Question 3

Osho,

I am Homosexual. What should I do About it?

 

 

Ramo, It is good that you have confessed it. It is good that you are truthful about it. It is good that you are not hiding it, because whenever you expose yourself in totality, it is the beginning of a transformation. Don't be worried. One has to go beyond sex one day, whether it is homosexuality or heterosexuality or bisexuality -- it does not matter much. Sex is sex, these are only preferences, differences of liking. Don't feel much guilty about it, and this is not your fault.

 

Homosexuality has come into existence because of repressive measures, because of repressive moralities, because of thousands of years of separating man and woman into separate camps. In the colleges, in the schools, in the army, in the monasteries -- everywhere men and women are kept apart. The natural outcome is going to be homosexualism, lesbianism, because the natural energy will try to find out some outlet.

 

Homosexuality is a byproduct of your so-called religions. The first homosexual must have been born in a monastery, that is almost certain. We don't know his name, but a memorial should be made dedicated to the unknown -- the first homosexual. He must have been a monk.

 

It is a well known fact that Christian monasteries, Buddhist monasteries have been full of homosexuality. It was bound to happen because you don't give them the science of transcending sex, and you simply tell them to repress the energy. Now the energy starts moving into perverted ways.

 

And don't take offense at the word perversion. It simply means unnatural, it simply means not as it was prescribed by the biology. The biological route is heterosexual. If you prevent it... It is like a small stream is flowing: you put a rock in its way, it will start flowing from some other side, it will go by passing the rock, it will become two streams instead of one. You can go on preventing it and it will go on splitting into many streams. It will find out some way. It has a source of water that has to be taken to the ocean.

 

Don't be worried about it, because worrying won't help. Accept it. Just as repression has created it, a deep acceptance can dissolve it. Accept it. You are a victim of a thousands of years conditioning.

 

Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."

 

People go on hiding it, but sooner or later you have to find out somebody, and there are ways how homosexuals indicate. They walk differently -- they may not say, but they walk differently. They look differently, they talk differently, their gestures are different, and other homosexuals immediately understand the language. And it is not a small minority, remember. Ten percent people all over the world are homosexuals. Out of ten, one person is a homosexual; it is a big number. And this is increasing every day, because the women's liberation movement is creating lesbianism. "Why depend on men, even for love? Sisterhood is beautiful. Love your sisters." The natural outcome will be that many brothers will be left alone.

 

The new bride, frustrated by her groom's indifference, could not contain herself anymore. "Listen," she said, "if you are gonna keep on reading these newspapers, I am going downtown to get myself a man."

"Far out!" he said. "Would you get me one too?"

 

A homo and a hetero went into the desert.

"Ah," said the horny hetero, "even if there was a fly here, I could screw it."

"Z-z-z-z," replied the homo.

 

In a bar two homosexuals are drinking their martinis with chips and olives. Suddenly one of them pricks his lip with the toothpick. At the sight of the blood he exclaims, "Ah, my, I have got my period."

 

A little bit perverted, but so what. Nothing to be worried, Ramo. Accept it. My fundamental principle is acceptance -- tathata. Whatsoever is the situation, you accept it. From there things can begin. Don't reject it. It is out of rejection that the problem has arisen, so only with acceptance... Relax into it and you will be surprised. If you can accept it without any guilt, slowly slowly your homosexuality will turn into heterosexuality again. Why? -- because guilt is also a religious phenomenon, and homosexuality too.

 

They are joined together, they are tied together. If you go on feeling guilty, you will remain homosexual. Drop the guilt, accept it. Nothing is wrong, just you are carrying the whole ugly past of humanity. What can you do? You have come a little late, people have preceded before. They have dirtied the whole beach. So we have to clean it.

 

But what is the point of crying and weeping and feeling guilty? There is no need to waste energies in that. Accept it with no guilt at all. And with the disappearance of the guilt you will be surprised: if you are a Christian your Christianity disappears; if you are a Jew your Judaism disappears; if you are a Hindu your Hinduism disappears. This is really a miracle: when the guilt is dropped your religions disappear. And when religions disappear you become a far more natural being. You can start seeing things clearly. In fact, what you are seeking into the other man, you cannot find in him. There will be frustration. What the other man is trying to find in you, he cannot find in you; there will be frustration.

 

Friendship is possible, but love is not possible, and friendship and love are different dimensions. Friendship has its own beauty. Love needs polar opposites, only then there is attraction, only then there is tension enough. Love needs a subtle dialectics, it is a process of dialectics. The man and woman relationship is a dialectical process full of hazards, adventures, fights. It is a kind of intimate enmity. In the morning the fight, in the evening the love, in the morning again the fight, and it goes on moving from one polarity to the other.

 

But this is how it keeps itself alive. It is Hegelian dialectics: thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and again synthesis becomes the thesis. Just the other night you had reached to a treaty, a peaceful state, and in the morning it disappears. And you were thinking, "Now, things are going smooth." But from the same point, in the morning the argument starts, and by the evening the same point leads you to lovemaking.

 

In fact, unless you fight before, you will not be able to make love really, tremendously. A good fight before making love gives you zest, gusto -- just a good fight and you become hot; otherwise, civilized people have become cool. Just a good fight -- shouting, throwing things, exchange of pillows, and then relaxing into each other in the warmth of each other. The fight creates the distance. The farther away you are -- it is a kind of mini-divorce, then comes a mini-honeymoon.

 

It can't happen in a homosexual relationship. That's why homosexuals are called gay; there is no dialectics, they are always smiling. But their smile seems to be shallow; it cannot be very deep. They are smiling because there is not any possibility of tears, and they understand each other. They are both men or both women, so they understand each other. With understanding there is no fight. A man and woman never understand each other, they cannot. If they understand, immediately all is finished, they both have become Buddhas.

 

- Osho, "Tao : The Golden Gate, Vol 2, #10, Q3"