Osho Quotes on Respecting Women
- If you cannot respect women, you cannot respect anybody else — because it is from women you come. The woman mothered you for nine months, then she took every care, she loved you for years. And then again… you can’t live without a woman. She is your solace, your warmth. Life is very cold; the woman becomes your warmth. Life is very uninspiring; the woman becomes your inspiration. Life is very very arithmetical; the woman becomes your poetry. She gives grace to your life. She takes care of you. She loves you, she goes on loving you, tremendously, totally.
- My situation is simple and clear. With whoever has harmed humanity, I am bitter; and whoever has been harmed, I am full of love for him. For all those women you called witches and burned them alive, I have tremendous love. For all those people you killed because they were Mohammedans, they were Jews, I have tremendous love and respect — but not for the criminals. For the criminals I am a sword, and for the victims I am a lotus. I am both together. In one hand I have a sword, in the other hand I have a lotus flower. Everybody according to what he deserves.
- The whole history of man is a history of condemnation of women by all the societies, by all the cultures, by all the religions. Among even the greatest human beings who have walked on the earth there is not a single one who has respected women. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira, even Buddha, have condemned women in some way or other. I am the first man who has given womankind the same respect as is given to man. It has nothing to do with sex appeal.
- Every man should be respectful to women: they are your mothers, they are your beloveds. Every woman should be respectful towards men: they are your children, they are your lovers. There is no question of any conflict between man and woman: they are two sides of the same coin.
- No woman in the whole world has created any ideology, any great metaphysics, any great philosophy. Her concern is not the outside; her concern is the inside. That’s why I have immense respect for women. Perhaps no man in the whole world ever had as much respect for women as I have. Women have been loved, but not respected. And without respect the love is nothing but lust; you label it with a beautiful word, but deep down inside you it is always sex, always sex. Man has reduced woman and her spirituality to such a state that she has become only an object of sex. And if the American trend has to be followed — where everything has to be used once and thrown away — the ultimate consequence is coming closer: use the woman once and throw away. They are already doing it in a way….
- I respect women in every dimension as being equally capable as men. They have been beaten down the ages; they have never been able to say a single thing about their husbands.
- Millions of women hate their husbands for the simple reason that they feel used, as if they are just machines for your sexual lust to be relieved so that you can have a good night’s sleep. No woman can ever respect you if she feels she is being used. Each being is an end unto himself. Never use a woman, never use a man, never use anybody. Nobody is a means for your purposes. Respect — love is a sharing, it is not using the other, it is not trying to snatch something from the other. On the contrary, it is giving wholeheartedly for no reason at all, just for the sheer joy of giving.
- For centuries this male chauvinistic attitude has prevailed. In India the so-called saints go on saying that the woman is the door of hell, but they don’t say the same thing about men. They go on condemning the women, but they never say anything about the men. If the woman infatuates man, then the man infatuates the woman. But even your saints are not true sages — they are male chauvinistic pigs! Otherwise man and woman are two aspects of the same humanity; they require the same respect. But the whole past has been condemnatory about women. It only shows one thing, nothing else: that your saints were deep down afraid of women, hence they were creating all kinds of barriers around themselves, that “the woman is the door to hell.” They were trying to convince themselves that the woman consists only of bones and blood and pus and mucus. And what they consist of? — gold, silver, diamonds? It is very strange! Not a single saint says what he consists of — and he comes from the woman. From the woman’s womb he comes, brings all the blood and the bone and the pus and the mucus from the woman, and he condemns the woman. He is really afraid, afraid of his own sexuality; afraid because he has been told that sex is sin. And of course to him the woman symbolizes sex.
- Nobody bothers about the woman, what is her situation. In fact, women are very non-aggressive as far as sexuality is concerned. NO woman can rape a man, only a man can rape a woman. Man’s sexuality is aggressive, woman’s sexuality is receptive. Woman can live without sex far more easily than man, hence nuns are far more true than the monks — the monks are hypocrites. But the poor woman is condemned continuously. I would like to change this whole ugly tradition. The woman will be respected only when sex is also respected, remember it. The woman will be accepted only when sex is also accepted as natural. These popes, these shankaracharyas, these IMAMS, these so-called saints have created a very ugly situation. It has to be completely destroyed and a new beginning has to be made in which man and woman are no more separate, are no more thought separately, in which man and woman are considered equally because they are two aspects of the same sex, two sides of the same coin.
- Every religion is afraid of women, because every religion is afraid of sex. Every religion is repressive of sex, against sex. Naturally, it is a byproduct that every religion has to be against the woman, the woman has to be condemned. If you condemn sex you are bound to condemn the woman. If you respect the woman — it is a corollary — you will respect sex also, as a natural thing. And why were these people against sex? They are different in their attitudes about everything except sex. About sex all religions agree; that seems to be the only agreement amongst religions. So it seems to be tremendously important that we should go deep into the whole phenomenon: why they are afraid of it. They are afraid of sex because it is the greatest energy in man, the most powerful pull of nature and biology. There is no way to destroy it. Either you can condemn and repress it, or you can understand and transform it. But the second is a long and arduous path and needs tremendous intelligence, awareness — because sex is an unconscious force in you. Each cell in your body is made of it, is vibrant with it. Your conscious mind is nothing compared to your unconscious sexual energy; hence the fear that the unconscious can take possession of you any moment.
