Live fearlessly, die fearlessly

Question 1:

Shantam Lani, mankind, especially womankind, suffers from many sicknesses. Up to now all the so-called civilizations and cultures have been psychologically sick. They have never dared even to recognize their sickness; and the first step of treatment is to recognize that you are sick. The relationship between man and woman has been especially unnatural.

A few facts have to be remembered. Firstly, man has the capacity for only one orgasm; woman has the capacity for multiple orgasms. This has created a tremendous problem. There would not have been any problem if marriage and monogamy had not been imposed on them; it seems it was not the intention of nature. The man becomes afraid of the woman for the simple reason that if he triggers one orgasm in her, then she is ready for at least half a dozen more orgasms - and he is incapable of satisfying her.

The way that man has found is: don't give the woman even one orgasm. Even take away from her the conception that she can have an orgasm.

Secondly, man's sex is local, genital. The same is not the case with woman. Her sexuality, her sensuality is spread all over her body. It takes a longer time for her to warm up, and before she even gets warmed up, the man is finished. He turns his back towards her and starts snoring. For thousands of years, millions of women around the world have lived and died without knowing the greatest natural gift - of orgasmic joy. It was a protection for man's ego. The woman needs a long foreplay so that her whole body starts tingling with sensuality, but then there is the danger - what to do with her capacity for multiple orgasm?

Looked at scientifically, either sex should not be taken so seriously and friends should be invited to give the woman her whole range of orgasms, or some scientific vibrator should be used. But with both there are problems. If you use scientific vibrators, they can give as many orgasms as the woman is capable of; but once a woman has known... then the man's organ looks so poor that she may choose a scientific instrument, a vibrator, rather than a boyfriend. If you allow a few friends to join you, then it becomes a social scandal - that you are indulging in orgies.

So the simplest way man has found is that the woman should not even move while he is making love to her; she should remain almost like a corpse. And man's ejaculation is quick - two minutes, three minutes at the most; by that time the woman is not at all aware of what she has missed.

As far as biological reproduction is concerned, orgasm is not a necessity. But as far as spiritual growth is concerned, orgasm is a necessity.

According to me, it is the orgasmic experience of bliss that has given humanity in the early days the idea of meditation, of looking for something better, more intense, more vital. Orgasm is nature's indication that you contain within yourself a tremendous amount of blissfulness. It simply gives you a taste of it - then you can go on the search.

The orgasmic state, even the recognition of it, is a very recent thing. Just in this century, psychologists became aware of what problems women are facing. Through psychoanalysis and other psychological schools the conclusion was the same, that she is being prevented from spiritual growth; she remains just a domestic servant.

As far as reproducing children is concerned, man's ejaculation is enough - so biology has no problem; but psychology has. Women are more irritable, nagging, bitchy, and the reason is that they have been deprived of something that is their birthright; and they don't even know what it is.

Only in Western societies has the younger generation become aware of the orgasm. And it is not coincidental that the younger generation has gone into the search for truth, for ecstasy - because orgasm is momentary, but it gives you a glimpse of the beyond.

Two things happen in orgasm: one is, mind stops the constant yakkety yak - it becomes for a moment no-mind; and second, time stops. That single moment of orgasmic joy is so immense and so fulfilling that it is equal to eternity.

In the very early days man became aware that these are the two things which give you the greatest pleasure possible, as far as nature is concerned. And it was a simple and logical conclusion that if you can stop your chattering mind and become so silent that everything stops - time included - then you are free from sexuality. You need not depend on the other person, man or woman; you are capable of attaining this state of meditation alone. And orgasm cannot be more than momentary, but meditation can be spread over the whole twenty-four hours.

A man like Gautam Buddha is living every moment of his life in orgasmic joy - it has nothing to do with sex.

I have been asked again and again why very few women became enlightened. Amongst other reasons, the most important reason is: they never had any taste of orgasm. The window to the vast sky never opened. They lived, they produced children, and they died. They were used by biology and man, just like factories, producing children.

In the East, even now, it is very difficult to find a woman who knows what orgasm is. I have asked very intelligent, educated, cultured women - they don't have any idea of it. In fact, in the Eastern languages there is no word which can be used as a translation for "orgasm." It was not needed; it was simply never touched.

