Question – It seems the Whole Commune is run by Women. Is there a particular purpose or strategy to that?

Osho – Certainly there is a particular strategy. 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 you can see I have destroyed it.

My communes are run by women, and they have proved far superior to men in every possible way. My sannyasins are doing better business than any man can do, finding better bargains than any man can find. I wanted it to be a solid argument before the whole of humanity that women are not inferior, that if you give them a chance, they can even prove superior in many matters. At least they are going to prove equal.

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 equally, 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.

It is not going to be so in my commune. But I do not agree with the liberation movement of women, because that is going in a reactionary way, creating hate for men — so much so that their basic approach is now that no woman should love any man, that they should all be lesbians.

Here, women are running the whole commune, everything, but no man who is here has ever felt that he is inferior. In fact, for the first time he feels a respect for women. He can see the dignity of women. Every day I receive letters from my male sannyasins asking, “What is happening? The commune sannyasins, the women, are becoming juicier and juicier, more and more graceful, more and more beautiful. And they are working so hard!”

For the first time, they have been given the chance to show their mettle. It is not a loss to men: they have found a companion, equal to themselves, side by side with them. You were missing half of humanity…. And remember, because you have repressed that half, that half was trying to take revenge in every possible way. Of course, the woman has her own ways of taking revenge, and every man knows how the woman can take revenge. Every woman has been taking it for centuries. She will be nagging the husband, she will be spying on the husband. She will make the husband just a henpecked person.

All husbands are henpecked! I have never come across another category. Outside they may roar like lions, but that is not to be believed. Just look through the keyhole in their houses — the woman is roaring and the husband is hiding like a rat behind this chair, behind that table. It is natural, because if you repress their energy, somehow they are going to revolt against it. Here, men also are feeling tremendously relieved because no woman is nagging them.

Women’s liberation is automatically men’s liberation. Women’s slavery is automatically men’s slavery. They go together. But this is only a transitory period…. Once I have proved my point, all around the world in different countries and different communes — even where I am not present — women will be on the top, once the point is proved and people can see.

Just four years ago, when we came here, we did not have a single dollar. My women sannyasins managed to purchase 126 square miles, an area three times bigger than New York. In four years we have poured almost two hundred million dollars into creating this oasis, and all has been managed by women. They have proved their mettle — and without insulting men, without putting them down, without in any way taking revenge. And they are not lesbians.

So it is, in fact, a tremendous revolution which is needed, which has been needed for centuries. And the sooner the whole world goes the way my communes function, the better, because I don’t think women will be ready to use nuclear weapons in the third world war. Women won’t want to kill; that is not part of their feminine psychology. They would like people to come closer, to be more loving.

If the world is run by women — and man can take his place more significantly in scientific research, in the service of life and creativity — and the governments and all other functional things are run by women, we will have a tremendous balance.

It will take a little time for women to produce Einstein and Picasso and Michelangelo. It will take a little time to bring a Mozart, a Leonardo da Vinci, because for thousands of years — in fact, for the whole history — they have been repressed, so it will need a little time. And once the repression changes into expression, it will be just like land which has been lying fallow for thousands of years gathering all kinds of fertilizers, rain water, and nobody cultivating it. When you cultivate it, it is going to give you a bumper crop. All other fields will look poor because they have been exploited every year; they have lost their energy to produce more.

The same is the situation of the human mind. The feminine mind has not been used, has not been allowed to function. If it is allowed, it may take a quantum leap. And it will be a blessing for all.

An intelligent woman, respected as equal to men in the society, will not become a lesbian because it is unnatural, absolutely unnatural. She will be heterosexual. And if all women turn to heterosexuality, we will be declaring war on homosexuality, too, because from where are they going to find men? They will chase the homosexuals to their deaths. They are chasing them here.

We have got a few homosexuals, and they go on writing letters of complaint to me: “We are homosexuals and women are chasing us. We are not interested, but we do not want even to declare that we are homosexual.”
I say, “What can I do? Drop your homosexuality.”

We can make a better world together. Men and women should be really half-and-half of a whole. There are qualities which men have and women do not have; there are qualities which women have and men do not have. Both together, the human being will be richer in every possible way.

