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Thread: Procreation

  1. #1

    Procreation

    I'd like to discuss the topic of procreation in the current times. Should we continue to keep having kids? If so, how many? Why do people procreate in such a crowded and struggling world? Is it dharmic to keep having kids knowing that more people equals more mouths to feed, more resources to consume, and more space to take up in an already-crowded world? I would also like to know what people's opinions are on sex without procreation. This can and perhaps should all be done from a Hindu perspective.

    My opinion is that dharmically-minded people should not have kids and not even one (from this point forward). First, you are responsible for the spiritual upbringing of the child. Regardless of the child's karma, the society is becoming more and more devoid of any spirituality and mentally-diseased. I don't believe that a spiritually-minded person would want to have kids in such a hostile environment. Surely such souls can go to other planets.

    Second, chances are you are unable to provide a proper material upbringing for the child. This is because (regardless of country) our educational systems, labor systems, and political systems are for the most part bogus and more harmful than good. Not to mention culture. I would want a child exposed to a healthy society where education, labor, politics, and culture were focused on higher thinking and simpler living, giving, serving, loving, and showing kindness. Not a world where "getting ahead" is the king of everything else.

    Third, there are too many people. The world does not need billions of people regardless of their spiritual consciousness. Even if everyone is truly spiritual, billions are not needed on one small planet. Our human society has no goals, no direction, and no purpose other than to keep reproducing, consuming, and spreading. Just because everyone else is reproducing, consuming, and spreading does not mean that you need to do the same. Going back to point one, if your argument is that you can produce a spiritually-minded child, there are no guarantees and the chances are very slim. While you can provide a limited environment, karma and maya are more powerful.

    Fourth, having kids seem for the most part ego-based in this day and age. The only logical reason I see that people are producing is because they want to carry on their genes, name, family heritage, and have the title of father/mother, and receive credit and societal approval for their "accomplishment." Simple observance shows me that societal approval is the dominating factor. Everyone else is reproducing, so why shouldn't you? My conclusion is that in this point the reason people should not have kids is because there is absolutely no purpose in having kids. The world doesn't need more kids and most people are just having kids to fit in with everyone else. There is no purpose to more kids and people who wish to have a life with purpose shouldn't do stuff that has no purpose. They shouldn't have kids. They should use the time, money, and energy normally wasted on adding one more number to overcrowd the masses instead on pious charitable activites such as spending such "time, money, and energy" on those who are already living and less fortunate than you.

    In order to conclude my point, a spiritually-minded person and particularlly a karma yogi who is interest in helping the world should start actually serving the world instead of simply increasing the amount of people that need to be taken care of. ~BYS~

  2. #2
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    Re: Procreation

    Namaste Shri Bhakti Yoga Seeker.
    Please note if a vaishnava know that he/che is sure to can raise spiritually a child,there is nothing wrong in having children.But it it a good thing,because thanks to spiritual realization the children will be able to reach Moksha,freedom the cycle of rebirth adn death.
    However,if someone is not sure to can reaise spiritually a child he/should not have kids.

    Now,please read what Swami Shivananda says in his book Practice of Brahmacharya in the Chapter A foolish argument of the Epicureans
    at http://www.dlshq.org/download/brahma...#_Toc441556990

    A foolish argument of the Epicureans
    Some ignorant people say: "It is not right to check passion. We must not go against nature. Why has God created young beautiful women? There must be some sense, in His creation. We should enjoy them and procreate as many as possible. We should keep up the progeny of the line. If all people become Sannyasins and go to forests, what will become of this world? It will come to an end. If we check passion, we will get disease. We must get plenty of children. There is happiness in the house when we have abundant children. The happiness of married life cannot be described in words. It is the be-all and end-all of life. I do not like Vairagya, Tyaga, Sannyasa and Nivritti." This is their crude philosophy. They are the direct descendants of Charvaka and Virochana. They are life-members of the Epicurean school of thought. Gluttonism is their goal of life. They have a very large following. They are friends of Satan. Admirable is their philosophy!

    When they lose their property, wife and children, when they suffer from, an incurable disease, they will say, "O God, free me from this horrible disease. Forgive me my sins. I am a great sinner."

