Osho talks about homosexuality.
Q: I am homosexual. I feel terribly oppressed and stricken by the stigma of homosexuality. It seems false to me to come here to find a way to come closer to myself and at the same time not to have the courage to show myself the way I am. Then I want to resign and return home, so that I don’t have to think about it any longer. What can i do?
Hein Steff, there is nothing wrong in being homosexual. You need not feel guilty about it. One certainly has to go beyond sex, but that is as much applicable to heterosexuality as it is applicable to homosexuality. Heterosexuality or homosexuality are just styles of the same stupidity! You need not feel guilty.
In fact, looking at the population of the world, homosexuality should be supported. At least you will not be increasing the population of the world, you will not be loading the earth more. It is already loaded too much. Homosexuality should be valued, respected — it is pure fun! Heterosexuality is dangerous. And what is wrong? If two persons are enjoying each other’s bodies, nothing is wrong. It should be their concern; nobody else’s business to interfere.
But the society is continuously interfering in everything; it does not leave anybody any privacy. It enters in your bedroom too. Your society is not a free society. It talks of freedom and democracy and all that rot, but it is pure slavery. It is a big prison. And your priests and your so-called God are all Peeping Toms. They are all looking into your private lives, what you are doing. It should be nobody’s business.
What is wrong in loving a man or a woman? Two men can love each other, two women can love each other. Love is a value in itself. And fun should not be condemned. Life is already such a burden, such a drag, such a boredom. Leave at least something in life so people can feel a little less bored.
Here you need not feel afraid to show yourself the way you are. My whole approach is to help you to be the way you are because that is the only way to help you transcend it. Feel guilty and you will remain the same. Guilt never transforms anybody.
And homosexuality is such an innocent phenomenon. Why is it so much condemned? The reason is that if it is not condemned, the fear is that almost everybody will turn homosexual because every child has the tendency. Every child passes through the stage when he is homosexual. Every boy, every girl, passes through a time when boys like boys and girls like girls. The fear is that if many people turn homosexual — and particularly in the past when the population was not big and every society wanted more numbers because numbers meant power…. To allow homosexuality was dangerous; it had to be condemned, absolutely condemned, so much so that in a few countries it is the greatest crime.
For example, in Ayatollah Khomeiniac’s country, Iran, it is one of the greatest crimes. You can be imprisoned for your whole life or you can even be sentenced to death, just for being homosexual. It seems absolutely absurd, ridiculous, but in the past there was some reason in it. Every society wanted to be more powerful. It was a constant struggle — a struggle between groups, struggle between tribes, struggle between clans — the deciding factor was your number, how many you are. If people become homosexual, then the population will decrease; hence it has to be condemned as the greatest sin.
It may have some meaning if you think of the past, but in the present it is absolutely meaningless. In fact, the whole situation has become just the opposite: now heterosexuality is the danger; less numbers are needed. If humanity goes on growing this way, then we cannot support humanity, we cannot live any longer. By the end of this century the population will be so much, the poverty will be so much, that there seems to be no way out except a third world war which will kill almost everybody — so that a few people can start the whole story again.
I have heard a story, a twenty-first century story:
The third world war has happened, and a monkey is sitting on a rock taking a sunbath. A female monkey comes with an apple and gives the apple to the monkey. And the monkey says, “My God, are we going to start it all over again?”
Homosexuality is condemned because there is every possibility that if it is not condemned many more people will turn towards it. The inner tendency is there in every person. In fact, the person who is against it… the more he is against it, the more he has the tendency. Deep down, unconsciously, he knows it is there. To repress it he has to be very much against it; he feels disgusted by the very idea.
But nobody is telling him to become homosexual. If others feel attracted, then it is not your business to interfere or to condemn them. It is their freedom, and they are not doing any harm to anybody. It is a harmless game — stupid, certainly, but not a sin. But as far as stupidity is concerned all sex is stupid, for the simple reason that it is a biological urge and you are not the master of it, you are just a victim.
And you need not be so much worried about it, Hein, because homosexuality has a very beautiful origin: it originated in the monasteries. It is something religious! The first homosexuals were monks and nuns — Christians, Buddhists, Jainas; all great religions have contributed their share to it. It was bound to be so because there are monasteries even now in existence where no woman has ever entered.
In a Catholic monastery in Europe, Mount Athos, for one thousand years no woman has entered; not even a six-month-old girl has been allowed to enter in. What kind of people are living there? A six-month-old girl and they are afraid even of that! What can they do? But repressing sex creates fear, so the whole monastery is full of men; and homosexuality is a natural by-product if only boys are together or only girls are together.
