I have heard that the gods once grew angry with a man. In their anger they cursed him: from today your shadow will be lost. Even when you walk in full sunlight, your shadow will not be cast. The man laughed inwardly: what harm can come to me if my shadow is lost? And what foolish gods—if they must curse, they curse me with the loss of a shadow! He simply could not understand what damage could come from losing a shadow. You too will not easily understand what harm there is in losing one’s shadow. But as soon as he reached his village, he understood—much had been lost. Whoever saw that no shadow formed when he stood in the sun became frightened of him. The news spread through the village that something was wrong with him—his shadow did not appear. Never had it been heard that a man casts no shadow. The doors of his own house were closed to him, his friends turned their faces away, his wife refused to recognize him as her husband, even his children disowned him. Living in the village became impossible. The villagers told him to leave—such a disease as the loss of one’s shadow had never before been seen; who knows what ill-omen he carried. The man had to leave his village. When I first read this story I was astonished—can it be that a man’s shadow could be lost? But when I think about women, I see that the matter has turned completely upside down. They have been left only as shadow—and their Atman has been lost. Woman has been reduced to merely the shadow of man; she has no Atman of her own. This is the first thing I want to say. I travel across the country. I meet thousands of men, and thousands of women. Among women I find mothers, sisters, daughters—but I do not find Woman. There are mothers, wives, daughters, sisters—but Woman? Woman is nowhere. If a woman has any existence, it is only in relation to man; in herself she has no existence. She has no standing of her own, no personality of her own. In China, for thousands of years it was believed that woman has no Atman at all—therefore killing a woman was no crime. If there is no Atman, what harm is there in killing? And if a husband killed his wife, the offense was like breaking one’s chair or smashing a piece of furniture in the house—no greater crime than that. In Hindustan too we have regarded woman as property. We use the expressions nari-sampatti, stri-sampatti—female property. We even “gift the daughter,” as if an object were being given away. The personhood of woman was never acknowledged. And the belief that woman is only shadow has inflicted more misery on humankind than anything else—because a woman without Atman can be joy neither to herself nor to anyone else. One who has lost her Atman is a heap of suffering; around her personality only rays of sorrow will spread, darkness of sorrow will deepen. The family has not become a flowering of delight, because the one in whose blossoming that joy could have arisen has been denied an Atman. The family has become a dead institution—because woman is the center, and woman has been left without personality. Humanity has passed through many misfortunes; the greatest misfortune—greater than all—is the condition of woman. Who created this condition? Who is responsible? If you inquire deeply, astonishing results come to hand. Ask the saints, ask the mahatmas. They will say, “Woman? Drum, rustic, Shudra, animal, woman”—they list her among these. “Woman is the gate of hell,” say saints and mahatmas. And the more influence saints and mahatmas have in a country, the more humiliated woman is there. Religion has created this condition of woman—the religion with which we are familiar. And the greater wonder is this: the very religion that has created this condition is now maintained almost entirely by women. Those mahatmas who called woman “the gate of hell”—their support and nourishment rests upon women. Go to the temples, go to the sadhus and sannyasins—you will see one man to ten or fifteen women. And even that one man is usually following behind his wife; there is no other reason. Saints say woman is the gate of hell. Recently I was in Bombay. People came to tell me that a saint’s discourses were going on. In this country there is scarcely any other business left than giving and hearing discourses. For thousands of years we have done this one business—and we are slowly forgetting that any other work could belong to a people. Hundreds of thousands go to listen to them. Those who came to inform me said: today an extraordinary event occurred. Where there used to be twenty thousand people, today fifty thousand came to listen. I asked, what happened? They said, a woman touched the saint’s feet. And the saint has undertaken a seven-day fast for self-purification. Therefore the numbers soared. And whose numbers increased? The number of women increased. Women went mad to see the saint who became impure by being touched by a woman. One might ask these saints: where were you born? In whose womb did you dwell for nine months? Whose blood runs in your veins? Of what are your bones made? From whom did you get your flesh? So far no device has been invented for saints to be born out of men’s bellies. Yet the very woman whose flesh and marrow, whose bone, whose blood give life to you, the same woman’s touch renders you impure! And besides woman, what else is there in your body that has become impure? And women throng to worship, proclaiming, “What a great saint—he becomes impure if touched by a woman!” Is there no limit to stupidity? No boundary to ignorance? Who has humiliated woman, who has snatched away her Atman? Those have humiliated woman who are opposed to this life, this world, this earth. And among them there is a common chord. Whoever believes real life begins after death; whoever believes real life begins in moksha, in heaven; whoever believes this earth is sinful, this life is meaningless; whoever believes this life is condemned, unworthy of being lived—all such people will revile woman. Because those who condemn life will condemn woman too—for this life arises from woman, unfolds through woman, is profoundly influenced by woman. Woman is the doorway of this life, hence if they see this life as hell, woman becomes the gate of hell. Those who have denounced life have also humiliated woman. There is scarcely a religion in the world that has granted dignity to woman. Have you ever seen a woman entering a mosque? She cannot. If she cannot enter the mosque, how will she enter heaven? The Muslim woman has still not been permitted in the sanctuary. According to the Jains, woman is not eligible for moksha; first she must take birth as a man, then moksha may be attained. And here is an amusing incident. Of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the Jains, one was a woman—Mallibai. But the Digambara Jains hold that a woman cannot be liberated—then how could a woman be a Tirthankara? They changed Mallibai into Mallinath. They say: he was a man. See the joke! They will not accept even one Tirthankara as a woman. How can a woman be a Tirthankara? So he must have been a man. From Mallibai they made him Mallinath. Now there is no problem; Mallinath can go to moksha—Mallibai could not. A change of name solved the matter. Around 1950, the nilgai—blue bull—had greatly damaged crops in the Himalayan foothills. But one could not shoot a nilgai, because “gai”—cow—was in the name; religious trouble would arise. So the Delhi parliament passed a resolution: first change the name from nilgai to nilghoda—blue horse. Then it can be shot. The name was changed, and thereafter it was shot in volleys. No one in India objected—what difficulty is there in killing a nilghoda? The difficulty was in killing a nilgai. A label changed, and the work was done. Poor Mallibai’s label was changed to Mallinath. Those who have distorted the dignity of this life have distorted the dignity of woman. Understand this fact; only then can any revolution approach in the life of woman, only then can Atman be restored to her. Until life on earth becomes worthy of acceptance—until this life becomes a benediction—until we gain the capacity to regard this life too as the prasad of the Paramatma—until then it is difficult to return woman’s Atman to her. So long as the afterlife remains paramount, woman will remain humiliated. So long as the afterlife is supreme, woman cannot be supreme. Between afterlife-ism and the personality of woman there is a fundamental conflict. Therefore the afterlife-oriented saints, sadhus, mahatmas are the born enemies of woman. They feel that woman entangles man—gives birth, draws him into love, binds him in passion—and this whole enterprise of life is run by woman; woman is the center. This is true to a point: woman is at the center of life. But it is false that life is meaningless. It is false that life must be renounced. It is false that by kicking away this life some greater life is attained. The greater life is attained by living this very life rightly. The greater life is attained through the right experience of this life. The greater life is attained by making this life the ladder. But so far, no religion of the world has been able to affirm life. The religions of the world are life-negative. They deny life; they are not life-affirmative. And until a religion of life-affirmation arises upon the earth, woman cannot regain her Atman. While the denial of life continues, woman cannot be honored. Those who have denied life have humiliated woman and made her personality poor and degraded. Therefore