    Passion should be checked at all costs. Not a single disease comes by checking passion. On the contrary, you will get immense power, joy and peace. There are also effective methods to control passion. One should reach Atman, which is beyond nature, by going against nature. Just as a fish swims upstream against the current in a river, so also, you will have to move against the worldly currents of evil forces. Then alone can you have Self-realization. Passion is an evil force; and it should be checked if you want to enjoy undecaying Atmic bliss. Sexual pleasure is no pleasure at all. It is a mental delusion. It is attended with dangers, pain, fear, exertion and disgust. If you know Yoga or the science of Atman, you can very easily control the dire malady, which is passion. God wants you to enjoy the bliss of Atman, which can be had by renouncing all these pleasures of this world. These beautiful women and wealth are the instruments of Maya to delude you and entrap you into her nets. If you wish to remain always as a worldly man with low thoughts, debasing desires, you can by all means do so. You are at perfect liberty. You can marry three hundred and fifty wives and procreate as many children. Nobody can check you. But you will soon find that this world cannot give you the satisfaction you want, because all objects are conditioned in time, space and causation. There are death, disease, old age, cares, worries and anxieties, fear, loss, disappointment failure, abuse, heat, cold, snake-bites, scorpion-stings, earthquakes and accidents. You cannot at all find rest of mind even for a single second. As your mind is filled with passion and impurity, your understanding is clouded and your intellect is perverted now. You are not able to understand the illusory nature of the universe and the ever-lasting bliss of Atman.

    Passion can be effectively checked. There are potent methods. After checking passion, you will enjoy real bliss from within—from Atman. All men cannot become Sannyasins. They have various ties and attachments. They are passionate and cannot, therefore, leave the world. They are pinned to their wives, children and property. Your proposition is wholly wrong. It is Asambhava. It is impossible. Have you ever heard in the annals of the world’s history that this world became vacant as all men became Sannyasins? Then, why do you bring in this absurd proposition? This is an ingenious trick of your mind to support your foolish arguments and satanic philosophy, which has passion and sexual gratification as its important tenets. Do not talk like this in future. This exposes your foolishness and passionate nature. Do not bother yourself about this world. Mind your own business. God is all-powerful. Even if this world is completely evacuated when all people retire to the forests, God will immediately create crores of people by mere willing, within the twinkling of an eye. This is not your look-out. Find out methods to eradicate your passion.

    Marriage cannot be taken as an indispensable factor in everyone’s life. Rather, a true aspirant should definitely keep himself far, far away from the fetters of a married life. For him, marriage constitutes a curse; while at the same time, for a man of a lustful disposition for whom it is extremely difficult to get over carnal passions, it is a sort of a fence and a protecting vault to his moral recklessness. Marriage is, therefore, prescribed for those—and it applies to the majority of mankind—who are not yet ready for a life of absolute self-restraint and thus is to be regarded by them as a sacrament, and certainly not as a licence to self-indulgence.

    Every one born in this world need not necessarily marry. Marriage is meant to regulate one’s life in the world. But for the institution of marriage in society, life would become irregular and beastly. But, where there is no passion in the heart, where the desire for God is strong, where there is a longing for spiritual pursuits, marriage is not compulsory. Such a man can lead a Naishthik Brahmachari’s life.

    Parents should not force marriage on their sons. They should not stamp out the spiritual Samskaras of their children. Many young men in whom there is a spiritual awakening write to me in pitiable words: "Dear Swamiji, my heart throbs for higher spiritual things. I have no interest in worldly matters. The surroundings are not favourable. I am entangled in the meshes of marriage. My parents forced me, much against my will, to marry. I had to please my old parents. They threatened me in various ways. I now weep. What shall I do now?" Young boys, who have no idea of this world and this life, are married when they are eight or ten years of age. We see children begetting children. There are child-mothers. A boy of about eighteen has three children. What a horrible state of affairs! Early marriages have wrought early loss of semen. There is physical and mental degeneration. There is no longevity. All are short-lived. Frequent child-bearing destroys the health of women and brings in a host of other ailments.

