Women

Beloved Osho, sitting silently, suddenly, softly, slowly, soundlessly, peacefully, something peeled off which I could see was my illusion for a better world and good people. Beloved Osho, can you say something about the difference between a vision and an illusion?

The difference between a vision and an illusion is very delicate and fragile, but the difference is very big. The dream is a mind phenomenon; it happens in your mind. It happens because you repress, and whatever is repressed comes up in the night when the conscious represser is asleep. Then the unconscious releases itself in dreams. Dream is the language of the unconscious. Through the dream, the unconscious is doing many things: one is catharsis, second is giving messages to the conscious. If you don't hear, the same dream will be repeated again. It has happened in very rare cases that a dream was repeated almost every night for years. And it happened to a very intelligent, great creator -- Leo Tolstoy. He used to have a dream -- which was a nightmare, although there was no violence, no torture -- but the set-up of the dream was such…

Osho, yesterday you spoke about the feminine mystery of existence. Kindly shed more light on this subject in greater detail.

All the dimensions of existence can be divided into the feminine and the masculine. The division of woman and man is not merely a sexual division. In Lao Tzu’s vision, the division into feminine and masculine is the very dialectics of life, an essential part of life’s dialectical evolution. Man and woman differ not only at the level of the body; they also differ at the level of the mind. Wherever existence manifests, there the polarity of feminine and masculine will appear. But in understanding Lao Tzu, keep one thing in mind: the masculine is the transient form of existence, and the feminine is its eternal form. Like the wave that rises on the ocean—its rising is momentary. The ocean was there before the wave, and will be there after the wave. Femininity is the ocean of existence; the masculine is a passing wave. Hence the Judaic tradition that narrates…

Osho! I have been listening to you for years, and I listened again yesterday. It seems that in general you honor women with deep compassion and appreciation. But when you speak of a woman in the role of a wife, you scold her and depict a very different image. Why is that?

An hour later, when he came out and walked back toward the ship with his friends, the friends began telling him what all they had done. They asked Gandhi what had happened. Poor fellow—what could he say! He kept it hidden. Later, years later, he wrote in his autobiography that nothing happened—nothing could have happened; he just sat there with eyes lowered. The woman took so much pity on him that she even returned his money. “Brother, take your money back. If the loss of the money grieves you, then at least take it back. And if you need anything, say so.” She felt such compassion: “What kind of man is this!” The ways women have always used in their behavior, rebellion, revenge—those are precisely what Gandhi used. He gave them sweet names—ahimsa, nonviolence; satyagraha, the force of truth. If a man gets angry, he will beat the woman; if…

Osho, I have heard that behind each so-called great man -- like julius caesar or napoleon, or even a really great man like socrates -- there was a woman in charge. I have always managed to turn from being an admirer of women into a woman's fool. What is your secret? You have put more women in charge than is really possible, and yet you have remained free and loved by them all. And I love you too.

He said, "Yes. If you get a good wife she will make you succeed in life, she will put ambition in you. And you are young; you will need some ambition. If you get a wife like mine then you will become a philosopher. My wife has helped me immensely to learn the art of remaining unaffected. Whatsoever happens -- success or failure, misery or happiness -- it is all the same to me. She has made me centered. Either way you will not lose, so get married." There is a possibility -- every possibility, in fact -- that the whole credit for Buddha becoming enlightened goes to Yashodhara, his wife. The whole credit for Mohammed becoming the prophet of God MUST go to his nine wives. There is every possibility that these people were trying somehow not to be disturbed, not to be distracted, and they started searching for…