You have lost it somewhere far back. You can’t remember even where you lost it. You can’t remember where you deviated from yourself. You deviated in such moments when you were not even aware.

If you remember your past, you will at the most go back to the age of four, on average. Not all people can go back to the age of four. A few people, very rare people can go to the age of three. And rarely, once in a while, you can find a person who can go back to the age of two. It happens only once in a century that a person can go back to the age of one. And it happens only once in many centuries that a person can go into the memories of his mother’s womb.

But your deviation starts even when you are in your mother’s womb, because whatsoever your mother is doing is affecting you. When you are in your mother’s womb, your mother’s mind is your mind, her feelings are your feelings, her emotions are your emotions. If she is angry, something in you gets angry. If she is happy something in you rejoices.

In the East, psychology is one of the most ancient sciences; in the West it is just a hundred years old – not even a hundred years old. The oldest name in western psychology, the ancientmost, is Sigmund Freud, who was alive just a few years ago. But in the East, in India, psychology goes as far back as Patanjali – five thousand years. And Patanjali cannot be said to be the source because he quotes more ancient sources. In China it goes as far back as Lao Tzu. But Lao Tzu quotes at least five-thousand-year-old sources: five thousand years before Lao Tzu, who is twenty-five centuries before us.

Eastern psychology says that when the mother is pregnant, those nine months are the most important period in the life of the child who is not yet born. In these nine months as much care as possible should be taken. The mother should not become angry, should not become sexual, should not become worried, should not become irritated, annoyed. She should be kept in such a way that the child is not affected at all by her emotions. She should be almost in a meditative state for all those nine months.

That’s the recommendation of Eastern psychology, that the mother for nine months should be continuously in a meditative state; that’s the only way to save the child from becoming an imitator. Otherwise neither the mother knows the child, nor the child knows himself, and he becomes an imitator. This is the situation in the womb – what to say about when the child comes out of the womb. Then, at every step everybody is determined to give a certain shape, a certain color, a certain character, a certain career to you – and with all good intentions. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Nobody is your enemy, but they all prove to be your enemies.