Just think of a woman pilot dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I cannot conceive of it. If there had been a woman pilot, she would have refused to follow the order. She would have preferred to be shot dead, but she would not go to kill innocent people who have nothing to do with war.

And anyway, the war was ending. Germany was already on its knees, it was only a question of a week or two until Japan would surrender. There was no need of an atom bomb to create a hell for two beautiful cities.

I don’t think a woman could have done that. A woman would rather have said, “You can court-martial me. You can shoot me. That seems to be easier than killing 100,000 people in one city, and 120,000 people in another city.”

But what did the man pilot do? He dropped atom bombs on both the cities, came back to his base, had a good dinner, smoked the best cigar, joked with his friends, and went to sleep with a woman. In the morning when the journalists reached him, they asked the man if it had been very difficult for him to sleep having caused 220,000 people’s deaths.

He said, “No, I slept beautifully. I did my duty, and once the duty was fulfilled — and it was a great duty to be fulfilled — I was feeling so happy that I managed to do it that I went to sleep with a woman and had a beautiful sleep.”

Because it had been his orders, President Truman was asked early in the morning the next day, “How was your night?” He said, “I felt immensely relieved. Now there is no question of the war being prolonged any more. Not only that, we have made a point to the whole world: Don’t come in conflict with America, otherwise the result will be more Hiroshimas, more Nagasakis” — not a single word of sympathy for those innocent people. They were civilians, they were not in military camps.

I have seen a picture that I cannot forget. One friend from Japan sent me a photograph of a small child, maybe eight or nine years old. His bag hanging on his shoulder, his books in the bag, he was going upstairs into the attic which was allotted to him as his place to study and sleep. And just when he was on the middle of the staircase, the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima.

The boy simply got burned and got stuck into the wall — just a burned body with a burned bag, burned books. When I saw that picture, I could not believe that man can do this to man. If a woman was president of America, I don’t think this could have happened. Man has been given enough chance; now let the woman come up, and man can pour his energies more into scientific fields. Meanwhile, women will pick things up.

Yes, there is a certain basic strategy why my communes are run by women. But you can meet my male sannyasins. They are not in any way thought to be inferior. No woman is treating them as inferior in the way they have always treated women as inferior.

Perhaps it is that the male ego functions in that way: unless it makes somebody feel inferior, it is not satisfied. The woman functions in a different way: unless she feels somebody needing her, desiring her, she feels frustrated. A man’s need seems to be to dominate, and the woman’s need seems to be to be needed. That is a far better need — to be needed.

And I am doing an experiment, I am not a philosopher. I hate philosophy because it is simply a wastage of time. My commune is my experiment, and everything that I have envisioned has come true in it. The same can happen all over the world. This is a prototype.

Source – Osho Book “The Last Testament, Vol 1″

Question – Beloved Osho, Women have a better feeling for others than Men Do. How come there have been No Great Masters among them so Far?

Osho – It is a very delicate question, and a little difficult too — about women everything is difficult — but I will try my best.

First, you never ask why no man in the whole history of existence has been pregnant, why he has not given birth to a child. You simply know that biologically he has no womb. He can make many women pregnant. This has to be understood; that’s why there have been religions which allow four wives to a man, but no religion allows four husbands to a women, for the simple reason that a man can make many women pregnant. But once a woman is pregnant, then you can bring Muhammad Ali the Great — even he cannot do anything; for nine months the woman is booked.

I know women have a much more feeling heart, are more loving, are more open, are more receptive. But these are the qualities of a disciple, not of a master. The disciple has to be open, receptive, vulnerable, loving, feeling. The only thing the disciple has to drop is his mind, not his heart. His mind is a constant disturbance. It goes on creating skepticism, and a disciple cannot be a skeptic.

The woman can be a prefect disciple, but cannot be a perfect master. Now, I am not responsible for it, I am simply saying what the fact is. And you can see it with your own eyes. I have more women disciples around the world than men, and I can trust women more than men. I have given every responsible job in all the communes around the world to women, not to men.

