Question 1

Osho,

Can a woman really drive a man crazy?

 

 

It depends on the man. If he is wise he becomes a henpecked husband; if he is not so wise, then there is no other way than to be crazy. That's why ninety-nine point nine percent of men decide to be henpecked husbands -- just to survive.

 

Nothing is wrong with the woman; she is not deliberately trying to drive you crazy. Just their minds function in a totally different way. In fact, that is their attraction; their polarities function like a magnetic field. The more different a woman is, the more she will attract you. If she is just like you, thinks the way you think, the attraction will be lost. There will be no tension; the relationship will collapse.

 

The relationship is like an arch. When you make an arch you put bricks against each other; their very opposition creates the strength, and the arch can support the whole building. But the strength depends on the opposition.

 

A living relationship between a man and a woman is bound to be a little bit crazy. Man cannot drive the woman crazy because his argument, his way of thinking is logical. The woman's way of thinking is illogical, but that is her way; that's how she is made. She functions instinctively at the lowest and intuitively at the highest. Man functions intellectually at the lowest and intelligently at the highest. The way of instinct and intuition is the way of illogic. Logic cannot drive the illogical person crazy; if anything is going to happen it is going to happen to the logical mind.

 

Craziness is part of the logical mind. Craziness simply means your logic is no more functioning and you are at a loss what to do. You love the woman, you would not like to lose her at any cost. You feel for her, you try in every way to understand her. But whatsoever you do you are also helpless -- you can do only logically. And logically she is not comprehensible; that way she is mysterious, very mysterious. You can devote your whole life in studying a single woman and you will not be able to figure out what is what.

 

She never tries to understand you. The illogical functioning of the psyche is not interested in understanding; it simply reaches to the conclusions without any procedures -- it jumps to the conclusions. And the miracle is that the woman is almost always right and you are almost always wrong. That drives you crazy! And you have been functioning so logically, mathematically, step by step; still your conclusion is not right.

 

One woman won the lottery. When the husband came he was surprised. How she managed, he asked.

 

She said, "I saw a dream, and in the dream the figure 7 appeared three times. So I figured out that three times seven means twenty-eight."

 

The husband was aghast. He said, "Then what happened?"

 

She said, "I purchased the ticket of the number twenty-eight and I won the lottery."

 

The husband said, "But three times seven is not twenty-eight, it is twenty-one!"

 

The woman said, "Then you be the mathematician, but I have won the lottery!"

 

Who cares about mathematics? The real thing is the conclusion. She never tries to understand man -- no woman ever tries -- she understands already. In fact, they are always puzzled why men go on trying to understand women. For centuries man has been doing that. I think woman must have been the ancient-most subject of his inquiries -- naturally; even before God he must have inquired about woman. In fact, it was the woman who got him into the whole trouble, not God. God may have created the world, but there was no trouble.

 

It was Eve who persuaded him to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, which was forbidden. Man tried to argue that "It is forbidden. God has said not to go near to that tree, never to eat that fruit." But the woman says, "God is prohibiting because he is afraid that if we eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge we will become as wise as God. He is jealous. Let us go and eat it." And she seduced him.

 

God may have created the world, but the world we know is created by the woman.

 

If you watch the functioning of the woman's mind you can see it clearly: it is impossible to understand it. The very effort to understand will drive you crazy.

 

It is not just accidental that Buddha escaped from his wife, Mahavira escaped from his wife. It was not the world really that was creating the trouble, because you cannot escape from the world. Where you will escape to? At the most you can escape from the woman who is driving you crazy. And Buddha must have been really frightened. His wife was one of the most beautiful women who has ever walked on the earth -- another Cleopatra. Her name was Yashodhara. She was chosen from thousands of beautiful young women.

 

And the more beautiful a woman is, the more dangerous. The homely woman cannot drive you so much crazy, because she has not that much appeal either. The more appeal a woman has, the more driving force she has.

 

Buddha must have remained frightened. Even after his enlightenment he was frightened, because for many years he did not initiate any woman into his commune. Again and again women asked him, saying that "We want to be initiated, we also want to become your sannyasins!" But he refused, he simply refused. One woman has frightened him so much that he became afraid of all womankind.

 

But finally he had to agree because his stepmother who had brought him up... His own mother died immediately he was born; just after his birth the mother died. Then his stepmother brought him up and he had tremendous respect for her. When she came to ask for initiation he could not refuse -- you cannot refuse your own mother. Unwillingly he consented.

