost all desire for your company."
--Jagadguru Bhagwan Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswatiji Maharaj of Jyotirmath
Buddha's Conscious Passage to Birth
Buddha entered his mother's womb mindful and conscious due to the power and level of his realization. His mother's mind was virginal. Mahamaya had taken the five bases of study, practiced the ten virtues.
Due to Mahamaya's heightened consciousness, her body became transparent and the child could be seen like a golden image enclosed in a vase of crystal; so that it could be known how much he grew everyday. She observed her unborn child with all his limbs and sense organs as clearly as seeing a thread pass through a transparent gem: like a beryl jewel, pure, noble, eight-sided, excellently worked, and threaded with a blue, yellow, red, white, or yellowish thread. He was distinctly visible, sitting cross-legged and dignified, and giving lessons to angels who guarded him.
Buddha and his mother's womb are compared to a gem placed on Benares muslin. One does not stain the other; they embellish each other due to their purity. Buddha gave his mother neither pain nor sickness. Mahamaya remained free from fatigue, depression, and fancies which normally accompany pregnancy. She felt energetic, and happy, nor did she feel hurt when the child stretched out his hand for preaching to the angels.
Buddha benefitted many people through a transmission of the dharma during the prenatal state. By holding Buddha in her womb, Queen Mahamaya relieved people from suffering by merely being in her presence. She exorcised evil spirits, and cured people suffering from ulcers, cancer, consumption, leprosy, throat disease, etc., by placing her right hand upon their heads. And if the queen took up a handful of the holy kusa-grass, that, too, proved an infallible remedy.
Buddha was immune to the pain of final delivery. He issued out of his mother's right side -- without a stain. There was no impure liquid, mucus, or blood attached to his holy body. Two streams of water came down from the sky to wash their bodies.
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When I was in my mother's womb, I was confined in a dark place,
trapped in the entrails. The Holy Name was the basis of my existence
so I repeated the Holy Name continuously even when I was in the womb.
--Sri Sri Thakur Anukulchandra
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