You must be surprised, because man has better reasoning, is more rational, is more authoritative, is more interested in being higher and higher in a hierarchy. The woman is not interested in hierarchy. Her interest in life is not through reasoning, but through feeling. Logic is not her world — love is her world. To be a master is a very strange job. You have to convince people about the heart by argument and reason, rationality, philosophy; you have to use the mind as a servant for the heart. The master’s work is to take your mind away from you, so that your whole energy moves into your heart.

It is from the heart that we are connected with existence, it is not from the mind. Nobody can go directly from mind to existence. Mind can create science, but it cannot create poetry, it cannot create paintings, it cannot create sculpture. And it is impossible for the mind to go into the dimension of religion. If the mind tries to go into the dimension of religion it creates theology, not religion.

The word “theology” has to be understood: theo means God, logy is logic — logic about God. Mind is capable of creating logic about God, arguments about God. God is not there, but through your argumentation, your reasoning, you can create a hypothetical God. All gods of all religions are hypotheses, and hypotheses which are absolutely unnecessary — not only unnecessary but dangerous, because if you get caught up in those hypothetical gods you are not going to ever find the authentic truth.

Heart knows no argument; it feels. And existence has to be felt. Even when a man feels existence, he feels through the heart. But the heart cannot convince anybody. The man has a tremendous capacity for logic and reason. Once he has found reality, enlightenment, through his heart, he can use the mind to spread the fragrance that he has found. The woman cannot do it. That’s why there have been not only no great masters, there have been no masters who were women. Even the famous religious women saints were disciples.

Saint Teresa — I don’t mean Mother Teresa — Saint Meera, Saint Lalla… these three women were absolutely capable of becoming great masters, but the could not. They became enlightened, but they remained devotees. And there is nothing great in being a master; it is just a technical thing. The real thing is to realize your potential and your flowering.

Your question is like: “Why in history has a woman never been a husband?” What can I do? A woman has to be a wife, and there is no suggestion that the husband is higher than the wife. In fact, just the opposite is the case.

I have never come across any husband who is not henpecked. If you don’t want to become henpecked, then be a freelance lover, then never get married. Marriage simply means you have surrendered your freedom, your individuality — everything. Yes, when you go out of the house you go like a lion, roaring. But when you come back to the house you come like a rat, trembling. It is a strange thing.

This is a factual story I am going to tell you. Akbar, a great Mogul emperor in India — perhaps the greatest Mogul who has ruled India — was very curious about everything. One day he asked his council of wise people — he had collected nine of the most famous wise men around himself in his court — he asked them, “Can you find a husband who is not henpecked?”

Only one remained silent. He was the most wise; his name was Birbal. The other eight said, “Yes, we can find many husbands, what to say about one?”
Akbar looked at Birbal and he said, “You have not raised your hand.”
He said, “I cannot, because even you are a henpecked husband. You are a great emperor of a vast subcontinent, and I know the moment you enter your harem, you are nobody; the woman rules over you. These eight people don’t know the reality. First they should think about themselves. I would like to ask these eight people, `Are you henpecked or not?’ As far as I am concerned, I am. When I cannot remain free, I don’t believe these people are free. They have not pondered over it. But give them a chance — if they can find one, it will be a revelation.”

Those eight wise men went to New Delhi, the capital of India, to look for a man who was not henpecked. Akbar gave them two horses, beautiful horses from Kabul, one pure white and one pure black. And he said, “Whoever you find that is not henpecked, you can give one of these two beautiful horses as a reward from me.”

They were really precious. In those days horses were something of a treasure; to have a beautiful, strong horse was a great joy. Now there are no more horses; there are cars which have horsepower.

Those eight wise men went around the capital, and they were getting frustrated again and again, because they could not find one. The condition was: “If you say you are not henpecked, and it is proved not right, you will be hanged. If it is proved right, one of these two horses will be your reward.” There was nobody courageous enough to take the risk.

Only one man they found, who was a very strong man — seven feet tall, a great wrestler, a champion wrestler. He was sitting outside his house in the garden. His body was something to see; so solid that if he hit a man just with his fist, he could kill him. He looked like a man made of steel.

