Chapter 30

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

Q: YOU SAY THAT MARRIAGE HAS DONE ITS WORK AND IS NOW OUT OF TIME. WE AGREE. CAN YOU SUGGEST THE COMMUNE AS A NEW BASE UNITY OF LIFESTYLE? AND SAY THAT THE CHILDREN WILL GROW UP MORE FREE IN THIS CONTEXT. IT LOOKS BEAUTIFUL BUT IT'S VERY DIFFICULT FOR A MOTHER, ESPECIALLY AN ITALIAN MOTHER, TO THINK THAT HER CHILD DOESN'T BELONG TO HER. PLEASE EXPLAIN.

A: Every transformation, every revolution is difficult in the beginning because you are accustomed of the old and to adopt to the new creates the difficulty.

The very idea of possession is anti-love.

You possess things, you don't possess living beings.

But unfortunately we have reduced living beings into things. It will hurt to drop the possessiveness but it help immensely for the mother in understanding, in spiritual growth, and the hurt will be healed very soon.

It is just an old habit transferred from one generation to another generation that `you possess me', `I possess you'. Dropping possessiveness means `I am myself', `you are yourself' -- we meet out of independence, we love out of freedom, not out of any contract.

And once a person has tasted love, non-possessive love, he will be surprised that what he had been thinking of love was not love but fear.

It is fear which wants to possess so that you cannot escape, so you remain always part of the furniture of the house. So that you remain obedient, so that you are not an independent being, but just a projection of the idea of your mother, of your father, or your wife, or your husband.

The difference is so much as if a bird comes out of the egg, he must be afraid, he is entering into an unknown world. Inside the egg he was safe, secure, no problems. Getting out of the egg is a trauma, but once he looks at the stars and the whole sky is his, once he opens his wings and rises high into the heavens, he knows that the egg was not his home -- it was a prison. Now he has found himself.

In finding freedom, one finds himself.

And only a free man is capable of loving.

You cannot expect love from slaves. You cannot expect love from prostitutes.

They can pretend; you pay for it. You cannot expect love from a child who feels in a bondage -- he will pretend, and he will pretend his whole life because you are training him for pretension not for love. He will pretend with his wife, he will pretend with his children, and this way the disease goes on and on.

Intelligent people are needed to come out of this vicious circle and I am not saying that you are not allowed to love... I am saying you are not allowed to possess.

You can love your children, you can love other people's children -- what is special in your children? They are as strangers to you as other children. Your love should have some unconditional quality about it.

In a commune a boy, a girl, will be getting love from thousands of people and it is one of the most significant thing to remember that when a girl is brought up by the mother she hates the mother her whole life. She cannot forgive her, she cannot forget her -- on the one hand; and on the other hand -- she is just a replica of her own mother.

The same is about the boy.

And it is known fact that the girl wants to love the father, the boy wants to love the mother, but this is thought to be a criminal act.

As the boys and girls will grow up the father and mother will create a distance between their own children and themselves, but the harm has already been done.

Scientists say that the first days of life are the most important in your whole life because you get certain impressions which you will carry your whole life.

The boy will carry the impression of his mother his whole life -- he could not get the mother, but he will search the mother in other women, and no other woman can fit with his idea.

The same is true about the girl.

People fall in love and you ask them, "Why you fell in love with a certain woman, or a certain man?" And they are at a loss to answer, because it is something unconscious of which they are not aware.

The reality is you fall in love with a woman who had some similarity to your mother. Maybe the similarity will be very superficial -- the hairdo, the sound of her voice, the way she talks, the features of her face, the eyes, anything; just a small thing, and you fall in love. You fall in love with a fragment, but soon after marriage you will discover the woman is not a fragment, she is a whole continent, so is the man. Both are going to be frustrated, because what the hairdo will do. Even if the nose of your wife is exactly the same as your mother's, it is not going to make your life a joyous pilgrimage.

What does it matter if your father resembles with the husband you have chosen.

Because he was professor, very scholarly, always talking of great things, and this man is also a professor talking of great things -- but these things don't constitute life... so when you are together twenty-four hours you start discovering so many things which do not resemble to your father or to your mother.