And man has taught woman that it is only prostitutes who enjoy sex. They moan and they groan and they scream, and they go almost crazy; to be a respectable lady you should not do such things. So the woman remains tense, and feels humiliated deep down - that she has been used. And many women have reported to me that after making love, when their husband goes on snoring, they have wept.

A woman is almost like a musical instrument; her whole body has immense sensitivity, and that sensitivity should be aroused. So there is a need for foreplay. And after making love, the man should not go to sleep; that is ugly, uncivilized, uncultured. A woman who has given you such joy needs some afterplay too - just out of gratitude.

Your question, Lani, is very important - and is going to become more and more important in the future. This problem has to be solved; but marriage is a barrier, religion is a barrier, your rotten old ideas are barriers. They are preventing half of humanity from being joyous, and their whole energy - that should have blossomed in flowers of joy - turns sour, poisonous, in nagging, in being bitchy.

Otherwise all this nagging and this bitchiness would disappear.

Men and women should not be in a contract, like marriage. They should be in love - but they should retain their freedom. They don't owe anything to each other.

And life should be more mobile. A woman coming into contact with many friends, a man coming into contact with many women, should be simply the rule. But it is possible only if sex is taken as playfulness, as fun. It is not sin, it is fun. And since the introduction of the pill, now there is no fear about having children.

The pill, in my opinion, is the greatest revolution that has happened in history. All its implications have not yet been made available to man. In the past it was difficult, because making love meant more and more children. That was destroying the woman, she was always pregnant; and to remain pregnant and give birth to twelve or twenty children is a torturous experience. Women were used like cattle.

But the future can be totally different - and the difference will come not from man. Just as Marx said about the proletariat, "Proletariat of the world unite, you have nothing to lose..." and everything to gain.... He had seen society divided into two classes, the rich and the poor.

I see society divided into two classes, man and woman.

Man has remained the master for centuries, and woman the slave. She has been auctioned, she has been sold, she has been burnt alive. Everything inhuman that can be done has been done to women - and they constitute half of humanity.

The whole future can be a totally different phenomenon. All the women of the world just need to fight for a separate voting system, so that a woman will vote only for a woman, and a man should vote only for a man. Then in every parliament there will be half women and half men.

And men are divided into small parties. Women have to be aware not to create divisions, but to agree on fundamentals - because it is a question of thousands of years of slavery: you cannot afford parties. There should be only one international party of women, and they could take over all the governments of the world.

That seems to be the only way to change the status of women: to allow science full freedom to transform the relationship between man and woman and to drop the idea of marriage, which is absolutely ugly because it is simply a kind of private ownership. Human beings cannot be owned, they are not property. And love should be just a joyful play. And if you want children, then children should belong to the society, so the woman is not labelled as mother, as wife, or as prostitute. These labels should be removed.

Lani, you are asking, "I feel so imprisoned by the fear of being intimate and totally losing control."

Every woman is afraid, because if she loses control with a man, the man freaks out. He cannot handle it; his sexuality is very small. Because he is a donor, he loses energy while making love. The woman does not lose energy while making love - on the contrary, she feels nourished.

Now these are facts which have to be taken into account. Man has for centuries forced the woman to control herself and has kept her at a distance, never allowing her to be too intimate. All his talk about love is bullshit.

"This outrageous woman is locked up inside. When she comes out once in a while, men usually freak out, so she goes back into hibernation, plays safe, and is totally frustrated." This is not, Lani, only your story; it is the story of all women. They are all living in deep frustration.

Finding no way out, knowing nothing about what has been taken away from them, they have only one opening: they will be found in churches, in temples, in synagogues, praying to God. But that God is also a male chauvinist.

In the Christian trinity there is no place for a woman. All are men: the father, the son, the holy ghost.

It is a gay men's club.

I am reminded that when God first created the world he created man and woman from the mud, and then breathed life into them. He created them equal. But looking at the world, you can understand - whoever has created it is a little stupid. He created man and woman, and made a small bed for them to sleep in. The bed was so small that only one person could sleep on it. They were equal, but the woman insisted: she would be on the bed - he should sleep on the floor. And the problem was the same with the man - he was not willing to sleep on the floor. You will be surprised to know that the first night in existence was the beginning of pillow fights.

