Upanishads, Talks on the Isha Upanishad. I Am That Chapter 14: Without Women -- No Buddhas, Question 1

The first question:

Question 1

OSHO,

I WOULD LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE, BUT I AM AFRAID OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, AND SO AFRAID OF LOVE, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY.

WHY IS IT SO HARD FOR ME TO FALL IN LOVE?

Prem Parivartan,

LOVE IS THE HARDEST THING in the world, the most arduous. It needs really guts to be in love. That's why for thousands of years people have escaped from the world in the name of religion. They were not really escaping from the world, they were escaping from love. It was the fear of love that drove them away to the deserts, to the mountains, to the monasteries. But they were not even courageous enough to accept the fact that they are afraid of love; they covered it up with beautiful religious words. They condemned the world rather than condemning their own cowardliness.

And humanity has worshipped these people as saints -- cowards have been worshipped! And naturally, if you worship cowards you will also become a coward. One should choose very carefully and cautiously whom to adore, because whomsoever you adore you start becoming like him -- unconsciously, unknowingly. If a man escapes from the war we call him a coward, we condemn him -- he has betrayed. But the people who escape from the battle of life are thought to be heroes, are thought to be doing something great. Their basic fear is of love -- and why there is so much fear of love?

The first thing that love requires is dropping of the ego. It is easy to protect your ego in the name of religion, in the name of virtue, morality, puritanism, character -- beautiful words to decorate the ego, to nourish and feed it. Hence your so-called saints are the most egoistic people in the world, and you can see it. The facts are so immense, so self-evident, that there is no way to deny them. Your saints have caused more bloodshed on the earth than anybody else, for the simple reason because wherever there is ego there is going to be bloodshed. But when you hide behind beautiful facades you not only deceive others, ultimately you yourself are deceived.

Love is one of the most dangerous phenomena. You have to put aside your ego, only then it can blossom. Love is real spirituality, but when I use the word "love" you can again misunderstand on the other extreme -- you can start thinking in terms of lust. Love is not lust either. It is not the so-called religion and it is not the so-called worldly life. Love is different from both.

Love is a transcendence of lust and ego Religious life gives you ego and destroys love, and the irreligious life gives you lust and destroys love. These are the two extremes: ego and lust. Exactly in the middle of the two is love; it is neither ego nor lust, it is transcendence of both.

Lust means you are trying to exploit the other, and naturally there will be fear. The fear will be that the other may exploit you. To get into a relationship means getting into a space where you are thinking to exploit and the other is also thinking to exploit. Both are going to use the other as a means. Hence there is great attraction -- the opportunity to exploit the other -- and great fear because you may be exploited.

Lust can never be free of fear, the ego can never be free of fear. Hence the people who have escaped into the deserts, into the mountains, into the monasteries, are still afraid, trembling, because you can escape from the world but how you will escape from your nature?

Love is a basic need. You can escape from the world, but you will still need food. You can escape from the world; that doesn't mean that now there is no need for food. And love IS food for the soul, just as food is food for the body. One cannot avoid love. If one avoids love one is avoiding life. To avoid love means to commit suicide.

Your saints have committed suicide, your sinners have committed suicide. In a way they both are same because they exist on the polar opposites.

My sannyasin has to transcend the polarity, the opposition. He has to go beyond both. Beyond lust means never be cunning, never try to use the other. That is ugly, that is inhuman, that is irreligious. That is violence, pure violence. To respect the other as an end unto himself or herself is the way of the sannyasin. Avoid being cunning.

A few who had won the first prize in a state lottery was suddenly besieged by relatives and friends who had previously ignored him. But he refused to give or lend them any money.

"You now have more money than you will ever spend," said one. "Why are you so unkind?" I have two good reasons," explained the lucky winner. "First, I hate my relatives, and second, I love my money!"