Religious people have contributed greatly. Educationists have contributed greatly, because boys have to be educated separately. They have to reside in different hostels specially for them and girls have to stay aloof in separate hostels, in separate schools. If you put too many girls together they are bound to become lesbians, because when the sexual urge takes possession of them and they cannot find a boy, then anything is better than nothing.
In zoos even animals turn homosexual — only in zoos, remember. In their wild state they don’t become homosexual. There is no need — females are available. But in a zoo, if females are not available, they become homosexual. A zoo is worth studying. I used to study zoos because the zoo gives you many indications about human society. The human society is a big zoo because everything has become so unnatural.
Go to a zoo and watch the animals and you will be able to see many things. They become homosexuals; they never become homosexuals in their wild stage. They are forced to become homosexuals. They go crazy, they become insane, mad. In wild states they never become insane. No animal ever becomes mad in his wild state; he remains sane. But his sanity needs a little freedom.
A lion has a big territory in his wild state, miles of territory, and he is the king of the whole territory. In a zoo he is in a small cage. If you go to the zoo you will see the lion walking up and down the cage, up and down, up and down, the whole day. It can drive anybody mad. He needs freedom, he needs a certain territory. In such a small space he is overcrowded. He becomes angry, enraged, violent.
Many diseases never happen in the wild. For example, no animal suffers from tuberculosis or cancer, but in a zoo animals suffer from tuberculosis and cancer. Strange! In the wild there are no medical facilities for them and in the zoo every kind of medical facility is available. Doctors are there to look after them, great doctors, doing something great! What they cannot take care of on their own — cancer, tuberculosis — doctors help them with. Animals become victims of illnesses which they have never known before.
Human society has been so much forced to live in unnatural circumstances — and the monastery is one of the most unnatural circumstances. It is a zoo, a religious zoo! Homosexuality was born there, so you need not feel very bad about it. You are a religious person! And you have a great lineage of homosexuals….
If you look for homosexuals you will be surprised. Many poets, many authors, many painters, many musicians, many dancers, many great people, many creative people, were homosexuals. Many Nobel Prize winners have been homosexuals.
And don’t be worried about enlightenment either, because at least one homosexual I know has become enlightened — Socrates; he was a homosexual. And there are suspicions about Jesus. I cannot prove it, they are only suspicions — because he always moved with the boys. Those twelve apostles… who knows? But if he was, nothing is wrong in it. Socrates was certainly a homosexual. Plato was, Aristotle was. Greeks are great people!
One American girl was going to marry a Greek. The mother was very much worried. She said, “Wait! If you can avoid this marriage….”
The girl was mad. She said, “No. He looks so beautiful, just like a Greek god!”
The mother said, “I know, but after only a few days you will know he is nothing but a goddamned Greek!
And one thing more,” the mother said, “if you marry this man then remember one thing: never turn your back towards him, never! Whatsoever happens sleep on your back the whole night!”
The girl got married. She insisted, and soon she found the mother was right: the Greek god was nothing but a goddamned Greek! And she was also puzzled because he was always trying to tell her, “Why don’t you turn over?” — but she wouldn’t turn over; she was also stubborn!
After six months all efforts failed. The Greek said, “Listen. If you don’t turn over you are not going to have children ever.”
Then the girl had to turn because she wanted children. The Greek played a logical trick.
Greeks have been homosexuals for centuries. All their great people have been homosexuals. So you need not worry — you have a great history behind you! Walt Whitman was a homosexual — one of the greatest poets of all the ages.
There seems to be something in homosexuality that makes people creative, or creative people homosexuals. There is something in it and I can see the point. When you stop creating children, your creativity takes new turns, new dimensions. You create poetry, you create painting.
And the people who have been condemning homosexuality for ages are also condemning it for one more reason. As far as the man/woman relationship is concerned it is always on the rocks, because man cannot understand the mind of the woman, the woman cannot understand the mind of the man. They are poles apart. That is their attraction, but that is also their conflict, constant conflict. If homosexuality is allowed, accepted, the fear is that many people will settle into it because a man can understand another man more easily — they have the same mind. And women can understand each other more easily — they have the same mind.
That’s why homosexuals are called “gay” people. They are really gay! The heterosexuals look so sad. Whenever you see a couple you can immediately know whether they are married or not: if they are sad they are married, if they are looking dull and dead they are married. Marriage kills all joy for the simple reason that it creates so many conflicts. Hence all societies have condemned homosexuality, for the simple reason that if it is not condemned, what will happen to reproduction? In the past it had some meaning, but now it has no meaning.