Finally when you discover the whole phenomenon of your woman, that small fragment is so small, it makes no difference at all. Then there is frustration, then there is constant quarreling.

This is one of the basic facts why no couple is happy and I say it without any exception.

No couple is happy around the world and every couple is pretending to the outside that they are living in paradise... they are living in hell! twenty-four hours. They pretend to be loving only when guests come, visitors come, otherwise the house is hell.

I have heard: two men used to visit a restaurant and they both remained till the manager forced them to leave. This was a great similarity -- just those two men one day when they were getting out of the restaurant, one man asked the other, "Why do you stay so long?"

He said, "I am married and as long I can remain away from the home, it is peaceful."

But he asked, "What is the cause of your staying because you are also staying?"

He said, "It is better that you should not know."

But the man insisted to know.

He said, "I am a bachelor. As long as I can remain away from my empty house it feels I am alive; when I enter into my house it seems I am entering a grave."

When you are alone you cannot live.

When you are together with a partner you cannot live.

Certainly the whole human psychology is beserk.

In the commune children will be part of the commune. They will have many uncles, many aunts, many sisters, many brothers. They will not get a certain fixed idea in their mind how a woman should be or how a man should be.

Almost ninety percent psychological problems will dissolve and for the remaining ten, also I have some idea. As the children grow to sexual maturity they should be allowed absolute freedom, with all the cautions so that they don't get pregnant.

Now the Pill is available. First it was available only for the woman, now it is available for the man too.

All kinds of birth control methods are available.

After the year thirteenth or fourteenth, the girl or the boy are going to be sexually mature. It has to be understood that nature has brought them to maturity. As far as nature is concerned they are capable of producing children, but the society, the family, the old rotten structure will prevent them, up to twenty-five years of age -- that means a difference of ten or eleven years before they get married; and for these ten years every society insists that you should remain celibate. You are asking the impossible.

Then nature has matured their sexuality -- it is none of their fault -- it is as simple you can take a vow that I will not allow my hairs to grow, but are you capable to do that? Your hairs will continue to grow. You can go on reading BHAGAVAD GITA and holy BIBLE and you go on, on your knees, praying god that, "I have taken the vow". That, "I will not grow my hairs, but they go on growing."

Your biological structure is not under control of your mind, and sex is the most important part of your biology because whole nature depends on sex for the production.

These ten years are going to be of perverted sex. They could have been a great experiment, a great experience.

In a commune the children will be allowed to have all knowledge, all medical support, so they don't get pregnant. And they should move with different boys, with different girls... there is no hurry to decide.

And there should not be any hurry to decide.

First let the boy experience few dozen girls, let the girl know few dozen boys; only then you can expect for her to decide that who seems to be more closer to her being, who will be a partner with whom she would like to travel a long way.

And the boy will also be able to see which is the girl, what are the qualities that impress him. And they should go on changing in the commune because it is not a settlement, they are just playing around with their love energy... to have an experience before they decide.

And my understanding is that if ten years of experience cannot make you come to a conclusion, in a seventy year life, what more do you want?

These ten years will settle.

Nobody is made for you; neither you are made for anybody else.

It is a search, a groping in the dark, for the most convenient companion who is non-possessive, who loves freedom, who loves to give freedom, who is not only non-possessive, who is against being possessed. That she is absolutely open to share love, without any conditions.

These ten years will be the most significant of your life.

Right now they are a nightmare.

And then you can decide whenever you want, or you can decide that a married life is not for you. Perhaps you would like to continue the same way as you have been doing for ten years -- nothing is wrong in it.

It is absolutely up to you! No parent decides it. It is your decision to choose a partner, or not to choose a partner.

One thing more to be remembered: that at the age of nearabout eighteen you have the greatest sexual power that you will ever have in your life. After eighteen your sexual power starts declining and it is sheer stupidity to decide for marriage at twenty-five, when sexual power has already declined tremendously - - you will not be able to satisfy a woman.

The most satisfying sexual orgasm is between eighteen and nineteen. You are at the prime of your energies but the education goes up to twenty-five, twenty-six, and if you are going to do a Ph.D. it may go up to thirty, or if you are really a bookworm it may go up to thirty-five -- to have a D.Litt.

