Question 1:

Beloved Osho,

I have noticed that the women here are becoming juicier and more active, while we men are becoming lazier and lazier. would you comment?

 

 

The women is not the weaker sex, as it has been said by man for centuries. The woman is the stronger sex. She is made weaker. For centuries upon centuries she has been conditioned; she has been told she needs a protector.

 

The Indian scripture of Manu, which has dominated the Hindu mind for five thousand years and still dominates it, says that when the woman is a child she should be dependent on the parents, protected by the parents. When she is young, she should be dependent on the husband and protected by the husband. When she is old, she should still remain dependent - on the boys, her children, and be protected by her own children. For her whole life she has to be protected by somebody. If for thousands of years you protect somebody in this way, you are bound to create weakness, dependence, fear.

 

And it has been almost accepted as a scientific fact that man is the stronger sex. It is absolutely wrong! The woman is the stronger sex, and she has to be, because she has to produce children.

 

She has to be pregnant and go through all the troubles of pregnancy.

 

Not a single man could stand one pregnancy. Just think of yourself being pregnant for nine months:

 

You cannot eat, you vomit; you go on carrying a weight which is growing bigger and bigger within your belly. And then the final stage, the baby comes out of you. The passage is so small, the baby is big; it is painful. The woman passes almost through death when the child is born. And you think she is weaker than man?

 

Women live longer than men all over the world; the difference is of five years. If man lives on average seventy years, the woman lives on average seventy-five years. Strange, the weaker sex lives longer.

 

Man is more prone to sicknesses, diseases, infections, than woman. And the difference is not small, it is double. Women are prone to sickness in comparison to man just half as much; if they get sick, it is only fifty percent as often. If man has to be considered, he gets sick and is available to any infection twice as often as women, and more.

 

What is the cause of it? The woman has more resistance power. The man is very weak against small bugs - and yet he becomes Muhammad Ali the great! He cannot fight small bugs, he is incapable of doing any boxing against them. But the woman does.

 

It is a very strange thing that the suicide rate of the man is double that of the woman - and woman is the weaker sex? She suffers more, her whole life in the past has been of suffering. Women have been treated like cattle.

 

In China for thousands of years the woman has not been believed to have a soul. So if the husband murders his wife, he commits no crime. The woman was a possession. Without a soul, so much resistance against diseases? And man has a soul, but the resistance is only half that which a woman has.

 

The man becomes frantic very soon, carries thousands of worries in his head, is almost on the verge of falling into anxiety, anguish, suicide. It starts even in the mother's womb.

 

An experienced woman who has given birth to one or two children can tell whether the child in her womb is male or female. How can she guess it? Very simple guesswork, which is absolutely certain. The boy starts kicking in her womb; the girl is calm and quiet. And the mother can feel that difference. The boy is becoming tense, worried already, already trying to learn boxing. The girl is very silent in the mother's womb - creates no movement, is more stable, more centered, more grounded.

 

Women threaten that they will commit suicide, but they do not do it. The difference is again the same: men commit suicide twice as often as women do. And it has to be understood that their suicides are also different. The woman commits suicide because the man forces her to commit suicide. Man commits suicide because of his own anguish, worry, despair.

 

If the woman were not forced by man to commit suicide, no woman would commit suicide. In fact, the woman's suicide is really a murder - murder by the man: man's society, man's rule, man's power.

 

And the woman has survived all along without any complaint. That is strength. Man forcing the woman to commit suicide should be punished - it is a murder. But behind the word suicide he is completely free of any crime.

 

Your question is that women are becoming juicier here every day. They would become juicier all around the earth every day; they just have to be given the opportunity. It is their intrinsic nature to be juicier. The woman has to nourish the child - she needs the juice. The woman attracts the male - she has to be juicier. She is certainly more beautiful, more proportionate; her body is an artwork.

 

I do not believe in the bogus Christian story that God created man first. The story must have been created by a man, because what use is man? And then he created the woman, taking a rib out of the man. This is simply to insult women: "You are nothing but a rib taken out of man. You are not human beings".