the first revolution woman must undertake is against the so-called religious people, the gurus, the religions. The first revolution must be against religions—and upon the basis that this life must be accepted, that there must be blessedness in this life, that there must be joy in this life—not enmity with life, not hostility to it. But to accept the blessedness of life we must change all our values, principles, foundations. Until now we have believed that the one who leaves life is superior; the one who lives is not a man. And what does it mean to abandon life? The sannyasins who run away say, “We have left the home.” If you look closely into what they mean by “home,” it will be “woman.” In any case, home means woman. The sannyasin who runs away, leaving woman, has been so highly honored. Why? Because the moment he leaves woman, it seems he has become an opponent of life. But these long traditions of abandoning life have poisoned the very roots of life. They have robbed life of all joy, all juice, all beauty. They have given life a pall of sadness, a gloom of suffering. Religion has ceased to be a dancing religion, ceased to be a singing religion. Religion has become a long queue of dreary-faced people— of those who have fled. This entire queue is against woman. In this country the influence of life-negating thinkers has been great. And why do some become opponents of life? You must have heard Aesop’s little tale. A fox passes through a garden. Clusters of grapes hang. She leaps to reach them. But they are high; she cannot touch them. She tries again and again. Then she sees some rabbits peeping from a bush. She straightens herself, and with dignity turns back upon the path. The rabbits call out, “Lady, how were the grapes?” The lady says, “Grapes? They were sour—not worth eating—so I left them.” The fox does not say the grapes were out of reach; she does not say her leap was short; she does not say she could not get them, so tasting never arose. Ego whispers within, “No—of course I could have gotten the grapes, but they were sour, so I left them.” Those who cannot attain the juice of life, instead of admitting they do not know the art of living, prefer to say, “Life is worthless, life is sour, life is not worth having.” Whoever fails to realize the truth of life becomes a critic of life. And such people have deformed and perverted everyone’s mind. They have taught such things that slowly, even before a child is born, we begin filling his mind with enmity toward life. I was in Bhavnagar. A girl of thirteen or fourteen came to me and said, “This life is futile. Please show me a way to be free from the cycle of birth and death!” In a country where a child of thirteen or fourteen asks for release from the wheel of life, that country’s future can never be beautiful. Where, before even entering life, the impulse to escape life begins, the education there is dangerous; those who explain are lethal. That country is preparing for self-destruction. The little buds have not even begun to blossom, their flowers have not yet opened—and already they ask, “How to wither? How to die? How to reach moksha?” Have we been teaching dying—or have we been teaching living? As long as we teach dying, as long as religion remains suicidal, there can be no honor for woman. The day religion becomes the art of living, the day we call the right way of living, the art of living—religion—that day woman can be accepted with dignity. But someone may ask: If in India, where religion has so much influence, woman is humiliated, what of the West—Europe, America—where religion has little hold? What is woman’s condition there? There too woman is humiliated—only in a different way. In India there is but one use for woman—that whoever seeks heaven or moksha must renounce her. A negative use. Here there is only one use—whoever would be liberated must abandon woman. India grants honor by leaving woman. In the West the opposite extreme has arisen: there is but one use for woman—that she be enjoyed. There too woman has not been given an Atman. Here her use is to be renounced; there her use is to be consumed. But woman is made neither for renunciation nor for consumption. She has an existence of her own, separate from both renunciation and indulgence; she has her own dignity, her own Atman. The West stands at one extreme: woman is an object of enjoyment—use her and discard her. Beyond that she has no meaning. There too woman’s Atman has not risen. In the West woman is exploited; in the East she is exploited. Thus nowhere in the world has Woman appeared. Nowhere has woman been given a chance to develop her Atman. On one side religionists have humiliated woman; on the other, the anti-religious have humiliated her from the opposite direction. It seems man is eager to humiliate woman—he will not accept and acknowledge her. And it is astonishing: a father says to his daughter, “I love you.” A husband says to his wife, “I love you.” A son says to his mother, “I love you.” But what a strange love this is, that even after thousands of years it has not been able to grant woman a personality! What kind of love is it that cannot bestow Atman on the other? What kind of love is it that clutches the other’s neck but cannot set her free? Love that binds is not love; love that liberates—that is love. If love cannot free, what is the difference between love and hate? If a husband loves his wife, the one essential meaning is this: first help her to become a person—an Atman, a personality, an independent individuality. Only when she becomes a person will love have any meaning. We seek to make the one we love into a person. But man has never allowed woman to become a person; indeed he has done everything to prevent it. For thousands of years woman was denied education—because education gives personality. So education was blocked: woman needs none. Woman was kept uneducated for millennia, because as soon as she receives education, thoughts will arise; thoughts bring rebellion; rebellion brings personality. The conspiracy to keep woman uneducated continued. Then, if somehow woman began to obtain a little education, a new conspiracy began: give her exactly the same education as a man. By giving woman a man’s education her Atman does not manifest; she becomes a second-grade man, a carbon copy. Now the world, under pressure, has agreed to educate women—but in that agreement a new conspiracy has started: give them precisely the education of men. Woman has her own personality—very different from man’s, dimensions wholly different. Her psyche has a very different form; its direction very different. She is not just like man. And precisely this difference between man and woman, this polarity, is the cause of their attraction. They are two opposite poles. And the day… either you do not educate woman—then she becomes a slave, crippled—or, if you must educate her, give her exactly a man’s education—so she becomes a number two man, a carbon copy, and is wasted. In the East woman is a slave; in the West woman is a carbon copy. And a carbon copy has no Atman of its own. To finish woman one method was: do not educate her; the second method is: give her only what you give a man. Then she will become a clerk like a man, a pilot like a man, a soldier like a man. She can become all that—but one thing is certain: in becoming like a man she will no longer remain a woman. And today in the West this accident has begun to appear. In the East woman is not woman—only a maid, a slave. Women sign their love letters, “Your maidservant.” And the recipient is delighted—“husband-god,” and all that. He does not realize that one whom you have forced to call herself slave, who cannot stand face to face with you as an equal—you will never taste the joy of love with her. The joy of love is with equals; it is never with those beneath us. From those beneath us, love can be demanded, asked, extracted. And remember: love never comes by asking. If love comes at all, it comes unasked. And love cannot be forced to be given. But woman has always been taught that she must give love. Husband is god—she must give love. Love is not a duty to be done. The moment love has to be done, that very moment it ceases to be love. Therefore, where there is slavery, love can never be. Slaves never love. Slaves fear; they do not love. Wives fear their husbands. And as long as wives fear, love cannot come from them. And when love does not come from the wife, the man goes seeking love elsewhere—seeks it with prostitutes, seeks it in the marketplace. He does not understand that when love is not found with the wife, how will it be found with the prostitute? Yet his intelligence is the same—he sees no fundamental difference between wife and prostitute. The wife is a permanent prostitute, bought forever. Where a woman has been purchased without love—what is the difference between that and buying a woman for a night? The difference is only of degree—one night, or a whole life. As long as a man ties a woman in his house without love, there is no possibility of love. Then try for a lifetime to show that “we love”—it will remain pretense, mere talk. Above, you will say you love, write love letters—but within there will be no love. Let husbands ask their hearts: have you ever loved your wives? Let wives ask their hearts: have you ever loved? Those whom we say we love—has it all become mere talk? If we had loved, would the state of our homes be what it is—twenty-four hours of quarrel, conflict, hostility? Would