Is it unnatural for a woman to prefer being an artist over desiring a child?

Beloved Osho, the other day you said that women create children, and men create arts and other material things. Is it unnatural or neurotic for a woman not to desire a child, and to prefer to be an artist? I never wanted to have a child. Dance, music, poetry, theater and painting were my passion and expression. Could you comment?

Children should be born only if a couple gets permission from the medical board. Still, that is not the best way to do it, because while he is making love a man releases millions of living beings, millions of living cells; and it is just chance in that race who will reach the female egg first. You cannot decide it, you cannot even know it. So this is not the best way. The medical board may feel that the woman is healthy, the man is healthy; they can look at your heritage -- three, four generations back -- and they can allow you. But this is not the best way. The best way will be for intelligent people to donate their semen to the hospital, to donate the female eggs to the hospital, so the hospitals have banks -- just like they have blood banks. And they can figure out…

Beloved Osho, as women, our natural creativity is expressed through the bearing and raising of children. What happens to that energy now that that area of expression is no longer viable?

I cannot conceive the idea of a man loving another man -- and not just ordinary people: one of the popes before this pope was a homosexual. He was a bishop in Milan before he became pope. The whole of Milan knew it, because he was always hanging around with his boyfriend. And when he became pope and went to the Vatican, the boyfriend went there as his secretary. And you know secretaries are just an escape from your wife, a refuge from your wife. If the pope is homosexual -- and popes are infallible -- it creates great suspicion, because Jesus was also hanging out with twelve boys. It may be something coming down from Jesus himself. Monks are well-known homosexuals, and nuns are lesbians; but this is out of necessity. The monks have to live together in a monastery; the nuns have to live in a nunnery, separate…

Beloved Osho, could you speak of the creative female? I am a woman, and the creative spirit burns strongly in me. Recently, you mentioned that there should be much art and music, but it was in reference to men. I know women can offer a vision, an insight, a softness to the world of art that has never before been seen. I feel it has a different base to start from. Perhaps it is because art can be born out of love and no longer needs to be conquered.

In fact, many women should do that, because the earth is so overpopulated. You will be a great help if you divert your creativity from children to paintings, because paintings don't need food. Dancing is perfectly good. Dance as much as you want, it creates no Ethiopia. Write poetry. Because of your poetry, perhaps a few people will have to suffer listening to it, getting bored with it, but that is not much of a problem. They can manage to avoid you. But if there is no desire to give birth to children, it is absolutely right. Certainly you will have to create something else. Do it, but don't think that your creativity will be higher than that of man. It cannot be, for the simple reason that you are the superior sex, you don't have that inferiority in you which is the incentive for man to put all his…

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…

Osho, is there really absolutely no place for renunciation in your religion? The question arises because since I came in contact with you, many things in my life have dropped away. I cannot even relate to my old self.

Renunciation can teach you to drop sex, to drop tasteful food, to drop clothes, to be naked, to drop all possessions -- but in a strange way you will remain attached to all those things. When I was in Bombay, a Hindu monk came to see me; he had a disciple with him and he wanted to know what kind of meditation would be suitable for him. I told him, "Tomorrow morning we are meeting near the beach and we will be doing the meditation. It is better that you come there because it is a question of a practical experience." He said, "It will be very difficult for me to come tomorrow. The day after tomorrow I can come." I said, "What is the problem with tomorrow?" He said, "The problem is that my disciple has some work tomorrow morning, he cannot come." But I said, "Let him do…