They thought, “Perhaps this man is the man we are searching for.” They asked him, “Are you henpecked?”
He said, “If you repeat it again, I will kill all of you. Me henpecked? Are you mad?”

They looked inside the house. A very small woman, very thin, was cooking food. The eight men said to the strong man, “Just to find out the facts — which horse would you like as a reward, the black or the white?”

And the man turned back and asked his wife, “Muna’s mother” — that is the way in India it is done. You cannot take the name of the husband or the wife. The wife says, “Muna’s father,” the husband says, “Muna’s mother.” Muna is just like Tom, Dick, Harry. He asked, “Muna’s mother, should I take the white horse or the black?”

Muna’s mother said, “If you take the black horse, I will give you hell! Take the white one.”
And he told the wise people, “I would like to take the white one.”
They said, “You come with us — you don’t get either. You will be hanged!”

In the house, within the boundaries of the house, the woman has tremendous power. But she is not interested in the outside world. Women’s natures are different. A woman can become a great disciple, but for a woman to become a master is almost impossible. But there is no question of somebody being higher.

The master is not higher than the disciple. The master is simply trying to awaken you. The moment you are awakened there is no master and no disciple. It is just out of gratitude that the disciple remains a disciple — just out of gratitude. But there is no difference; they have known the same reality. They have become what nature wanted them to become, they have blossomed.

So don’t feel depressed that women have not been great masters — they have been great disciples. Man finds it difficult to become a disciple. In fact, man should worry about it, because to become a disciple is the real thing — and the beginning. And to come to the perfection of being a disciple is the end.

A man passes through a very difficult phase. He cannot become a disciple, or can become one only in a wishy-washy way, always ready to quit. And without becoming a disciple, there is no question of becoming a master. Yes, once in a while it happens that a man becomes a master without becoming a disciple. But for that immense patience, a certain stubbornness, is needed.

I don’t have any master. In my previous lives I never had any master. I have lived with many masters, I have known many masters, but I could not manage to become a disciple. That is why I am so late; otherwise, Jesus would not have preceded me. But it was simply difficult for me to be a disciple. I remained searching, and searching on my own. Yes, it took many many lives to arrive where I have always been.

I have never been initiated by anyone. I am not a sannyasin. I am really outside of any crowd, and that’s the way I have always been. It was a long, arduous journey to find that there is nothing to find. Women are far more fortunate, because the beginning is in their hand, and the beginning is almost half the achievement. That I can see myself.

This was the basic reason why women could not become great masters. But there is no need to feel sad. They became great disciples — which is far more fortunate, because to begin from the beginning is easier than to begin from the end.

Source – Osho Book “From the False to the Truth”

Question – Bhagwan, What do you think about the attitude of the Buddha, Messiahs, Avataras, Tirthankaras, towards women?

Osho – Just disgusting! All these people have insulted woman-kind down the ages as much as it is possible. None of them can be forgiven. None of them can be forgotten.

Christians have a trinity of God, the holy ghost, and the son, Jesus Christ. But in the trinity there is not a woman. A very strange family. The father is there, the son is there, but where is the mother? And what purpose has this holy ghost? Why keep this idiot there? A woman would have been perfectly human and understandable. But in the highest trinity of Christianity they cannot accept a woman.

Jesus was teaching in the village of his birth, and a crowd was listening to him. His mother, Mary, came running because her son has come to the village; and she was waiting long, for years he had not been there. She is standing outside the crowd and somebody shouts to Jesus, “Your mother is standing outside the crowd.”
And do you know what Jesus says? He says, “Tell that woman” — he does not use the word mother — he says, “Tell that woman that I don’t have any mother. I have only my father who is above in heaven.”

And these people you have worshipped. You have never asked about their behavior. He had twelve apostles, his chief disciples. But amongst them there was not a single woman, although there were women far more devoted than those apostles.

One of the most beautiful women of Judea, Mary Magdalene, was a prostitute, but listening to Jesus she went through a transformation. She dropped her profession and devoted her whole life to Jesus, but she was not accepted as one of the apostles. You will be surprised to know that when Jesus was crucified all those twelve male apostles escaped, afraid that they may be caught with the same result. What happened to Jesus may happen to them. They were afraid of crucifixion, they had seen the misery, the anguish of Jesus. They all escaped.