the home take this form—this ugliness? Would families be in such condition that everyone longs to escape them? I was for some time in a university. Classes began at twelve-thirty, yet the professors arrived at ten-thirty and sat in the common room. I was amazed—why so early? They said, “Somehow to be saved from home—that is all.” Classes ended at three, yet the professors sat until five—until the peon closed the doors. Why do you sit here? “At home the wife is waiting on the road.” Whatever exists between husbands and wives is anything but love. It is talk of love, mere talk. One tries to fill life with talk—but life is not filled by talk. Then a restlessness starts, and it sickens the whole of life. Without love, no one can be whole—neither woman nor man. The entire human race is incomplete; there is something missing within that never gets fulfilled. One runs for a lifetime—love never comes. Love cannot come in this way. Love comes only from an equal. And until woman stands equal to man, love cannot come from woman. It would be good if women declared: so long as we are slaves, love can be taken from us—but we cannot give it. And that would be right. But husband-gods are very pleased to know their wives are slaves. They never realize that once you make someone your slave, they lose their humanity—they are no longer human. The East is a land of maidservants; and the West? The West has become even worse. The Western woman has become a mere plaything. Change her when the mood strikes. In America there are about forty percent divorces. And these do not express the full reality—many lack the courage to divorce, yet the thought of divorce goes on day and night. Within a hundred years, in America perhaps there will be a hundred percent divorce. You will marry—and arrange the divorce beforehand. I have heard of a woman who changed twenty-eight husbands. When she took the twenty-eighth, after seven or eight days it turned out that this gentleman had already once been her husband. She changed so quickly that one cannot remember! In one life, after twenty-eight changes, how will you recall that a man had been husband once before? Life has become a complete game; there is no dignity, no stability. There is no fragrance, no love—only sexuality and the devices of sexuality. In the East woman has become a slave and lost meaning; in the West she has become a hand’s plaything and is losing meaning. Will it go on like this—or will there be a revolution and the Atman of woman will manifest? Two things are necessary for the Atman of woman to arise. First: woman must cease to be a slave. Second: woman must not become man’s plaything. If she can be saved from these two, the personality of woman can be born. And she can be saved from both. Now the opportunity has come, the convenience is there. Woman is becoming educated. But along with education a world movement should arise: we are not willing to receive the same education as men. You may not realize how the kind of education we receive gradually shapes our personality. Perhaps you also do not realize that what we become is formed ninety percent by education. Some twenty years ago two children were captured in the forests of Bengal—raised by wolves. Their age was ten or twelve. When they were brought, they could not be called human children—neither could they stand on two legs nor speak. They ran on all fours like wolves, attacked like wolves, and ate raw flesh. Then, three years ago in Uttar Pradesh, a boy of fourteen was found—raised by wolves. He too could not stand on two feet. After six months of massage, with difficulty he was made to stand. And after a year’s labor he could be taught a single word. They named him Ram; after a year he could say “Ram”—that was his entire language. Fourteen years with wolves, and man becomes a wolf. So we are men because we lived among men. What we learn from life, that makes us. If women are given the education of men, it is natural that qualities like men will arise. In the West this has begun. The grace of the Western woman, her beauty, her own being—has been thinning away. Her personality is becoming like a man’s. If girls are drilled, made to ride horses, taught mathematics and physics, then slowly a certain delicacy within them will die—it will die. I went to an ashram. There they keep girls exactly like boys. They work hard—dress them the same, drill them, make them swim, make them ride horses. I was astonished to see that in those girls’ personalities the muscles were exactly like boys’—and a great surprise: on the lips of nearly thirty percent, hair had begun to appear—moustaches. If you put them through precisely the drills of boys, the glands of the body begin to function like boys’. And the personality of the girl is effaced; in its place arrives a boy’s personality. But man is delighted even with this. You have heard the song: “She fought like a man—the Queen of Jhansi.” If some woman behaves like men we say, what a glory! But if some man behaves like a woman, no one says, what glory. If a man behaves like a woman, people say, “Ugh! He is unmanly.” No one will say, “What a splendid feminine man!” No one will say it. Strange. If a woman becomes like men, she is glorious—statues must be made, poets must sing. If a man becomes like a woman, poets should also sing, a statue should be made. But what is the matter? The matter is this: Man is the value; woman is not. Woman is unaccepted; man is accepted. Man is superior; woman inferior. Therefore if a woman behaves like a man, we are pleased. Men are trying to cast women in their own image—because women say they want equality. He says, we will make you equal; we will make you exactly like us. Look at Western clothes—similarity grows between men’s and women’s dress; slowly women’s clothes vanish; they become men’s clothes. I heard of an incident. In a queue for circus tickets, a man said to the gentleman in front, “Do you see that boy at the head of the line—what strange clothes he wears!” The gentleman replied, “Sir, that is not a boy—that is my daughter.” He said, “Forgive me; I did not know she was your daughter. So you are her father?” The gentleman said, “Forgive me—you did not understand; I am her mother.” Making women wear men’s clothes, giving them men’s haircuts, men’s persona—by making women a carbon copy of men you cannot give them their Atman. Woman has her own psyche, her own mind, her own heart. It is very different—very different from man’s. The basic archetypes of the male psyche are different; those of the female psyche are different. A woman’s way of thinking is different. Her way of living is different. The process by which her consciousness functions is different. Her entire personality is different. For that different personality there must be a different kind of education, a different training—so that her Atman may manifest—everything must be designed differently. We do not know how small things influence us. You may not realize: if you wear tight clothes and climb stairs, you will take two steps at a time; you will not even notice that it is only because of tight clothes. If you wear loose clothes, you will never take two steps at once; you will climb softly. Clothes can bring you tautness, or slackness. How you dress, how you walk, how you rise, what you read, what you think—everything shapes the personality. There was a great mathematician—Herodotus. He first discovered the theory of averages. He went on a picnic with his wife. A small stream lay in between. Herodotus had five or six children, and his wife. As they were to cross, the wife said, “Take care—take the children across, one by one.” Herodotus said, “Wait, there is no need to hold them. I will measure the average height of the children and the average depth of the stream.” Herodotus measured the children—some taller, some shorter—the stream—deep somewhere, shallow somewhere. The average height was greater than the average depth. Mathematics solved the matter. He said, “Rest assured—no child can drown; on average the children are taller than the average depth.” Mathematicians and economists think like this. The whole country may drown—they go on calculating averages. The average is fine! Herodotus went ahead, the children in the middle, the wife behind. The wife did not trust mathematics. Women never trust mathematics—they cannot; their consciousness does not function like mathematics. She was frightened, watching her children. One child began to submerge. She screamed to Herodotus—“This child is drowning!” But Herodotus did not see the drowning child. He ran back to the shore where he had calculated on the sand. “How can this be? Was there an error in the calculation?” He ran to the figures. The wife somehow rescued the child and said, “Are you mad? You can check the figures later—first save the child!” But to man, mathematics has more meaning than the heart. The world that has been made has been made by man; therefore there is very little heart in it, and too much mathematics. Everywhere it is mathematics—hence in the military men have no names, they have numbers. “Number eleven!” Can any man be number eleven? A man dies—he was someone’s father, someone’s husband, someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s friend. In the military they report: “Number eleven has fallen.” Number eleven is no one’s father, no one’s son, no one’s husband—he is only a number. Since when have numbers had husbands and wives? Number eleven has fallen. The newspaper says: “Number eleven in the military has fallen.” Nothing touches anywhere. With the fall of a number, what is made or marred? This is man’s world—where everything is computed with mathematics. Woman has had no hand in it—otherwise this world would be very different. Mathematics would be less important, the heart more important. There would be fewer calculations, more accounts of love. But it has not happened—because woman has had no Atman. Therefore she has made no contribution to this culture, this civilization. And this mathematical culture made by man has reached the point of death. If it is to be saved, it is necessary to give personality to woman. And to give personality to woman does not mean to make her like a man; it means: what is suitable to woman herself—her education, her training, her entire mode of personality—so that a Woman can be realized. And if such a woman appears, we can add immense joy to human life—for in countless ways woman is the center of life. Joad has written a book in which he says: when I was born, in the West there were homes. Now, as I approach death, in the West there are only houses—homes are gone. Someone asked Joad—what do you mean? What is the difference between home and house? Joad said: a house that has a woman in it I call a home; a house without a woman becomes a hotel—merely a building. And in the West, Woman is lost. In the East she is not even there. Do not think she is. She is not. Homes are not made by maidservants. But what can be done? Two or three brief things—and I will finish. First: Woman must be granted a personality separate from man. She must remain neither man’s slave nor his imitator. She must seek her own personality. And she must declare clearly: we are women, we will remain women, and we wish to be women. Remember, only when we become what we were born to be do we become joyous. If we become otherwise, we are never joyous. When the rose opens and becomes a rose, it rejoices. When the grass-flower opens and becomes a flower, it rejoices. If the grass-flower tries to become a rose, then trouble begins—joy will never happen. Woman must remain woman. She must learn to honor her own personality. And against all the gangs that injure her personality—be they of sadhus, or of saints—woman must stand fundamentally opposed. Until woman stands up, their conspiracy will continue. Second: Now that woman is being educated, she should demand an education appropriate to herself—not exactly that of men. This does not mean men and women should study in separate places. They should study in one place, live together. Boys and girls should live even in the same hostel—there is no need to raise a wall of enmity between them; let them be together. But let man be man, and woman be woman. In the same institution there should be arrangements whereby each can attain to their own personality. Remember also: the civilization developed by man is an arrangement purely of logic, mathematics, machinery. There is nothing of the heart in it. To bring that heart-gift into it, woman must work hard—so she can give heart to this culture. Otherwise man will make atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, super-bombs—he is making them—and they are beyond his comprehension now. He will go on making them, and it may be he will finish the whole human race. If woman does not give her heart to culture, this culture will not last long. Man has brought it to the last edge—where it is about to end. Einstein was asked eight days before his death: can you say what will happen in the Third World War? Einstein said: do not speak of the third—it is very difficult to say; man is unpredictable. But about the fourth I can say something. They were astonished: if you cannot tell about the third, what can you tell about the fourth? Einstein said: one thing is certain—there will never be a fourth. Because after the third, there is no hope that man will survive. Man has reached the end. The civilization of man has reached the brink. The liberation of woman is necessary. A revolution in woman’s life is necessary—so that she can save herself, and save the entire civilization of man. Such a great responsibility rests upon woman as never before. If woman, with her whole-heartedness, her love, her music, her poetry, the full blossoms of her personality, spreads over the world, wars could end today. But as long as man dominates the world, wars cannot end. War is hidden within man. But women are strange too! Men make war, and women apply the tilak and send them to war! Perhaps women do not know what they are doing. They are toys in the hands of men in every way. In Pakistan a mother anoints her son and says: go, kill the son of India. And in India a mother anoints her son and says: go, kill the son of Pakistan. And neither thinks that both sons will be sons of some mother. If the women of the world decide that from tomorrow there will be no war, how could there be war? War would be impossible. But women do not know. And they also do not know how difficult it is for war to disappear from the male mind. There is a tension in the male mind; its causes run very deep—biological causes, profound causes, not easy to trace. I will tell you one cause, so the basic point becomes clear. As soon as the child is conceived in the mother’s womb, twenty-four cells come from the mother, and twenty-four from the father. In the father there are two kinds of cells—one with twenty-four, one with twenty-three. If the twenty-three from the father meets the mother’s twenty-four, a male is born. The male has forty-seven; the female has forty-eight. The personality of woman is symmetrical from the very foundation—twenty-four and twenty-four. Biology says the grace in woman—the beauty, the proportion—is because of this equal symmetry, twenty-four and twenty-four. And in man there is an inner tension—twenty-four on one side, twenty-three on the other; his scale is slightly off-balance. There is a restlessness within, which keeps him restless all his life, full of tension. He keeps creating some disturbance; he will always be doing something. There is a biological tension in man. Because of it, he can never be free of war—he will continue some kind of war. If not hand-to-hand, then quarrels; something will continue. If civilization remains entirely in man’s hands, wars cannot cease; violence cannot cease. Among men too some have spoken of ending violence—Buddha, Mahavira, Gandhi. Perhaps you do not know what the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche said—Nietzsche said that Buddha and Jesus seem effeminate; they do not seem like men. He is, to an extent, right—he says that in man fighting is fundamental. He is right to a point. It may be that in Buddha and Jesus there is such proportion that their personalities have come close to those of women. Gandhi—someone even wrote, “He is my mother.” One could write it—“Gandhi: My Mother.” For in Gandhi too the personality came near to the feminine. It is a remarkable thing that the greater the man, the more his personality gradually comes close to the feminine. As soon as they become heartful, they draw near to woman. It may surprise you to notice—Mahavira, Buddha, Rama, Krishna—you have never seen them with moustache and beard. Have you ever thought—what is this? There is a reason behind it. The sculptor thought deeply. Their entire personality must have come so close to woman that adding moustache and beard did not seem fitting; it seemed better to leave it out. Their personality had become so proportioned. I have spoken these few things. A revolution is needed in the whole world—and the greatest revolution. It is not economic, not political. It is a sexual revolution—it concerns the relations of man and woman, the very centers of kama, of sex. Between these two, in their relationship, there must be a revolution. Woman must be equal to man—but not like man. Equal, but not the same; equal, but without becoming a man. She must be given such a personality—and such an education as will develop her femininity, her womanhood; that will make her a Woman. And woman must have an Atman of her own—separate from relationships, a dignity of her own. She will gain this only when she breaks the old net of religions, and the new net of Western indulgence, and labors in a new direction. In that direction she accepts neither to become a slave nor to become man’s follower. If woman can be saved from these two—this well and that abyss—a revolution in the world of woman is certain. And if this revolution comes, it will be a great good fortune for man. Through it the whole civilization can be saved; it can become heartful. These few things I have said. It is not necessary that everything I say be correct. I may be wrong. So reflect on my words. Perhaps, thinking, some point will appear right. If it appears right, then there arises a responsibility—to experiment a little according to that seeing. If you are a man, do not make woman in your life either a plaything or a slave. And if you are a woman, do not consent to be a slave, and do not imitate man. A fire is needed that will change the old frameworks of this life—then we can give birth to a new human being. You have listened to me with such love—I am deeply obliged. In the end, I bow to the Paramatma seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
The man laughed inwardly: what harm can come to me if my shadow is lost? And what foolish gods—if they must curse, they curse me with the loss of a shadow!