I came across a man in Varanasi. He was the only man in the whole world... and that was his only achievement, useless, but he was praised -- perhaps I was the only man who condemned him in front of him... he had seventeen M.A. degrees in seventeen subjects.

All that he has been doing his life was moving from one subject to another, and attaining another M.A. to prove that he is, in the world, the only man who has seventeen M.A. degrees. And the people who had brought him to me had brought him with great praise. They told me, "He is a rare individual."

And I looked at him and I told him that, "You are absolutely idiot. What are you going to do with your seventeen degrees? You have wasted your whole life.

Now collect all your papers and keep on your chest and move in your grave.

Perhaps God may very impressed seeing seventeen masters' degrees...."

First the man was shocked and then tears came to his eyes and he said, "Perhaps you are the first man who has told me the truth. I have wasted my life, I have never loved -- I had no time, I never got married -- I had no time, I was running from one department to another department, my whole idea was to have all masters' degrees that are available in the university of Varanasi. But your attitude shocks me, hurts me, but still I do understand -- I have wasted my life."

By the year thirty-five sexual energy is fast declining. That is the reason that most of the people in the world don't have the orgasmic experience because that orgasmic experience was possible between eighteen/nineteen, somewhere there, when you were so full of energy and the woman was so receptive that making love was a divine dance.

When mens' energies have declined, womens' energies have not declined. So she feels continuously frustrated. And man feels deep down that he is the unfortunate one who has never known what orgasm is but he cannot accept it.

Ninety-eight percent women in India had no sexual orgasm. And that is one of the basic experiences that nature gives you, as a gift. With that experience you for the first time become aware that life is not just mundane, it has something divine in it.

My own understanding is that it was the orgasmic experience which created the mystics in the world.

Because if meeting with a woman, totally, can give you such an experience; meeting with the whole universe, merging with the whole universe, totally, you can imagine how much, how vast, how infinite it is going to be.

It is going to be absolute orgasm.

But if you have missed the first, you have no possibility to attain the second. The first was an indication of a new dimension.

You will collect money and power and prestige and you will die as everybody has died.

In the commune the children will have all orgasmic experiences and before they decide they will know what kind of a woman or what kind of a man brings them to that holy experience. That is going to be decisive -- not astrology, not palmistry, not parents, nobody can decide it... that merging and meeting and that great experience, overwhelming both the lovers, is enough; it has decided.

(Tape side B; no overlap) Q: MOST OF US IN RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN LOOKS LIKE A SADO-MASOCHIST (INAUDIBLE)(*). AND THERE ARE NOW MORE AND MORE PEOPLE WHICH CALL THEMSELVES THE `SINGLES', CHOOSE TO BE OR NOT. THIS IS A NEW PHENOMENON IN THE WEST INCREASING EVERY DAY. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT? AND DO YOU THINK THERE IS ANY HOPE FOR A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN WHICH DOESN'T ENSLAVE BOTH?"

A: The phenomenon of people living alone is disgusting because it is out of frustration. They wanted to be with someone, they have tried and they have failed again and again.

Now it is out of failure they have reached to a conclusion that it is better to be alone, but their aloneness will be sad, empty, ugly, because it has not come out of any abundance of love -- it has come out of the psychopathy of love.

And it is true, the best couple in the world is one in which one partner is a masochist and the other is a sadist. They fit very well.

The sadist wants to torture, the masochist wants to be tortured. You cannot find a better combination. Both are happy -- there is no complaint, but the situation is ugly.

To settle in such a state that the one is sadist and the other is masochist; two sick people cannot create a healthy relationship. In fact, their relationship is based on sickness.

Most of the couples who seem to cling together are of this type because they are fulfilling each other's need, and it is a natural byproduct -- if you cannot find somebody who fits with your psycho-pathology, it is better to be single... but that is not going to make you psychologically healthy.

Your singleness may create thousands of perversions.