But three women — Jesus’ mother, about whom he said, “Tell that woman she is not my mother,” was still there, unafraid. Everybody knew she was the mother of Jesus. Nobody knew those apostles.

Mary Magdalene, a prostitute, had more courage and more guts than those so-called holy men. And another woman of the same name, Mary was also there. These three women brought Jesus’ body from the cross. Not a single man was there. But the Christian church has not accepted those three women as saints. Those twelve cowards who escaped, they are great saints. The woman has been condemned by all the religions.

Mahavira says that no woman can go to the ultimate liberation directly from the woman’s body. Strange, because the same person continuously teaches people that you are not the body, you are the soul. If you are the soul, then the question arises, is the soul of a woman also feminine? Is the soul of man also masculine? The soul cannot be feminine and cannot be masculine.

Consciousness is simply consciousness, it has no sexuality, it has no genitals. But he forgets when it comes to woman. He says, “A woman has to do austerities, practice virtue; all that will help her to be born as a man in the next life. And then she can make efforts for ultimate enlightenment. Only man can become enlightened. No woman can become enlightened.”

You will be surprised to know that in spite of all these teachings, one courageous woman became enlightened. Her name was Mallibai. She lived a few hundred years earlier than Mahavir. The woman had really attained to all the qualities of the enlightened person. She has the tranquillity, the silence, the unconditional love, fearlessness, absolute freedom. They had to accept her, but they played a trick.

In my childhood I used to go to a Jaina temple which was just near my house. There are twenty-four statues of the Jaina tirthankaras. They are all alike. I never discovered that there is one woman, for the simple reason that the Jainas have changed her name. From Mallibai they have changed her name to Mallinath. Do you see the disgusting, ugly, male chauvinist mind? Mallinath one thinks naturally must have been a man. The name is of a man, but she was a woman.

It took years for me to discover that Mallinath was not Mallinath; it was a woman. But why did they change the name? Because they were feeling embarrassed. It goes against their whole teaching and their whole philosophy. No person can become enlightened from a woman’s body. What is wrong in a woman’s body? It is more beautiful than a man’s body; it is more strong than a man’s body. Perhaps you will be surprised when I say that, because you have been carrying the idea that man is stronger, but only muscularly he is stronger. But that is not the only strength in the world, there are far more superior strengths.

For example, the woman has more resistance to diseases than man. That is her real strength. More men fall sick than women. To keep the balance nature has to produce ten boys more if it produces one hundred girls, it has to produce one hundred ten boys. Because by the time they become mature enough to get married, ten boys would have gone down the drain. But those hundred girls will be still around. They have a far stronger grip on life.

Women live five years longer than men all over the world. If man’s age is seventy, then woman’s age is seventy five. Women talk about committing suicide, but they don’t commit. And whenever you find that a woman has committed suicide, be very careful; in most of the cases it will be a murder.

Either the husband has murdered her, or the mother-in-law has murdered her, it is not a suicide. Women simply talk, it is the man who commits murder, commits suicide. Twice as many men go mad as women. One thinks this is strange, because women act crazier. They throw things, they break plates, they hit with pillows, and they are always ready to throw a tantrum, weeping, screaming. They know the whole paraphernalia of how to torture the husband. But they don’t go mad. Perhaps they don’t go mad because every day they have a release, they don’t accumulate.

Man cannot cry, it is unmanly. He cannot throw things, it doesn’t suit him. He cannot break plates or scream. He accumulates, and one day he explodes, wholesale.
What is wrong with a woman’s body? Why she cannot become enlightened? I have been working with millions of people, men and women. I don’t see any difference as far as enlightenment is concerned. But even a man like Buddha, who is the best of his kind, was afraid to initiate women into his commune. For fourteen years continuously he refused women, he would not initiate them.

What is the problem? Perhaps it is not the woman that is the problem, it is repression that is the problem. All those monks are repressed people, their sexuality is boiling within. To allow women into the commune is dangerous, because these people who are carrying a repressed sexuality, finding women close enough, may not be able to control themselves. But this is something wrong with your methodology, your discipline. For your wrong discipline, why you should insult women?