He simply could not understand what damage could come from losing a shadow. You too will not easily understand what harm there is in losing one’s shadow.
But as soon as he reached his village, he understood—much had been lost. Whoever saw that no shadow formed when he stood in the sun became frightened of him. The news spread through the village that something was wrong with him—his shadow did not appear. Never had it been heard that a man casts no shadow. The doors of his own house were closed to him, his friends turned their faces away, his wife refused to recognize him as her husband, even his children disowned him. Living in the village became impossible. The villagers told him to leave—such a disease as the loss of one’s shadow had never before been seen; who knows what ill-omen he carried. The man had to leave his village.
When I first read this story I was astonished—can it be that a man’s shadow could be lost? But when I think about women, I see that the matter has turned completely upside down. They have been left only as shadow—and their Atman has been lost.
Woman has been reduced to merely the shadow of man; she has no Atman of her own. This is the first thing I want to say. I travel across the country. I meet thousands of men, and thousands of women. Among women I find mothers, sisters, daughters—but I do not find Woman. There are mothers, wives, daughters, sisters—but Woman? Woman is nowhere. If a woman has any existence, it is only in relation to man; in herself she has no existence. She has no standing of her own, no personality of her own. In China, for thousands of years it was believed that woman has no Atman at all—therefore killing a woman was no crime. If there is no Atman, what harm is there in killing? And if a husband killed his wife, the offense was like breaking one’s chair or smashing a piece of furniture in the house—no greater crime than that.
In Hindustan too we have regarded woman as property. We use the expressions nari-sampatti, stri-sampatti—female property. We even “gift the daughter,” as if an object were being given away. The personhood of woman was never acknowledged. And the belief that woman is only shadow has inflicted more misery on humankind than anything else—because a woman without Atman can be joy neither to herself nor to anyone else. One who has lost her Atman is a heap of suffering; around her personality only rays of sorrow will spread, darkness of sorrow will deepen. The family has not become a flowering of delight, because the one in whose blossoming that joy could have arisen has been denied an Atman. The family has become a dead institution—because woman is the center, and woman has been left without personality.
Humanity has passed through many misfortunes; the greatest misfortune—greater than all—is the condition of woman. Who created this condition? Who is responsible? If you inquire deeply, astonishing results come to hand.
Ask the saints, ask the mahatmas. They will say, “Woman? Drum, rustic, Shudra, animal, woman”—they list her among these. “Woman is the gate of hell,” say saints and mahatmas. And the more influence saints and mahatmas have in a country, the more humiliated woman is there. Religion has created this condition of woman—the religion with which we are familiar.
And the greater wonder is this: the very religion that has created this condition is now maintained almost entirely by women. Those mahatmas who called woman “the gate of hell”—their support and nourishment rests upon women. Go to the temples, go to the sadhus and sannyasins—you will see one man to ten or fifteen women. And even that one man is usually following behind his wife; there is no other reason.
Saints say woman is the gate of hell.
Recently I was in Bombay. People came to tell me that a saint’s discourses were going on. In this country there is scarcely any other business left than giving and hearing discourses. For thousands of years we have done this one business—and we are slowly forgetting that any other work could belong to a people. Hundreds of thousands go to listen to them. Those who came to inform me said: today an extraordinary event occurred. Where there used to be twenty thousand people, today fifty thousand came to listen.
I asked, what happened?
They said, a woman touched the saint’s feet. And the saint has undertaken a seven-day fast for self-purification. Therefore the numbers soared. And whose numbers increased? The number of women increased. Women went mad to see the saint who became impure by being touched by a woman.
One might ask these saints: where were you born? In whose womb did you dwell for nine months? Whose blood runs in your veins? Of what are your bones made? From whom did you get your flesh?
So far no device has been invented for saints to be born out of men’s bellies. Yet the very woman whose flesh and marrow, whose bone, whose blood give life to you, the same woman’s touch renders you impure! And besides woman, what else is there in your body that has become impure? And women throng to worship, proclaiming, “What a great saint—he becomes impure if touched by a woman!”
Is there no limit to stupidity? No boundary to ignorance?
Who has humiliated woman, who has snatched away her Atman?
Those have humiliated woman who are opposed to this life, this world, this earth. And among them there is a common chord. Whoever believes real life begins after death; whoever believes real life begins in moksha, in heaven; whoever believes this earth is sinful, this life is meaningless; whoever believes this life is condemned, unworthy of being lived—all such people will revile woman. Because those who condemn life will condemn woman too—for this life arises from woman, unfolds through woman, is profoundly influenced by woman. Woman is the doorway of this life, hence if they see this life as hell, woman becomes the gate of hell. Those who have denounced life have also humiliated woman.
There is scarcely a religion in the world that has granted dignity to woman. Have you ever seen a woman entering a mosque? She cannot. If she cannot enter the mosque, how will she enter heaven? The Muslim woman has still not been permitted in the sanctuary.
According to the Jains, woman is not eligible for moksha; first she must take birth as a man, then moksha may be attained. And here is an amusing incident. Of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the Jains, one was a woman—Mallibai. But the Digambara Jains hold that a woman cannot be liberated—then how could a woman be a Tirthankara? They changed Mallibai into Mallinath. They say: he was a man.
See the joke! They will not accept even one Tirthankara as a woman. How can a woman be a Tirthankara? So he must have been a man. From Mallibai they made him Mallinath. Now there is no problem; Mallinath can go to moksha—Mallibai could not. A change of name solved the matter.
Around 1950, the nilgai—blue bull—had greatly damaged crops in the Himalayan foothills. But one could not shoot a nilgai, because “gai”—cow—was in the name; religious trouble would arise. So the Delhi parliament passed a resolution: first change the name from nilgai to nilghoda—blue horse. Then it can be shot. The name was changed, and thereafter it was shot in volleys. No one in India objected—what difficulty is there in killing a nilghoda? The difficulty was in killing a nilgai.
A label changed, and the work was done. Poor Mallibai’s label was changed to Mallinath.
Those who have distorted the dignity of this life have distorted the dignity of woman. Understand this fact; only then can any revolution approach in the life of woman, only then can Atman be restored to her. Until life on earth becomes worthy of acceptance—until this life becomes a benediction—until we gain the capacity to regard this life too as the prasad of the Paramatma—until then it is difficult to return woman’s Atman to her.
So long as the afterlife remains paramount, woman will remain humiliated. So long as the afterlife is supreme, woman cannot be supreme. Between afterlife-ism and the personality of woman there is a fundamental conflict. Therefore the afterlife-oriented saints, sadhus, mahatmas are the born enemies of woman. They feel that woman entangles man—gives birth, draws him into love, binds him in passion—and this whole enterprise of life is run by woman; woman is the center.
This is true to a point: woman is at the center of life. But it is false that life is meaningless. It is false that life must be renounced. It is false that by kicking away this life some greater life is attained. The greater life is attained by living this very life rightly. The greater life is attained through the right experience of this life. The greater life is attained by making this life the ladder.
But so far, no religion of the world has been able to affirm life. The religions of the world are life-negative. They deny life; they are not life-affirmative. And until a religion of life-affirmation arises upon the earth, woman cannot regain her Atman. While the denial of life continues, woman cannot be honored. Those who have denied life have humiliated woman and made her personality poor and degraded.
