Question :
You refer to God always as ‘him’ or ‘he’. What are some of the female qualities of god?
NOW IT IS a very delicate problem…. In fact, all His qualities are feminine — that’s why I call Him ‘He’ and ‘Him’. Otherwise He has no reason to call Himself a male. You can feel sorry for Him! And you can allow this much, can’t you? He has all the qualities of a woman, but to call Him ‘She’ will be too much. Just to compensate I call Him ‘He’ and ‘Him’.
God is more a mother than a father. God is more like a womb than anything else. Out of God we are born, and back into God we dissolve. He is our birth and He is our death. He is like the ocean: He ‘waves’ us, we become His waves; He absorbs us — we disappear. He is compassion, love. All His qualities are feminine.
So there is no need to be worried about it, why I call Him ‘He’. To call Him ‘She’ will be too realistic. Mm? This much romance, this much poetry, you can allow me — to call Him ‘He’. That balances. In fact, He is neither — He cannot be, because man is born out of Him, woman is born out of Him. Either He is both or He is neither — because He is all.
But I understand the question. It must be coming from some woman belonging to the Lib movement. They have already started calling Him ‘She’. Nothing wrong in it! In fact, it may become by and by more prevalent. The word ‘she’ is beautiful; in a way, it includes ‘he’ — -s-h-e. ‘He’ does not include ‘she’, right; but ‘she’ includes ‘he’. It is a better word, but very confusing.
The whole humanity, in all the ages, has called Him ‘He’. Maybe something of the male mind is involved in it, because it is man who has created all the scriptures. It would have been very offensive for men to think that He is a she, God is a woman. It would not have been good for the male ego. Now, there is no need to move to the other extreme. What I am pointing at again and again is that extremes are not good.
Up to now we have called Him ‘He’ — maybe male chauvinistic attitudes are implied in it. Now we can start calling Him ‘She’ — then female chauvinistic attitudes will become implied in it. In India, we have a neutral gender: neither masculine nor feminine — neutral. ‘Brahma’, the word for God in India, is a neuter gender word. We call Him ‘It’ — that seems to be the best and the most scientific. We call Him ‘That’ — neither He nor She. Tatwamasi Swetketu — That art thou, that art thou, Swetketu. This is more scientific.
From He it is very easy for the pendulum to swing to She, but it will be again the same fallacy. God is both or neither.
- Osho, “A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #4, Q4”
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Mother means compassion, mother means feeling for the other as one feels for oneself. When a person moves deeply in meditation and attains to samadhi, he becomes a mother. Buddha is more like a mother than like a father. The Christian association with the word 'father' is not very meaningful or beautiful. To call God 'father' looks a little male-orientated. If there is any God he can only be a mother, not a father.
'Father' is so institutional. A father is an institution. In nature a father doesn't exist. If you ask a linguist he will say that the word 'uncle' is older than the word 'father.' Uncles came first into existence because nobody knew who the father was. Once private property was fixed, once marriage became a private ownership, the institution of father entered into human life. It is very fragile, it can disappear any day. If the society changes, the institution can disappear, as many other institutions have disappeared. But mother is going to remain. Mother is natural.
In the East, many people, many traditions, have called God, the mother. Their approach seems to be more relevant. Watch Buddha, his face seems more like a woman than like a man. In fact, because of that we have not depicted him as having a beard or mustache. Mahavir, Buddha, Krishna, Ram -- you never see any mustache or beard on their faces. Not that they were lacking in some hormones they must have had beards, but we have not depicted them because that would give their faces a more male-like appearance. In the East we don't bother much about facts, but we bother much about relevance, significance. Of course, the statues of Buddha that you have seen are all false, but in the East we don't worry about that. The significance is that Buddha has become more womanly, more feminine. That is what I was telling you about, the first day: the shift from the left hemisphere of the brain to the right hemisphere of the brain, from the male to the female, the shift from the aggressive to the passive, the shift from the positive to the negative, the shift from effort to effortlessness. A Buddha is more feminine, more motherly. If you really become a meditator by and by you will see many changes in your being and you will feel more like a woman than like a man -- more graceful, more receptive, non-violent, loving. And a compassion will arise continuously from your being; it will be just a natural fragrance.
Ordinarily whatsoever you call compassion goes on hiding your passion in it. Even if you sometimes feel sympathetic towards people, watch, dissect, go deeper into your feeling and somewhere you will find some motivation. In acts which look very compassionate, deep down you will always find some motivation.
-Osho, "Ancient Music in the Pines, #3"