Who created god

Question 1:

Deva Aneesha, there is nothing for you to be sorry for. It is just your love, and your sensitivity that is making you feel remorse and sorrow.

I had answered Patipada, and certainly I am wounded and hurt; but not by you. You simply felt my being wounded and hurt, and that's why you are puzzled, why you are feeling sorry and sad. But Patipada is not feeling sorry or sad - just thick-skinned.

She has also written a letter to me, saying, "I looked deep into myself, and I don't feel that I have to be sorry for anything, that I have to apologize to the commune or to you."

And she was one of the members of the criminal gang that was the root cause that American politicians used to destroy the commune. She was aware that even my room was bugged by Sheela, and I had asked Sheela, "Is my room bugged?"

She flatly denied it, but I could see from her face - she became pale, and she said, "Tomorrow I can bring the electricians to check it, but it is not bugged." And Patipada knew all these things.

I have loved you so much, I have trusted you so much, and this is the reward you give me - you bug my own room. And she does not feel that she owes an apology. I have not been saying that she has done these things, but the group that was doing them... she was part of it. At least she could have informed me, she could have enquired whether I have ordered Sheela to bug my room. But still she is not repentant about it.

You are very sensitive. Your love is great, your trust is immense. You have not done anything, neither were you aware of anything that was being done; but you have felt my wound, and that feeling is disturbing you.

My wound is: I am the first person in history who has given women not only equality in my communes, but even superiority. You have not failed me, but my opinion of women has certainly gone down.

I was trying to compensate, because man has tortured woman for centuries - made her feel inferior in every way. My effort was to bring woman to her natural status; but a group of twenty women proved far uglier than twenty men would have proved. They have not only destroyed the commune, they have destroyed their only friend in the whole world, who has given them superior status and a more spiritual consciousness.

Perhaps, Aneesha, you are feeling bad because you are also a woman, and the wound was created by women. It is simply a reflection, because of your sensitivity. Otherwise - you are completely innocent; you don't need to be sorry at all. You have not failed me, you have not hurt me - there is no question of forgiving you. You have proved what I have been trying to prove - that woman can rise higher than man. She has far finer qualities.

But I can understand those twenty women also - Patipada included - because for centuries women have not been in power, and I put only women in power. Centuries of repression... and they forgot completely the man who had put them in power - that they were betraying him. But it is just unconsciousness.

In Patipada's letter she writes, "I don't feel that I owe any apology to you, or to the commune." And still she ends the letter with, "I put my head at your feet." For what? If she cannot even say "I am sorry," then putting her head at my feet is just words without meaning.

But all this happened unconsciously, so I am not angry, just wounded. I don't want you to feel repentant; I just want you to be more conscious. That's why I asked her for an apology: that would have made her more conscious.

When you are repressed for centuries and suddenly you get power, there is every possibility of misuse. And that's what happened. But I am still of the opinion that the woman carries in her heart more sensitivity, more love, more compassion. Given the chance, these old, repressed things will disappear. Therefore I am still giving that chance.

And, Aneesha, you proved my trust was right. You are not even aware what you are feeling sorry for; you have not done anything wrong. It is just a reflection, because a group of women did immense wrong, not only to the commune, but to the coming humanity. By their apology nothing will change; what they have destroyed in their unconsciousness is destroyed. But by their apology some understanding may come to them. And I want women not to be repressed in the future; they should be treated on equal terms. I was even making them superior, just to compensate for those thousands of years - but they behaved so unconsciously and so stupidly. But I was aware of the possibility....

I was reading a joke. It will be good for you, Aneesha. Two Irishmen, Paddy and Sean, were flying to Poona. The plane took off, and they were just settling down with their first drink when the captain's voice came over the intercom, "Engine number one has failed, but there is nothing to worry about.

We can run fine on three engines, but we will be arriving in Poona one hour late."

Paddy looked at Sean, and they had another drink. Ten minutes later the captain's voice came again saying, "Engine number two has failed, but we can run fine on two engines. We will arrive in Poona two hours late." Sean looked at Paddy, and they had another drink.

Ten minutes later the captain's voice came on again, "Engine number three has failed, but there is nothing to worry about. We can run fine on one engine, but we will be arriving in Poona four hours late."

Paddy looked at Sean and said, "I hope that the last engine does not fail, or we will be up here all night."

What they did was very Irish, unconscious.

