Is the path of meditation meant for spiritually masculine individuals?

Beloved master, did you say today that the path of meditation was for spiritually masculine people? I am confused as buddha, lao tzu and all these people seem to be more feminine. Please explain.

Anand Dharmen, you are right and yet wrong. You are right because Buddha and Lao Tzu ARE feminine, but they are feminine when they have attained to the ultimate peak of meditation -- at the peak they are feminine. At the peak everybody is feminine, only God is masculine. At the peak only God is "he," everybody is a she. There is a beautiful story about a great woman mystic of India, Meera. She was really a mad devotee, a mad BHAKTA, in tremendous love and ecstasy with God. She was a queen, but she started dancing on the streets. The family disowned her. The family tried to poison her -- the family itself -- because it was a disgrace for the royal family. The husband was feeling embarrassed, very much embarrassed, and particularly so in those days. And the story belongs to one of the most traditional parts of…

Osho, you have titled this series of talks “Sahaj Yoga.” Do “sahaj” and “yoga” not seem mutually opposed?

Anand Maitreya! They don’t just seem opposed, they are opposed. But no ultimate truth of life can manifest without contradiction. Life is made of opposites—darkness and light, day and night, woman and man, negative electricity and positive electricity, birth and death. The very structure of life is woven of opposites. Hence the opposites are not only opposed; they are complementary to each other. If you have labored hard all day, you will be able to sleep deeply. Labor and rest are opposites, yet only the one who has worked can rest deeply—and the one who has not worked cannot. So the opposites are not only opposed, they complete each other. And only the one who has rested deeply at night can rise in the morning and engage in work again. One who has not rested through the night will not be able to work in the morning. Look closely at…

Osho, most people are a mixture.

Yes—so for them there is some middle path. Thus there are many paths, but fundamentally there are only two basic ones. Because the masculine and the feminine are the two extreme poles in human life; at those two extremes exist two different modes of being. Most people are in the middle. Most people are in the middle, so they take a middle road in which they both meditate and worship. Now, the curious thing is that meditation is part of the masculine path, and worship is part of the feminine path. They try to harmonize worship and meditation—going on doing worship and going on doing meditation! That is a hodgepodge. And my understanding is that with a hodgepodge, liberation is very difficult—because then sometimes we go a little on this path, sometimes a little on that. Therefore a very precise analysis of one’s inner mind is essential: which path is…

Osho, you have said that meditation is an inner journey. Is devotion also an inner journey? What is the fundamental difference between the inner journey of meditation and that of devotion? Please explain with compassion.

This is the path of love; here the Other is essential. From the union of two arises variety; the stream of rasa flows. A man alone cannot give birth to a child; a woman alone cannot give birth either. For a child to be born, the meeting of these opposites is necessary. Yes, a man can paint alone, a woman can sculpt alone—but they cannot give birth. For devotion, two are needed. Devotion is the unity that happens between two. Knowledge is the experience of the One. In the end, only One remains; thus both, ultimately, lead to the same place. But knowledge assumes the One from the very beginning; knowledge is nondual. Bhakti fundamentally accepts duality. The heart of bhakti is large: it says, let us accept the two; then we will unite them. Bhakti has trust in union. The faith that a bridge can be built between two—that…

Without the other her being becomes almost non-being. All her juice and life reverberate from the other. If her son is happy, she is happy. A man does not live in the other; he lives in himself, self-centered. A woman lives other-centered. Paramatma is other-centered. Therefore as the science created by men triumphed in the world, the forms of bhakti were shattered. Science is the search of man, not of woman. One Madam Curie may get a Nobel Prize — an exception. And Madam Curie had a masculine mind, not a feminine one. Science is the search of man. As science triumphed, the fundamental stones of religion were broken — because their paths are different. If you have the capacity to surrender, any feet can become the feet of Paramatma for you. Therefore women could say, the husband is God.