Therefore the first revolution woman must undertake is against the so-called religious people, the gurus, the religions. The first revolution must be against religions—and upon the basis that this life must be accepted, that there must be blessedness in this life, that there must be joy in this life—not enmity with life, not hostility to it.
But to accept the blessedness of life we must change all our values, principles, foundations. Until now we have believed that the one who leaves life is superior; the one who lives is not a man. And what does it mean to abandon life? The sannyasins who run away say, “We have left the home.” If you look closely into what they mean by “home,” it will be “woman.” In any case, home means woman. The sannyasin who runs away, leaving woman, has been so highly honored. Why? Because the moment he leaves woman, it seems he has become an opponent of life.
But these long traditions of abandoning life have poisoned the very roots of life. They have robbed life of all joy, all juice, all beauty. They have given life a pall of sadness, a gloom of suffering. Religion has ceased to be a dancing religion, ceased to be a singing religion. Religion has become a long queue of dreary-faced people— of those who have fled.
This entire queue is against woman. In this country the influence of life-negating thinkers has been great. And why do some become opponents of life?
You must have heard Aesop’s little tale.
A fox passes through a garden. Clusters of grapes hang. She leaps to reach them. But they are high; she cannot touch them. She tries again and again. Then she sees some rabbits peeping from a bush. She straightens herself, and with dignity turns back upon the path. The rabbits call out, “Lady, how were the grapes?” The lady says, “Grapes? They were sour—not worth eating—so I left them.”
The fox does not say the grapes were out of reach; she does not say her leap was short; she does not say she could not get them, so tasting never arose. Ego whispers within, “No—of course I could have gotten the grapes, but they were sour, so I left them.”
Those who cannot attain the juice of life, instead of admitting they do not know the art of living, prefer to say, “Life is worthless, life is sour, life is not worth having.” Whoever fails to realize the truth of life becomes a critic of life. And such people have deformed and perverted everyone’s mind. They have taught such things that slowly, even before a child is born, we begin filling his mind with enmity toward life.
I was in Bhavnagar. A girl of thirteen or fourteen came to me and said, “This life is futile. Please show me a way to be free from the cycle of birth and death!”
In a country where a child of thirteen or fourteen asks for release from the wheel of life, that country’s future can never be beautiful. Where, before even entering life, the impulse to escape life begins, the education there is dangerous; those who explain are lethal. That country is preparing for self-destruction. The little buds have not even begun to blossom, their flowers have not yet opened—and already they ask, “How to wither? How to die? How to reach moksha?” Have we been teaching dying—or have we been teaching living?
As long as we teach dying, as long as religion remains suicidal, there can be no honor for woman. The day religion becomes the art of living, the day we call the right way of living, the art of living—religion—that day woman can be accepted with dignity.
But someone may ask: If in India, where religion has so much influence, woman is humiliated, what of the West—Europe, America—where religion has little hold? What is woman’s condition there?
There too woman is humiliated—only in a different way.
In India there is but one use for woman—that whoever seeks heaven or moksha must renounce her. A negative use. Here there is only one use—whoever would be liberated must abandon woman. India grants honor by leaving woman. In the West the opposite extreme has arisen: there is but one use for woman—that she be enjoyed. There too woman has not been given an Atman. Here her use is to be renounced; there her use is to be consumed.
But woman is made neither for renunciation nor for consumption. She has an existence of her own, separate from both renunciation and indulgence; she has her own dignity, her own Atman.
The West stands at one extreme: woman is an object of enjoyment—use her and discard her. Beyond that she has no meaning. There too woman’s Atman has not risen. In the West woman is exploited; in the East she is exploited. Thus nowhere in the world has Woman appeared. Nowhere has woman been given a chance to develop her Atman. On one side religionists have humiliated woman; on the other, the anti-religious have humiliated her from the opposite direction. It seems man is eager to humiliate woman—he will not accept and acknowledge her.
And it is astonishing: a father says to his daughter, “I love you.” A husband says to his wife, “I love you.” A son says to his mother, “I love you.” But what a strange love this is, that even after thousands of years it has not been able to grant woman a personality! What kind of love is it that cannot bestow Atman on the other? What kind of love is it that clutches the other’s neck but cannot set her free? Love that binds is not love; love that liberates—that is love. If love cannot free, what is the difference between love and hate?
If a husband loves his wife, the one essential meaning is this: first help her to become a person—an Atman, a personality, an independent individuality. Only when she becomes a person will love have any meaning. We seek to make the one we love into a person. But man has never allowed woman to become a person; indeed he has done everything to prevent it.
For thousands of years woman was denied education—because education gives personality. So education was blocked: woman needs none. Woman was kept uneducated for millennia, because as soon as she receives education, thoughts will arise; thoughts bring rebellion; rebellion brings personality. The conspiracy to keep woman uneducated continued. Then, if somehow woman began to obtain a little education, a new conspiracy began: give her exactly the same education as a man. By giving woman a man’s education her Atman does not manifest; she becomes a second-grade man, a carbon copy. Now the world, under pressure, has agreed to educate women—but in that agreement a new conspiracy has started: give them precisely the education of men.
Woman has her own personality—very different from man’s, dimensions wholly different. Her psyche has a very different form; its direction very different. She is not just like man. And precisely this difference between man and woman, this polarity, is the cause of their attraction. They are two opposite poles. And the day… either you do not educate woman—then she becomes a slave, crippled—or, if you must educate her, give her exactly a man’s education—so she becomes a number two man, a carbon copy, and is wasted.
In the East woman is a slave; in the West woman is a carbon copy. And a carbon copy has no Atman of its own. To finish woman one method was: do not educate her; the second method is: give her only what you give a man. Then she will become a clerk like a man, a pilot like a man, a soldier like a man. She can become all that—but one thing is certain: in becoming like a man she will no longer remain a woman. And today in the West this accident has begun to appear.
In the East woman is not woman—only a maid, a slave. Women sign their love letters, “Your maidservant.” And the recipient is delighted—“husband-god,” and all that. He does not realize that one whom you have forced to call herself slave, who cannot stand face to face with you as an equal—you will never taste the joy of love with her. The joy of love is with equals; it is never with those beneath us. From those beneath us, love can be demanded, asked, extracted.
And remember: love never comes by asking. If love comes at all, it comes unasked. And love cannot be forced to be given. But woman has always been taught that she must give love. Husband is god—she must give love.
Love is not a duty to be done. The moment love has to be done, that very moment it ceases to be love. Therefore, where there is slavery, love can never be. Slaves never love. Slaves fear; they do not love.
Wives fear their husbands. And as long as wives fear, love cannot come from them. And when love does not come from the wife, the man goes seeking love elsewhere—seeks it with prostitutes, seeks it in the marketplace. He does not understand that when love is not found with the wife, how will it be found with the prostitute? Yet his intelligence is the same—he sees no fundamental difference between wife and prostitute. The wife is a permanent prostitute, bought forever. Where a woman has been purchased without love—what is the difference between that and buying a woman for a night? The difference is only of degree—one night, or a whole life.
As long as a man ties a woman in his house without love, there is no possibility of love. Then try for a lifetime to show that “we love”—it will remain pretense, mere talk. Above, you will say you love, write love letters—but within there will be no love.
Let husbands ask their hearts: have you ever loved your wives? Let wives ask their hearts: have you ever loved? Those whom we say we love—has it all become mere talk? If we had loved, would the state of our homes be what it is—twenty-four hours of quarrel, conflict, hostility? Would the home take this form—this ugliness? Would families be in such condition that everyone longs to escape them?