 

But he said that "My religion was going to last for twenty-five hundred years. Now it will last only five hundred years, because the woman has come in." And after his mother's initiation, of course, thousands of women came in. Yashodhara also came in, his wife of whom he has always been afraid. And they came like a flood. Their number became thrice than the men sannyasins and they drowned the whole commune.

 

I am not afraid of women because I never got married. Had I been married then the same would have been the case: I would have tried my best to prevent women outside the commune. But I am not afraid of them at all. Unless you have had a wife you can't be afraid of women. Then they are beautiful creatures!

 

Anand Deepesh, you must be in some trouble! Feel consoled that even Buddhas have been in trouble.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Pontius Pilate were standing on their balcony watching Jesus and the procession following him towards Mount Calvary.

 

"I really don't care who he is," said Mrs. Pilate. "If he stumbles one more time he is out of the parade!"

 

Two women meet on the street. "What have you done with your hair?" says one. "It looks like a wig."

 

"It is a wig," replies the other.

 

"Hm, well, you would never know it!"

 

Said the newly-wed English wife to her husband, "I just don't understand you, George. You liked baked beans on Monday, you liked baked beans on Tuesday, you liked baked beans on Wednesday, you liked baked beans on Thursday. And suddenly on Friday you don't like baked beans!"

 

A black woman and her Jewish Italian friend are discussing religion. The negress says, "You honkies strung Jesus on the cross, eh?"

 

In response the Jew says, "Yes, but if Jesus had been in Africa, you niggers would have eaten him!"

 

"Yes," replies the negress. "You see, we have good taste!"

 

After three months of constant work and hundreds of hours of talking on the part of the client, the woman psychoanalyst was completing her in-depth interpretation of the client's mental and emotional state. Clearing her throat to make her final remarks, she looks up from her notes and says, "And my final analysis lends me to say that in my professional opinion you are just crazy!"

 

The client, shocked and angry, replies, "Well, I will have to get another opinion."

 

"Okay," says the woman shrink, "you are ugly too!"

 

Anand Deepesh, a woman can really drive a man crazy, but still, your cooperation will be needed. Without your cooperation, no, nobody can drive you crazy. If you stop trying to understand her and enjoying her she cannot drive you crazy. If you try to understand her, naturally you will stop enjoying her, and then she is bound to drive you crazy. Rejoice in her! Rejoice in her differences, rejoice in her different approaches towards life. Rejoice that she is not a man but a woman. She does not think like you; not only is her body different from you, her psyche is also different from you. And once you forget trying to understand her, there is no way for her to drive you crazy.

 

When you are with your woman, put your mind aside. Become more existential and less intellectual. Love her, dance with her, sing with her, but don't try to argue with her. As far as argument is concerned, always agree with her and you will never be at a loss. And anyway, even if you argue, finally you will have to agree with her. The more you argue, the more she will insist. And her feminine ways of insistence are such that it is impossible not to listen to her -- because she will not argue. Otherwise you can discuss. You would like...

 

Every husband wants his wife to sit at the table, calm, cool and collected. "And let us discuss the matter." But she starts throwing things! She knows if she becomes calm and cool you are going to win. She starts slamming the door. She will put more salt in your vegetables and no sugar in your tea! She will make so many illogical efforts and she will cry and she will weep and she will start pulling her hair. She will beat the children, who have nothing to do with the matter.

 

And seeing all this, for something small, you will have to agree. Maybe it was only a question of going to see a picture to the movie house and you were not agreeing to which picture to go. She will have her way, so why unnecessarily go defeated with her? Why not go victorious? The moment she says..."Right, absolutely right! That's what I was thinking." And that way you will feel happy and you will go victorious. And your sugar in the tea will be in the right amount and your salt in the vegetables will be right amount, and children will be saved. For some small thing the woman can put the whole house on fire! But it all depends on you.

 

Be a little more meditative, Deepesh. In fact. meditation has been discovered as a defense. It is not a discovery of women, remember. Many people have asked me, "Why women have not discovered meditation?" Why they should discover? They have no reason to discover it; it is man's discovery. Surrounded by his meditative energy he is protected. Nobody, not even a woman, can drive him crazy.

 

So become more meditative. Go a little deeper into zazen, vipassana.

 

-Osho, "Zen: The Special Transmission, #4, Q1"