According to Osho, the devil is not truly male (or female); like God, it’s a human hypothesis created to complete a polarity. Existence moves in opposites—light/dark, life/death—so “God” and “devil” are conceptual counterparts, not persons with genders. If you insist on genders, they’d simply flip as opposites. The real work is to see beyond such projections and live the unity behind dualities.
The devil isn’t a real man or woman—it’s just an idea we made to balance the idea of God.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IS THE DEVIL REALLY MALE? God being a woman will create trouble. Then the devil will be a man -- because they have to be polar opposites. Perhaps the women's liberation movement has not thought about the implications of what they are doing. I would like God to be the man and tortured by the devil, the woman, rather than vice-versa, because good can be tortured by bad, but bad cannot be tortured by good. But the question simply has not come up around the world -- and women are insisting that God is a woman. It is really strange that nobody has bothered about the devil, who is a more important person than God. God is only a VIP, the devil is a VVIP! God may have created the world, but the devil is running it -- and running it so devilishly and so perfectly.
Yesterday, the corriere della sera -- the most popular italian newspaper wrote that pope paul vi some years ago, and now pope john paul ii officially affirm that the devil is not a pseudo-reality, a conceptual fantastic personification of the unknown causes of our diseases, but on the contrary, he is a real, existing demon.
"What kind of conversations are you having with the devil? and for what reason? You are supposed to be the representative of God, and you are proving the reality of the devil, not the reality of God -- which IS in question. In every young man and young woman's mind the question is about God, not the devil. Who cares about the devil? Prove God and his reality! But strange, you are trying to prove the reality of the devil. Perhaps YOU are the devil, perhaps he is hiding behind you." I have moved around so many places -- I have never come across him. That's why I am going to visit the Vatican. Perhaps... I will be absolutely satisfied if the devil can be presented before the public. A reality is not something that has to be proved; it can be simply presented. You need not prove that there…
Osho, the devil seems to be as popular as mao tse tung these days. Why? Why is the devil so attractive?
THE DEVIL IS NOTHING BUT THE OTHER SIDE OF God. The religions have been praising God and condemning the Devil, and the Devil is the other side of God. The word 'devil' is beautiful; it comes from a Sanskrit root which means divine. 'Divine' and 'devil' both come from the same root, DEV: in Sanskrit it becomes DEVADATA -- gods. The Devil and the Divine, both are the same -- but if you repress one part of God, one aspect of his being, sooner or later it is going to assert itself. Now there are churches, in the West particularly, churches devoted to the Devil. Disciples of the Devil are growing, mushrooming all over the world. The First Church of Satan is there in America, where people gather and worship Satan. Satan means 'devil', that is Arabic for 'devil'. All kinds of bizarre things are going on in the world,…
Beloved Osho, where did the devil come from when he appeared to adam and eve as a serpent?
Not only were ordinary women forced to confess and burned alive, once a woman accepted that she was a witch and has had a sexual relationship with the devil, then certainly she could not be allowed to remain alive even for a single moment. She was bringing the devil into human blood, she would pollute the whole of humanity: she had to be burned alive. And it was not ordinary women only -- even nuns, mother superiors, they managed, and forced them to confess. Anybody could raise the suspicion, just that was enough. Anybody, any man, could raise the suspicion to the pope, to the bishop, to the high priest, that this woman, this nun, seems to be a witch. That was enough for the investigation to begin. And there was a special court arranged by the pope, the Inquisition, with a big office and hundreds of people working for…
The devil is one who has not learned yet how to share, how to give. The devil means a metaphysical constipation. It takes in but it never gives out. It goes on hoarding and hoarding; it becomes like a tumour. That's why all over the world, in all the mythologies, the devil is painted black. It is meaningful. It will be good to understand it. The devil is the first attitude towards light, of hoarding, clinging, possessing. Almost ninety-nine percent of people live like devils. God gives to them but they don't share. That which is given to them they never give to others. That which has been a gift to them they completely forget and claim it as their own. They have turned a tremendous energy into bitter poison. That which could have been very nourishing becomes suicidal. The ambrosia is reduced to being poisonous.