on Women

 

 

Woman Has Been Repressed Continuously

 

“Man has ruled over women for millennia. He has been given every opportunity and chance and woman has been repressed continuously, has been crippled. She has not been allowed to compete with man shoulder to shoulder in life. That’s why we don’t know how many Gautam Buddhas on the women’s side did not get the opportunity to blossom. We don’t know how many Albert Einsteins have simply been denied any possibility for growth.

 

“It is a very strange thing that even dimensions like poetry, music, dance are dominated by men. The greatest dancers in the world have been men, not women. In fact, women should have been ahead of any male dancer. But one needs opportunity. One needs education, one needs training. If you bar the whole of womankind from education, training, discipline, you are making the whole society and the whole world poor, unnecessarily poor.

 

“My emphasis is to give respect to women – and equality is not against men. It is a world which belongs to you both and you both have to be together to make it as beautiful and as divine as possible. Man alone – you have been creating only wars. In three thousand years, five thousand wars…Is life just to fight? Is life just to kill, massacre, rape? Your whole history is full of murder and you call those murderers your great men.”

 

-Osho, "Sat-Chit-Anand: Truth-Consciousness-Bliss, #26"

 

 

 

 

The Woman Should Be Given Every Freedom

 

“If all over the world the woman is allowed freedom to grow to her potential, there will be many, many women enlightened; many, many women mystics, poets, painters. And they will enhance not only the woman’s part of the world – because the world is one – they will enhance the whole world. They will give man also new dimensions because their ways of seeing things are different. Man looks at things in one way; the woman looks from a different perspective. Life will become richer.

 

“It is for the betterment of both man and woman that the woman should be given every freedom and equal opportunity for her individuality. Then there will be a sense of humor. And the woman can laugh more gracefully than man, she has every potential for it – but it is repressed, condemned, criticized. She has lived a life of such misery that you cannot hope that she will show some sense of humor.

 

“But the day is not far away…then the whole earth will be full of laughter. Instead of talks about war, instead of politicians giving speeches all around the world, instead of the sermons of stupid priests who know nothing, it will be far better that every man and every woman is able to see the hilarious side of life and to enjoy it.”  

 

-Osho, "The New Dawn, #31"
 

 

 

 

Christianity Destroyed Thousands of Wise Women

 

“Christianity destroyed thousands of wise women, burned them alive. Even the name “witch” – which means “a wise woman” and nothing else – became so condemnatory…and the same happened in the East. All the religions prohibited women, and I can see that the reason is a great fear that if women are allowed the same opportunity as is given to men, they will be far ahead in the experience of God. And that is against the ego of man.”

 

-Osho, "The Hidden Splendor, #22"

 

 

 

 

Half of Humanity Is Deprived of Raising its Consciousness

 

“Man has been beating women, repressing women, condemning women. And not knowing that condemning women, repressing women is making them inferior, half of humanity is deprived of raising its consciousness. And you are deprived, because you could also have learned the art of moving upwards from half of the universe. You could also have moved on the same way, on the same path; hence I always say, the liberation of women is also the liberation of man. It is more the liberation of man than the liberation of women."

 

-Osho, "Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, #21"

 

   

 

 

Unless Women Are Liberated, Men Will Never Be Liberated

 

“I have accepted women for the first time on an equal basis to men. I am in favor of women’s liberation because I know that unless women are liberated, men will never be liberated. Their liberation is together, because they are two sides of the same coin. Naturally many more women have come, because for centuries they were denied, they were insulted, they were never accepted as equal to men. Naturally, more and more women will be coming – and only those men will be here who are ready to accept women as their equal. No male chauvinists can remain around me. It is a family of equal people, with equal dignity.

 

“If women had been respected in the past, humanity would not have been in such a mess as it is today – because women are half of humanity. Half of humanity has remained undignified, uneducated, deprived of all freedom, all movement. We have hampered, handicapped ourselves. We have destroyed half of ourselves, and if we are in misery then who is to be blamed?

 

“I am all in favor of women’s liberation – but not the way the women’s liberation movement is going. It is taking a reactionary attitude, it is not a real revolution. It is trying to imitate man. And remember, imitation never makes you equal; imitation at the most will make you a carbon copy – but the original is original.”