I have heard a story that two men were going to Alaska. At the last village they stopped to purchase few necessary things: toothpaste, (inaudible)(*), et cetera, and the shopkeeper said that, "I have something more which perhaps you are not aware, you will not get a woman there."

They had not thought about it -- that is true. In Alaska, where you are going to get a woman? So the man said that, "I have some arrangements, I have a rubber woman. You just pump it and it is more beautiful than any woman, and it is very easy, it never quarrels, never nags you and easy to carry, just take the air out, fold it back and keep in the pocket -- nobody will know."

They both looked at each other and said, "It is a good idea."

But one said, "I don't have money."

The other said, "I have money." So they purchased the woman -- a really beautiful woman with filled air with all the right proportions of the body.

After two years, one man came back.

The shopkeeper said, "As far as I remember, two men has gone, where is the other?"

He said, "Don't mention him. I shot him."

He said, "Why you shot him, he was your friend?"

"Don't call him my friend!" he said. "When I was out, he was making love to my woman. He was cheating me continuously. I had asked him again and again, are you making love to my woman? Because I had paid for it. And he said, `No, I am not interested in women.' But one day I came in the middle of the day and saw him making love to my woman. I shot both."

These singles will find rubber womens(sic), these singles will have to come to some understanding about their sexuality. And their singlehood will create the same situation as celibacy has created for thousands of years.

But it is a sign that old marriage has failed. That people are so tired of it that they choose to be single rather than getting married and entering into a continuous nightmare.

I have lived with hundreds of families, I have not come across a single couple who is happy, but what else to do? The society has managed everything in such a way that they have to pretend to be happy -- that is their respectability, prestige in the society, but deep down they are dying of a cancer, cancer which is invisible and cannot be operated upon.

The world can be so joyous, just few stupid ideas have to be removed. Give chances to children to experiment with sex so that before they decide, they decide with full awareness that the person they are choosing fits with them -- not on a fragmentary basis but whole to whole. And then too it is not a marriage according to law, it is not a marriage according to social customs, it is a marriage between those two people. Any moment they feel that old joy is disappearing then why continue? Say goodbye, find out new partners -- the world is so full of men and women, perhaps you may find somebody else, your woman may find somebody else... and don't think of permanency... in existence everything is momentary, what is beautiful today may turn ugly tomorrow; what is so great this moment that you are ready to accept it for your whole life, may turn so sour tomorrow that you may like to kill yourself or the other person.

But there is no need of all these things. It should be a free-floating, free-moving society.

In each constitution of the world this should be a birthright of man to choose a partner, to change a partner, without any hindrance from the government or the society because it is an individual affair.

And when the children are being taken care of by the society there is no problem.

And children will not be losing you -- the mother can visit them, the father can visit them; they will be still calling you `father', calling the woman `mother'. To them, nothing has changed. To them, it is perfectly good. In fact they will be very understanding that if love has disappeared it is good that you have separated, rather than torturing each other your whole life.

Life is so simple man has made it so complex unnecessarily....

It seems that the religions of the world, the politicians and other powerful people of the world don't want human beings to be happy. They don't want to be in a state of euphoria, they want them to be miserable.

There is some vested interest in their misery. If they are miserable, continuously burdened with wife, with husband, with children, with parents, with job, with unemployment, they cannot be rebels. They are dying under the burden of their own life. Who has time for rebellion?

But if my idea is to (inaudible)(*) spread, and people are happy and independent -- joyous, then the vested interest will be in tremendous trouble, because these rebellious people are not burdened with anything; their whole energy is available to revolt against anything that hinders human happiness.

Just the other day there was a question about drugs. Alcohol is almost universally legal, marijuana is not, LSD is not, Ecstasy is not, and the strange thing is that alcohol is the most dangerous drug out of these four I named.

`Ecstasy' has no bad effects, is non-addictive, simply gives you a pleasant feeling, a well-being... it is prohibited. I can't understand. Why you prevent people from feeling well-being? And it hurts nobody. The whole medical research is in favor of it; that it is the absolutely harmless drug. It will bring you out of your sadness, make you smile and laugh and dance and song(sic), but it is illegal. You may have to suffer in jail if you are caught with Ecstasy.

