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How does allowing women into the sangha impact its longevity?

Synthesized from Source definition

"Allowing women into the sangha transforms the path from pure meditation to a focus on prayer and love, altering the very essence of the discipline and ultimately shortening its longevity."

Core Insight:
According to Osho, allowing women into Buddha’s sangha wasn’t about fearing the future but about method: a meditative, ascetic path shaped for men would be redirected by women toward prayer, love, and worship. This shift alters the original discipline, so the religion’s longevity—as that precise meditative path—shortens. He cites Jainism, where devotional rituals gradually replaced pure meditation.
Osho says letting women join a meditation-only path turned it toward prayer and devotion, so the original version didn’t last as long.
Why this matters practically
- Choose practices aligned with your nature to avoid distortion.
- Protect a path’s core by honoring its design instead of mixing incompatible methods.
- Measure longevity by fidelity to essence, not by institutional lifespan.
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