They had to go to God. And the solution was very simple - just make a king-size bed; any carpenter could have done it. But God is a man, and is as prejudiced as any other man: he demolished the woman, destroyed her. And then he created Eve, but now woman was no longer equal to man - she was created from one of Adam's ribs; so she was just to serve man, to take care of man, to be used by man.

Christians don't tell you the whole story. They start their story from Adam and Eve - but Eve is already reduced to a state of slavery. And since that day woman has lived in slavery in thousands of ways. Financially she has not been allowed to be independent. Educationally she has not been allowed to be equal to man - because then she could be financially independent. Religiously she has not been allowed even to read the scriptures or listen to somebody else reading the scriptures.

Woman's wings have been cut in many ways.

And the greatest harm that has been done to her is marriage, because neither man nor woman is monogamous; psychologically they are polygamous. So their whole psychology has been forced against its own nature. And because woman was dependent on man she had to suffer all kinds of insults - because man was the master, he was the owner, he had all the money.

To satisfy his polygamous nature, man created prostitutes. Prostitutes are a by-product of marriage.

And this ugly institution of prostitution will not disappear from the world unless marriage disappears.

It is its shadow - because man does not want to be tied to a monogamous relationship, and he has the freedom of movement, he has the money, he has the education, he has all the power. He invented prostitutes; and to destroy a woman by making her a prostitute is the ugliest murder you can do.

The strange fact is, all religions are against prostitution - and they are the cause of it. They are all for marriage, and they cannot see a simple fact - that prostitution came into existence with marriage.

Now the women's liberation movement is trying to imitate all the stupidities that men have done to women. In London, in New York, in San Francisco, you can find male prostitutes. That is a new phenomenon. This is not a revolutionary step, this is a reactionary step.

Lani, the problem is that unless you lose control while making love, you will not have an orgasmic experience. So at least my people should be more understanding, that the woman will moan and groan and scream. It is because her whole body is involved - total involvement.

You need not be afraid of that. It is tremendously healing: she will not be bitchy towards you, and she will not nag you, because all the energy that becomes bitchiness has been transformed into an immense joy. And don't be afraid about the neighbors - it is their problem if they are worried about your groaning and moaning, it is not your problem. You are not preventing them....

Make your love a really festive affair, don't make it a hit and run affair. Dance, sing, play music - and don't let sex be cerebral. Cerebral sex is not authentic; sex should be spontaneous.

Create the situation. Your bedroom should be a place as holy as a temple. In your bedroom don't do anything else; sing and dance and play, and if love happens on its own, as a spontaneous thing, you will be immensely surprised that biology has given you a glimpse of meditation.

And don't be worried about the woman who is going crazy. She has to go crazy - her whole body is in a totally different space. She cannot remain in control; if she controls it she will remain like a corpse.

Millions of people are making love to corpses.

I have heard a story about Cleopatra, the most beautiful woman. When she died, according to the old Egyptian rituals her body was not buried for three days. She was raped in those three days - a dead body. When I first came to know about it, I was surprised - what kind of man would have raped her? But then I felt, perhaps it is not so strange a fact. All men have reduced women to corpses, at least while they are making love.

The most ancient treatise on love and sex is Vatsyayana's KAMASUTRAS, aphorisms about sex. It describes eighty-four postures for making love. And when the Christian missionaries came to the East, they were surprised to realize that they knew only one posture: man on top - because then man has more mobility, and the woman is lying like a corpse underneath him.

Vatsyayana's suggestion is very accurate, that the woman should be on top. The man on top is very uncultured; the woman is more fragile. But why men have chosen to be on the top is so that they can keep the woman under control. Crushed under the beast, beauty is bound to be under control.

The woman is not even to open her eyes, because that is like a prostitute. She has to behave like a lady. This posture, man on top, is known in the East as the missionary posture.

A great revolution is ahead in the relationship between man and woman. There are institutes evolving around the world, in the advanced countries, where they teach you how to love. It is unfortunate that even animals know how to love, and man has to be taught. And in their teaching, the basic thing is foreplay and afterplay. Then love becomes such a sacred experience.