Your question is beautiful, and shows the beauty of your heart. It does not matter that a few women betrayed the trust and the love that I have showered on them. They cannot be taken as the criterion for all the women of the world.

I am a stubborn fellow. I will continue, in spite of the wound, to give woman every possible opportunity which she has been denied in the past. And there will be more women like you, Aneesha, who will come to the surface. And they will prove my point that you are absolutely equal to men, there is no question of inferiority. Perhaps something may be superior in you, because you are the mother of man. The man has your blood, your bones, your marrow; all that the man has is a contribution from the woman. It was out of fear that woman might prove superior that man started putting her down.

It is now up to you not to be bothered about the past - that which is gone is gone - but to be ready for the future, and prove to man and to the whole of humanity that man need not be afraid of you; he can trust you. And you can be of immense help in the evolution of man.

Question 2:

Sadhan, more women could have been enlightened than men, but man has not allowed them to reach to those heights. He has kept them, enslaved them as second-class citizens. He has not allowed them education; he has not allowed them freedom of movement in society; he has not allowed them even to listen to the religious scriptures. He has tied them to the home, which has become almost a prison while he is free.

And for centuries he has used the woman just as a reproductive mechanism, just to produce children.

You may not be aware that in the past the woman was constantly pregnant - because out of ten children only one survived; nine died. Just to have two children, twenty children had to be produced - and that is not a part-time job. The woman's life has been almost a constant torture, because every pregnancy is a torture. Nine months she suffers, and then she has to bring up the child - that is tedious. And before the child is even a few months old she becomes pregnant again. And man has never thought what he is doing to her - treating her like cattle.

Around the world, all the cultures have misbehaved with women. Even a great culture like China has not accepted the idea that the woman has a soul. She is only a reproductive machine. In China, for centuries, if the husband killed his wife it was not considered to be a crime - even murder was not a crime because the woman had no soul. It is almost like destroying your table, or your chair, or your washing machine. You cannot be dragged to the court as a murderer because you have destroyed your chair. It was your chair, and you have every right to keep it or to destroy it.

The woman has been possessed almost like a commodity. The Indian scriptures say that while the woman is a child, the parents should be in possession of her; when she is young the husband should be in possession of her; when she is old her own sons should be in possession of her.

In such ugly situations it was almost impossible for women to become enlightened. They were not even living, they were being used. And the most insulting thing in the world is to be used.

No religion has shown any respect to women. I sometimes wonder what kind of religions we have produced. Even the finest people, like Gautam Buddha, were not ready to initiate women into sannyas. Buddha was more afraid about his male sannyasins... that if women become sannyasins the celibacy of his male sannyasins will be in danger. What kind of celibacy is it? - so fragile, not confident of itself. And it is not surprising that these monks created homosexuality in the world. You can avoid the woman, but by avoiding the woman you cannot destroy the sexuality of man.

Mahavira, a man of tremendous compassion, who brought the concept of non-violence to the world, is very violent about women. He says that a woman cannot become enlightened as a woman. First she has to earn enough virtue to be born as a man, and then there is a possibility of her being enlightened. But as a woman he absolutely denied the possibility.

Jesus talks of love so much, but when he chose his twelve apostles he did not include a single woman - although there were three women who were very close to him... far more understanding than those apostles. And it is a historical fact to be remembered that when he was crucified, all his twelve apostles disappeared, afraid that if they were caught, perhaps the same treatment would be given to them too.

But those three women: Mary Magdalene, and she was a prostitute, but listening to Jesus she went through a transformation; she dropped her profession, and she was one of the most beautiful women in Judea - Jesus' mother, Mary, and another woman follower, Martha: they remained near the cross. They showed more courage. And those three women were the ones who brought the body down from the cross - all those twelve apostles were hiding, they were not coming out.

But still Christianity has not given any recognition, any respect, even to Jesus' mother. But Christianity is not at fault - even Jesus himself was not respectful. One day he was speaking in a marketplace, a small crowd surrounding him, and his mother, who had not seen him for years, came to see him. And somebody shouted to Jesus, "Your mother is standing outside the crowd.

She wants to see you."

And Jesus misbehaved. He said, "Tell that woman...." Now, it is ugly. He could not even call her "mother." "Tell that woman that I don't have any mother, I don't have any father here on the earth.

My father is in heaven."

The same is true about other religions. Man has been preventing women from any spiritual growth.

