According to Osho, there is no ‘sex-perversion’—sex is life-energy, a raw diamond to be understood and refined. Don’t condemn or repress it; be simple and natural. Turn this energy toward meditation and awareness so it transforms from mere procreation into consciousness (samadhi). Drop rigid vows, observe your impulses without guilt, and let understanding sublimate desire into creative, spiritual growth.
Sex isn’t bad—accept it naturally and use meditation to turn that energy into peace instead of feeling guilty or fighting it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
A friend has asked: “I am afflicted with sex-perversion; what should I do?”
Why call it a perversion? If your father had not been “afflicted” with sex-perversion, where would you be? And if Buddha’s father had not been “afflicted,” the world would have been deprived of Buddha. From this so-called sex-perversion Buddha was born, Mahavira was born. Can such wondrous miracles arise out of a perversion? It is not a perversion—you have announced too soon: “sex-perversion!” And then you ask how to be free of it. It is not a perversion; sex is energy. Sex is your intrinsic potential. Right now it is like a raw diamond straight from the mine—still a diamond, but only a jeweler will recognize it. Let it fall into a jeweler’s hands: he will cut it, clean it, facet it, polish it—and one day even a blind man will know its worth. Sex is not a perversion; sex is the very energy of your life. Through this same…
[A sannyasin had previously written to Osho about her sexuality, which seemed to have become more intensified lately -- mainly been through auto-erotic activity. Guilt feelings surfaced from childhood, about its being a perversion. Osho checked her energy.] I told you to remain celibate for a few days specifically for this purpose, because once you are celibate for a few days, energy pools; it becomes a reservoir. And when it is a reservoir, then you can easily know where it wants to move, how it wants to be creative, what direction it wants to take. A person who is using his sexual energy continuously, never knows what the energy itself intends to do. And these are two different things. What your mind intends to do is one thing -- what your energy intends to do is totally different.
Osho, the one who tends a dhuni (sacred fire) all year—well, in terms of sexual perversion, can we place both on the same level? Or is there any difference between the perversion in the two?
I understand; what you say is quite right. The discovery of psychology over the last hundred years is that to cause suffering to others, or to cause suffering to oneself, or to honor the miserable, or to support the possibilities of suffering, is in one way or another a distorted form of the sex-energy—a sexual perversion. This is absolutely true. In fact, it is necessary to understand this. In truth, kama or sex is the lowest possibility of bliss—of pleasure. One should understand that sex is a natural, spontaneous pleasure given by nature. If one rises above it and discovers greater joy, then the need for the pleasure of sex no longer remains. If one rises above it and finds greater joy, then the pleasure of sex is no longer needed. Gradually, kama is transformed—it transforms—and ultimately it can become brahmacharya (celibacy). But if one does not seek greater joys…
Question: Third question: Osho, I want to voice the pain of my heart, which I have never expressed to anyone till today. My mind has become fragmented. On one side there is love for satsang and the longing to meet the Divine, and on the other side a constant pull, every moment, toward physical sexual desire. Even into mature age I have not been able to be free of it. Understanding comes but remains incomplete. And despite many experiences of the female body, the tendency torments me even more. All the good sayings and teachings remain outside. I stay the same! Forgetting everything, I become greedy. Lust surrounds the mind. Even in dreams the same thing goes on. By what practice may I gain freedom or equanimity? Please show the way. Have compassion. Radharamana! Reflect on what I have just said. Why do you want to be free of it?
Osho, human beings either go to the excess of sexual indulgence or to the opposite extreme of the frustration born of sexual repression. What is Sahaj Yoga’s vision on this subject—please be kind enough to explain it to us.
The Taj Mahal is the imagination of Sufi fakirs. An emperor had it built, but the conception was given by Sufis. Those who built it were Sufi fakirs too. That’s why, if you sit silently and look at the Taj on a full-moon night for an hour or two, an unparalleled meditation descends. The signatures of Sufis are upon it. Its very form is such that it dissolves you into meditation. Millions of statues of Buddha were made—who made them? Not shopkeepers. Not mere technicians either. Such images of Buddha were made that if you just sit by them—stone, yes, but they poured so much into the stone; gave it such a form, such a hue, such a feeling—that even sitting near the stone something within you becomes still. In China there is a temple—the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas. It took centuries. Monks kept making, kept making, kept making.…