To love somebody means to respect; it means not to exploit. To love somebody means to give love and all that you have without any idea of getting anything in return. If there is even a slight idea, a slight motivation, it is cunningness, it is lust. Even to ask for gratitude is wrong. Love is possible only when you love for love's sake.

A rich widower invited his three sons and their wives to a birthday dinner at his house. As they sat down at the table he explained why he had brought them all together.

"This is my fifty-eighth birthday, as you know, and I am about to change my will. Because of my disappointment at not being a grandfather, I am going to give $250,000 to my first grandchild." Then he bowed his head and said grace.

When he looked up he found himself alone at the table.

This is how people are behaving with each other! Their minds are full of lust, greed a thousand and one motives. and they go on calling all this love.

Prem Parivartan, it is not anything personal to you to be afraid of love or to feel, "Why it is so hard?" It is everybody's problem, but it has been created by a long, stupid conditioning. Instead of helping you to become clear about what love is, instead of helping you to love without any motivation, you have been taught to love with motivation. You have been taught to love in an artificial way.

The mother says to you, "Love me because I am your mother," as if love is a logical proposition: "Because I am your mother, therefore you have to love me." And the poor child feels at a loss; he cannot understand -- how to love? You may be the mother or the father; that does not mean that love will arise inevitably. If it was arising inevitably towards the mother and towards the father and the brothers and the sisters and the relatives, then there would have been no need to tell anybody to love your mother, your father! It does not arise naturally; it has to be cultivated.

And the child is certainly helpless; he starts pretending. He becomes a politician from the very beginning -- he starts learning diplomacy. He becomes a follower of Machiavelli. He starts pretending to love the mother because he needs the mother; he cannot survive without the mother. He smiles at the father. That smile is false; it is not coming from his heart. But this is how from the very beginning his love is poisoned.

Later on we say, "Love -- it is your wife. Love -- this is your husband." We go saying this stupid thing to everybody: "Love -- BECAUSE... THEREFORE..."

Love is not a logical proposition; either it is there or it is not there. If it is there, help to grow it; if it is not there, accept it. There is no other way. But don't create an artificial phenomenon.

But the mother has lived without love; she has not been loved by the husband. He was loving her because she was his wife, because he had to love; it was a social duty that he had to perform, it was a formality. So she is hankering for love; she starts exploiting the child.

Many women are interested in children not because they want to be mothers but just because it is easier to exploit the child for love than anybody else, because he will be absolutely dependent on you. To be a mother is a rare phenomenon. To hanker for children is a totally different thing; it has nothing to do with being a mother. That hankering comes from a totally different source.

To be a father is even more difficult than to be a mother, because to be a mother is at least instinctive, biological. Father is a social invention, a social institution. A father has been created, he does not exist in nature; hence it is even more difficult to be an authentic father. But everybody wants to be a father -- to prove his manhood, to prove that he loves his wife, to prove that he is reproductive, that he is really a man. But these are not things that have anything to do with love.

And then there is the need to dominate the children. He cannot dominate the wife -- the wife dominates him. The wife allows him to show to the world that he is the master; she allows it because she is so self-confident about her mastery over him that she does not bother. At the outside he can play the game of being the husband. He knows, she knows, everybody else knows, who is the real master.

The father is hankering to be a master; he wants to dominate somebody. He cannot dominate the wife, he cannot dominate the boss in the office, he cannot dominate anybody. Children are needed; it is a desire to dominate. And then he starts asking the children, "Love me -- I am your father. You have to love!" As if love can be managed. Everything goes false. By the time you are young your love is almost plastic, it has lost all spontaneity. It has become very cunning, very calculating.

Two women met for the first time since graduating from high school. Asked the first one, "Have you managed to live a well-planned life?"

"Oh yes!" said her friend. "First I married a millionaire, then an actor. My third marriage was to a preacher and now I am married to an undertaker."

"What do all these marriages have to do with a well planned life?"

"One for the money, two for the show, three to make ready and four to go!"

This is a well-planned life! Remember this sutra: "One for the money, two for the show, three to make ready, and four to go!" This is how people are living!

