According to Osho, AIDS is not merely a medical disease but a collapse of the body’s resistance rooted in a deeper loss of the will to live. The body obediently mirrors the mind: when the will wanes, immunity falls and infections prevail. Its link with sex arises because sex carries life’s will; when that will diminishes, sexuality becomes the most vulnerable doorway for death.
Osho says AIDS happens when we give up inside, our body stops fighting sickness, and because sex holds our life-energy, it becomes the easiest doorway for illness.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, WOULD YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING ABOUT AIDS? I do not know anything about even the first aids, and you are asking me about the last AIDS! But it seems I will have to say something about it. And in a world where people who know nothing about themselves can talk about God, people who know nothing about the geography of the earth can talk about heaven and hell, it is not inconceivable for me to say something about AIDS, although I am not a physician. But neither is the disease now called AIDS just a disease. It is something more, something beyond the limitation of the medical profession. As I see it, it is not a disease in the same category as other diseases; hence the danger of it. Perhaps it will kill at least two-thirds of humanity. It is, basically, the incapability to resist diseases.
Q: YOU SAID BEFORE THAT THIS WAS SOMETHING THAT HAD TO HAPPEN SOONER OR LATER. A: Yes. Q: WHY NOT IN THE FIFTIES, WHY NOT IN THE SIXTIES OR SEVENTIES? WHY RIGHT NOW? A: There are reasons.... First, everything has to reach to a particular climax. You don't ask why the water evaporates at hundred centigrade degrees -- why not at ninety-eight and why not at ninety, and why not at hundred and one? It is simply something that is not in our hands. Everything happens at a certain point, at a certain climax, and there is no reason why, because there is nobody to answer it. No scientist can answer it, why water evaporates at hundred degrees -- there is no reason! It could have been ninety-nine. And there is nobody to ask about. We have to accept it as a fundamental law of existence.
Beloved Osho, aids confronts us with the immediacy of our death. Our seriousness seems to create more disease and paranoia. Instead of feeling like victims, how can we respond through celebration?
It did not answer even Jesus Christ, who was simply nuts -- calling himself the only begotten son of God. He was just a bastard. Every bastard can claim that he is the only begotten son of God, because the ordinary father is not his father. His father lives high above in the sky. Even Jesus Christ's prayer on the cross was not answered. In deep frustration he shouted at the sky, "Have you forsaken me?" Still, no answer. If that is the situation of the only begotten son, what about other poor human beings who are just born out of their father and mother, mortals? This book is holy? Then magazines like PLAYBOY, PLAYGIRL should start calling themselves holy magazines -- of course, in color... glossy. You say, "AIDS confronts us with the immediacy of death...." It is good that you become aware that death is there, absolutely certain.…
But the opinion of the scientists is that there will be no possible cure for AIDS. The man has simply lost the will to live, and he has become vulnerable -- absolutely vulnerable -- to any kind of infection, and his body will not create antibodies to fight with any infection. So he can die by anything. Even ordinary cold and it will be difficult for a AIDS patient to get rid of it. It is something more than a disease. It is something as if the major part of humanity is losing the will to live. There seems to be no meaning in life. It seems to be just a drag. Boredom, meaninglessness, anguish, anxiety, despair -- these are the modern subjects of the philosophers of the whole world to discuss. God is no more discussed, heaven and hell no more discussed. Anguish, despair, meaninglessness, boredom.
Osho, in your approach to yoga and meditation, physical contact has had a special importance—as you used to conduct it earlier in India; I don’t know about Rajneeshpuram. If that approach continues, then in view of the new danger that has arisen—AIDS—are you thinking of bringing any changes to the methods of yoga and meditation?
There is only one remedy—declare celibacy illegal, and round up every monk and get him married—“Come on!” Otherwise it may happen that AIDS will kill man before a nuclear war does. And even if an AIDS patient is kept completely protected, he cannot live more than two years. That is the longest possible span. And how will you keep him completely protected? In the end he will have to work, meet people. And the capacity of an AIDS patient to fight any disease becomes zero. If he catches a cold, even the cold will not get cured. If he gets a fever, the fever will not go away. No medicine works on him. Because this is how medicine works: when we give medicine to a man, his body cooperates with the medicine. With the combined strength of both, the disease is driven out. The body of an AIDS patient does…