    You have adopted various habits from the West in matters relating to dress and fashion. You have become a creature of vile imitation. They, in the West, do not marry unless they are able to maintain a family decently. They have got more self-restraint. They first secure a decent station in life, earn money, save something and then only think of marriage. If they have not got sufficient money, they remain bachelors throughout their lives. They do not want to bring forth beggars into this world just in the same manner as you do. He who has understood the magnitude of human suffering in this world will never dare to bring forth a single child from the womb of a woman.


    Regards,
    Orlando.

  3. #3

    Re: Procreation

    Interesting topic, time limited for me now to answer in detail.

    It is only the people in developed and advanced countries who can get convinced about control of population to prevent over population. The poor and more backward cultures will continue to expand ~ believe it or not your logic though applies to them more, makes least sense to poor.

    When in one end the civilized will control their growth, there will be others who will flood. We know very well how one religious community expands it's demographic presence through fast breeding. Please study moslem growth in India post independence and now the hot topic of how moslems came to have 6% of europe from a few immigrants. Do you think dharmic people controlling birth will have a good impact on earth under such circumstances??

    UN sponsored child birth control for Hindu's in India and 4 wives for muslims is the law you are going to end with.

    My idea is, when you are capabale of raising one or more children in this world you must do it. Far from any dharmic argument this is about survival of your kind and nature's law. A dharmic individual should not be too concerned with what will happen to the world ~ nature will take care.
    Control of procreation is a control of nature's working and is bound to produce counter productive results - We will end up producing a far more worse condition than the one we started to rectify.

  4. #4

    Re: Procreation

    One theory I have on this is that people produce needlessly often as a sense of accomplishment. During the Great Depression an unusually large amount of kids were born. Same with the "baby boomer" era following WWII. We have seen for centuries how it is often the poorest sectors of society and the world that have the most kids. I believe that part if not most of this is due to the fact that someone who is very poor and has little hope for any kind of economic or social improvement in life sees having children as their only possible sense of accomplishment. Since they feel that they will never really "make it" in the world and be able to contribute to society in any meaningful way, having children is their only way of contributing to the world. As with my original point, it is still based in selfishness--that is being more concerned with how you will look in the eyes of society than on simply doing the right thing.

    Religion has also certainly had its role as well with brainwashing people to keep producing. Another one that is often overlooked is the capitalist system. Wealthy people will consider children an expense while the poor will consider kids a valuable asset. That is because the more kids they have, the more manpower they have to send to work either on farms or in factories. What starts out as simply more mouths to feed turns into extra labor to pay the bills and put food on the table. Wealthy people who generally have lots of time and money won't want to waste it on too many kids when they could be enjoying their lives to themselves yet the very poor who have no money or time can only see this as a possible advantage in the future as the extra labor.

    A point that people often bring up that I disagree on is with regards to education. People frequently claim that the reason poor countries have so many kids is because they are not educated on birth control, planning, etc. I stronly disagree with this education argument. This is the 21st century where even the poorest countries in the world still have newspapers and TV as well as book libraries. People are not robots that need to be trained on how to do everything from eating to mating. Many things are common sense regardless of what schools, churches, or government has to say on them. People know what the consequences are when they get into bed with one another regardless of whether they have a college degree or cannot even read or write. The fact is that the masses in general make choices without concern for the consequences. People have become addicted to the buy now, pay later mentality where you can play now and work later and in reality it just doesn't work. It is sad that simple common sense now has to be taught in our schools because nobody has any brain matter left. If large sectors of our society need to be taught the rudimentaries of material existence such as eating, sleeping, and mating then I have no hope for humanity's future at all.

    Namaste. ~BYS~

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    Re: Procreation

    I for one would like to think that by example we, as Hindus can remain positive and be an example for the remaining faiths. If we aren't producing children that are brought into this world to carry on our traditions, will our traditions become lost and unavailable to those that will be born into this world?

    There is certainly a need for change in the world and producing healthy children with spiritual values is important. I do agree that it is difficult and will become even more so in this age of Kali Yuga. My concern is that we are not producing the spiritual values and morals that are needed today - that is why are children are suffering. We need to put more focus on the education of all men. My limited personal experience in learning the values and traditions of the Hindu faith has been frustrating. In the 4th largest city in America, the Hindu community is not well unified. There are schools to teach our children, but what happens to the adults that not only need to nurture them but themselves as well.

