Doesn’t the idea that the infant suffers in the womb deny the glory of the mother’s love in caring for her infant?

Arrangement of the Lord. Thank you. Question.
Isn’t the idea that the infant is suffering in the womb insensitive to the mother who is carrying the infant in her womb and is going through so much sacrifice to care for the child and if the mother is to care for the child and especially there is also the whole concept of garbha education in the womb, garbha samskara. So, how can that happen if the mother is thinking that the child is suffering in the womb? How can she really think lovingly about the child and think of the child being educated and child getting good samskaras? Answer. Philosophy should expand our human sensitivity, never shrink it and certainly not slaughter it.
So, different philosophical points are meant to be contemplated on at different times. So, birth, old age, disease and death are the miseries of material existence and they are undeniable facts of life and the miseries of birth we may not be able to see, but old age, disease and death, we do see those miseries. But even when we see those miseries, there is a intellectual or philosophical understanding and inference that we draw from those miseries and there is also a cultured and proper response to them.
Just as when we see an old person who is suffering, in a spiritual culture, even the old people are very well taken care of. They are not sent off to old age homes or anything like that. They are taken care of by the family members.
So, that has been in the traditional culture for a long time and now both actually suffering and love go together over there. That means when we see the elderly people having some troubles, then those who are taking care of their sons and daughters, their grandsons and granddaughters also, their whole family, they come together and try to relieve their suffering and try to offer as much help as is possible. And this is how the normal cultured human civilization works.
So now, it’s not that because we think, oh, he is suffering and in the future I will also suffer. I will also, that person is old and is so sick and so miserable and I am also going to be old and sick and miserable. Therefore, this whole world is dukkhal.
I mean, I should just chant Hare Krishna. Yes, I have to chant Hare Krishna definitely. But along with that, I also have to do my duties in a cultured way.
And even by serving the elderly, we can actually get deeper realization of the nature of material existence and deeper realization of the relief that Krishna consciousness can offer us even during the worst miseries of material existence. So His Holiness Giriraj Mahajan has written a book called Many Many Moons, which describes how devotees and another book he has written also called Death and Dying in Vedic Culture, where he describes even relatives of devotees or people who are only semi-devotionally minded, how by the cultivation of remembrance of Krishna in a supportive culture by their relatives or other people, those people were able to rise above the enormous miseries of death. So our focus is not on death per se, it is on recognizing that this death is coming and therefore we should become Krishna conscious.
The same way for a mother, when she has a child in the womb, it’s natural maternal affection and emotion that will come and that this is my child and I’m caring and this child is growing in my stomach and then when the mother feels maybe the first minute of the child or feels the first kick of the child or whatever, you know, it’s the waves of maternal affection that come at that time and they are natural and at that time the mother doesn’t have a thing that the child in the womb is suffering. Yes, the suffering may be a fact, but the point is also that the mother is doing all that she can to take care, just as the elderly may be suffering, but then we do all that we can to take care and just as we can offer Krishna consciousness to the elderly to help them tolerate or transcend the pain that they are going through, similarly the mother can be exposed to Krishna Katha and various forms of devotional things by which both her consciousness stays uplifted and the sound vibrations, the transcendental sound vibrations also reach the child in the womb and that child also gets devotional impressions. So that way the focus of any particular philosophical point has to be Krishna otherwise it has to be Krishna and taking people and ourselves towards Krishna.
So for the mother she has to see what is uncool, is it that she has to constantly think that the child in the womb is suffering? No, it is a natural biological process by which it stays for a particular amount of time, 9 to 10 months in the womb and the mother should do all that is possible to ensure that the child does not get any disease or she does not eat any food items or have some habits like whatever, some women may smoke during pregnancy and that can be very harmful to the child also. So whatever, that may be not the problem for devotees at all, but the point is that the mothers can definitely do whatever is possible for the best well-being of the child, but along with that they can also focus on remembering Krishna and helping the child be exposed to remembrance of Krishna by which transcendental impressions will come and whatever suffering is there that also will be to some extent transcended. So it is not a matter of the philosophical point itself is not insensitive, our speaking on that point and our application of that point may at times be insensitive.
The scriptures do talk about the mother’s love for the child and Prabhupada would say that the mother’s love for the child is the closest that we come to in material world, the closest we come to selfless love. So definitely the glory of the mother for the child is not denied or denigrated or dismissed by the fact that the child by the arrangement of material nature is in a cramped position and is in a suffering condition, but still even with that suffering the remembrance of the mother’s consciousness, the mother’s behavior, the mother’s food and the mother’s exposure to devotional service will all affect the child in positive ways if the mother does them positively. Thank you.
When we see that all the warriors are going