Lani, you should drop the fear of being intimate and totally losing control with a man. Let the idiot be afraid; if he wants to be afraid, that is his business. You should be authentic and true to yourself.

You are lying to yourself, you are deceiving yourself, you are destroying yourself.

What is the harm if the man freaks out and runs out of the room naked? Close the door! Let the whole neighborhood know that this man is mad. But you need not control your possibility of having an orgasmic experience. The orgasmic experience is the experience of merging and melting, egolessness, mindlessness, timelessness.

This may trigger your search for finding a way that, without any man, without any partner, you can drop the mind, you can drop time, and you can enter into orgasmic joy on your own. I call this authentic meditation.

So you have to stop going into hibernation, stop playing safe, and all your frustration will disappear.

Why should you be worried about the man? Let him ask the question, "What am I supposed to do?

Lani goes crazy, jumps on top of me, starts scratching my face...!" But here in my place, among my people, you cannot make much fuss about it. You have to accept it as a natural phenomenon.

Otherwise simply meditate - who is telling you to make love to a woman?

Women have not discovered meditation. Perhaps it was these freak-outs who discovered meditation to avoid the woman and all the problems... and just sit silently, doing nothing - and the spring comes, and the grass grows by itself. You can do that.

I have heard... a fat American walking down the street saw a sign: "Amazing Slimming Treatment!

Twenty-four-hour cure - one thousand dollars; Six-hour cure - five thousand dollars."

Curious, he went inside and asked the receptionist about the twenty-four-hour cure. He was shown inside a large room, and there stood a beautiful naked girl with a sign around her neck, "You catch me, you make love to me; but first you have to catch me."

That was the process of slimming! He was very impressed, and thought," If this is the one-thousand- dollar cure, the five-thousand-dollar one must be five times as good." So he immediately signed up for the five-thousand-dollar, six-hour cure.

He was undressed and taken into another large room, and the door was locked behind him. Alone in the room with him was an enormous gorilla, with a sign around his neck saying, "I catch you, I make love to you."

Don't be worried, enjoy the whole game - be playful about it. If one man freaks out, there are millions of men.

One day, Lany, you will find, some mad guy who does not freak out. And anyway, freaking out and running all around the bed will give him a slimming treatment - and without paying a single dollar!

Question 2:

Prem Devika, the proverb, "All good things must come to an end," must have been invented by unenlightened people. In the ordinary, unconscious life, it is true. But the really good things, which can happen to you only in immense consciousness, never end. This proverb belongs to the crowd.

But if you ask the awakened ones, they will say that good things only begin, they never end. There is a statement of Gautam Buddha to the same effect. He says, "Bad things don't have any beginning, but they have an end. Good things have a beginning, but they don't have an end." Now that is coming from a very conscious man.

You are saying, "You look into my eyes, and I disappear into yours. I experience a communication happening beyond words, beyond this world. I am so in love with you, all other things have lost my interest."

Hence the fear has arisen in you; the proverb arises out of that fear: "I have heard so many times that all good things must come to an end" - it is not necessary; it depends on your consciousness.

Just a very small part of your being is conscious - one tenth of the whole; that's why good things are very momentary. As your consciousness grows deeper, the experiences of the good, of beauty, of joy, of ecstasy, start becoming longer.

When you are fully aware, then the ecstasy remains with you twenty-four hours a day, awake or asleep.

So don't be worried about it. Just make an effort to be more alert, to be more aware; and whatever is happening to you will become more intense, will become juicier, will become your permanent quality - a part of your very being.

But it always happens; whenever something good happens to you a fear is lurking by the side, that perhaps soon it will end. And because of this lurking fear, you cannot even enjoy it while it is there; the fear destroys the moment. Don't be bothered about proverbs created by the ignorant masses. They are expressing their own experience - in their lives it is very rare that anything good happens. And it remains for such a short time that later on, looking retrospectively, they cannot convince themselves whether it has happened or they have dreamt about it. Was it a reality or only imagination?

And the whole of humanity is living in fear - fear about everything: you cannot live fully, because there is death.