    I wish that I had the answers to societies ills, but I truly don't feel that putting an end to creation is the answer. Where is the support and guidance from the Vedas on this?
    Last edited by c.smith; 15 June 2006 at 09:58 AM.

  6. #6
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    Re: Procreation

    I can say from experience that in India the poorest have more kids and it is common sense for them to have more kids!

    Let's say I am a poor guy with a wife and am newly wed. I own nothing, no farm, no equipment, no education, not even a house. I live in a small hut with my wife and sick parents. I drive a rickshaw all day long pulling these fat idiots from one place to other...The rickshaw is not even mine…the owner will take all of the money and give me 30 ruppees at the end of the day

    What goes in my mind all day long...Human psychology is at play here...

    I get home; I eat a handful of rice and lie down. No entertainment, no satisfaction, no contentment...I have nothing to look forward to in my life except my wife is there and two poor sick parents that I can not even buy the medicine for and every time I take them to the 'sarkari' (government funded) hospital...I get literally yelled at and kicked...life has kicked me from all sides...where is this God who is supposed to be protecting everyone? Is this all my previous karma?

    I can not even read let alone discuss philosophy or religion with others. I have no time... I have no hope...I have nothing....

    What is the only thing that I still have control over???????

    Sex!! That’s the only thing that gives me 'entertainment', release of tension, satisfaction of some kind...and so I mate...

    I am not educated but I am not stupid...I know that more kids I make the more mouths to feed...but that will only be for a few years...as soon as my son is 5 or 6 I will get him to help around the house...soon after he can work in a shop washing dishes and start bringing home some money...the more sons the better...what if it's a girl....she will help around the house with my wife and she can go with her to wash dishes at other people's houses and start bringing more money....

    Yes, more kids are better!

    This is 'common sense' for a man in that situation!
    satay

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    Re: Procreation

    Quote Originally Posted by satay
    I can say from experience that in India the poorest have more kids and it is common sense for them to have more kids!

    .........
    Satay got his Economics education rightly.

    People are poor because they have many kids, but they have many kids for they are poor

  8. #8

    Re: Procreation

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramkish42
    People are poor because they have many kids, but they have many kids for they are poor
    Actually, most people are poor before they have kids. Usually kids are not the cause of the parents' poverty but having a large number of them can cause the poverty to become worse. The problem that most people don't want to address is the capitalist system as a whole. The system is designed to require a majority of the people to be poor or at least poor relative to the extreme wealthy. In order to keep the people from resisting, they brainwash the poor and "middle class" by telling them that if they had more skills and education that they would be richer. While often true, the fact is that most of the labor in any society only requires skills relevant to that job and most don't require much if any education. It is quite sad how in the 21st century most people are working themselves to death and at the same time living in poverty. Going back to the topic, it doesn't sound like a world I would want to bring up my kids in. ~BYS~

  9. #9

    Re: Procreation

    Thanks for your input as well as the quote. However, I generally disagree with Swami Shivananda's views on this. If one wants to live a Brahmacharya lifestyle, then I am all for it and not much needs to be said about it. Such a person should be capable of controling the senses and not feeling the need for certain material enjoyment. What I disagree on is when gurus such as Shivananda take what works for a small minority of people and then turn around and apply it to everyone.

    I believe it was Singhi Kaya that brought up religion as a cause for too many kids. I never really touched upon that but now I will. Islam allows Muslim men to have as many as four wives thus allowing four times the number of kids being born. While most Muslim men don't have more than one wife, there are clearly examples of overpopulation in Muslim-dominated countries as well as other countries (such as India) with a large Muslim population. However, Islam probably isn't the best example because Islam allows married couples to have any kind of sex they want and as much as they want as long as they don't commit adultery. They do not prohibit sex that is not for the purposes of procreation and I'm not aware of Muslims pushing for endless strings of kids. Christianity on the other hand through the Catholic Church as well as Mormonism (mostly in the U.S. and Mexico) pushes for endless strings of kids to spread the faith. The Catholic Church for centuries has basically said that sex should not be done with any kind of "unnatural" birth control. We can look at Latin America and see how many people are there. Since this is a Hindu board, I think it is worth also mentioning Hinduism. Apparently there are some Hindu sects (although I don't believe this is the overall Hindu standard) that also say that one may not have sex if it is not for the direct purposes of procreation which in a way is even more extreme than any of the other religions I mentioned. Also, India has quite a large number of people.