It is a miracle that even in spite of all this suppression and slavery a few women became enlightened.

They are proof that Mahavira is wrong, that Buddha is wrong, that Jesus is wrong. For you, Sadhan, I have been looking for the names of all the enlightened women. There are not many, only five in the whole history of man.

One is Gargi. Five thousand years ago, when the UPANISHADS were being written, it was the childhood of mankind, and man had not yet become so brutal against women. The emperor of the nation used to call, every year, all the wise people for a contest. He was himself very philosophically- minded. In fact, no enlightened person would have gone to those contests; they were childish, although there was great reward. And it happened one year that the emperor declared that he would give one thousand cows, with their horns covered with pure gold and studded with diamonds to the person who won the contest.

Yagnavalkya was one of the most famous and learned men of those days. And he was so confident of his victory that when he came to the campus where the debate was being arranged, he looked at the cows. Those one thousand cows with gold-covered horns, studded with diamonds, were looking really beautiful in the sunlight. He told his disciples, "You take these cows to our place. It is unnecessary for the poor cows to stand in the hot sun."

The disciples said, "But first you have to win."

He said, "That I will take care of."

Even the emperor could not prevent him. And all those thousands of wise men who had gathered - they could not prevent him. They all knew that it was impossible to beat him in argument. His disciples took away the cows.

And it was almost the moment when he was going to be declared the winner, when a woman named Gargi... she was waiting for her husband who had also gone into the debate, and it was getting late; so she went herself to call him. She entered the campus and she saw the whole scene - that the cows had been taken away even before victory.

And she said to the emperor, "Don't declare his victory. Just by chance I have come here, to look for my husband. But this man needs somebody who really knows, and I am ready to have a discussion with him. He is only a learned man, but learning has never known truth."

Those were more beautiful days, when even a woman could challenge the most learned man. And the emperor said, "Then I will have to wait. You can discuss."

She asked only simple questions. She asked, "Who created the world?" And Yagnavalkya laughed, thinking that this woman was asking a childish question. But he was wrong.

He said, "God created it - because everything that exists has to be created by someone."

This was the time for Gargi to laugh. She said, "You are caught; now you are in trouble. Who created God? - because he also exists, and everything that exists needs a creator."

Yagnavalkya saw that he had got into difficulty. Because if he said another God created him, the question will remain the same: Who created that other God? You can go on answering for a thousand times, but the question will remain the same: Who created the first God? And if there was somebody to create him, he cannot be called the first.

Yagnavalkya got so angry that he pulled out his sword and said, "Woman, if you don't stop, your head will fall on the ground!"

But Gargi said, "Put your sword back into the sheath. Swords cannot be arguments." And she told the emperor, "Tell this fellow that those one thousand cows should be returned."

It was so insulting to Yagnavalkya that he never again participated in any discussion. And Gargi took those one thousand cows back from Yagnavalkya.

She was the first known enlightened woman.

The second woman went through a very difficult phase. Her name was Mallibai and she belonged to the Jaina tradition. Mahavira and all the twenty-three great masters of Jainism had declared that a woman cannot become enlightened. But Mallibai, who was a Jaina, became enlightened, and gave the evidence and the proof that their argument was simply male-chauvinism. They had to accept her as the twenty-fourth great master. But they played a trick: when she died they changed her name.

So even Jainas don't know that of the twenty-four statues in their temples, one statue is of a woman.

They changed her name from Mallibai to Mallinath; it becomes male. And they changed even the statue; the statue is not of a woman, the statue is of a man.

When I came to know about it, I was very angry with the Jaina monks. Whoever visited my place, I used to ask, "Which one of these twenty-four statues is Mallibai? - because they are all men's statues. You are deceiving the whole world. You have even changed the name of the woman just to keep your ideology intact."

But Mallibai must have been a great woman. It is not easy to follow the Jaina path. It is hard, very harsh. To become a tirthankara, a great master, one has to even drop one's clothes - no possessions, not even clothes. Mallibai must have been a very courageous woman. She lived naked, and proved that their whole theory was wrong. But after her death they managed - and these are religious people, cunning and deceptive.