 

-Osho, "Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, #7"

 

 

 

 

Man Suffers from a Great Inferiority Complex

 

“Man suffers from a great inferiority complex because he cannot give birth to children. It is one of the deepest unconscious inferiorities in man. He knows the woman is superior, because in life there can be nothing higher than giving birth to life.

 

“Man’s function, his participation in giving birth to life, is negligible. It is not more than a syringe injection. It can be done by a syringe – he can be absolutely relieved of taking part in reproduction. He must have felt it from the very beginning. And the only way to overcome this inferiority complex was to reduce the woman in every possible way to such an inferior position that man can forget his inferiority complex and start believing that he is superior.

 

“All the societies of the world, all the cultures, all the religions in different ways have been doing the same: reducing the woman to a secondary category of humanity not equal to man.” 

 

-Osho, "The Sword and the Lotus, #17"

 

 

 

 

The Woman Has Been Enslaved

 

“Almost all the religions have denied women the possibility of entering into paradise from the body of a woman. She can be virtuous. Her husband is her god. She should serve the husband with total commitment and devotion. This is the only religion as far as the woman is concerned. This will bring her into the body of a man in her next life, and then the doors open. Then she can strive for spiritual heights. Then she can become an enlightened master.

 

“There are religions which don’t allow women to read the religious scriptures. There are religions which don’t allow the women to enter their temples. The woman has been enslaved. She has been reduced into producing children, taking care of them her whole life. She has not to be respected as a human being. She is just a reproductive mechanism.

 

“Man has done everything wrong that can be done, everything inhuman that can be done. In Hinduism, if the husband died, the woman had to jump alive into his funeral pyre. This was thought to be something spiritual. This is pure murder – and a very crude and primitive murder. For thousands of years it was a great spiritual thing, but it is strange that the man never did such a great spiritual thing. No man in the whole of history has ever jumped into the funeral pyre of his dead wife. No brahmin followed the rule that he has made for women. If it is true, then is it not very strange why the man is not doing the same?”

 

-Osho, "The Sword and the Lotus, #17"

 

 

 

 

There Are a Few Differences Between Men and Women

 

“Most of the differences between men and women are because of thousands of years of conditioning. They are not fundamental to nature, but there are a few differences which give them unique beauty, individuality. Those differences can be counted very easily.

 

“One is that the woman is capable of producing life; man is not. In that way he is inferior, and that inferiority has played a great role in the domination of women by men. The inferiority complex works in this way: it pretends to be superior – to deceive oneself and to deceive the whole world. So man down the ages has been destroying the woman’s genius, talents, capacities, so that he can prove himself superior – to himself and to the world.

 

“Because the woman gives birth, for nine months or more she remains absolutely vulnerable, dependent on man. Men have exploited this in a very ugly way. And that is a physiological difference; it makes no difference at all.

 

“The psychology of the woman is corrupted by man telling her things which are not true, making her a slave to man, reducing her to a secondary citizen of the world. And the reason for that was that he is muscularly more powerful. But the muscular power is part of animality. If that is going to decide the superiority, then any animal is more muscular than a man.”

 

-Osho, "The Sword and the Lotus, #5"

 

 

 

 

The Woman Can Be Satisfied with one Love

 

“But real differences are certainly there, and we have to search for them behind the pile of invented differences. One difference I see is that a woman is more capable of love than a man is. A man’s love is more or less a physical necessity; a woman’s love is not. It is something greater and higher; it is a spiritual experience. That’s why the woman is monogamous and man is polygamous. The man would like to have all the world’s women, and still he would not be satisfied. His discontent is infinite.

 

“The woman can be satisfied with one love, utterly fulfilled, because she does not look at the body of the man, she looks at his innermost qualities. She does not fall in love with a man who has a beautiful muscular body, she falls in love with a man who has charisma – something indefinable, but immensely attractive – who has a mystery to be explored. She wants her man not to be just a man, but an adventure in discovering consciousness.

 

“The man is very weak as far as sexuality is concerned; he can have only one orgasm. The woman is infinitely superior; she can have multiple orgasms. And this has been one of the most troublesome matters. The man’s orgasm is local, confined to his genitals. The woman’s orgasm is total, not confined to the genitals. Her whole body is sexual, and she can have a beautiful orgasmic experience a thousandfold bigger, deeper, more enriching, more nourishing than a man can have.

