Lao Tzu says the nature of the existence is more like the female, more feminine. And the analogy is beautiful. He is not saying that existence is female - remember this. This is not logic, he is not trying to prove that existence is female. He is not for the lib movement - no. He is simply giving an analogy.
A man can also be feminine. A Buddha is feminine, a Lao Tzu is feminine, a Jesus is feminine. Then he lives, he lives in the moment, unhurried; he enjoys the moment unhurried.
Jesus says to his disciples: Look at the lilies in the field. How beautiful they are! Even Solomon in all his glory was not so beautiful. But what is the secret of the lilies? - they are just flowering here and now. What will happen the next moment is not a worry; the next moment has not entered into their consciousness yet.
A man can live a feminine existence - then he becomes a mystic. That is the only way. So all mystics become in a certain way feminine. And they are the real religious men, not the founders of religion.
Remember, this is a difference.... Buddha is not the founder of Buddhism - no. His disciples are the founders. Jesus is not the founder of Christianity - no. His apostles, they are the founders. Mahavir is not the founder of Jainism. Gautam, his disciple, who was a scholar and great pundit, was. These are the men.
Jesus himself is feminine. To show this, in India we have never painted avataras, teerthankaras, Buddhas, with beards and mustaches - no - just to show this that they are feminine. Have you ever seen Ram with a mustache? Krishna with a beard? It is not that they were somehow lacking in hormones. They were not the third sex. They were men; beards existed. But this is just an analogy.
We have dropped the beards to show that they have become feminine: the feminine mystic has come into being. They existed without any hurry, they existed not as a tense man but as a non-tense woman, and you can feel around them the feminine warmth, the roundness of a Buddha.
THE SPIRIT OF THE VALLEY NEVER DIES.
IT IS CALLED THE MYSTIC FEMALE.
THE DOOR OF THE MYSTIC FEMALE IS THE ROOT OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.
THE DOOR OF THE MYSTIC FEMALE IS THE ROOT OF HEAVEN AND EARTH...
And if you can find the key to open the door of the mystic female you have opened the door of existence. Everybody has to enter that door non-tense, balanced, satisfied, content - that's the secret of feminine being.
When I say this there are two possibilities of misunderstanding: women can misunderstand and think that they have nothing to do; men can misunderstand and think that this Lao Tzu is not for them.
No, it is for you both. But remember... women are not pure women, they have lost the feminine mystique themselves. They have to gain it again. It will be easier for them of course to gain it than men, because man has gone farther away. And don't think that if you are a man Lao Tzu is not for you - he is particularly for you, otherwise you will go farther and farther away from existence and life's ecstasy. Everybody has to come back to the mother; that is the feminine mystique.
You are born out of the mother's womb, and you have to find the womb again in existence. If you can find the womb again in existence, the same warmth, the same life, the same love, the same care in existence - then existence becomes your home, your mother.
Hindus are better when they call their god "mother" - mother Kali - than Christians and Mohammedans and Jews, who go on calling their god "father." Those three religions are man- oriented, that's why they have been so violent. Mohammedans and Christians have killed so many, they have been a catastrophe on the earth. They have been murderers. In the name of religion they have been only killing and doing nothing else. This is man-oriented religion.
Buddhism has not killed, Jainism has not killed, Hinduism has not killed, because they are more and more inclined towards the feminine mystique. And you cannot complain against Lao Tzu at all, with him there exists no organized religion. Once a religion becomes organized, violence enters into it.
Organization is going to be violent, it has to fight its way, it is bound to become male. Organization is male; religion is female. [....]
the organization will do everything that we cannot do, and they always do it better. I have learned it through history. I will create a church... and I will not be involved in it at all. In fact, they do it on their own. I just simply encourage and help."
Once the pope is there, Christ is forgotten; once the church is there, the Buddha is killed and murdered. It is always on the corpse of a Buddha that a religion stands.
These are analogies. Women can attain to their feminine mystique easily; that is the reason more women become attracted towards religion. They don't create religion - but more women, almost four times more than men, become interested in religion. Among Mahavir's disciples, forty thousand were women and ten thousand men; and the proportion was the same with Buddha's disciples. Go to any church and any temple and just count - you will always find four women to one man, and that one may have come just because the wife has come; he may not be really there.
Women can become more easily attuned; they are mothers, they are nearer nature. Man will find it a little difficult to come back; he has involvements, commitments, investments in his anxiety and tension. Even if he comes he will create an anxiety around religion.
This is my everyday observation: women come to me - if they surrender, they surrender totally. If they meditate at all, they meditate totally. Then simply they start growing.
Men come to me - if they surrender they cannot surrender totally, a part they always save. And when you surrender half-heartedly it is not a surrender at all. Then they meditate, but then meditation becomes an anxiety. And they come and they say, "Now this meditation is creating anxiety. I cannot sleep. I am constantly thinking about it - how it is going to happen, how I am to manage it."
It is not a management. You cannot manage it. You have to be in a let-go, a great let-go. It is difficult for man; he is so disciplined for anxiety, so trained to be tense. From the very childhood, the society forces men to become MEN - aggressive, violent, always reaching for something, trying to achieve something, ambitious. If they start playing with dolls the parents say, "Why? What are you doing?
Are you being a sissy? This is for girls, not for boys. Home is for girls; to play with dolls is for girls, not for boys. They have to go out, and fight their way into life. They have to struggle - that is for them."
If home is for girls then at-homeness will also be for girls. Then you are never at home; and at- homeness is meditation.
-Osho, "Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1, #3"