Marijuana grows in the Himalayas wild and has been used by the people for thousands of years, with no bad effect. It certainly gives you hallucinatory feelings, but rather being in real hell it is better to be in a hallucinatory paradise - - what is wrong in it? If you cannot give a real paradise, at least let people have some glimpse in their dreams, in their hallucinations....

LSD can be more perfected, it can be perfected to the point where anybody can take it without any prescription and can feel immensely good, healthy, full of energy, and can see life in its utter beauty... the same rose flower and you see it for the first time radiating, surrounded by a aura of light.

LSD intensifies your sensitivity. All people are not born with sensitivity and nobody is training them to create more sensitivity about beauty, about joy, about compassion. LSD can do that, but LSD is illegal.

Alcohol is legal -- which has no plus points. Alcohol simply destroys people, helps them to forget, but the next day they fall in a deeper ditch -- the hangover.

In Kulu, Neelam reported to me that she has a friend who has two friends: one is alcoholic and another lives on marijuana. The alcoholic has destroyed his whole life, his business is ruined, his family is ruined, he is ruined. And the man who is(sic) being taking marijuana is fully healthy, his business is good, his family is together -- but marijuana is illegal, and alcohol is legal. Why alcohol is legal? One wonders....

It is in favor of the vested interests.

Drugs like `Ecstasy' are not in favor; they are in favor of humanity but they are not in favor of the vested interests.

And the same is situation on many fronts.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE BEEN VERY HARD WITH THE HOMOSEXUAL, ESPECIALLY WITH LESBIAN LADIES. THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SO MUCH CONDEMNED AND DISCRIMINATED (INAUDIBLE)(*) IN OUR SOCIETY, THAT WE REALLY DIDN'T EXPECT YOU TO ADD YOUR CRITICS AGAINST THEM. CAN YOU PLEASE SAY A FEW WORDS ABOUT THIS.

A: I cannot support anything unnatural.

It is homosexuality which has brought humanity to the AIDS and AIDS may destroy two-thirds of humanity, without nuclear weapons.

I am certainly against homosexuality. I am so much against it that even people of very great genius, talents, creativity... I have appreciated them on all accounts but as far as homosexuality is concerned I cannot support even Socrates. He was a homosexual. His homosexuality destroys much of his credibility that he did not understand Tao -- the way of nature.

And homosexuality, moreover, is a religious disease. And condemning all the religions, for all the harm they have done to humanity: one of the greatest harm is homosexuality. Because it is these religions who started preaching celibacy and started separating man monk*s from female nuns.

If you go into the history of three thousand years, you will be surprised, the nuns were having discourse with the devil. And a special investigator by the pope was appointed in the middle ages to find out the nuns who had had any sexual contact with the devil. And they tortured the nuns, interrogated the nuns, day and night, and finally they managed them to confess; the way they manage in Communist Russia... they can manage to confess anything -- just go on torturing, there is a limit to human capacity. Don't let them sleep, don't give them food; finally the woman thinks it is better to accept rather than deny, and then acceptance has to be according to the investigator. And thousands of nuns in the middle ages were burned alive because they had confessed. First you force them to confess that they are having intercourse with devil, and then because they have confessed themselves, you burned them alive.

Who was responsible?

And the monks created homosexuality. The monks are the cause, if some day humanity is going to die through an ugly disease, AIDS, the whole blame goes to the religions.

I am not condemning, I am simply clarifying the situation that the homosexuals should understand that they are victims of a religious tradition and they should come out of it... and it is not difficult, just we have to create places where homosexuals can be hypnotized and convinced for heterosexuality.

Lesbians -- religions created, but more than that, now the women's liberation is created. Against man, how a woman can love a man? A woman can only love a woman.

No-one knows if homosexuality has brought to AIDS to what dangerous disease is in the future that lesbianism may bring. It is better to stop it now.

And I am not angry. It is my compassion. I would like religious people to make arrangements for homosexuals to be changed into heterosexuals -- men or woman. It is their duty, otherwise they should be punished, not homosexuals, not lesbians. But I am against anything that is not in harmony with nature: it is bound to create troubles because nature makes your body in a certain way, your biology in a certain way -- it is made for heterosexuality, it is not made for homosexuality.

