Sexuality

What is your view of pornography and what are your views on the new morality of sexually free societies like sweden?

I will not condemn. I appreciate it. Sexually free societies are not degraded. Rather, they have come to face the facts of life honestly. They are more honest than so called moral societies, which are basically dishonest. If sex is a fact then you must take it as a fact. No beating around the bush And pornography is an art, unless your mind is perverted. If your mind is perverted, pornography becomes a disease. Otherwise it is a simple art. If I paint a beautiful flower you appreciate it so why not appreciate it if I paint a nude woman? It is just as beautiful. And if a naked flower is beautiful, a naked woman or a naked man is also beautiful. But a naked flower will not create any attitude in you of condemnation, when a picture of a naked woman will. Not because it is pornography, but because…

Osho, sometimes I indulge in sexuality and then feel very much frustrated. Then I move to another extreme. I become a celibate, but soon I start feeling frustrated again and start moving to the other extreme. This is a vicious circle I am caught in. What should I do?

ALMOST EVERYBODY IS CAUGHT in some vicious circle or other -- because mind cannot exist without a vicious circle. Somebody eats too much, gathers fat, becomes worried, starts dieting, fasting, eats less, feels hungry, becomes worried, starts eating more... and so on and so forth. Mind exists like the pendulum of a clock: it goes from one extreme to the other extreme. And you cannot get out of the vicious circle by moving to the other extreme, because the other extreme is part of the vicious circle. When the pendulum is going to the right, in fact it is gathering momentum to go to the left. When the pendulum is going to the left, it is gathering momentum to go to the right. This is the vicious circle, VERY subtle. When you are feeling frustrated with indulgence in sexuality, what is happening? You are becoming interested in celibacy, in all…

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.