Taboo

 

 

There have been only two taboos in the world: sex and death. It is very strange why sex and death have been the two taboos not to be talked about, to be avoided. They are deeply connected. Sex represents life because all life arises out of sex, and death represents the end. And both have been taboo -- don't talk about sex and don't talk about death.

 

And there have been only two types of cultures in the world. One category consists of the cultures for whom sex is taboo. They can talk about death, in fact they talk too much about death. For example, in India, listen to the mahatmas, to the saints, and you will find it. Nobody talks about sex, everybody talks about death -- to frighten you, to create fear in you, because out of fear you can be enslaved, out of fear you can be forced to be religious, out of fear you can be forced to bow down to some stupid idea of God, to some stupid idol of God. People are worshipping anything!

 

Just put a stone in front of your house, paint it red, and just wait on the side and see. Within an hour somebody is going to pass and will bow down to it, thinking it is Hanumanji. Somebody else will come and will put two flowers there and somebody else will follow with a coconut. And this is the beginning of a temple! Soon you will find that a temple has arisen there.

 

People are so afraid, they are ready to bow down to any nonsense, to any stupidity.

 

We call religious people "God-fearing." In fact, a religious person is never God-fearing; he is God-loving certainly, but never God-fearing. Fear has no place in a religious man's life -- love and only love. And where love exists, fear disappears; and where fear exists, love has no possibility to grow.

 

In a society like India, death is not taboo. Indian scriptures are full of very detailed descriptions of death. They describe with gusto how ugly death is. They describe your body in such ugly, disgusting ways that you will be surprised at these people -- why are they so interested, so obsessed with all that is disgusting and nauseating? -- for the simple reason that they want you to become so afraid of life, so antagonistic to life, so negative to life.... They destroy your love for life, your affirmation of life by talking about death, by making death as big as possible and as dark as possible by depicting death in all the ugliest colors.

 

And then there are societies.... For example, Christianity for centuries has been a society, a culture against sex; sex is the taboo. "Don't talk about sex." Hence the idea -- a sheer nonsense idea -- that Jesus is born of a virgin mother. They have to create this fiction because how can Jesus, a man of such purity, come out of sexuality? Such purity coming out of such impurity? Impossible, illogical! A lotus coming out of mud? Impossible! But, in fact, all lotuses come out of mud.

 

Jesus is born as naturally as you are born -- he is not a freak! He is not abnormal. And this whole nonsense about the Holy Ghost, that the Holy Ghost makes Mary pregnant.... Now ghosts are making love! [....]

 

Sex is a taboo for Christianity: "Don't talk about sex!"

 

Now, after Sigmund Freud, the first taboo is broken; sex is no more a taboo. We have shifted to another taboo; now death has become the taboo. Now don't talk about death. It seems as if man needs some taboo or other. The Victorian society was a society rooted in the taboo of sex. Now the modern society, Western society, is rooted in the taboo of death.

 

Don't talk about death at all, forget all about death as if it does not happen -- at least it does not happen to you, at least it has not happened to you up to now, so why bother about it? Forget all about it.

 

When a man dies in the West now, there are experts to decorate the man. He may never have looked so beautiful as he looks after death-painted and his cheeks so red as if he had just come from a three months vacation in Florida! And so healthy, as if he had just been exercising and were now doing shravasan -- the death posture -- not really dead. The pretension has to be created that he is not dead. And even on the gravestone it is written: "He is not dead, he is only asleep."

 

And in all the languages we say... whenever somebody dies nobody says that he is simply dead. We say "He has gone to God. He has become beloved of God. God has chosen him and called him. He has gone to the other world. He has become heavenly." [....]

 

Once a man dies, nobody speaks against him, nobody says anything against him. He becomes suddenly a saint, suddenly great. His place will never be filled again, his place will always remain empty. The world will always miss him; he was so essential. And nobody had taken any notice while he was alive. These are tricks -- tricks to keep death away, to shut the doors, to forget all about death.

 

A real humanity will not have any taboos: no taboo about sex, no taboo about death. Life should be lived in its totality, and death is part of life. One should live totally and one should die totally.

 

-Osho, "Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, #12 Q7"