According to Osho, religions adopted repression to keep the priestly enterprise alive: by condemning natural thoughts and desires as ‘impure,’ priests explain ritual failures, manufacture guilt, and keep people obedient and dependent. Repression weakens intelligence, divides the mind, and sustains authority. When people accept their naturalness consciously, the priest loses his hold, so repression becomes the basic strategy for control and exploitation.
They call normal feelings bad so you feel guilty and need them, which keeps them in charge.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, WHY HAVE ALL THE RELIGIONS USED REPRESSION AS A BASIC STRATEGY? The mind says the woman is beautiful -- and if you feel a desire for beauty I don't see that there is anything wrong in it. If you feel a desire for ugliness, then something is wrong, then you are sick. Beauty has to be appreciated. When you see a beautiful painting, you would like to possess it. When you see anything beautiful, just by the side of it the idea comes as a shadow, "If this beautiful thing could be mine...." Now, these are all natural thoughts. But the priest will say, "The rains have not come because of your impure thoughts" -- and you are absolutely indefensible. You know it, you are ashamed of yourself. God is always right.
Osho, why is it that only humans repress, manipulate, kill, try to conquer the natural flow in nature, the tao? Why are we so stupid?
Hindus and Mohammedans, whenever they are in a murderous mood, become united amongst themselves; otherwise they go dull, dead -- they start vegetating again. It is very strange. Why people are so much interested in destruction? If you are going on the street and you see two people fighting -- you may be going for a very urgent work -- you will forget all about the urgent work; you will stop there. First you will see the fight; you cannot leave that place. The urgent work can wait; in fact there is no more any urgency than to watch the fight. Why? Why a crowd gathers when two persons are fighting? You become identified with the fight. And this happens in many ways. Just a football match or a hockey match and you see thousands of people shouting, going almost mad, jumping, ready to kill each other. Why so much…
What is repression?
But repression makes you false. It is not by repression that anger, sex, greed are destroyed, no. They are there -- just the labels are changed. They go into the unconscious, they start working from there: they go underground. And, of course, when they are underground, they are more powerful. The whole psychoanalytic movement tries to bring what is underground to the surface. Once is becomes conscious, you can be freed of it. A Frenchman was staying in England, and a friend asked him how he was getting on. He said he was doing very well, except for one thing. 'When I go to a party, the hostess, she does not tell me where is the 'pissoir"...' 'Ah, Georges, you mean she does not tell you where the toilet is? That's just our English prudery. Actually, she will say "Do you want to wash your hands?" and that means the…
Osho, why in the first place religions developed the idea of celibacy if it is unnatural?
This is the way of a power seeker, although he pretended to be most humble. He tried hard to be simple, but if you look deep down, in his simplicity, in his poverty, in his so-called humbleness, you will find nothing but pure ambition to dominate. When there was danger that he may be killed by some Hindu fanatic, the government asked him can they be allowed to protect? Can some arrangement be made so that he is continuously guarded and protected? He said, "No! Absolutely no! If my purity is enough, if my celibacy is true, then nobody can kill me." You see the logic! Everything depends on his purity. But a brahmin from Poona killed him -- his purity was greater! His celibacy seems to be greater -- he was far more potent. If Mahatma Gandhi's logic is correct, then Nathuram Godse, the man who killed him, seems…
Osho! At the Simhastha fair in Ujjain, there used to be a big crowd at the spot where Naga sadhus put on sexual displays—like pulling a jeep tied to the penis, etc. Why are people so curious to perform naked displays and to watch nudity, and why do they praise them? And when nothing of the sort happens in your ashram, why are people still angry with you and your ashram?
That’s why those who fast long fall into the illusion that their sexuality has ended. Nothing has ended; it has only dried up. Feed them again and it is back. Nothing has changed. Jain monks fall into the illusion that they have conquered sex. But they eat so little that even the minimal needs of the body are not met. Sex arises when enough food goes in that it creates energy beyond your needs—then sex arises. Think of sex as the flowering of your life. A tree that gets no energy—what flowers will it produce? It won’t even grow leaves, forget flowers. It will remain a dry stalk. For centuries man has been branded a sinner. The result is that deep down each person has become highly curious and avid for the very things that are forbidden. Prohibition has a quality: deny something—taste arises. In what you forbid, the relish…