I was for some time in a university. Classes began at twelve-thirty, yet the professors arrived at ten-thirty and sat in the common room. I was amazed—why so early? They said, “Somehow to be saved from home—that is all.” Classes ended at three, yet the professors sat until five—until the peon closed the doors. Why do you sit here? “At home the wife is waiting on the road.”
Whatever exists between husbands and wives is anything but love. It is talk of love, mere talk. One tries to fill life with talk—but life is not filled by talk. Then a restlessness starts, and it sickens the whole of life. Without love, no one can be whole—neither woman nor man. The entire human race is incomplete; there is something missing within that never gets fulfilled. One runs for a lifetime—love never comes.
Love cannot come in this way. Love comes only from an equal. And until woman stands equal to man, love cannot come from woman. It would be good if women declared: so long as we are slaves, love can be taken from us—but we cannot give it. And that would be right.
But husband-gods are very pleased to know their wives are slaves. They never realize that once you make someone your slave, they lose their humanity—they are no longer human. The East is a land of maidservants; and the West? The West has become even worse. The Western woman has become a mere plaything. Change her when the mood strikes.
In America there are about forty percent divorces. And these do not express the full reality—many lack the courage to divorce, yet the thought of divorce goes on day and night. Within a hundred years, in America perhaps there will be a hundred percent divorce. You will marry—and arrange the divorce beforehand.
I have heard of a woman who changed twenty-eight husbands. When she took the twenty-eighth, after seven or eight days it turned out that this gentleman had already once been her husband. She changed so quickly that one cannot remember! In one life, after twenty-eight changes, how will you recall that a man had been husband once before? Life has become a complete game; there is no dignity, no stability. There is no fragrance, no love—only sexuality and the devices of sexuality.
In the East woman has become a slave and lost meaning; in the West she has become a hand’s plaything and is losing meaning. Will it go on like this—or will there be a revolution and the Atman of woman will manifest?
Two things are necessary for the Atman of woman to arise.
First: woman must cease to be a slave.
Second: woman must not become man’s plaything.
If she can be saved from these two, the personality of woman can be born. And she can be saved from both. Now the opportunity has come, the convenience is there. Woman is becoming educated. But along with education a world movement should arise: we are not willing to receive the same education as men.
You may not realize how the kind of education we receive gradually shapes our personality. Perhaps you also do not realize that what we become is formed ninety percent by education.
Some twenty years ago two children were captured in the forests of Bengal—raised by wolves. Their age was ten or twelve. When they were brought, they could not be called human children—neither could they stand on two legs nor speak. They ran on all fours like wolves, attacked like wolves, and ate raw flesh.
Then, three years ago in Uttar Pradesh, a boy of fourteen was found—raised by wolves. He too could not stand on two feet. After six months of massage, with difficulty he was made to stand. And after a year’s labor he could be taught a single word. They named him Ram; after a year he could say “Ram”—that was his entire language.
Fourteen years with wolves, and man becomes a wolf. So we are men because we lived among men. What we learn from life, that makes us. If women are given the education of men, it is natural that qualities like men will arise. In the West this has begun. The grace of the Western woman, her beauty, her own being—has been thinning away. Her personality is becoming like a man’s. If girls are drilled, made to ride horses, taught mathematics and physics, then slowly a certain delicacy within them will die—it will die.
I went to an ashram. There they keep girls exactly like boys. They work hard—dress them the same, drill them, make them swim, make them ride horses. I was astonished to see that in those girls’ personalities the muscles were exactly like boys’—and a great surprise: on the lips of nearly thirty percent, hair had begun to appear—moustaches.
If you put them through precisely the drills of boys, the glands of the body begin to function like boys’. And the personality of the girl is effaced; in its place arrives a boy’s personality.
But man is delighted even with this. You have heard the song: “She fought like a man—the Queen of Jhansi.” If some woman behaves like men we say, what a glory! But if some man behaves like a woman, no one says, what glory. If a man behaves like a woman, people say, “Ugh! He is unmanly.” No one will say, “What a splendid feminine man!” No one will say it.
Strange. If a woman becomes like men, she is glorious—statues must be made, poets must sing. If a man becomes like a woman, poets should also sing, a statue should be made. But what is the matter?
The matter is this: Man is the value; woman is not. Woman is unaccepted; man is accepted. Man is superior; woman inferior. Therefore if a woman behaves like a man, we are pleased.
Men are trying to cast women in their own image—because women say they want equality. He says, we will make you equal; we will make you exactly like us. Look at Western clothes—similarity grows between men’s and women’s dress; slowly women’s clothes vanish; they become men’s clothes.
I heard of an incident. In a queue for circus tickets, a man said to the gentleman in front, “Do you see that boy at the head of the line—what strange clothes he wears!” The gentleman replied, “Sir, that is not a boy—that is my daughter.” He said, “Forgive me; I did not know she was your daughter. So you are her father?” The gentleman said, “Forgive me—you did not understand; I am her mother.”
Making women wear men’s clothes, giving them men’s haircuts, men’s persona—by making women a carbon copy of men you cannot give them their Atman.
Woman has her own psyche, her own mind, her own heart. It is very different—very different from man’s. The basic archetypes of the male psyche are different; those of the female psyche are different. A woman’s way of thinking is different. Her way of living is different. The process by which her consciousness functions is different. Her entire personality is different. For that different personality there must be a different kind of education, a different training—so that her Atman may manifest—everything must be designed differently. We do not know how small things influence us.
You may not realize: if you wear tight clothes and climb stairs, you will take two steps at a time; you will not even notice that it is only because of tight clothes. If you wear loose clothes, you will never take two steps at once; you will climb softly. Clothes can bring you tautness, or slackness. How you dress, how you walk, how you rise, what you read, what you think—everything shapes the personality.
There was a great mathematician—Herodotus. He first discovered the theory of averages. He went on a picnic with his wife. A small stream lay in between. Herodotus had five or six children, and his wife. As they were to cross, the wife said, “Take care—take the children across, one by one.” Herodotus said, “Wait, there is no need to hold them. I will measure the average height of the children and the average depth of the stream.”
Herodotus measured the children—some taller, some shorter—the stream—deep somewhere, shallow somewhere. The average height was greater than the average depth. Mathematics solved the matter. He said, “Rest assured—no child can drown; on average the children are taller than the average depth.”
Mathematicians and economists think like this. The whole country may drown—they go on calculating averages. The average is fine!
Herodotus went ahead, the children in the middle, the wife behind. The wife did not trust mathematics. Women never trust mathematics—they cannot; their consciousness does not function like mathematics. She was frightened, watching her children. One child began to submerge. She screamed to Herodotus—“This child is drowning!” But Herodotus did not see the drowning child. He ran back to the shore where he had calculated on the sand. “How can this be? Was there an error in the calculation?” He ran to the figures. The wife somehow rescued the child and said, “Are you mad? You can check the figures later—first save the child!”
But to man, mathematics has more meaning than the heart. The world that has been made has been made by man; therefore there is very little heart in it, and too much mathematics. Everywhere it is mathematics—hence in the military men have no names, they have numbers. “Number eleven!” Can any man be number eleven? A man dies—he was someone’s father, someone’s husband, someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s friend. In the military they report: “Number eleven has fallen.” Number eleven is no one’s father, no one’s son, no one’s husband—he is only a number. Since when have numbers had husbands and wives? Number eleven has fallen. The newspaper says: “Number eleven in the military has fallen.” Nothing touches anywhere. With the fall of a number, what is made or marred?