- Man’s past history, Devageet, has been really not human. It can be human only if the woman and the man are no longer just sex partners; that drags them both to the very lowliest spaces. If they can love each other with respect, not using each other as commodities, men and women both will have a great uprising of consciousness. The more your sex energy becomes love, the more you are a spiritual being. Sex is only a reproductive process forced by nature on you. Nature has been using you just like a factory — and you don’t have even the dignity to declare, “I am not a factory.” But this can happen only if you are alert, aware, conscious of what you are doing, what you are thinking, how you are behaving. And that brings such grace and such beauty, that the physical beauty simply disappears. I have seen many beautiful women with very ugly minds. I have seen many beautiful men, but their beauty is not more than skin-deep. And this is the trouble: beauty is always skin-deep, and ugliness goes to the very bones. Go on digging to the bones, to the marrow, and you will find it… it is there. Love is the alchemy to change that ugliness from within. And once it disappears from within, even an ordinary face, a homely face, starts shining with the bliss and joy of the beyond.
- Kahlil Gibran should be remembered forever as one who gives respect and dignity to women. All your so-called bogus religious leaders of the world have only condemned the woman. Even the greatest of them, for whom I have great respect, but with reservations — even Gautam Buddha who is certainly the highest peak ever attained up to now, the Everest. Even he was not respectful towards women. For years he continuously refused to initiate any women. And finally, after twenty years of continual refusal, continual insult, humiliation, he reconsidered. Because of a strange situation, he had to concede and accept women initiates. He must have been very reluctant even in that moment. He had to agree because the woman was almost his real mother… because his mother died when he was born, immediately. His own mother never saw him; neither had he any remembrance of his mother.
- All these people… even a man like Jesus, did not allow any women as apostles, although he was born of a woman. Jesus had no respect for women, not even for his own mother. One day he was speaking in a village in the marketplace, amongst a small crowd, and somebody from the outside of the crowd shouted “Jesus, your mother is waiting here.” And the words that came out from Jesus’ mouth… one hopes they had not come out that way; it degrades Jesus. Jesus said, “Tell that woman” — he does not even use the word `mother’ — “Tell that woman that my father is high above in the skies. On the earth nobody is my father, nobody is my mother; my real home is far away in the sky.” It must have hurt the woman immensely.
- He was loved and trusted the most by one prostitute — one of the most beautiful in Judea, Mary Magdalene — and her sister, Martha, and another woman, Maria, but they were not allowed to be his apostles, his messengers. And the most surprising thing is that when he was crucified, all his men apostles disappeared; nobody wanted to be there because somebody may recognize that these are the intimate followers of Jesus, and the same may be their fate — crucifixion. But these three women — Jesus’ mother whom he had called “that woman”, and the prostitute who was condemned by the whole Judea, Mary Magdalene, and Maria — did not leave the place. Not only did they not leave the place, they remained close to the body of Jesus, and when the body was taken down from the cross, those three women took care of it; they carried the body into the cave. But still Christianity has no respect for women.
- It seems to be absolutely unbelievable that people who are born of women — their blood, their bones, their marrow, everything is from the body of the mother — have condemned woman consistently.
- All religions of the world are male-oriented and are somehow afraid of women. The greatest fear is that the women can distract their attention from God. And in fact, there is no God, just their idea that any beautiful woman will be able to distract… They are right!
- 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.
- At least in my commune this has to disappear. Each person has tremendous dignity, and no person can ever be reduced to a commodity, to a thing. Respect men, respect women — they are all divine.
- My emphasis is to give respect to women — and equality is not against men. It is a world which belongs to you both and you both have to be together to make it as beautiful and as divine as possible.
- You are asking why more women are attracted. All the religions have condemned women. I am the first man who is trying to compensate for all the harm and the wounds that have been done by the past and its so-called religious people. My respect for women is equal to my respect for men. This has not been the case in the past. Gautam Buddha, a man I respect, I love — but that does not mean I agree with him on every point — denied for years initiation for women. He was not ready to initiate women, only men. Why? The woman is not so spiritual. Strange… the same people who go on saying that the soul is neither man nor woman, on the other hand start saying that the woman is less spiritual than man. Only bodies are different; the souls cannot be different. And now we are more knowledgeable scientifically, a man can be changed into a woman just by plastic surgery. Then what will Buddha do? Will he initiate the man or not? — because he is a woman… But plastic surgery cannot do any harm to the soul. Many women are changing into men. What is Buddha going to do? In fact, he will not ever be able to decide: is this woman really a woman or just a case of plastic surgery?
- To perceive truth one needs enormous capacity; one needs a wide-open mind that is constantly alert. The creative totality can only be perceived by a man with great clarity of mind. That is why I say over and over again that if you want your children to know the truth you must give them the chance to think creatively. Stop conditioning them with beliefs; allow them to understand things for themselves. Creativity will become their capacity for life; creativity will become their wisdom. That capacity and that wisdom will lead them to the uncharted sea of truth. Did you know that Aristotles, that a man of his stature has written that women have less teeth than men! How could he write such a thing? Was there no woman around so he could count her teeth? Although there was no scarcity of women, he simply accepted the traditional belief and saw no reason to check things out for himself. And he even had two wives of his own! All he had to do was ask either the first Mrs. Aristotle or the second Mrs. Aristotle to open her mouth so he could count her teeth! But he never bothered. He never doubted tradition. He simply accepted the belief that women have less teeth than men. If the truth be known, the male ego is not prepared to accept that women can be equal to men in any respect, not even in the number of teeth! And when a man like Aristotle did not doubt a popular belief then who else would
