Churches, Condemning Women And

 

 

All these people... even a man like Jesus, did not allow any women as apostles, although he was born of a woman. Jesus had no respect for women, not even for his own mother. One day he was speaking in a village in the marketplace, amongst a small crowd, and somebody from the outside of the crowd shouted "Jesus, your mother is waiting here."

 

And the words that came out from Jesus' mouth... one hopes they had not come out that way; it degrades Jesus. Jesus said, "Tell that woman" -- he does not even use the word `mother' -- "Tell that woman that my father is high above in the skies. On the earth nobody is my father, nobody is my mother; my real home is far away in the sky." It must have hurt the woman immensely.

 

He was loved and trusted the most by one prostitute -- one of the most beautiful in Judea, Mary Magdalene -- and her sister, Martha, and another woman, Maria, but they were not allowed to be his apostles, his messengers. And the most surprising thing is that when he was crucified, all his men apostles disappeared; nobody wanted to be there because somebody may recognize that these are the intimate followers of Jesus, and the same may be their fate -- crucifixion.

 

But these three women -- Jesus' mother whom he had called "that woman", and the prostitute who was condemned by the whole Judea, Mary Magdalene, and Maria -- did not leave the place. Not only did they not leave the place, they remained close to the body of Jesus, and when the body was taken down from the cross, those three women took care of it; they carried the body into the cave. But still Christianity has no respect for women.

 

It seems to be absolutely unbelievable that people who are born of women -- their blood, their bones, their marrow, everything is from the body of the mother -- have condemned woman consistently.

 

Gautam Buddha... it is very difficult to find anything to criticize in him, but if you think about women.... For twenty years, he continually denied initiation into sannyas for any woman; no woman could become a disciple. It is a strange kind of male chauvinistic attitude, and it becomes more unbelievable when you see it in a man like Gautam Buddha or Jesus -- and the same is the case with Mahavira. All the founders of religions have a strange disease of condemning women.

 

There must be a very fundamental reason why they condemn women. You condemn something only if you are afraid of it. You are afraid because the woman can still fascinate you, she can still be attractive to you. These people were afraid that the woman's presence may destroy many people, take them astray. And anyway, woman is not equal to man according to their ideas. The miracle is that in the churches, in the temples, in the synagogues... everywhere you will find only women worshipers.

 

I say unto you that to enter into a church, or a temple, or a synagogue, or a mosque, is against your dignity. These are the people who have condemned woman for thousands of years. Now it is time that the whole womankind -- that is half of the people on earth -- should boycott all these religious priests, and all their scriptures, and all their temples. Enough is enough!

 

-Osho, “The Messiah, Vol 2, #24“