My logic is totally different: because there is death, live as totally as possible. Because you cannot be certain about tomorrow, you have got only this moment, you cannot afford to postpone living - because there may not be any more time left.

One of the disciples of Confucius asked him, "Master, can you tell me something about death, and what happens afterwards?"

Confucius said to him, "Do you want to die? Are you preparing for death?"

The man said, "No, I am not preparing for death, I am very much afraid of death. I want to be certain that there is nothing to be afraid of."

Confucius said, "Don't be stupid. While you are alive, be alive! And be totally alive, and enjoy life in all its dimensions; and when you are dead, be totally dead. And if you want to think about death, in your grave you will have enough time; lying down, go on thinking about death. But don't waste your life thinking about death."

But man has been made so afraid - about his actions, about his living, about his respectability - that there is no time left for living. Fear takes all the time.

Rain is pouring over Warsaw. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Goldberg are rushing back home, wrapped up in their dark, orthodox Jewish coats. But the rain is getting too strong, and they look around for shelter.

The only place available is a butcher's shop. They look at each other, look at the dark, black clouds, and walk into the shop. Everybody stares and they are totally embarrassed. Mr. Cohen tries to break the ice, and asks casually, "Hmm, how much is it for a kilo of pork?"

Right at that moment, an incredible thunder clap echoes in the air. Mr. Cohen rushes out, looks at the sky and says, "I was just asking for the price."

Even God is nothing but your fear. It is not your love, it is your fear.

Have you ever watched? Whenever you are in misery, anguish, suffering, you remember God.

Whenever you are joyous, happy, with a feeling of well-being, you never bother about God.

God is a creation of man's fear.

If a man is fearless, he does not have any conception of God. Gautam Buddha has no conception of God. Mahavira has no conception of God. Lao Tzu has no conception of God. Where has God disappeared? As their fear disappeared, the projection of their fear, God, also disappeared.

One of the fundamentals of sannyas is: Go on dropping your fear, don't waste time. Enjoy life so totally that there is no space left for fear. And I give you the guarantee that even when death comes, you will not be afraid; your whole life-long training in fearlessness will not allow you to be afraid of death. On the contrary, you will feel excited because you are moving into an unknown space.

An exploration - that's how Socrates took his death. He was condemned to death by poison by the court of Athens. Exactly as the sun was setting, his disciples gathered around him. They were crying, and Socrates told them, "I have always been teaching you to enjoy every moment. I am not crying, and I am dying; you are alive, and you are crying - this is very strange. I am feeling very excited, after a long time, because life I have lived, I am well acquainted with it but death is a new experience, so new that it is a challenge for me to explore it."

The man who was preparing the poison outside the room had killed many people in the past by preparing this poison. He was the expert. But he was delaying the preparation of the poison because, listening to Socrates in the court, he had fallen in love with the man.

The court had no argument against him; they were all pygmies, and he was a genius. And finally, seeing that by arguing with this man you cannot win, they decided that it was taking too long, it was better to take a vote.

This was a cunning strategy. And a vote was taken to decide whether Socrates should be sentenced to death or not. They had not proved any crime. He had argued so well, and destroyed all the slurs on his character - they had not been able to prove a single crime. They resorted to a different device: to vote.

And fifty-one percent of the people voted that Socrates should be killed - just fifty-one percent.

Forty-nine percent of the people were voting for his life - even the man who was to prepare the poison had voted for his life. But it was his job.... He was delaying, the sun had set....

And Socrates was asking again and again, "What happened? At sunset the poison was to be given to me. It is getting late." He went out of the room, and asked the man, "Why are you delaying?"

He said, "You are a strange fellow! I have fallen in love with you - and now you are making it even more difficult for me. People enjoy if some delay happens, at least that much more they have been able to live. Why are you in so much of a hurry to die?"

Socrates said, "Life I have lived. And I have lived so totally, I have squeezed all the juice out of it.

Now there is no more to explore. Death opens a new door, a new mystery. Don't delay, I am feeling so excited. I am feeling young again."

If you live fearlessly, you will die fearlessly. And the man who has no fear has no God, has no hell, has no heaven, because he knows one thing: wherever he is, he will be able to live as beautifully, as artistically, as aesthetically as possible.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.