    I am not taking sides in this context with any religion because the fact is that whatever spiritual values people have (regardless of religion or no religion) should be relevant to 21st century life. Centuries of religions telling people not to have sex or not to use birth control have demonstrated that this "moral" pushed on society simply doesn't work. It is not healthy to demand the masses who are not ready for spiritual lifestyles to repress something that is biologically natural. Once again, the words of these swamis, priests, imams, whoever who keep saying "have more kids...have more kids..." need to actually spend a good portion of their lives in the most crowded poorest areas of the world and then re-evaluate their opinions on this matter. Additionally, telling people--those that aren't even interested in spirituality--that they should only have sex for procreation is ridiculous. That essentially means someone who wants no kids should be celibate for life. There is no scientific proof that any of this is helpful whatsoever to the individual or the world and in fact a multitude of evidence points that it is NOT good.

    I'm going to touch on a few of the Swami's points:

    Quote Originally Posted by Bhakta of God
    [Swami's words]

    Passion is an evil force; and it should be checked if you want to enjoy undecaying Atmic bliss. Sexual pleasure is no pleasure at all. It is a mental delusion. It is attended with dangers, pain, fear, exertion and disgust.
    This is utter nonsense. It sounds a lot like Christian conservatives where everything is black or white. People that say alcohol is evil, rock-and-roll are evil, etc. when almost always not a shred of evidence demonstrates anything they have to say. Passion CAN be an evil force for some but it can also be beneficial to others as well. I believe (through my OWN experiences) that you can combine material and spiritual energy and have positive results. I believe you can also use material enjoyment for spiritual purposes as well. Passion as with anything (good or bad) should be checked and balanced. As to the comment that sexual pleasure is no pleasure at all, this is completely delusional. I respect Swami's rights to have his opinions but I also have the right to disagree with him (before anyone starts in on me).

    Quote Originally Posted by Bhakta of God
    [Swami's words]

    Parents should not force marriage on their sons. They should not stamp out the spiritual Samskaras of their children. Many young men in whom there is a spiritual awakening write to me in pitiable words: "Dear Swamiji, my heart throbs for higher spiritual things. I have no interest in worldly matters. The surroundings are not favourable. I am entangled in the meshes of marriage. My parents forced me, much against my will, to marry. I had to please my old parents. They threatened me in various ways. I now weep. What shall I do now?" Young boys, who have no idea of this world and this life, are married when they are eight or ten years of age. We see children begetting children. There are child-mothers. A boy of about eighteen has three children. What a horrible state of affairs! Early marriages have wrought early loss of semen. There is physical and mental degeneration. There is no longevity. All are short-lived. Frequent child-bearing destroys the health of women and brings in a host of other ailments.
    Again, we have this concern over "loss of semen" when humanity should be concerned about the loss of food and resources when too much semen is not lost and too many mouths to feed are roaming the earth. I am beginning to become skeptical of everything our society says we should or should not do because I look for positive results and I don't seem to see any. Our society considers it an ill for people to have children at age 18 and considers it positive for kids at age 18 to be locked away 8 hours a day in prisons called "schools" and learn mostly useless material called "education." The same society considers someone that age responsible enough to drive a dangerous vehicle on the road, have alcoholic beverages in most countries, be criminally responsible for their actions, yet not responsible enough to choose how to live out their lives such as raising a family and breaking away from Mom and Dad. This Swami like many in our world attribute the negative aspects SOME people receive from certain behavior and automatically apply it to all.