In my commune, women and men have lived together with no question of fear, because basically I am against repression. In fact, you will be surprised to know that my swamis, the male sannyasins, were afraid of women. They were trying to escape from women, not vice versa, because while making love man loses some energy. The woman does not lose anything. Seeing the fact, the man becomes aware that, “I am being stupid. This is not a bargain, I am simply losing, and the woman is enjoying. I am being befooled.”

It was continuously reported to me by women sannyasins, “What has happened to your sannyasins? They find excuses to escape.”
I said, “Nothing has happened. I have allowed you both total freedom, and freedom brings understanding. They have seen that in sexual relationship they are the losers, they are the fools. Next day, they have the hang-over. Naturally, everybody wants to protect himself, and everybody has the right to protect himself.”

But Buddha was afraid, because he would not allow a man even to see women. He would not allow a man to touch a woman, he will not allow a man to talk with a woman. Now if this is the situation, then naturally women have to be kept out of the sangha, of the initiated commune. But finally he reluctantly agreed, he had to agree. His mother died when he was born, and he was brought up by his mother’s sister from the very first day. She was the woman he had known as his mother. He knew she was not his mother, his mother had died, but she had given him more than any mother. She did not get married, just because of him, because if she got married perhaps she would have her own children and she may not be so careful of Gautam Buddha. She loved the boy, and the boy had as much potential that it looked like he was going to become a milestone in the history of man. She sacrificed her whole life.

And when this woman came to her own son and asked to be initiated, Buddha could not refuse. Reluctantly he initiated her; but then the door was opened. If you initiate one woman, you cannot refuse another woman. And what he said at that moment is worth remembering. He said, “My religion was going to last for twenty-five centuries. Now it will last only five centuries, because the women will corrupt everything.”

This is strange. Why should women corrupt? It can happen only if your male sannyasins are corruptible, if they are ready to be corrupted. And if they are ready to be corrupted, I don’t think his religion was going to last for twenty- five centuries. People who want to be corrupted have thousands of ways to be corrupted. Woman is not an absolute necessity. They can become homosexuals, in all the monasteries they have become homosexuals.

But all these prophets have misbehaved with woman. It is time that the woman should assert her individuality, should assert her spirituality, and should condemn all those people who have been against women, who have reduced her into a sub- human species. A totally new quality of religious consciousness is needed, which accepts men and women equally.

There is nothing to be afraid of. And if spiritual beings are so much afraid, then who will be fearless? I am reminded of a small story. Two Buddhist monks are coming from the village back to their monastery. Before the monastery they have to cross a small, mountainous river. The current is very strong.

The old monk is ahead, and he finds a beautiful young woman standing on the bank of the river, and she says, “Reverend, night is coming. I am alone, my house is on the other side, and I am afraid to enter this mountainous river. The current is so strong. I am afraid, I may be taken by the current and drowned. Won’t you help me?”

The old man remembered Buddha’s sayings, “Don’t talk to a woman.” He didn’t say anything, he simply lowered his eyes because he had seen her. She was beautiful. Already his heart was beating faster, she had already affected him. It was dangerous. He simply jumped into the river to get back to the monastery as quickly as possible.

When he reached the other side he remembered that his young sannyasin, a young bhikku is also coming just behind him. And he is too young. If my heart started beating faster, if I started thinking of things which cannot be said, what about the young man? At that time he saw the young man carrying the girl on his shoulders. The old man was furious, and also jealous.

The young man put the girl back on the ground. The girl thanked him. But the old man did not speak to him. He was really angry, he was not in a state to talk. But before they were entering the monastery, on the steps before the door, he stopped and said to the young man, “I am going to report it to the master. You have committed a grave sin.”

The young man said, “What sin, what are you talking about?”
The old man said, “Ah ha. Are you trying to befool me? What about that beautiful girl that you were carrying on your shoulders?”
The young man simply said, “I have left her on the bank of the river, but it seems you are still carrying her.”