 

“But the tragedy is that her whole body has to be aroused, and the man is not interested in it, he has never been interested in it. He has used the woman as a sex machine just to relieve his own sexual tensions. Within seconds he is finished. And by the time he is finished, the woman has not even begun.”

 

-Osho, "The Sword and the Lotus, #5"

 

 

 

 

The Woman Has the Capacity for Multiple Orgasms

 

“When love happens, it has beauty. When it is made to happen, it is ugly.

 

“And while you are making love with the man on top of the woman…it is known as the missionary posture. The East became aware of this ugliness that the man was heavier, taller and more muscular; he was crushing a delicate being. In the East, the way has always been just the opposite: the woman on top. Crushed under the weight of the man, the woman has no mobility. Only the man moves, so he comes to orgasm within seconds and the woman is simply in tears. She has been a partner, but she was not involved in it. She has been used.

 

“When the woman is on top she has more mobility, the man has less mobility, and that will bring their orgasms closer to each other. And when both go into orgasmic experience, it is something of the other world. It is the first glimpse of samadhi; it is the first glimpse that man is not the body. He forgets the body, he forgets the world. Both the man and the woman move into a new dimension they have never explored.

 

“The woman has the capacity for multiple orgasms, so the man has to be as slow as possible. But the reality is, he is in such a hurry in everything that he destroys the whole relationship. He should be very relaxed so that the woman can have multiple orgasms. His orgasm should come at the end, when the woman’s orgasm has reached to the peak. It is a simple question of understanding.”

 

-Osho, "The Sword and the Lotus, #5"

 

 

 

 

The Man Is Afraid

 

“A woman is more centered than a man… She is more serene, more silent, more patient, is capable of waiting. Perhaps because of these qualities she has more resistance to diseases and she lives longer than a man. Because of her serenity, her, she can fulfill a man’s life immensely. She can surround man’s life in a very soothing, cozy atmosphere.

 

“But the man is afraid – he does not want to be surrounded by the woman, he does not want to let her create a cozy warmth around him. He is afraid because that way he will become dependent. So for centuries he has been keeping her at a distance. And he is afraid because he knows deep down that the woman is more than he is. She can give birth to life. Nature has chosen her to reproduce, not man.

 

“Man’s function in reproduction is almost nil. This inferiority has created the greatest problem – man started cutting the woman’s wings. He started in every way reducing her, condemning her, so that he could at least believe that he is superior. He has treated women as cattle – even worse. In China, for thousands of years, the woman was not thought to have a soul, so the husband could kill her and the law would not interfere – she was his possession. If he wanted to destroy his furniture, it was not illegal. If he wanted to destroy his woman, it was not illegal. This is the ultimate insult – that the woman has no soul.”

 

-Osho, "The Sword and the Lotus, #5"

 

 

 

 

Half of Humanity Is Kept in a Downtrodden State

 

“Man has dominated women for centuries and forced the idea on them that they are the weaker sex, that they cannot do anything that man can do. They can do small homely things – that is their world. I want to destroy that idea completely…

 

“And this is a strange way: to keep half of humanity in a downtrodden state. How much is the loss? Half of humanity means that women, if they were accepted as equal, would have produced a Dostoevsky, a Turgenev, a Chekhov, a Gorky, a van Gogh, a Picasso, a Nijinsky. They may have proved a Buddha, a Jesus. Half of humanity! It is a vast ocean to whom you have denied all possibilities of creation, expression. And you have behaved with women as if they are cattle, not human beings.”

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol. 1, #19"

 

 

 

 

Women’s Slavery is Automatically Men’s Slavery

 

“Women’s liberation is automatically men’s liberation. Women’s slavery is automatically men’s slavery. They go together.”

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol. 1, #19"

 

 

 

 

'Boys Will Be Boys'

 

Osho,

I become interested in other women besides my wife, but when my wife shows interest in some other man I become very jealous. I burn in a terrible fire.