 

If I have to write the story, I will say God first created Eve, not Adam - because the woman is creative, she is going to give birth. In fact, there was no need for Adam to be created by God. The story is, that God made love to the first woman he made. If that is true, then Adam is simply superfluous. The woman, and God making love to the woman... Adams will follow of their own accord. Adam need not be created, he will be born. But you need the woman first. Without her there is no possibility of anything getting born.

 

But for thousands of years, if you go on hammering the idea that woman is a weaker sex.... The woman has shrunk, she has accepted the idea. She has lived according to the male chauvinist's philosophy.

 

Here in this commune it is totally different. The woman finds herself absolutely free from all the jargon that man has been teaching her. And we have given all the opportunities to women that no society anywhere has been able to give them. All societies have taken away opportunities - and things need opportunities to grow, to reach to their potential.

 

The woman has somehow survived because she is so strong. But she has only survived - no nourishment. Here she is nourished, here she knows she is accepted on an equal basis. In fact, the women in the commune have more responsible posts than men. This is just a compensation - small, but it may become the model for the whole universe. And they are running the commune better than any society run by men.

 

In four years of the commune's existence there has not been a single crime, not a single murder, not a single suicide. Man has not been able to create a society where crimes are not growing. And as the woman becomes juicier, more powerful, stronger, takes her natural position, the man is bound to become lazier. That is his nature - he is bone lazy.

 

I have been in a few aboriginal communities in India. They are very primitive people; they live in the mountains, in the jungles. Somehow they are free form the stupidity the whole humanity lives under.

 

Their small, primitive communities are matriarchal, not patriarchal. The woman rules, the woman is powerful. But I saw men almost shrunken, lazy, doing nothing. I was surprised. What happened to the strong sex?

 

The strong sex - the so-called strong sex - seeing that the woman is doing perfectly well, better that he can do, has done only one thing: he has married four, five women, and he sits in the house in the rocking chair, smoking, looking after the children. The woman works for everything - for food, for clothing, for all the necessities of life. Man's work has become confined just to looking after the children - which is not much of a job.

 

The woman takes all the responsibility of the outside world - farming the land, growing the gardens, weaving the clothes. And she also is responsible for the household: making food, making the house comfortable - and the man simply goes on becoming lazier and stupider. I would not like it to happen here. It is ugly.

 

Man should take the challenge. If women are becoming juicier, now is the time to prove.... And as far as laziness is concerned, I alone am enough. I am ready to take all your laziness upon myself.

 

But remember that you have been for centuries lying, befooling. This is a great opportunity to prove that you are stronger - but every man deep down knows he is not.

 

Every man feels a deep inferiority complex, for the simple reason that he cannot produce children, he cannot give birth to life. His function in giving birth to children is only that of an injection. Any injection can do that. In fact, in the future, injections will be doing that; then man will be completely out of a job.

 

Don't be lazy... because it is easier to be lazy. Seeing that everything is going perfectly well, and women are doing perfectly well, the natural instinct is to fall into laziness; there is no need for you to do anything. But this is a wrong way of thinking. When women are doing so much, at least you have to prove your equality. You cannot prove that you are superior - forget it, that is completely out of the question - but you can at least prove yourself equal.

 

I know you cannot produce children. That inferiority in you is to be used as another opportunity.

 

Down the centuries man has been using that, and you are not to forget it. Man has created great music, great art, great poetry, great drama, great sculpture. Women have not done anything.

 

In the first place they were not allowed. In the second place, to give birth to a child, a living child, is such a great creative act that they don't feel they have to make a dead statue. Leonardo da Vinci may make beautiful statue of Jesus Christ, but it does not breathe. Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, is far superior. Howsoever beautiful the statue, it is just a dead stone. Jesus was an alive human being. So the woman has no inferiority complex in her.

 

I would like you to be creative. Man has to prove his equality, and he can prove his equality only by creating. And there is so much to create! We are in a desert, and we have to create a lush, green oasis. We are surrounded by all kind of hostile forces. We have to be strong enough to face them.

 

It is a great encounter between the past and the future. We have to stand for the future; they are standing for the past. Those who stand for the past miss the present. Those who stand for the future have to take care of the present, because the present is going to become the future.