You ask me, Parivartan: I WOULD LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE...

It is not a question of liking. One simply falls or one does not fall! You would like to fall in love -- then it is not going to happen. Falls don't happen through liking -- you simply stumble and you fall! You are trying to manage a fall. You can manage, but it will not be a real fall -- no fracture, nothing! You can put a Dunlop mattress and you fall on it, but you will simply look stupid and nothing else. A little bit embarrassed, that's all.

You ask: I WOULD LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE, BUT I AM AFRAID OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN...

Only that thing seems to be a little bit intelligent! Beautiful women are dangerous, ugly women are good -- they have to be good. Fall in love with an ugly woman... This is one of the observations of thousands of years... whenever a woman is beautiful she need not care about being nice. It is enough to be beautiful, why she should be nice too? She will be nasty! Ugly women are very nice, they have to, otherwise who is going to fall in love with them? Their faces, their bodies make you feel like running away to the very end of the world and never look back -- they have to compensate. They compensate by being nice, by being very loving. They become your mamas; they take care as if you are a small child, they breastfeed you. They become absolutely necessary, they make you utterly dependent, so that you can tolerate their ugliness.

Parivartan, that thing you are certainly saying with some intelligence. And when you are thinking and planning a well planned life, then fall in love with an ugly woman. It will be difficult in the beginning, but then it is sweet all the way! And always think of the future -- that's how calculating people do. What it is? Just a bitter pill in the beginning, it's okay, but then it is very health-giving. Ugly women are medicinal, but beautiful women are sweet in the beginning and very bitter in the end.

And this is not my advice to you; Gautam Buddha also says the same thing -- in a different context, of course. He cannot be so truthful as I am. He says: The world is sweet in the beginning but very bitter in the end, and the other world is very bitter in the beginning but very sweet in the end. It is a totally different context, but it is significant -- in your context too.

The beautiful woman looks beautiful and you are tempted, but remember the great philosophers who say that beauty is illusory; it is nothing but just on the surface. When you see a beautiful woman always remember the great philosophers: that inside she is nothing but bones, blood, pus, et cetera, et cetera. Keep in your bedroom a skeleton, meditate over it, and whenever you see a beautiful woman project the skeleton. That will scare you! And whenever you see an ugly woman feel compassion -- compassion is good, it is great service. In fact it is conquering the world! To fall in love with an ugly woman is to be a saint, and your rewards will be great. She will be nice to you, and always nice to you.

The only problem is, Parivartan, here you will not find an ugly woman. Somehow ugly women don't fall in love with me, that's the trouble! So you are in a wrong place.

A traveling salesman once found himself in a howling storm near a washed-out bridge somewhere in the hinter-lands. Since he could drive no further he got out of his car and went to the nearest farmhouse. An old man answered the door.

"Can you put me up for the night?" asked the salesman.

"Yes, you can stay here," said the farmer, "but you will have to sleep with my son."

"Your son?"

"That's right."

"Excuse me, said the salesman, "I must be in the wrong joke!"

Parivartan, you are here in a wrong joke; you will have to find the right joke for yourself. Here you will not find an ugly woman; that will be difficult.

You say: I WOULD LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE, BUT I AM AFRAID OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, AND SO AFRAID OF LOVE, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY.

There is not much to know in it; it is very simple and obvious. It is not something great to contemplate upon.

He: "Have you ever loved anyone as much as you love me, Mary?"

She: "No, John. I have sometimes admired men for their looks or intelligence or money. But with you, John, it is all love -- nothing else."

At lunch one woman said to her friend, "I don't know what to do. The other night I dreamed that John was having lunch with some blonde, and they were laughing together."

"Oh, for God's sake, Helen!" protested her friend. "It was only a silly dream."

"Only a dream," repeated the other. "But if he does such things in MY dreams, can you imagine what he must do in his?"