 

“Men have always created freedom for themselves, but obstructed women. Men have imprisoned women within the four walls of the house and have allowed themselves freedom. Those days are gone. Now women are as free as you are. And if you don’t want to burn in jealousy, there are only two ways: one way is that you yourself become free of desire. Where there is no desire, jealousy cannot remain. And the other way: if you don’t want to become free of desire, then at least give the same rights to the other as you have. Gather this much courage. I would like you to become free of desire.

 

“If you have known one woman, you have known all women. If you have known one man, you have known all men. Then the differences are only in the outer form. And the one who has not known all women in knowing the one woman, understand that he is living unconsciously. Even knowing innumerable women he will not be able to know, he simply will never know. Knowing happens through awareness, and he is unconscious. He will go on chasing women, dropping one to go after another.

 

“Certainly you will burn, because it hurts the male ego. You think it is completely fine that you become interested in other people’s women, that there is no problem in it. We say: 'Boys will be boys.' Men have created this saying because they think that a man will not be satisfied with one woman, that a man wants many women, but that a woman will be satisfied with only one man. These are just male tricks. A woman should be satisfied with one man – and that one is you! But you? – how can you be satisfied with one? You are a man! You think there should be more freedom for a man…

 

“Your wife has as much right to her freedom as you demand for yourself. And if you find that, no, it is not right that your wife becomes interested in other men, then your being interested in other women is also not right. What you expect of your wife you should become, you should act in the same way. Only then do you have any right.”

 

-Osho, "Die O Yogi Die , #8"

 

 

 

 

In a Better World a Man Will Be Both, a Woman Will Be Both

 

“Man has been taught to be just a man: never to show any feminine traits, never to show any softness of the heart, never to show any receptivity, always be aggressive. Man has been taught never to cry, never weep – because tears are feminine.

 

“Women have been taught never to be in any way like the male: never to show aggression, never show expression, to always remain passive, receptive. This is against reality, and this has crippled both.

 

“In a better world, with better understanding, a man will be both, a woman will be both – because sometimes a man needs to be a woman. There are moments when he needs to be soft – tender moments, love-moments. And there are moments when a woman needs to be expressive and aggressive – in anger, in defence, in rebellion. If a woman is simply passive, then she will turn into a slave automatically. A passive woman is bound to become a slave – that’s what happened down the ages. And an aggressive man, emphatically aggressive and never tender, is bound to create wars, neurosis in the world, violence.

 

“Man has been fighting, continuously fighting; it seems that man exists on the earth just to fight. In three thousand years there have been five thousand wars. War continues somewhere or other, the earth is never whole and healthy…never a moment without war. Either it is in Korea, or it is in Vietnam, or it is in Israel, or India, Pakistan, or in Bangladesh; somewhere the massacre has to continue.”

 

-Osho, "The Heart Sutra, #3"

 

 

 

 

The Womb Is a Central Phenomenon in the Feminine Body

 

“The first thing to be understood: men and women are different; not only different, but opposites. But they are not unequal, they are equal. There is difference, there is oppositeness, there is a polarity, but they are not unequal, they are equal. Two opposites are always equal, otherwise they cannot oppose each other.

 

“The second thing to be understood: The female body exists for a totally different purpose – biologically, physiologically, chemically. It has a different function to fulfill than the male body. And it is so different from the male body that unless you penetrate into the deeper layers of biology you will not be able to understand the difference. They exist as if in two worlds apart. The woman carries a womb.

 

"The very word ‘woman’ comes from ‘man with a womb’. And the womb is so important – nothing is more important than the womb, because a new life has to come through it. The whole moving phenomenon of life passes through it; it is the very gate into this world. And because of the womb, the woman has to be receptive, she cannot be aggressive. The womb cannot be aggressive; it has to receive, it has to be an opening, it has to invite the unknown. The womb has to be a host; the man will be the guest.

 

"Because of the womb being a central phenomenon in the feminine body, the whole psychology of woman differs. She is non-aggressive, non-inquiring, non-questioning, non-doubting, because all those things are part of aggression. The man doubts, he inquires, he goes in search; she waits. The man will come in search of her. She will not take the initiative, she simply waits – and she can wait infinitely.“

 

-Osho, "The Mustard Seed, #18"