 

Don't get lazy because women are doing perfectly well, taking all the responsible jobs in the commune. Gather yourself together, take responsibility. Of course you cannot give birth to a child - there is no need - but you can give birth to many things which the woman may not be attracted to. Yes, beautiful paintings are needed, beautiful gardens are needed, beautiful lakes are needed; beautiful music, poetry, literature, are needed.

 

Perhaps the woman may not feel attracted. She is already a creator, a born creator. Man is not a born creator. Unless you make the effort to be a creator - that is, to be a painter, or a gardener, or a farmer - you are bound to fall into laziness. And laziness is a slow death. You cannot live life abundantly if you are lazy; life needs strength, overflowing energy. You cannot even love, because you don't have any juice to share. You are becoming a dry bone.

 

I have been receiving letters from women sannyasins, asking, "What is happening? In the whole world, man chases the woman. Here we have to chase men - and they escape!" This is ugly. This is humiliating yourself - or have you become so lazy that you cannot even chase a woman? Do you want a rocking chair? The women can provide you with a rocking chair - so sit on the rocking chair.

 

But you cannot even sit there, because women will be chasing you. They are full of juice and they want to share it, and it can be shared only with somebody who is equally overflowing.

 

Our commune is proving something significant. It is proving that if women are given the opportunity, they will prove far superior to men.

 

And if women are given the opportunity, the man will become lazier. They will not feel competent enough, so rather than joining in the race, it is safer for their egos to sit by the side of the road.

 

But that is a kind of suicide. You have to take the challenge. Come out of your laziness! And you become juicier only when you are creative. That's why poets, painters, musicians, are more juicy than others - even if they are creating third-rate music.

 

The music of the Beatles has not to be called music, it is sheer madness. You cannot put the Beatles in the same company with Mozart, Wagner, Tansen. What the Beatles are doing is just something monkeyish, and naturally their music is finished; the Beatles are past already. Mozart is going to live forever. As long as humanity is there, and intelligent people are there, he will be alive. The Beatles were finished within ten years - came like a wind, and went away.

 

You have to create something in which your inner potentiality becomes actualized, materialized.

 

And then you will be surprised that the more you create, the juicier you become. Poets have always attracted beautiful women, painters have always attracted beautiful women. Any kind of creativity makes you juicier. The woman knows where the juice is; it is her natural instinct. And what is the point of falling in love with a lazy skeleton?

 

So stop escaping from women. Start chasing them, because it is absolutely unacceptable... for the simple reason that the natural phenomenon - not only in man, but all over in nature - is that the male chases the female, and the female tries to escape, although she does not want to escape.

 

She goes very slowly, she goes on looking back. But it is a beautiful game of hide-and-seek. The woman, all over nature, is the one who hides. It is the man, the male who seeks. We cannot change nature, and if you try to change it you become something of a perversion. The game is so joyous....

 

Chase the woman, because that gives her strength, recognition; that makes her feel she is attractive, beautiful, wanted. And that is a great need in the feminine psychology: to be wanted. Don't take away something from my women here, because it is absolutely unnatural for them to chase men. It is unfeminine, it is not ladylike.

 

I don't know what this word "lady" means, but I figured out it means "a good lay." I don't know English, so I can manage my own meanings. Now, a good lay has to be chased. The good lay is not going to chase you, that will look unfeminine. Be a gentleman! And just as I think lady means a good lay, a gentleman means one who lays her gently. And you are chasing....

 

Chase the woman gently. And let her feel one of her greatest needs: that she is needed. That will make her juicier. And chasing her, you will come out of your laziness, so it is just the right thing to do.

 

If any man is not chasing a woman he is betraying me! I have chased women my whole life - of course, very gently. And you guys here are trying to destroy the whole natural balance! A woman loves immensely to be chased, it is her inner necessity. Don't deprive the woman of her most basic need.

 

I was a lecturer in the university... just by coincidence I was sitting with the vice-chancellor - he had called me to discuss a few things about my behavior - and at that very moment a girl student came in. She was in tears.

 

The vice-chancellor asked her, "What is the matter?"

 

She said, "Look at these letters! A few boys go on continuously writing me love letters. They even throw pebbles at me. They are harassing me!"

 

Naturally the vice-chancellor said, "You just name those people, they will be punished."