Now the day has come when homosexuality can be accepted, should be accepted as a natural outlet of your sexual energies. I am not against it, I am not for it either. I am simply saying that if you have to live your sex you can choose your style, you are free to choose your style. If you decide to be stupid, at least you should be given the freedom to choose what kind of stupid you want to be! I give you total freedom.
My effort here is to help you to go beyond it, so if you are homosexual you have to go beyond homosexuality, if you are heterosexual you have to go beyond heterosexuality. And there are other people also who are neither, who are autoerotic, autosexual. They have to go beyond their autoeroticism. Man has to transcend sex, whatsoever kind of sex it is, because unless you go beyond your biology you will never know your soul. But meanwhile — before you go beyond — it is your freedom to be whatsoever you want to be.
You say, “I am homosexual. I feel terribly oppressed and stricken by the stigma of homosexuality.”
There is no need to be “terribly oppressed.” You must be accepting people’s condemnation. Deep down somewhere you are also against it; otherwise, why feel oppressed? If people are against, let them be against! You need not declare to everybody that you are a homosexual. You need not move with a flag that you are a homosexual! You can remain a homosexual. Of course, you cannot hide it because your sex style changes your body language. The way the homosexual walks is totally different from the heterosexual; the way he talks is totally different. And he looks so gay, so happy! So you will have to remain a little less happy, that’s all. Don’t look so happy, and walk a little more consciously, that’s all. Don’t feel oppressed and don’t feel stricken by the stigma of homosexuality. That is all nonsense! And you say, “It seems false to me to come here to find a way to come closer to myself and at the same time not to have the courage to show myself the way I am.” What courage are you talking about? Here there is no question of courage. If you are homosexual you are homosexual! Here it does not need courage to declare it. Here you can write on your shirt, “I am homosexual.” Nobody will take any notice of it. People will say, “So what?”
This is a totally different world. Here we accept all kinds of people: sane, insane, crazy — we have no objection. Unless you start harming others we have no objection. And homosexuality is a harmless game, absolutely harmless. But you think that this is courageous that you are declaring that you are a homosexual. Here it is not; anywhere else it will be. And I will not suggest that you declare it anywhere else; there is no need. Why brag about it? Accept it silently, relax into it.
But you wanted to say it because it is boiling within you. Don’t be worried what others say. Just look within yourself, what you are saying to your own homosexuality. You are not at ease with it. The society has corrupted you, contaminated you. The society has given you ideas. It has created a certain conscience in you and that conscience is pricking, continuously feeling hurt.
Now you say, “Then I want to resign and return home so that I don’t have to think about it any longer.”
Just by going back home you will not be getting rid of it. Neither you will get rid of homosexuality nor will you get rid of the stigma or the feeling of being oppressed. You will have to drop your conscience that has been created by the society in you. You will have to understand yourself and clean yourself of all ideas imposed by others; only then will you be able to relax.
You ask me, “What can I do?”
Hein, don’t make a problem out of it. Nothing has to be done about it. I don’t tackle individual problems. My whole approach is that there are millions of diseases, but there is only one cure, and that cure is meditation.
You meditate — homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual…. You meditate. You become more still and more silent. You create inner emptiness. You become more transparent, and then things will start changing. You will be able to see what you are doing to yourself. If it is right you will go on doing it with more joy, with more totality, with more intensity, with more passion. If it is wrong it will simply drop, just like dead leaves falling from a tree.
So I cannot suggest any specific method because to me all the problems are arising because we have become minds and we have forgotten that deep down there is a space within us which can be called no-mind. Entering that space, no-mind, will give you perspective, vision, clarity.
Meditate. Sit silently watching your thoughts — homosexual, heterosexual, whatsoever they are, it doesn’t matter. You watch, you become the witness. Slowly slowly, a distance will be created between you and your thoughts. And one day suddenly, the realization that you are not your mind. And that day a revolution has happened within you. After that day you will never be the same again. A transcendence has happened. After that, whatsoever you do is right; you can’t do wrong then. And before that, whatsoever you do is wrong.
So when I say I have nothing against homosexuality I am not supporting it, remember. I am not saying, “Be homosexual.” I don’t have anything against heterosexuality either, but I am not supporting heterosexuality. I am not supporting anything. These are all mind games — and you have to go beyond all the games.
Your mind is created by the society.
Fifteen-year-old Bobby was running out of a theater where he had just seen a porno movie.
The manager stopped him. “Why are you in such a hurry?”
“My mother told me,” said Bobby, “that if I ever looked at anything bad I would turn to stone — and I have started!”
Two members of London’s exclusive Explorers Club were discussing a mutual friend over large brandies and soda.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said the first old boy. “You say Parkhurst has gone to Africa and married an ape?”
