Masculinity

While you were pointing the finger to the moon you said today, "men have to become more masculine." what is this masculine?

Man and woman both together, moving positively, are one whole. And the real couple -- and there are very few real couples -- is one in which each has joined with the other in a positive way. Ninety-nine percent of couples are joined together in a negative way. That's why there is so much misery in the world. I repeat it again: the man has to be masculine and the woman has to be feminine, but in a positive way. Then to be together is a meditation, then to be together is really a great adventure. Then to be together brings new surprises every day. Then life is a dance between these two polarities, and they help each other, they nourish each other. Man alone will not be able to go very far. Woman alone will be just a pool of energy with no possibility of any dynamic movement. When…

Osho, what is it to be a man?

One man was saying to Mulla Nasruddin, one of his friends, 'My wife can talk for hours! Just a small opportunity and she starts.' Mulla Nasruddin said, 'That's nothing! My wife needs no opportunity -- she is a self-starter! Just the other day I was sitting silently and she came and said, "Why are you sitting silently? What do you mean by sitting silently? Have you lost your voice? Can't you say something nice to me?"' But in love dialogue is possible, conflict becomes impossible. If you are not reducing the other to a slave there is no need for conflict. Conflict is an indication that the other is feeling that you are trying to dominate him, you are trying to destroy him, and the other is trying to destroy you -- you are feeling it. So the question is of survival, who wins. But in love there is no…

Osho, some women have a masculine nature...

In truth, being male or female should not be marginal. But the order we have developed is gradually becoming marginal; many people have come to stand on the margin. Civilization has done this. Civilization has made the roles of women and men almost the same. This has caused harm: it has reduced the woman’s femininity and the man’s manhood. Whereas it is necessary that the two be at extreme poles. A man should be ninety-nine percent male and one percent female—the one percent will remain; it cannot be escaped. A woman should be ninety-nine percent female and one percent male. For this it is necessary that they have different bodily exercises, that there be some difference in their diet, that their education be different, that the whole discipline of their lives be different. Then we will be able to place them as polarities. And the day human understanding grows, that…

Beloved Osho, I want to defend my male race. Existence gave man the capacity to fight against existence, to swim against the stream, to be a doer, to say no. Hearing you and your therapists, I tried to drop this and this effort to drop only gave me misery. I don't believe existence made me a man in order to become female without ever blossoming into the full potential of my maleness, of my mind. Please comment.

My emphasis is to give respect to women -- and equality is not against men. It is a world which belongs to you both and you both have to be together to make it as beautiful and as divine as possible. Man alone -- look at your question, Mario -- you have been creating only wars. In three thousand years, five thousand wars ... Is life just to fight? Is life just to kill, massacre, rape? Your whole history is full of murder and you call those murderers your great men. Alexander the Great ... And you don't see that small murderers are being jailed, sentenced to death, and big murderers become your heroes. And it is because the woman has been completely cut off from contributing anything to life; otherwise there would not have been so many wars. No woman is interested in war, it is simply against the…