Fear is natural because the woman means the beginning of the world; the woman means the beginning of the trouble. Before the woman there is no world and after the woman is no world. Before the woman there is all darkness, after the woman there is all light. But between the two is the problem, and everybody has to pass through it.

The aggressive wife was raking her husband over the coals for having said something tactless when some friends called. "And don't sit there," she continued sharply, "making fists at me in your pockets, either!"

Among the objects displayed in the Vatican Library are two Bibles close together: a huge one about two feet thick, the other a tiny one less than one inch square.

One of the guides tells visitors: "This big Bible contains everything Eve said to Adam, and this little one contains everything Adam said to Eve."

I can't see why you don't understand -- it is so obvious! People have always been afraid of the woman for the simple reason that man functions through the head and the woman functions intuitively. They can't agree on anything; there is no possibility of agreement. The woman jumps on conclusions, and the trouble is she is almost always right! And the man goes through a very long, arduous, logical process to reach a conclusion, and, again, almost always he is wrong.

So to fight with a woman -- that means to love a woman -- you are doomed, you are bound to fail. You cannot win a single argument because her ways of arguing are so puzzling. You want her to sit down calmly at the table and discuss, and she starts crying and throwing things. Now you don't know what to do! It is your money she is destroying so you cannot throw other things because that will be simply foolish. And the whole day you come home tortured by the world, you want some moments of peace, and the whole day she has been getting ready, exercising. She is ready for a fight! You come home completely defeated, and she is fresh and ready to fight. Now how can you win? And you don't want to fight at all, you want to be left alone to read your newspaper, and she throws your newspaper.

She cannot tolerate anything that you do -- except Dynamic Meditation. That comes very close -- that makes women afraid. I invented the Dynamic Meditation for poor men: at least one defense! You can simply shout and jump and start hoo-hooing, and that she will understand. She will calm down and she will start agreeing with you; otherwise she is going to create trouble. That is one of the ancient feminine methods -- of course she has never called it meditation. I call it meditation, to give it a religious color!

Prem Parivartan, so these are a few clues for you. If you want a peaceful life, find a homely woman and your life will be peaceful -- of course without joy. You can't have both together. It will be peaceful, completely peaceful, but there will be no ecstasy in it. It will be as if you are already dead; there will be no excitement. It will be flat, like a flat tire, stuck in one place, sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass does not grow by itself. How can the grass grow under a flat tire? It is impossible! You can go on sitting and waiting, springs will come and go... That is the first possibility.

The second is: take the risk, fall in love with a beautiful woman. There will be great excitement, ecstasy, but there will be trouble too. Heaven and hell come in the same package. You will have a few heavenly moments, but they are worth -- for all the hell that will follow, they are worth. And they will teach you a lesson. That's how one becomes finally a Buddha. Without the women there would have been no Buddhas; about that I am absolutely certain. There would have been no religion, no Buddhas, no Mahaviras. It is because of the woman.

Many women ask me the question, "Why women have not become enlightened?" How they can become enlightened? Who will drive them to become enlightened? That is the point. They drive men to become enlightened. Finding no other way in life, he becomes enlightened. It is simple! I have not answered it yet, but today I thought better to say it and settle it forever. Never ask me again, "Why women don't become enlightened?" There is no need! Their function is to make people enlightened -- to drive them crazy -- so sooner or later they start meditating, sooner or later they want to be left alone. They are finished! Their dreams are shattered, they are disillusioned. It is the great work of woman; the whole credit goes to women.

The Buddha, the Mahavira, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, they were possible only because the woman was continuously forcing them: either become enlightened or go crazy! And they decided to become enlightened. they said, "It is better to become enlightened." It is good to pass through the experience.

So, Parivartan, choose a beautiful woman and fall whole-heartedly... don't hold anything back. The deeper you love, the sooner you will get free of it. The more passionately you go in, the more quickly you come out.

Upanishads

I AM THAT

Chapter-14

Without Women -- No Buddhas