Man and woman are part of one humanity. They should not be thought of as separate. Religion is for both, and together they can grow better than in separation. We just have to drop all kinds of sexual obsession, repression, which are ugly inheritance from ignorant, primitive days. We are living in a more sophisticated, more intelligent century. We should behave according to the contemporary times.

Source – Osho Book “The Last Testament, Vol 5″

Question – Beloved Master, Are you against the Women’s Liberation movement?

Osho – Shakti, I am not against women, I am all for them. But the liberation movement is something ugly — and I know the responsibility is on the male chauvinists. They have been doing so much harm to women down the ages that now the woman wants to take revenge.

But whenever you start taking revenge you become destructive. The movement is still in a destructive phase; it has not become creative. And I am against destructiveness.
It is of no use to go on looking at past wounds. It is of no use to take revenge because of the past. One should learn to forgive and forget. Yes, it was wrong — accept it.

Whatsoever has been done to women down the ages was absolutely wrong. Man HAS exploited them. Man has been very brutal, very animalistic. Man has reduced women to slaves; even more than that, he has reduced them to things, to possessions. But what is the point of taking revenge? Then you become the pursuer and man becomes the pursued. Then another kind of chauvinism begins to take form and shape. Then the female chauvinist is born. And this is not going to put things right. Then the women will start doing harm to men, and sooner or later they will take revenge. Where is this going to stop? It is a vicious circle.

And my feeling is that instead of men stopping it, it is far easier for women to stop it, to come out of the vicious circle — because they are more loving, more compassionate. Man is more aggressive, more violent. I don’t have much hope from men, I hope much from women. Hence I am not in favor of the aggressive attitude and approach of the Women’s Lib movement.

Mrs. Farid presented herself at the gate of heaven and knocked with trembling hand.
“Madam,” said Father Abraham, peering suspiciously through a peephole, “from whence did you come?”
“From Flatbush I came,” replied Mrs. Farid with embarrassment, as great beads of perspiration spangled her spiritual brow.
“Never mind, my daughter,” replied the patriarch compassionately. “Eternity is a long time; you can live that down.”
“Mister, I got something to confess,” she went on, obviously worried.
“In our religion we don’t have confessions.”
“But this is different. If you will take a look in your records, you will see that maybe I don’t belong here. I — I — well — I poisoned my husband and I chopped up my brother-in-law. Not only that, I….”
Father Abraham suddenly grew stern. “Your aggressive behavior does indeed present a problem, madam. Were you a member of the Women’s Liberation movement?”
“No.”
The gates of pearl and alabaster swung open upon their golden hinges, making the most ravishing music, and the patriarch bowed low.
“Enter into thy eternal rest.”
But Mrs. Farid hesitated. “The poisoning, the chopping, the… the….” she stammered.
“Of no consequence, I assure you. We are not going to be hard on a lady who did not belong to the Women’s Lib. Take a harp.”
“But I applied for membership. They would not let me in.”
“Take two harps.”

Don’t be worried, Shakti. There are many women here who have belonged to the Women’s Lib movement. But as they have come closer to me, their attitudes have changed, their approach has changed. Life’s problems can only be solved by love, they cannot be solved by any violent approach.

Men and women are different worlds; hence it is difficult to understand each other. And the past has been full of misunderstandings, but that is not necessarily to be so in the future. We can learn a lesson from the past, and the only lesson is that man and woman have to become more understanding of each other and more accepting of each other’s differences. Those differences are valuable, they need not create any conflict; in fact, they are the causes of attraction between them. If all the differences between men and women disappear, if they have the same kind of psychology, love will also disappear because the polarity will not be there.

Man and woman are like negative and positive poles of electricity: they are pulled towards each other magnetically; they are opposite poles. Hence, conflict is natural. But through understanding, through compassion, through love, through looking into the other’s world and trying to be sympathetic to it, all the problems can be solved. There is no need to create more conflict — enough is enough.

Man needs as much liberation as woman. Both need liberation — liberation from the mind. They should cooperate with each other and help each other to be liberated from the mind. That will be a true liberation movement. That’s what sannyas is all about.

Source – Osho Book “The Dhammapada Vol 10″