Beloved Osho, can you say something about the mystery of women?

In India we have an ancient, very ancient statue -- one of the most beautiful pieces of art - a statue of Ardhanarishwar. The statue is half man and half woman. It is the statue of Shiva, the Hindu God, and half of the body is of the woman and the other half of the body is of the man. Up to the time of Carl Gustav Jung it was thought that it is only a mythology, metaphor, poetry -- but this cannot be true. The whole credit goes to Carl Gustav Jung for introducing to the world that this is not a metaphor, this is a reality. Every man and every woman are both, because every child is born of a father and a mother. So something of the mother and something of the father is present in every child, whether the child is a girl or the child is a boy. The only difference can be that the man is a little more man, perhaps fifty-one percent man and forty-nine percent woman, and the woman is fifty-one percent woman and forty-nine percent man. But the difference is not much.

That's why it has become scientifically possible to change the sexes -- because the other sex is also present, just the percentage of hormones has to be changed. What was fifty one percent has to be made forty-nine, or what was forty-nine has to be made fifty-one...then the man becomes woman and the woman becomes man. But even within you, you are not at ease. There is a conflict, continuous conflict between the head and the heart, between the man and the woman. This conflict can be dissolved only if the head drops its thinking and the heart drops its feeling and both are just pure empty spaces. In that emptiness there is a great meeting and a great understanding.

I don't see any woman as a mystery. I have looked hard, and perhaps there will not be another man in the whole world who has come in contact with so many men and so many women. But neither the man seems to be a mystery nor the woman seems to be a mystery, because within myself the head and heart have melted into each other, and that has given me a new perspective and has changed the whole vision around me.

Devageet, if you really want to understand the mystery of women you will have to understand the art of melting your head into your heart. That will not only help you to know the mystery of women, it will also help you to know the mystery of men. Not only that, it will help you to know the mystery of the whole existence.

A shy young girl was about to get married, so she went to see her very experienced friend

for some advice.

"Doris," she began, "it may sound silly, but there are a few things I just have to ask you."

"That's okay," said Doris. "Just go ahead."

"Okay," said the shy girl, "is it all right to talk to your husband while making love?"

"Well," said Doris, "I must admit that I have never done that, but I suppose there is nothing wrong in it - as long as there is a telephone within reach."

There is mystery but it is not confined only to women. The whole existence is mysterious. This beautiful rain... this music of the falling rain... the joy of the trees. Don't you think there is great mystery?

There was a hill station in the state where I was a professor for many years, and on that hill station was a rest house far away deep in the hills, absolutely lonely. For miles there was nobody... even the servant who used to take care of the rest house used to leave by the evening for his own home. I used to go to that rest house whenever I could find time and sometimes it used to rain just like this... and I was alone in that rest house and for miles there was nobody. Just the music of rain, just the dance of the trees... I have never forgotten the beauty of it. Whenever it rains I again remember it. It has left such a beautiful impact.

If you look, then each flower is a mystery. From where do those colors come? Every rainbow is a mystery, every moment of life is a mystery. Just to be here... is it not a mystery that you are nowhere else but here?

Once your eyes are clear and your head and heart are no more in conflict, everything starts becoming mysterious. Then you don't want to de-mystify it -- that is absolutely ugly and criminal! The mystery of existence has to be welcomed as it is. Dissecting it, demystifying it, is a violation, aggression, violence.

A man of meditation simply enjoys the flowers, the birds, the trees, the rain, the sun, the moon, the people. It is good that we are all engulfed in a mysterious whole. Life will be utterly boring if every mystery is decoded.

Science's whole effort is to demystify existence. Poetry and art are concerned in rejoicing, in welcoming the mystery of existence. And the mystic, the religious man, lives the mystery -- not from the outside as a poet, but from the very inside of it. He becomes himself mystery.

There is a beautiful story. Unfortunately it cannot be true. I would have loved it to have been true...! In the East there have been many lovers, very famous lovers -- Heer and Ranjha, Sheeri and Farhad -- and the most famous is the third couple, Laila and Majnu.

None of them could meet and live with each other. That is their great fortune; hence they remained loving each other for their whole life. Majnu was a poor man. Laila was a very rich, super-rich girl, and the parents were not willing to give their only girl into the hands of Majnu, who was nobody at all, just a beggar. Just to avoid him, and to avoid any slander, the parents left the town for another city; they had businesses in many cities and houses in many cities.

The day they left, Majnu was standing outside the city by the side of a tree, hiding himself in the foliage of the tree, just to see for the last time his beloved Laila moving away. He saw Laila on her camel, and the whole caravan was moving away. He went on looking and looking as far as he could, and in a desert you can see very far, there are no obstructions. Finally, beyond the horizon, they disappeared... but Majnu went on looking. This is where the story becomes a myth, but of tremendous significance. He never left that place.

He trusted his love, and he hoped that one day Laila will return from the same route. There was no other route going out from the town. After twelve years, Laila returned. The father was dead and now she was free at last. She never married anyone else; she had insisted that if she was going to marry anyone, she would marry Majnu. Her father had said, "If that is your decision, then my decision is that you will never marry." But when the father died, Laila came.

Now twelve years is a long time. In these twelve years Majnu had been standing by the side of the tree. The foliage had grown much; he had not eaten, he had not drunk water, and by and by he had become joined with the tree. Standing for twelve years was so long... slowly, slowly he became part of the tree.

Laila came and she enquired about Majnu in the town. The people said, "It is a very sad story. He had gone to say goodbye to you, but he never came back. Only once in a while in the deep silences of the night, from a certain tree, a sound comes calling your name: Laila, it is too long. When are you going to come back?' -- and people have become afraid of the tree because it seems the tree is haunted by ghosts or something. Nobody comes close to the tree."

Laila went to the tree. She heard the voice, she heard the joyful welcome, but she could not see where Majnu was hiding. She entered into the foliage of the tree. With great difficulty she could figure out that Majnu had become part of the tree. It cannot be factual... but the mystic becomes part of the mystery of existence. And the story of Laila and Majnu is a Sufi story. Perhaps it is symbolic of the ultimate union with existence. Not trying to demystify it, but becoming a part of the mystery yourself, that is the only true understanding. The mystery will remain a mystery, but by becoming yourself a mystery, you will understand. That is the only true understanding. All other understandings are only knowledge borrowed from others.

Osho. The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here. Discourse  #27

Updated on 28-07-2020