 

I said, "Wait. You don't understand psychology. Let me take the case in hand. I am teaching psychology - you don't know anything about it." He was shocked that a lecturer should say that. But it was absolutely certain that he had no idea of psychology. He had been the chief justice of a high court.

 

I said, "It is not a court. You know how to deal with criminals, but this is not a crime. In fact, if this woman receives no letters, if nobody pays any attention to her, nobody chases her, nobody throws pebbles at her, she will be in great despair."

 

The girl was shocked, but her tears disappeared. I said to her, "Just look within yourself. Don't you enjoy all those letters? Don't you enjoy all those people chasing you? Are you not creating jealousy in the other girls of your class?"

 

For a moment she was dumb. Then she said, "Of course, perhaps you are right. Perhaps I had come with these letters to show to the vice-chancellor just to make it known that I am the most chased girl in the whole university."

 

I said, "You are intelligent, you have understood the point." And I said to the vice-chancellor, "Never interfere in things which you don't know about."

 

It is an absolute need in feminine psychology, and it is a very complicated phenomenon. If she is not chased, she is in despair. That means she is worthless, nobody is paying attention to her, nobody writes love letters, nobody approaches her. Nobody tells her, in a roundabout way, that he loves her.

 

She is waiting.... Don't let my women wait!

 

And out of despair a woman starts chasing men, because she sees time is passing - and time passes faster for the woman than it passes for the man. Because she is a beautiful flower, delicate in every way, her youth, her beauty will be soon gone. By the time she is forty-eight her menopause comes, and after that who bothers to chase her? She is in a hurry: youth will not be forever.

 

A man can be loved even when he is old. This is strange. You will find many young girls falling in love with an old poet, who is older than their fathers, an old painter, an old musician - young girls.

 

I know twenty-year-old girls were falling in love with Picasso. And it has been always so, never the reverse.

 

I have never seen a young man falling in love with an old woman of seventy, eighty, ninety. And if any young man falls in love with a woman who is ninety, the motivation must be different. It must be money. The woman is just about to go into her grave - it is not difficult for a few days to pretend that he loves her, and then all her money is going to be his. But no young man is going to fall really in love with an old woman.

 

The woman's beauty, youth, is a very fleeting phenomenon. So she becomes despairing, afraid; time is running out and these lazy guys are not chasing her! Now, don't be so cruel, don't be so unkind. Be human, compassionate.

 

This word "compassion" is composed of passion. To be compassionate means to be in love.

 

Compassion is just a dimension of love. Passion is hasty, hectic, a little violent. Compassion is gentle, nice, understanding - but it is passion after all.

 

It has to be remembered that when a woman out of despair chases a man, the man is bound to escape because something unnatural is happening. When the woman chases you, it simply means she is an unwanted woman, nobody is chasing her. The woman chasing the man becomes unattractive. The man cannot take it: she is not a woman, she is a monster.

 

Things are very much correlated. If women start chasing, men are bound to escape. The whole game has turned upside down. The chaser becomes the chased, and no man can love a woman who is chasing him. The very phenomenon of chasing makes the woman worthless, she is not a challenge. Man wants challenge. He wants to chase, he wants to be victorious. That's why nature has arranged it in such a way that in all the animals, man included, the males should chase the females.

 

Give great contentment to the woman. And don't be worried that you will have to chase her to the very end of the earth. She is willing, she is just giving you a little more chance to chase her, so it becomes a more attractive challenge. And once you start burning with the challenge, the woman becomes almost a fairy, not of this world. Your burning desire for her makes her a dream girl. You dream of her, you think of her, you write poetry, you play on the guitar. It is perfectly good.

 

And never be worried. She is not trying to escape you, she is just giving you a chance to chase.

 

Take the challenge as a man, and soon she will allow you to be victorious. And that's what the man desires: victory. But when a woman chases a man it is going to be defeat. If she catches hold of him, he is defeated. He will fall on his knees and beg her, "Please leave me, find someone else. I am not one to be defeated."

 

So just understand the natural way of things, and don't go against nature, because going against nature creates all sorts of problems. To be natural is to be unproblematic. And to be natural is so beautiful.

 

To be natural is so at ease, at home.

 

-Osho, “From the False to the Truth, #27, Q1“