Question 3

Osho,

Why is Jesus thought to be born out of a virgin mother?

 

 

There are a few points to be understood...

 

One: Jesus can be born only out of a virgin woman. But remember, virginity has nothing to do with celibacy – not, at least, for me. Virginity is something immensely different. Don’t reduce it to sex.

 

Sex can be virgin, and celibacy may not be virgin. Things are very complicated. If a man is celibate and thinks constantly of sex, he is not virgin. On the other hand, if a man makes love to a woman, or the woman makes love to a man, and there is no thought of sex – no sexuality in the head, no cerebral sex – it is virgin.

 

Virgin means pure. Virgin means uncontaminated. Virgin means spontaneous. Virgin means simple, innocent.

 

Now, sex is not the problem. Sexuality is the problem. There are people who are continually thinking of sex. And the more you try to enforce some celibacy on yourself – you become a nun or a monk – the more you think of sex. In fact, you don’t think about anything else, you only think of sex because that is your starved part. It takes revenge, it becomes very aggressive. It comes again and again, bubbles up, surfaces in the head. You go on saying prayers to keep it repressed, and you go on doing this and that – a thousand and one things. But whenever there is rest, it is there. You go to sleep and it is there. It becomes your dream, it becomes your fantasy. If you repress it too much, it then starts coming through different symbols. They may not be sexual on the surface but deep down they are sexual.

 

Sexuality means that sex has entered into the head, but why has sex entered into the head in the first place? It enters into the head if you repress it. Anything repressed enters into the head. Try for three days: go on a fast, and the thought of food will enter into the head. For seven days don’t take a bath… I am not talking about hippies. If you are a hippie, then this won’t do. For seven days don’t take a bath, and that will enter into your head. For three, four days don’t sleep, and that will enter in your head. Then you will be continuously thinking of sleep, sleep will be continuously coming and you will be yawning. Whatsoever is starved enters the head, and when something enters the head your whole being becomes polluted with it.

 

By virginity, I mean that Mary must have been in a very, very non-sexual state. She must have been a very innocent woman. She must not have been thinking about sex; she must have made love, but that love was innocent. There was no idea in it; the mind was not interfering. It was completely uncontaminated by the mind, uninterfered with by the mind. That’s what we in Tantra say is real love.

 

Ordinarily what do you do? You see a woman, a beautiful woman, and you start fantasizing. “A beautiful woman… How to take her to bed?” Now you start planning. Now there is great turmoil and calculation inside – how to introduce yourself to her, and how to “make it.” On the surface you don’t show that; it continues inside: calculation, thinking, planning, designing. When you talk to her you don’t show any indication that you are sexually interested in her – because she may feel offended. Things may go wrong from the very beginning. You talk about other things – poetry, literature – and you are not concerned with poetry and literature at all. You are concerned somehow with how to jump into bed. You are planning inside, but on the surface you are showing interest in art, in music, you are praising the music that is on. But deep down, you are waiting for something else. This is non-virginity.

 

You meet a woman, you don't think about sex at all. Only pathological people think about sex, healthy people don't think about sex. There is no need. You enjoy the beauty of the woman -- her face, her eyes, her proportion -- you are simply thrilled by her being. There is no idea to do anything to her, there is no idea to exploit, there is no idea to possess. You are immensely interested, but very innocently. There is no planning in your mind, there is no future, then it is a virgin relationship. One day love can happen. One day listening to music, dancing together, love can possess you both: you can make love to each together. But even while making love, there is no idea -- there is no mind in it. It is innocent of mind, then it is a virgin relationship.

 

If you ask me, then this is what I mean by 'virgin'. Jesus cannot be born in the way Christians say -- that is absurd, stupid. But why do they say that he was born out of a virgin mother? They are too obsessed with sex, and to them it seems degrading that Jesus should come out of sex, out of an ordinary love relationship. That looks very very disturbing to them. THEIR God, THEIR Master, THEIR saviour... and coming through the ordinary passage of sex? No, that is not possible. If Jesus can come through sex, then how will they condemn sex? Then how will they tell their nuns and their monks 'Don't ever go into sex. It is ugly, it is the greatest sin there is!'? If Jesus himself enters into the world through natural love, it will be difficult to condemn. Then a nun can say 'Who knows, maybe Jesus wants to come through me?' Or a monk can say 'Who knows? Joseph never knew. Who knows maybe Jesus wants to come through me?'

 

If Jesus can come through love, then love is enhanced, enthroned. Then love becomes a great value. If Jesus comes through love, then love will have a splendour to it, and that is difficult for the pathological people. They condemn sex, because through condemning sex they can hold people, they can make them feel guilty -- that is their strategy. Make people feel guilty, and they become slaves and serfs. Make them feel guilty and they are always crawling. Make them feel guilty and you can exploit them. Make them feel guilty and they will come crawling to the churches and to the mosques and to the temples, and they will never be rebellious. They will be so afraid -- they are sinners, they have to be saved. Create the idea in them that they are sinners, then certainly they will start searching and seeking how to be saved. And then you can trap them into the church 'This is the only way to be saved -- only those who go through Jesus will be saved' you can say to them.

 

The more they are trembling, the more they are afraid, the closer death is coming, the more they will start coming into the church, and the more they will believe in any nonsense that you say.

 

This has been used by the priest and the politician to exploit people, to repress people, to oppress people, to dominate people. They cannot say that Jesus comes through ordinary love; they want to make it special. And this tendency exists in all the religions. Somehow they want to make their Master special. Jains say that Mahavir's perspiration does not smell -- in fact, he does not perspire. He does not defecate -- he's not an ordinary human being. Defecation, urinating are very ordinary things -- Mahavir does not do that.

 

Now that seems to be the longest case in the history of constipation: forty-two years. I have heard about the record: the record is one hundred and twelve days. The greatest record known to medical science is one hundred and twelve days. One man kept that long. But Mahavir? Forty-two years. Now you cannot compete with Mahavir. Now this is absurd, this is foolish. But that's how things go.

 

Every religion tries to make something special of the Master, and the Masters are the MOST ordinary people, because they are non-egos. They are very simple people. But the disciple's ego is in trouble, the disciple's ego wants to find something which is special -- so special that nobody else can claim it.

 

Christians have found it through this idea of virginity. They say that Jesus was born out of the virgin Mary through the Holy Ghost. But why can't the Holy Ghost come in the usual way through Joseph -- as he always comes? Why did he get lost? Why did he go astray?

 

I have heard...

 

The problems of the world were weighing heavily on God's shoulders and he confessed the need for a rest.

 

'Why don't you take a short vacation, Boss?' suggested the archangel Gabriel.

 

'Yes, but where?'

 

'How about the little place, Earth? You haven't been there for a good while.'

 

'No, no. It's a world of busybodies' shuddered God. 'I was there two thousand years ago and that's enough. I had an affair with a little Jewish girl, and they're still talking about it.'

 

Christians are obsessed. This is a very ill state of affairs.

 

To me, virginity means innocence.

 

And naturally, Jesus can only come out of innocence. Such a flower can only bloom in innocence. Mary must have been a virgin -- virgin in my sense. She must have been pure love. She must have been as innocent as the animals. She must have been a perfect animal -- that is the meaning -- 'like a cow'. Look into the eyes of a cow. Those eyes must have been the eyes of Mary. Jesus can only come through such simplicity, such innocence.

 

-Osho, "I Say Unto You, Vol. 1, #2, Q3“