The third is a Mohammedan woman mystic, Rabiya al-Adabiya. She seems to be the most significant Mohammedan mystic. Mohammedans don't allow women in their mosques; they have to pray outside the mosque. Women are treated exactly like cattle. Mohammed himself married nine women, and allowed every Mohammedan to marry at least four women - just to produce more children, so that Mohammedanism would spread. But he never thought about a simple problem, that if you marry nine women - nature produces men and women in equal numbers, it has a subtle balance - what about those eight men who will not get a wife?

So in Mohammedan countries homosexuality is tremendously prevalent, although the punishment for homosexuality is death. Knowing that the punishment is death, still homosexuality is much more prevalent in Mohammedan countries than anywhere else.

You have heard that in Africa homosexuality and the disease AIDS is spreading like wildfire. The parts where AIDS is spreading like wildfire are Mohammedan. It has nothing to do with Africa, it has something to do with the Mohammedan idea that one man can marry four women. So people who can afford... and four is not the maximum limit, it is the minimum limit.

The Nizam of Hyderabad in India, just before the Britishers left, had five hundred women. This kind of stupid behavior... and it becomes even more stupid because the Nizam had a big state, Hyderabad; he was a king, and the tradition was that his son would be the successor. When the father dies, he will inherit as his wives, all the wives of his father, except his own mother. That is his inheritance. The woman is something like a thing, money, land - but not a human being. who reached to the point of enlightenment. And she was really a courageous woman. It needs courage.

The stories of her courage are many.

Once a great mystic, Junnaid - who was afterwards the master of Al Hillaj Mansoor, the famous mystic who was killed by Mohammedans... Junnaid used to sit in front of the mosque, tears rolling down his cheeks.... Five times a day a Mohammedan has to pray, and five times Junnaid was found sitting in front of the gate of the mosque, raising his hands to God above, and asking him, "How long is it going to take? When are you going to open the doors? I have been waiting and praying for years."

One day Rabiya was passing, and Junnaid was praying with the same words: "Open the door, I have waited enough, I am a frail human being, my patience is not infinite!"

From the back Rabiya hit Junnaid on his head and said, "You idiot!" - and Junnaid was known as a great learned scholar - "The doors of God are always open. Why are you unnecessarily wasting your time? Get in! The doors of God are never closed. And I say it on my own authority, because I have been in and out so many times." She must have been a very courageous woman.

Another mystic, Hassan, was staying with her. And in the morning he wanted her holy KORAN, because he had not brought his own copy - knowing that there must be one with Rabiya al-Adabiya.

Rabiya al-Adabiya gave him her copy. He was shocked, because in many places she had corrected the holy KORAN. It is a great sin - the holy KORAN cannot be corrected, it is written by God.

Hassan called her back: "Rabiya, somebody has destroyed your holy KORAN. Corrections in the holy KORAN...? It has never been heard of, never been thought about."

She said, "Nobody has distorted it. Those corrections have been made by me, and I had to make them." And she looked at the correction which Hassan was reading. The statement in the KORAN is that you should hate the devil. She had crossed it out.

He said, "I don't understand."

She said, "It is very simple. I am now so full of love that it does not matter whether God comes before me, or the devil - they will both receive love, because I don't have anything else to give. Hate I don't have to give. And this is my copy of the KORAN. From where can I get hate? Hate has disappeared; my whole energy of hate has become love. Now it does not matter - God will receive the same love as the devil. I am helpless: I had to cross out this line, because it is no longer relevant to me."

This woman Rabiya was seen once running in the marketplace with a burning torch in her hand, and in another hand a bucket full of water. People gathered and asked, "What are you going to do?"

She said, "I am going to do the thing that should have been done before. I am going to burn this idea of heaven above in the sky, and I am going to drown this idea of hell beneath the earth. Both are bogus; they are not part of geography, they are inside you.

"And it all depends on you, whether you live in hell or you live in heaven. Living in hate, in anger, in jealousy, in depression, you are living in hell.

"And living in love, in compassion, in truth, in sincerity, you are living in heaven."

The fourth is another Mohammedan woman from Kashmir. Her name is Lalla. She was one of the most beautiful women... Kashmir has the most beautiful women in the whole of India. Not only is the land beautiful, but the people are also very beautiful.

