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Enlightened Women

(Part 1 of 3)

I notice that only very few enlightened women are known to us. Beloved Master, would you like to talk about women's enlightenment? *

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 philosophicallyminded.

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.

 

* - Excerpt from Osho book "The Razor’s Edge".







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