This is man’s world—where everything is computed with mathematics. Woman has had no hand in it—otherwise this world would be very different. Mathematics would be less important, the heart more important. There would be fewer calculations, more accounts of love. But it has not happened—because woman has had no Atman. Therefore she has made no contribution to this culture, this civilization.
And this mathematical culture made by man has reached the point of death. If it is to be saved, it is necessary to give personality to woman. And to give personality to woman does not mean to make her like a man; it means: what is suitable to woman herself—her education, her training, her entire mode of personality—so that a Woman can be realized. And if such a woman appears, we can add immense joy to human life—for in countless ways woman is the center of life.
Joad has written a book in which he says: when I was born, in the West there were homes. Now, as I approach death, in the West there are only houses—homes are gone.
Someone asked Joad—what do you mean? What is the difference between home and house?
Joad said: a house that has a woman in it I call a home; a house without a woman becomes a hotel—merely a building.
And in the West, Woman is lost. In the East she is not even there. Do not think she is. She is not. Homes are not made by maidservants. But what can be done?
Two or three brief things—and I will finish.
First: Woman must be granted a personality separate from man. She must remain neither man’s slave nor his imitator. She must seek her own personality. And she must declare clearly: we are women, we will remain women, and we wish to be women. Remember, only when we become what we were born to be do we become joyous. If we become otherwise, we are never joyous. When the rose opens and becomes a rose, it rejoices. When the grass-flower opens and becomes a flower, it rejoices. If the grass-flower tries to become a rose, then trouble begins—joy will never happen.
Woman must remain woman. She must learn to honor her own personality. And against all the gangs that injure her personality—be they of sadhus, or of saints—woman must stand fundamentally opposed. Until woman stands up, their conspiracy will continue.
Second: Now that woman is being educated, she should demand an education appropriate to herself—not exactly that of men.
This does not mean men and women should study in separate places. They should study in one place, live together. Boys and girls should live even in the same hostel—there is no need to raise a wall of enmity between them; let them be together. But let man be man, and woman be woman. In the same institution there should be arrangements whereby each can attain to their own personality.
Remember also: the civilization developed by man is an arrangement purely of logic, mathematics, machinery. There is nothing of the heart in it. To bring that heart-gift into it, woman must work hard—so she can give heart to this culture. Otherwise man will make atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, super-bombs—he is making them—and they are beyond his comprehension now. He will go on making them, and it may be he will finish the whole human race. If woman does not give her heart to culture, this culture will not last long. Man has brought it to the last edge—where it is about to end.
Einstein was asked eight days before his death: can you say what will happen in the Third World War?
Einstein said: do not speak of the third—it is very difficult to say; man is unpredictable. But about the fourth I can say something.
They were astonished: if you cannot tell about the third, what can you tell about the fourth?
Einstein said: one thing is certain—there will never be a fourth. Because after the third, there is no hope that man will survive.
Man has reached the end. The civilization of man has reached the brink. The liberation of woman is necessary. A revolution in woman’s life is necessary—so that she can save herself, and save the entire civilization of man. Such a great responsibility rests upon woman as never before. If woman, with her whole-heartedness, her love, her music, her poetry, the full blossoms of her personality, spreads over the world, wars could end today. But as long as man dominates the world, wars cannot end. War is hidden within man.
But women are strange too! Men make war, and women apply the tilak and send them to war! Perhaps women do not know what they are doing. They are toys in the hands of men in every way. In Pakistan a mother anoints her son and says: go, kill the son of India. And in India a mother anoints her son and says: go, kill the son of Pakistan. And neither thinks that both sons will be sons of some mother.
If the women of the world decide that from tomorrow there will be no war, how could there be war? War would be impossible. But women do not know. And they also do not know how difficult it is for war to disappear from the male mind. There is a tension in the male mind; its causes run very deep—biological causes, profound causes, not easy to trace. I will tell you one cause, so the basic point becomes clear.
As soon as the child is conceived in the mother’s womb, twenty-four cells come from the mother, and twenty-four from the father. In the father there are two kinds of cells—one with twenty-four, one with twenty-three. If the twenty-three from the father meets the mother’s twenty-four, a male is born. The male has forty-seven; the female has forty-eight. The personality of woman is symmetrical from the very foundation—twenty-four and twenty-four.
Biology says the grace in woman—the beauty, the proportion—is because of this equal symmetry, twenty-four and twenty-four. And in man there is an inner tension—twenty-four on one side, twenty-three on the other; his scale is slightly off-balance. There is a restlessness within, which keeps him restless all his life, full of tension. He keeps creating some disturbance; he will always be doing something. There is a biological tension in man. Because of it, he can never be free of war—he will continue some kind of war. If not hand-to-hand, then quarrels; something will continue. If civilization remains entirely in man’s hands, wars cannot cease; violence cannot cease.
Among men too some have spoken of ending violence—Buddha, Mahavira, Gandhi. Perhaps you do not know what the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche said—Nietzsche said that Buddha and Jesus seem effeminate; they do not seem like men. He is, to an extent, right—he says that in man fighting is fundamental. He is right to a point. It may be that in Buddha and Jesus there is such proportion that their personalities have come close to those of women. Gandhi—someone even wrote, “He is my mother.” One could write it—“Gandhi: My Mother.” For in Gandhi too the personality came near to the feminine.
It is a remarkable thing that the greater the man, the more his personality gradually comes close to the feminine. As soon as they become heartful, they draw near to woman.
It may surprise you to notice—Mahavira, Buddha, Rama, Krishna—you have never seen them with moustache and beard. Have you ever thought—what is this? There is a reason behind it. The sculptor thought deeply. Their entire personality must have come so close to woman that adding moustache and beard did not seem fitting; it seemed better to leave it out. Their personality had become so proportioned.
I have spoken these few things.
A revolution is needed in the whole world—and the greatest revolution. It is not economic, not political. It is a sexual revolution—it concerns the relations of man and woman, the very centers of kama, of sex. Between these two, in their relationship, there must be a revolution. Woman must be equal to man—but not like man. Equal, but not the same; equal, but without becoming a man. She must be given such a personality—and such an education as will develop her femininity, her womanhood; that will make her a Woman. And woman must have an Atman of her own—separate from relationships, a dignity of her own. She will gain this only when she breaks the old net of religions, and the new net of Western indulgence, and labors in a new direction. In that direction she accepts neither to become a slave nor to become man’s follower. If woman can be saved from these two—this well and that abyss—a revolution in the world of woman is certain. And if this revolution comes, it will be a great good fortune for man. Through it the whole civilization can be saved; it can become heartful.
These few things I have said. It is not necessary that everything I say be correct. I may be wrong. So reflect on my words. Perhaps, thinking, some point will appear right. If it appears right, then there arises a responsibility—to experiment a little according to that seeing. If you are a man, do not make woman in your life either a plaything or a slave. And if you are a woman, do not consent to be a slave, and do not imitate man. A fire is needed that will change the old frameworks of this life—then we can give birth to a new human being.
You have listened to me with such love—I am deeply obliged. In the end, I bow to the Paramatma seated within all. Please accept my pranam.