Women's Rights

Osho, I very much liked what you said about equal rights for women. Along with that, what you say about not suppressing desires and not fighting with them also touches the heart. But when I remember Adi Shankaracharya, Patanjali, Tulsidas, and so on, a conflict arises. From what standpoint did Shankaracharya speak disparagingly of women? Can one who has realized nondual Brahman speak like that? Were they perhaps only scholars, not realized? Patanjali lays particular stress on yama and niyama for samadhi, but you do not. What is the reason?

Shankaracharya was not merely a scholar—he was an enlightened man. But the language he chose for expression was traditional. Perhaps in those days it was not possible to speak in any other language. Even today how difficult it is! You can see my difficulty. Because I have not chosen traditional language or formalities, I am showered with abuse! Only those who have a little courage to be free of tradition—indeed one should say audacity—can be truly interested in me. That is why more people come from other countries and fewer Indians; Indians are tightly bound by orthodoxy and tradition. And then there is fear: if they come here, what will the neighbors say! News will reach the village that this man too has gone! When I was in Bombay, friends there who never came to hear me used to come here. Many of them took sannyas here. I asked them:…

Osho, looking within I have felt that many of my desires are sick, diseased—especially the negative desires. So are there healthy and unhealthy desires? And would you kindly tell us what the difference is between healthy and sick desires?

Desire is natural. It is nature’s gift. It is a donation from the divine. In itself desire is perfectly healthy. Without desire you could not live—not even for a single moment. In fact, the ancient scriptures say one thing: God was alone. A desire arose in him to become two—and the world was born. A desire arose in God to be two, to be many, to expand, to spread—and the world came into being. We are parts of that very desire of the divine; we are rays of that desire. So the first thing: desire is natural. It is of nature; it is innate. Desire is not bad; it is not sin. Those who told you desire is sin—avoid desire, escape from it, repress it, cut it down, kill it—they are the ones who made desire sick. Repressed desire becomes diseased. Whatever is pushed down turns poisonous. It does not…

What is the difference between waiting for godot and waiting for god?

It is as if the sun has risen in the morning and you are sitting in your room with closed doors and windows, in darkness. Open the doors, you become available to the sun. The sun was already available -- just the meeting happens. You cannot wait for God. All waiting is for Godot. Godot means the one who never comes, who CANNOT come, whose arrival is impossible. And the only impossible thing is that which has already happened -- how can it happen again? You are alive, and you are waiting for life, Now, this is ridiculous. The real man of religion does not think in terms of God. He thinks in terms of life or, even better, of living -- because life can again become an abstract idea. Living, moment-to-moment living. In that very living, one knows what God is, because one knows who one is. Your idea…

A friend asked me this afternoon: Osho, unless we suppress our vices, we cannot rise above the animal. We will become animals. If we follow what you say and do not suppress our mind—do not repress our anger, do not repress our sex—then we will become animals.

But I want to tell you: as man is today, animals are better than him. It hurts to know this; it hurts me too. But animals are far better than man—in a thousand ways. What has happened to man is astonishing. Animals do not seem so anxious, nor so miserable. Have you ever heard of an animal or a bird committing suicide? You haven’t. I don’t think such a thing has yet occurred. If it ever does, every newspaper in the world will carry it in big letters on the front page: A dog has committed suicide. So far it has not happened. Only man takes his own life. What does this mean? Man’s life has reached such a condition that man himself wants to end it. Has it become so bad that we ourselves finish it? So meaningless? So filled with sorrow and pain? Yet this is what has…