Are some foreign female sannyasins pregnant?

Osho, is it true that some foreign female sannyasins are pregnant?

Absolutely true. Trees bear flowers; women bear children. They should. We are not here to make women barren, nor do we have any desire to emasculate men. Our concern is to make the current of their lives as right, as harmonious, as musical as possible. We have no idea of severing anyone from life; our vision is to dedicate life itself, in its totality, to the divine. A sannyasini should have children. They will be beautiful children—more beautiful than those of an ordinary woman; they will come out of meditation, out of samadhi, out of deep inner joy. The world will be more beautiful. It is not a question of laying waste to the world; it is a question of filling it with a greater fragrance of the divine. People’s objection is natural. By “sannyasins” they mean the barren—those on whom no flowers bloom, no fruits ripen. My sannyasins are…

Osho, when I went to Rajneeshpuram in July, in your discourses you said that in India no children should be born for many years. I repeated this to many people when I came back to Hindustan. Different people had different reactions, but most women said, “The maternal feeling in a woman—how is she to satisfy it?” Some said, “A woman does not attain fulfillment until she becomes a mother.” Please say something about this, Osho.

Second, it is true that a woman’s fulfillment is in her becoming a mother. That is why, when I began giving sannyas, the traditional name for a male renunciate was “Swami.” There was no name for a woman—because in India, for thousands of years, woman has been suppressed and erased so badly that she was never given the chance to be initiated into sannyas. There wasn’t even a name. After much search I accepted “Ma” as that name, because in “Ma” lies her fulfillment. But this fulfillment as mother is proof that your love has risen so high that the whole world becomes, for you, as if they are your children—even your husband. This is the blessing of the rishis of the Upanishads. Whenever a couple came to a rishi for a blessing, there was a very unique blessing, found in no other scripture in the world. The rishi would…

Beloved Osho, something is happening to me -- a feeling of fullness, richness, and expansion in my upper body. It's pushing on my throat. It's not gripping me, it's embracing me, and everyone and everything around me. I don't know if they can feel it, but I can. It's a touchless touch, like a sweet hello, not addressed to anyone or anything -- but rather everyone and everything. And it is silently following me around. This is like a strange pregnancy, which I know nothing about. How could I? I am a man. What is it, Osho? Can men get pregnant? Have you been visiting me in the night, Osho?

Dhyan John, man also gets pregnant -- not in the same way as woman; his pregnancy is far superior. The woman can produce more human beings, but when man gets pregnant, he produces either music, painting, sculpture, poetry -- all that makes life worth living and all that gives life value. But very few people feel this kind of pregnancy. They are so involved in their mundane affairs -- in money, in honor, in power, in prestige -- that they never care that they can also produce something which will outlive them. The woman's child will have a life of seventy or eighty years, but what about the poetry of the UPANISHADS? Five thousand years, and it is still vibrant and still alive -- and the people who gave birth to it could not have avoided feeling pregnant. Every great poet knows that when some poetry is striving to be…

Beloved Osho, often these days I feel as if I am pregnant. It is not a down-pulling burden. It rather feels like a weightless, but expansive something in my belly and my chest. It is a very strange sensation for a man. I am not showing any signs of pregnancy yet -- my belly is still flat as usual but now I have exposed myself, and there is no holy ghost to blame and I am certainly not the virgin mary. Beloved master, what is it that I am pregnant with? Is it you?

Premda, I hope it is me. In fact, every disciple has to come to this stage where he feels almost pregnant with the divine. It is a spiritual pregnancy. But because we are too much identified with the body, it may even seem that the body is also pregnant. But something is growing within you. It is not part of the body, you need not be a Virgin Mary. And, of course, holy ghosts are not available anymore, only unholy ghosts -- there are a few: one lives with Anando; another has been found in the Vipassana go-down. But they are all unholy ghosts, they don't do holy things. So you need not be worried about them. Moreover, even the holy ghost has not been able up to now to do a miracle, to make a man pregnant. It would have been more in tune with the Christian ideology if…

Osho, the Buddha wanted to avoid giving sannyas to women. Shankara too was not in favor of giving sannyas to women. What incompatibility is there between the life of sannyas and women? Is there no harmony between them, or only a little? Do women need sannyas less than men?

Man and woman have essentially different paths. The man’s path is meditation; the woman’s path is love. The man’s path is knowledge; the woman’s path is devotion. Their inner climates are very different, even opposite. To man, love seems a bondage; to woman, love seems a liberation. So even when a man loves, he does it while running, fearful that he may get bound. And when a woman loves, she wants to be bound wholly, because in bondage she has known freedom. Therefore the man’s language is: How to get free? How to be liberated from the world? And the woman’s search is: How to drown totally so that nothing remains behind? So sannyas is fundamentally masculine. That is why even Buddha hesitated. Women were moved—women are moved easily, for their hearts are more sensitive—and they began to ask: Give us sannyas too. Buddha was afraid. Mahavira even told them…