There is no condemnation in me, there is no criticism either. I am simply putting the facts: all the homosexuals of the world and all the lesbians of the world should protest against the religions, the churches, the pope, that, "You are responsible for distracting us from our natural being and you have to pay for it.

Now open hospitals, nurseries, where we can be put back in harmony with nature otherwise we are going to destroy your churches, your temples, your mosques, because we are burning we cannot allow you to be unscratched and nobody is pointing the finger towards you."

Q: YOU SEEM THE MOST ELEGANT SPIRITUAL FIGURE IN THE WORLD.

THE LOOK, WHICH SEEMS A VERY IMPORTANT MATTER TODAY, IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU TOO?"

A: To me what is important is my truth, is my experience, and certainly the truth changes the look... the experience changes everything.

It is such a great inner revolution that the whole body is bound to follow it.

Truth brings beauty, compassion, charisma.

But just look does not matter to me; what matters is truth.

Q: IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO SPEAK BOTH REAGAN'S AND GORBACHOV'S WIVES, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THEM?

A: Wives are powerful people, as far as their husbands are concerned. Their husbands may be presidents and prime ministers of countries, but before the wife, they are nobody.

So I will tell to both the ladies that the whole existence of humanity in your hands....

Dictate to your husbands that it is time for Soviet Union and America to be friends and share scientific wisdom for the benefit of all humanity. Otherwise, nag them, throw clothes at them, wake them in the middle of the night, sit on their chest, beat their chest -- unless they say "Okay".

Wives can do miracles.

I am reminded of a story: a king was asking his close circle of wise people that, "Can you find a husband in my kingdom who is not henpecked?"

They all said, "Of course, thousands of people are not henpecked."

But one man, Birbal who was one of the wisest of all remained silent.

The king asked him, "Birbal, why are you silent?"

He said, "I am silent because the greatest king of the country is asking the question and I suspect you are a henpecked husband yourself, and I don't see any possibility of finding another person more powerful than you."

The king said, "You are right, but still try. I would like to see a man who is not henpecked."

So two horses were given to Birbal: one white and one black, great stallions, and he was told that, "Take these two horses and if you come across a man who is not henpecked let him choose one out of the two. These are the best in our kingdom."

He went to many many people. He knew it is an exercise in futility but finally he reached a small cottage. A wrestler, a very big man, maybe seven feet high, very strong and muscular, was massaging himself in the early morning sun. His body was worth seeing -- almost steel.

Birbal thought perhaps this is the man; such a strong man cannot be henpecked.

He asked the man, "Are you henpecked?"

He said, "If you say the word again I will kill you here and now. Take your words back. Me and henpecked?"

Then Birbal said, "Where is your wife?"

He said, "She is inside, you can see, preparing my breakfast."

A very small lady, thin....

Seeing both Birbal was convinced that he is not a henpecked person. This woman he can throw thousand feet high! What she can do to him.

So he said, "I am satisfied. The order are the king has said who is not a henpecked husband he can choose one stallion; they are the two greatest horses in the kingdom -- one is white, one is black -- which one you like?"

And he said, "Wait a minute." And he called his wife, "Darling, should I choose the white or the black."

The woman said, "Choose the white! And if you choose the black then remember, nobody is going to be bad than me. I will put you to your senses."

So the man said to Birbal, "White."

Birbal said, "Now, no more, because you are a henpecked husband -- with all these muscles and with this height, you may be a champion wrestler but before your wife you are nothing. And she is just a tiny woman but she challenged you that if you choose the black one, then I will show you who I am. Choose the white! Otherwise I will make your life a hell and you simply have chosen the white. Now I cannot give neither the white nor the black and I have to report to the king that, `Drop this search, there is nobody who is not henpecked.'" So I would like to say to these ladies of the president of America and Russia, that you have immense power in your hands, you can change the whole course of history -- just scream loudly, break plates, throw things all around, and your husband is going to say, "Forgive me, I will do whatever you say."

What all the pacifists of the world have not been able to do, women can do it.

Okay?