Lalla remained naked, disowned everything, renounced everything - still, no police commissioner came to her to say that this was obscene. On the contrary, in Kashmir they have a proverb: "We know only two words which are meaningful; one is Allah, and another is Lalla." They have raised Lalla equal to God, Allah. When I was in Kashmir visiting many times, I heard from many Mohammedans:

We don't know anything comparable to these two words: Allah and Lalla. She was respected so immensely - her songs are so beautiful. I have asked one of my friends in Kashmir to translate them, because they are in Kashmiri. But even hearing them... they have such music. I don't understand Kashmiri, but whenever I have gone to Kashmir I have found somebody who can sing Lalla's songs.

They have such depth that although I don't understand the language, I understand the feeling, the vibe. And Lalla must have impressed the whole of Kashmir as nobody has ever impressed Kashmir.

And the fifth, Sadhan - you have mentioned her - is Meera. Perhaps she is the most significant of all the women who have become enlightened. Her songs... each word is pure gold. It is coming from the very source of enlightenment.

She was a queen, but she could not remain imprisoned in the palace; neither could her husband or her family tolerate her in the palace, because even to her husband she had said, "You forget all about being my husband. I have been in love with God from my very childhood. If anybody can claim to be my husband, it is God. But he cannot claim, because with him I am one."

Naturally, the family also wanted to get rid of her... and she also wanted to move in the streets, to sing her songs, to dance her dances, to spread her blissfulness as far and as wide as possible.

Two stories I would like to tell you about her. In Vrindavan, there is the greatest temple of Krishna.

The priest of the temple was a celibate; and as all celibates are sick, psychologically sick, he was also a sick person - sick in the sense that he would not allow any woman inside the temple. Only men could come inside the temple - women had to worship from the outside.

He had not seen a woman for twenty years. This kind of celibacy is nothing but tremendous repression, so much fear of women, that even seeing a woman you are afraid you may lose your whole life's effort.

When he heard that Meera was coming to dance in the temple before Krishna - and she was one of the most beautiful women you can conceive of - he put two guards with naked swords at the gate, saying, "Don't allow her in. Even if she has to be murdered, don't be worried."

Meera came dancing and singing, and the guards became so overwhelmed by her love, by her joy, by her ecstasy, that they forgot their business - why they were standing there. And she danced, and entered into the temple.

The priest was worshiping Krishna. On a plate he had candles, and he was worshiping with those candles. As he saw Meera, the plate fell - and he could not believe... what had happened to the guards?

She was drunk with the divine, and she danced before Krishna. The priest stopped her and asked her, "How dare you? You know that no woman is allowed here. And the guards are at the gate, they should have prevented you."

Meera laughed, and she said a very significant thing. She said, "I used to think that only God is a man and everybody else is a woman. Today I have found there are two men - you and God.

"What kind of love you do you have? If you cannot become simply the loving heart of a woman, all your worshiping is just hocus-pocus. Whom are you trying to deceive? I don't see that there is anybody who is a man. Only God is a man, and we are all his beloveds. You are also a woman.

Join me in the dance!"

Only these five names.... It is a crime on the part of man that he has prevented women from becoming enlightened. He has not given them a chance, otherwise my feeling is that there would have been more enlightened women than men, because for man there is a difficulty - his head.

The woman has a direct contact from the heart. Man's journey is a little long - first he has to struggle with the head... that can take years. And unless he comes to the heart, he cannot move towards the being.

The woman is already at the point of the heart. In that way she has a superiority; and more women would have become enlightened.... But the crime is on man's head - and it continues.

Just a few days ago, I heard that in England there is going to be a great conflict. The Church of England is on the verge of splitting in two, because the orthodox bishops and cardinals are against initiating any woman as a priest. A few intelligent people think that this is ugly. Why cannot a woman be a priest? The bishop of London has threatened that if women priests are initiated he is going to take the major part of the Church of England with him, because he is absolutely against women being priests.

What to say about enlightenment? Women cannot even be priests! And it is not only in England.

You will not find women priests anywhere in the world. Man has created every barrier. It is not only against women, it is against the whole humanity; because women constitute half of the earth. Half of humanity is being prevented from being religious.

Among many of my efforts, this is one of the major projects - that as far as religiousness is concerned there should be no discrimination between men and women.

And perhaps this is the only place where there is no discrimination. But because of these things, the whole world is against me. But I am ready - let the whole world be against me. Sooner or later they will understand that I was fighting for them, and they were against me; I was trying to improve the whole consciousness of humanity, and they condemned me.

But perhaps that is the destiny of every rebel.

And I am not a one-dimensional rebel - I am a multi-dimensional rebel. About everything I am rebellious.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.