“Quite so, old man.”
There was a pause and the first clubman asked in a discreet tone, “A female ape, naturally?”
“Of course,” came the reply. “There is nothing queer about old Parkhurst.”
The mind functions as an agent of the society within you. To go beyond mind is to go beyond society.
To go beyond mind is to go beyond the whole history. To go beyond mind is to go beyond past.
To go beyond mind is to enter into God.
And then whatsoever happens is good, is virtue.
Beloved Master,
The West seems to be obsessed with sex. People are stuffed with endless techniques and porno images. Why, in all this time, are people still stuck and unable to move into the tantric experience of sex, of love and of life?
Prem Karin, it is not a question of West or East. Both are obsessed with sex — of course, in different ways. The West is indulgent, the East is repressive, but the obsession is the same. And the significant question is: Why is the West so indulgent? It is two thousand years of Christianity and its repressive methods that have brought this indulgence.
The East is repressive; sooner or later, it is going to become indulgent. The mind of man moves like a pendulum, from the right to the left, from the left to the right. And remember, while the pendulum is moving to the right it is gaining momentum to move to the left, and vice versa. It appears it is going to the left, but it is gaining momentum, energy, to go to the right. When a society is repressive it is gaining momentum to become indulgent, and when a society is indulgent it is gaining momentum again to become repressive.
So a strange thing is bound to happen, and in fact, it is happening: the West has been indulgent for a few decades and the repressive trend is arising again. There are many cults which preach celibacy now. The Hare Krishna movement preaches celibacy, Brahmacharya, and thousands of people have become interested in it. And there are many cults arising which are all agreed on one point: that sex has to be repressed. In the name of yoga, in the name of Zen, in the name of Christianity, many cults are arising which are again repressive. The West will become repressive soon.
And in the East, the number of porno magazines is growing every day; porno movies are coming more and more. The East is a little slow in everything, a little lazy in everything, so it takes a little longer. The West moves with speed. But the East is becoming West and the West is becoming East, and that is one of the greatest problems. If this happens, then the misery remains the same. Again the pendulum has moved and again you will go on doing the same things.
This has happened many times in the past. A repressive society becomes indulgent sooner or later. When the repression comes to a point where you cannot repress it anymore it explodes: people go berserk. Or when a society has been very indulgent it starts seeing the futility of it, the sheer wastage of energy. And it gives no contentment; rather it makes one feel more and more frustrated. Then one starts thinking of brahmacharya — celibacy. Maybe the ancient Rishis were right! In the East also it has happened many times. The Hindu religion, in the beginning, was very indulgent; it was not a repressive religion. The Hindu seers were married people. Not only were they married, they were allowed to have a few other women also as their concubines. They were allowed even to purchase women — because in those days in India, men and women were sold in the marketplaces just like any commodity.
Beware of all those people who go on talking about the Golden Age of India. There has never been any golden age. Even in the days of Rama… Hindus talk very much about Ramarajya — the kingdom of Rama is thought to be the highest pinnacle. People were sold like commodities in the marketplaces, and particularly women were thought to be just property; anybody can sell, anybody can purchase. People used to give them as gifts. A guest would come to your house and he would like one of your women, and you would present the woman to him. Even the so-called saints used to have many women; they were all indulgent. All the stories of those days, even about the gods, are very indulgent.
You must have seen Shiva temples — temples devoted to the god Shiva. The statue is nothing but a phallic symbol. If you look, if you observe minutely, you will be surprised: it has both man and woman’s sexual organs in it. It depicts the meeting of man and woman. The story is this:
One day Vishnu and Brahma went to see Shiva… this is the Hindu trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Brahma is the creator god, Vishnu is the maintainer god and Shiva is the destroyer god. All the three are needed to keep the world running. One creates, one maintains, one destroys; then again one creates, the other maintains and the third one destroys. So it remains in a flow.
Brahma and Vishnu went to see Shiva. As it happened, the guard was fast asleep, so they entered in without asking any permission, and Shiva was making love to his wife, Parvati. He was so passionately into it, so drunk! — he may have taken some drug, because he is perfectly well known to have used drugs. Marijuana and hash and opium were all known to him.
He continued to make love and these two gods stood there watching. Great gods! They could not even say, “Excuse us,” and get out. They must have enjoyed the scene — living pornography! Six hours it continued, the love-making, and these two gods stood there for six hours watching. A long blue film! — and nothing else, just making love! No other incidents, nothing else… just Shiva making love to his wife. But they were very angry. When Shiva was finished they told him, “We have been waiting for six hours and you have not even taken any notice of us. We are very angry and we curse you that you will be remembered forever and forever by your sexual organs.”