    True many people aren't responsible to have kids at age 18. The fact is that regardless of what society says, a person by the age 18 has already been an adult (biologically) for a good four years and many people at that age that normally would have been spoiled college brats now are forced to "grow up" when having kids at a young age. Again, not everything applies to everyone and what works for someone may not work for another. People have different maturity levels and are capable of different things at different ages. Just because society and religion say that something is good or bad doesn't automatically make it true.

    This guru like many today seem to get their history backwards. For hundreds if not thousands of years, it was considered normal to have kids as early as 13 or 14. Now our society tells us we should wait to age 30 or 35 before having kids. I'm not sure why it is so difficult for society to see a middle ground in there that makes sense. Maybe these leaders that tell people how to live their lives should instead stop telling people how to live their lives and actually let people live their lives.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bhakta of God
    [Swami's words]

    You have adopted various habits from the West in matters relating to dress and fashion. You have become a creature of vile imitation. They, in the West, do not marry unless they are able to maintain a family decently. They have got more self-restraint. They first secure a decent station in life, earn money, save something and then only think of marriage. If they have not got sufficient money, they remain bachelors throughout their lives. They do not want to bring forth beggars into this world just in the same manner as you do. He who has understood the magnitude of human suffering in this world will never dare to bring forth a single child from the womb of a woman.[/B]

    Regards,
    Orlando.
    This is not necessarily true about the West and is again a blanket statement. A very small number of these people that wait until age 25 or 30 in the West to get married are actually "bachelors." Most of them start having sex at the age of 16 or 17 and outside of marriage often with many different people until they finally get married to that special someone. My educated guess on why this is happening is because of Western society (mainly through schools and parents) indoctrinating these kids who are actually adults that they must spend 20 years of their life in school and get a dream house and car as well as dream job before they can acutally live a life for a change. Society expects people to restrain themselves for 10 years because of "school" and the "future." It appears to me that it is not today's youth that is becoming degenerated but instead our own society and its failing institutions and beliefs that are degenerated. The education system, labor system, and familial system as a whole are unnatural institutions in society and these social ills we are seeing (such as unplanned kids, too many kids, STDs, etc.) are the results.

    The reason I bring all this up is I have seen it with my own experiences. Society keeps brainwashing you with focusing on your future to the point where you never even get to live a life. I also think that education in our society is one of the largest reasons there are so many of these problems. I don't believe it is natural for human beings to be in warehoures for 14-22 years of their lives. Despite all these people spending their entire childhood and a significant portion of their adulthood in these prisons, few people seem to have any kind of an education or intelligence whatsoever.

    So to go back to the original point, I'm not sure what the solution is or if there even is a solution. The choice is to either bring up more kids in an incredibly dysfunctional world or not bring up these kids. I simply don't buy the argument that we can bring up spiritually-minded kids to change the world because the schools that kids are required by law to attend for at least 10 years brainwash them with the things we don't want them to learn.

    ~BYS~

  10. #10

    Re: Procreation

    Quote Originally Posted by Bhakti Yoga Seeker
    The reason I bring all this up is I have seen it with my own experiences. Society keeps brainwashing you with focusing on your future to the point where you never even get to live a life.~BYS~
    Society imposes rules of it's leaders ~ political and spiritual. Problem is rules cannot be same for all people who appear with 2 legs, 2 arms and a head. We think they are all human. In reality they are shivas at various stages of bonded existence. There cannot be a single rule for all. Libertarianism is good for thinking individuals but will mess up the society big time. Same holds for any other-ism. The suffering of human history can be rooted in incomplete ideologies being forced on the soceity. Some of the ideologies are to help the most like present day democracy and liberty which the west holds dearly. Some others were created to deliberately starve the good in the society and halt evolution (need I give examples?).

    The best we can do is to create conditions for these bonded shivas we call humans to become Shiva. The rules to make this happen changes with time. All rigid ideologies which want to halt progress of jiva to shiva to some sort of humanity or sub-humanity are asurik.

    It may infuriate you, but I must say, that in my openion the varna system was one of the most complete social ideologies till date ~ simply because it took care for the difference. However it has gone rotten and may not be suitable for this age. But it led to far less suffering than what we have seen so far (Islam, Xianity, Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, Imperialism ... list goes on ...). IMHO

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