What is Osho's perspective on homosexuality?

Question: OSHO, I AM HOMOSEXUAL. WHAT SHOULD I DO ABOUT IT? My fundamental principle is acceptance -- tathata. Whatsoever is the situation, you accept it. From there things can begin. Don't reject it. It is out of rejection that the problem has arisen, so only with acceptance... Relax into it and you will be surprised. If you can accept it without any guilt, slowly slowly your homosexuality will turn into heterosexuality again. Why? -- because guilt is also a religious phenomenon, and homosexuality too. They are joined together, they are tied together. If you go on feeling guilty, you will remain homosexual. Drop the guilt, accept it. Nothing is wrong, just you are carrying the whole ugly past of humanity. What can you do? You have come a little late, people have preceded before. They have dirtied the whole beach. So we have to clean it.

One of the controversial issues about the rajneesh ashram concerns indulgence in sex and what are being condemned as sexual perversions or orgies. We would like bhagwan rajneesh to give us his views on sex and its role in transcendence. -- r.k. Karanjia, editor, blitz

He's an atheist, a confirmed atheist who had never prayed. But with the situation -- the fear of the night and the wild animals -- for the first time in his life he thought of God. He forgot all his arguments that he used to give against God. He knelt down on the ground and he said, "Dear Lord...." although he looked around, a little embarrassed, knowing perfectly well that there was nobody, but still embarrassed -- the whole life's philosophy of atheism! But when fear knocks on the doors and when death is so close by, who bothers about logic, philosophies, isms? Who bothers about reason, argument? "Dear Lord," he said, "please help me get out of these woods, and I will always worship you. I will even start going to the mosque. I will follow all the rituals of Islam. I promise you! Just save me. Forgive me.…

You have been talking a lot about sex, which is good, because it has been for such a long tin1e kept in the dark. However, I have personally never heard you talk about homosexuality; only very, very briefly, and actually always to put it down. Please would you talk about it, because no matter what is the cause of "this perverted act," as you describe it, homosexuality did and does exist in the world. Can't the moon side meet the sun side in whatever body? Is tantra only for heterosexual people? Should people repress their homosexual tendencies?

I am not against anything, but I will not help you to cling to any place. Go on, go on, never cling to any place. I am not condemning anything. Use that opportunity, but go on. A few anecdotes: An obviously distressed gent staggered into a psychiatrist's office and said, "Doctor, you have got to help me. Every night I dream I am marooned on a desert island with a dozen blondes, a dozen brunettes, and a dozen redheads, each more beautiful than all the rest." "You must be the luckiest man alive," said the doctor. "What do you need my help for?" "My problem," said the patient, "is that in my dreams I am a man." You get it? Otherwise let me tell you another joke. Two retired army colonels were talking in their club. "Did you hear about old Carstairs?" asked one. "No, what about him?" said the…

Beloved Osho, until now I have not had many sexual experiences, but lately I have felt to become more sexually active. I seem to avoid heterosexual men, and desire those who are homosexual. I am not clear if I am running away from sex out of fear, or towards people I really like and need. Would you please shed some light on this?

It is possible that avoiding sex for a long time and now getting interested in it you will have to go slowly towards it. To be attracted to homosexuals is a step. Finally you will be attracted to the heterosexuals. The homosexual is half way. Nothing is wrong in it. It is good to go gradually, mature gradually. And it is also possible the homosexual person may be a person that you like, you love, that he deserves your love. His homosexuality may be a secondary thing. If it is a secondary thing, then perhaps you can stay with the homosexual person long enough, but if it is only a passing phase then moving from no sexuality or very little sexuality towards a heterosexual man, a direct jump, will be too much and can be dangerous. It may throw you back into your avoidance. It is perfectly good that you…

Osho, you yourself have said there is no way to go against nature in any direction. Then whether, in the ocean of nature, we float or swim—whether we live in friendship with it or in enmity—where does any violation of nature occur? Yet you also explain: move in harmony with nature; in its river don’t swim, float. Osho, in this context, what is the alchemy of “nahin Ram bin thav”—there is no resting place without Ram? Please help us understand.

There is no way to be against nature, because there is nothing that is not nature. Whatever is, is nature. There is no path to fight with nature—who would fight? There is none other than nature. But the feeling, the idea, the vision that “I am fighting nature” can be adopted, it can be cultivated. When you swim in the river, you still are not going against nature, because swimming too is natural. Even when you “fight” the river, the river is not fighting you. So there is no way to be an enemy of nature. But in your mind the notion can arise that you are fighting, that you must win, must not lose—and you can fall into the madness of winning and losing. You will suffer from that. Nature suffers nothing. Nor will nature obstruct you or demand you change. Nature will go on as it is, endlessly.…