That’s why in the Shiva temple you see the phallic symbol: Shiva is remembered by his sexual organ.
Now, these Hindus must have been very indulgent. Their gods, too, were very indulgent. But then came a reaction, the pendulum moved. Buddhism and Jainism rebelled against this indulgence and they created a very repressive world, a repressive morality.
India still lives under that influence, but it is moving slowly slowly again towards the indulgent. The West is influencing it — Western films, Western novels are influencing it. The West is being influenced by Buddha, by Zen, by Patanjali, by yoga, by meditation, and the East is influenced by Playboy! People are reading Playboy, hiding it inside their Gitas!
Prem Karin, you ask, “The West seems to be obsessed with sex.”
It is not true only about the West. The whole of humanity, up to now, has remained obsessed with sex, and it is going to remain so unless we change the whole gestalt. Up to now the gestalt has been repression/indulgence, indulgence/repression, going on moving between these two. We have to stop exactly in the middle. Have you ever tried to stop the pendulum of a clock in the middle? What happens? The clock stops. The time stops.
That’s my effort here. I don’t want you to be indulgent and I don’t want you to be repressive. I would like you to be balanced, just in the middle. It is in the middle that transcendence is possible, and it is in the middle that we can create a humanity which will be neither Eastern nor Western. And it is immensely needed, urgently needed, that a man comes on the earth which is neither Eastern nor Western: a new kind of man with a new vision, freed of all the bondage of the past.
You ask, “Why, in all this time, are people still stuck and unable to move into the tantric experience of sex, of love and of life?”
Tantric experience means neither to be repressive nor to be indulgent. Tantric experience is possible only if you move deep into meditation, otherwise not. When you become very very still, silent, aware, alert, then only is it possible that you will know something of tantra. Otherwise, tantra can also become an excuse for indulgence — a new name, a religious name. And you can move into indulgence behind the name of tantra. Names won’t make much change; your being needs change.
Zelda, the Hebrew zebra, was walking down a country lane, some place in the boondocks of Pennsylvania. Soon she came upon a flock of sheep.
“Yoo-hoo, may I speak to you, please?” she called out.
One of the sheep came to the fence.
“What do you want to speak about?”
“I represent the Hadassah Zebra Association of South Africa. You are Jewish?”
“Oh yes, we are all Jewish here.”
“Well, I am on a fact-finding tour. Our zebras are interested in learning how Jewish animals in America earn a living. Would you mind telling me what kind of work you do?”
“What do I do?” exclaimed the sheep. “What kind of a question is that? I give wool, what else? Every year they shear it off and next season they do the same thing. Is it any different there in South Africa?”
“Oh no, it is just the same. Well, I must be running along. Ta-ta, and thank you most kindly.”
Zelda continued on her fact-finding mission until she met a cow.
“Excuse me, madam, I am from the Hadassah Zebra Association of South Africa. I am interviewing Jewish-American domestic animals. Would you be so kind as to describe your work?”
“Glad to,” murmured the cow. “I am employed by a strictly kosher dairy, being orthodox myself, of course. My work, you ask? Well, I am a purebred Guernsey, and I give Grade A milk. I live up there in that pretty white barn. Sorry I can’t ask you in, but we were not expecting company and the place is a mess.”
“That’s perfectly alright. Thank you for your information. You have been most helpful. Toodle-oo.”
A short time later, Zelda saw a stallion in a pasture, and there was no mistaking his Jewishness. He happened to see her at just about the same moment. He charged toward the fence, skidded to a four-footed stop and loomed over the zebra with nostrils flaring. “And just what is it that you do, sir?” asked the zebra demurely.
“Honey, you just slip out of those fancy pajamas,” he said, “and I will show you what I do!”
The whole humanity is suffering from obsession, either through indulgence or through repression. The whole humanity is concerned with sex twenty-four hours a day.
Psychologists have discovered that every man thinks of women at least once in three minutes, and every woman thinks of man at least once in six minutes. That may cause enough problems — the difference; that may be the whole trouble between man and woman.
Tantric sex is not sex at all; it is meditation. Meditation has to spread all over your life. Whatsoever you do, do meditatively. Walk meditatively, eat meditatively. If you are making love, make love meditatively. Meditation has to become your life twenty-four hours a day; then only the transformation. Then you go beyond sex, you go beyond body, you go beyond mind. And for the first time you become aware of godliness, of ecstasy, of bliss, of truth, of liberation.
Osho – ‘The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha’, Vol 10, chapter 12
From a lecture given on the morning of March 3, 1980, Buddha Hall, Pune, India.