According to Osho, sexual energy is your very life force—the creative current that births children, art, love, and, when refined, spiritual awakening. Sexual power is its distortion: using sex to dominate, manipulate, or trade influence. Treating sex as commodity depletes dignity and vitality, crippling creativity and enlightenment. Honor and transform sexual energy; never weaponize it.
Sexual energy is your inner battery for creating and growing; sexual power is misusing sex to boss people around.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what is the difference between the emptiness of the child before the formation of the ego and the awakened childlikeness of a buddha?
Whether you are for it or against it doesn't matter -- your concern shows where your ego is hanging. And I will include the capitalist in it also: his whole concern is how to gather money, hoard money -- because money has power over matter. You can purchase any material thing through money. You cannot purchase anything spiritual, you cannot purchase anything that has any intrinsic value; you can purchase only things. If you want to purchase love, you cannot purchase; but you can purchase sex. Sex is the material part of love. Through money, matter can be purchased, possessed. Now you will be surprised: I include the communist and the capitalist both in the same category, and they are enemies, just as I include Charvaka and Mahatma Gandhi in the same category, and they are enemies. They are enemies, but their concern is the same. The capitalist is trying…
What is it to be master of one's sexual energy?
VEERESHWAR, TO THINK IN TERMS OF DUALITY IS ALWAYS DANGEROUS. To divide yourself in two is to move towards a split. You are one! How can there be a master and a slave? The very idea is poison. And it has poisoned humanity down the ages. Never divide yourself, otherwise you will be in a conflict, a civil war -- fighting with yourself. And that is utter stupidity. To fight with oneself is to dissipate energy unnecessarily. It IS a wastage. The same energy can become a jubilation. I don't teach you how to become master of your sexual energy. What I teach you is: how to remain one, how not to divide yourself. Never divide yourself into the body, the mind, the soul the matter, the lower, the higher, the sacred, the profane, this worldly, other-worldly. Never divide! These are just different names... the disease is the same. Division…
Life can be viewed in two ways in all its layers. Life has two aspects -- one is material, and the other is spiritual. It is necessary to examine sex also from these two directions. One aspect of sex is biological which is linked with the body and its particles. The other is of energy, of soul which is linked with the mind by consciousness. So it is necessary to comprehend the two words first. The first is biological energy which is related to life cells which constitute man's body. These life-cells are a part of the body. This biological portion which we call semen or sex energy or call it by any name can be seen with our naked eyes. But there is another aspect which is linked with lt, and which can be called self energy or energy. We can call it sex energy or self energy.
No, Osho, what happens is that our mind is in one of two states. Either I feel I will be able to solve it, or I’m afraid that I won’t be able to solve it...
Because of that ignorance, we create many problems we don’t even suspect. For instance, in India almost everyone assumes that the sexual act is devastating. Physiologically that is absolutely wrong—completely wrong. In fact, sexual inactivity is devastating. Activity is not devastating. And it is also interesting that anyone who thinks he can go to extremes in sexual activity is mistaken. The body has checks. You cannot go to extremes; there are bodily checks. Nature has arranged it so you cannot expend surplus force beyond what the body allows. But one can misuse it, right? Even misuse is not possible—if you use full understanding. As far as sex has been understood, misuse is not possible. Misuse is impossible. Then not just sex—by that argument you can’t misuse anything! If we extend that very argument, you can’t misuse anything! No, no—you can misuse many things. Why not sex? Because the entire arrangement…
Verse (Sanskrit): ओशो, मन की किन-किन स्थितियों के कारण यौन-ऊर्जा, सेक्स एनर्जी अधोगमित होती है, और मन की किन-किन स्थितियों के कारण यौन-ऊर्जा ऊर्ध्वगमित होती है? कृपया इस पर कुछ प्रकाश डालें। Transliteration: ośo, mana kī kina-kina sthitiyoṃ ke kāraṇa yauna-ūrjā, seksa enarjī adhogamita hotī hai, aura mana kī kina-kina sthitiyoṃ ke kāraṇa yauna-ūrjā ūrdhvagamita hotī hai? kṛpayā isa para kucha prakāśa ḍāleṃ| Translation: Osho, what states of mind cause sexual energy, sex energy, to descend, and what states of mind cause sexual energy to ascend? Please shed some light on this. So first, understand two words. One is biological energy, which is related to the living cells by which a person obtains a body. These cells, these living units, are parts of the body. The biological, the visible part, stands before the eyes—call it semen, call it sexual energy, give it any name you like.