Why is it difficult for men and women to be friends?

Beloved Osho, why is it so difficult for men and women to be friends? It seems so ordinary, and turns out to be almost impossible. Either there is an ugly compromise -- like man and wife -- or else passion that eventually turns into hate. Why is there always ugliness between men and women?

It is very simple to understand. Marriage is the ugliest institution invented by man. It is not natural; it has been invented so that you can monopolize a woman. You have been treating women as if they were a piece of land, or some currency notes. You have reduced the woman to a thing. Remember that if you reduce any human being to a thing -- unaware, unconscious -- you are also being reduced to the same status; otherwise, you will not be able to communicate. If you can talk with a chair, you must be a chair. Marriage is against nature. You can be certain only of this moment that is in your hands. All promises for tomorrow are lies -- and marriage is a promise for your whole life, that you will remain together, that you will love each other, that you will respect each other till your…

Why does heterosexual relationship create trouble and is it something new or has it been the case always?

It creates trouble because it is hetero. It creates trouble because it is between two opposite polarities. It creates trouble because it is between two different kinds of species -- man and woman. Man is one kind of species and woman is a different kind of species. They exist in opposite directions -- hence the attraction. Opposites attract. The negative electricity is attracted by the positive electricity; the positive electricity is attracted by the negative electricity. If you put two positive poles of magnetism together they repel each other. They don't attract. The similar repels, the contrary attracts. The woman is attracted to the man, the man is attracted to the woman, because they are opposite -- yin, yang, day, night, life, death, earth, sky -- they attract. But remember, the very attraction is because of the opposition. They are opposite so they attract. When you come closer there are…

Osho, another difficulty has arisen. Today there is such a gap between the private sector and the public sector that if we destroy the private sector, initiative disappears—and when initiative disappears, movement stops. In the same way, when one descends into non-attachment, or desirelessness, or karma-sannyas, it seems that initiative, zest, and drive all get converted into inactivity. That possibility seems real.

Where we claim to go against biology but still obey biology’s rule—being attracted to the opposite—everything turns dull and empty. Houses remain huts, pressed to the ground; all activity wanes; no one sings; a singing person seems criminal; bright clothes disappear; color, charm, beauty are lost; everything becomes sad, subdued, and shrunken. My own view is that both have their own laws, and a true culture stands on both. A true culture will be sex-free in the sense of being un-repressed: it will rejoice in sex, be festive in sex, and vast worldly activity will arise. And true spirituality, based on the right choice of type, will spread a web of spiritual activity. Krishna stands rightly in his own type; Buddha in his own; Mahavira in his own. Hence Krishna acts in one way, but it is not that Buddha does not act. Buddha’s life, too, is a vast web…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, OF THE FRIEND OUR FAITH IN OTHERS BETRAYS WHEREIN WE WOULD DEARLY LIKE TO HAVE FAITH IN OURSELVES. OUR LONGING FOR A FRIEND IS OUR BETRAYER. AND OFTEN WITH OUR LOVE WE ONLY WANT TO LEAP OVER ENVY. AND OFTEN WE ATTACK AND MAKE AN ENEMY IN ORDER TO CONCEAL THAT WE ARE VULNERABLE TO ATTACK. `AT LEAST BE MY ENEMY!' -- THUS SPEAKS THE TRUE REVERENCE THAT DOES NOT VENTURE TO ASK FOR FRIENDSHIP. IF YOU WANT A FRIEND, YOU MUST ALSO BE WILLING TO WAGE WAR FOR HIM: AND TO WAGE WAR, YOU MUST BE CAPABLE OF BEING AN ENEMY. YOU SHOULD HONOUR EVEN THE ENEMY IN YOUR FRIEND. CAN YOU GO NEAR TO YOUR FRIEND WITHOUT GOING OVER TO HIM? IN YOUR FRIEND YOU SHOULD POSSESS YOUR BEST ENEMY. YOUR HEART SHOULD FEEL CLOSEST TO HIM WHEN YOU OPPOSE HIM....

Osho, I’ve become intoxicated, drinking again and again the wine poured in your tavern. Osho, the world burns at the sight of lovers, but even the other drinkers in your own tavern are so opposed to love—especially fifty percent of the Indians who have been with you for the last ten or twelve years. Our foreign friends feel happy seeing lovers, but the Indians not only burn with jealousy, they look at them with a criminal eye and gossip sarcastically for hours. This crowd knows only one meaning of love—“sex.” Why is that? Is there no other dimension of love, especially in the relationship betw

I would like these friends to drift away little by little. Even their questions that come to me are not worth answering—trash questions with no purpose or value. In the relationship of man and woman, the Indian mind has held only one notion: there can be only one bond—sexual. That friendship can exist between man and woman has never been part of Indian tradition. Indian tradition has never had the courage to conceive friendship between man and woman. Sex is one relationship. It is not the whole. Friendship is also possible—and it should be. A beautiful, cultured person should have enough capacity to befriend a woman or a man. Friendship means there is no question of bodily give‑and‑take; it is a connection of souls. In the West this happens: a man and a woman can have a friendship like that between two men or two women. The basis can be…