Why is God referred to as 'He' and not 'She'?

Osho, why is god called 'he 'and not she '?

IT IS BECAUSE OF the whole stupid past of humanity -- the whole chauvinistic past. Man has dominated, man has crushed the woman. And by crushing the woman, by destroying the woman, man has destroyed all grace from the earth. It is not only the woman that has been destroyed -- man has destroyed nature, because nature is woman. Man has destroyed the earth because the earth is woman. Man has destroyed ALL that is feminine! But beauty is feminine and love is feminine and celebration is feminine, music is feminine... wherever you will find any grace it is bound to be feminine. Even when you look at the Buddha, he will look more feminine than masculine. Wherever truth arrives, it comes with great grace, with great beauty. But that's how man has lived, and it is man who has created the religious books, it is man who has created…

You refer to god always as 'him' or 'he'. What are some of the female qualities of god?

NOW IT IS a very delicate problem.... In fact, all His qualities are feminine -- that's why I call Him 'He' and 'Him'. Otherwise He has no reason to call Himself a male. You can feel sorry for Him! And you can allow this much, can't you? He has all the qualities of a woman, but to call Him 'She' will be too much. Just to compensate I call Him 'He' and 'Him'. God is more a mother than a father. God is more like a womb than anything else. Out of God we are born, and back into God we dissolve. He is our birth and He is our death. He is like the ocean: He 'waves' us, we become His waves; He absorbs us -- we disappear. He is compassion, love. All His qualities are feminine. So there is no need to be worried about it, why I…

Beloved master, how can you, as a man, talk about the feminine psyche? How do you know that god is a he?

Gudrun Hofmann, I am not talking as a man, I am not talking as a woman. I am not talking as a mind at all. The mind is used, but I am talking as consciousness, as awareness. And awareness is neither he nor she, awareness is neither man nor woman. Your body has that division and your mind too, because your mind is your inner part of the body and your body is the outer part of your mind. Your body and mind are not separate; they are one entity. In fact, to say body and mind is not right; 'and' should not be used. You are bodymind -- not even a hyphen between the two. Hence, with the body, with the mind, 'masculine', 'feminine' -- these words are relevant, meaningful. But there is something beyond them both; there is something transcendental. That is your real core, your being. That…

Why do you refer to god as `he'? The is-ness, the life energy, the totality, the unknowable... Well, wouldn't it be clearer to call god `it'? What bugs me about the `he' is that `he' implies a personality, a will, a judgmental authority, and my ability to love is crippled enough without that obstacle. Well, I see now that the question is an entry to my problem: how can I trust or come to love your authority?

Ecstasy happens only when there are two, love happens only when there are two. When you are alone, you can be silent, still, but you cannot be throbbing with joy, you cannot dance. The Sufi dances because he calls God; he can invoke God in a personal way.Jainism and Buddhism became very poor. And when Buddhism spread outside of India, it started talking about Buddha as a God -- and through Buddha, again prayer entered. In Jainism prayer never entered, and Jainism could never spread. It remained a very tiny sect, dead. It is inhuman. Is-ness, existence, totality -- big words, but dead. They don't pulsate. How do you relate with totality, tell me? How will you call totality? How will you connect yourself with totality? You will be too tiny, and the vastness of totality is so big, you will be lost. No, God has to be conceived in…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, IF GOD IS A SHE, WHY DO YOU KEEP ON CALLING HER A HE? AND ANOTHER QUESTION: YOU SAY THE ENGLISH ARE LADIES AND THE ITALIANS, WOMEN. WHERE WOULD YOU PUT THE GERMAN FEMALES? Prem Prageeta, the German females are precisely that -- females -- neither ladies nor women. 'Female' is more scientific and more German, more scholarly, neutral; it has no evaluation in it. And God, in fact, is neither he nor she. So if you say he is a he I will say he is a she; if you say he is a she I will say he is a he -- simply to unhinge you from your convictions. Once it happened: Buddha entered a village. A man asked him as he was entering the village, "Does God exist?" He said, "No, absolutely no.