The whole truth

Man and woman make a single unit. So do our body parts and mind. Understanding the unity of polarities is the secret to feeling complete

Tao says: Gives rise to two opposite reality principles, the dark and the light, yin and yang. From yin comes the receptive feminine principle; from yang comes the creative masculine principle; from yin comes ming, life; from yang, hsing or human nature.

Basically, the polarities can be named man/woman: the masculine, the feminine. And it is closer to our human reality to understand it that way. We can call it negative and positive, but that would be a little far away. To call it yin and yang, Shiva and Shakti, man and woman, brings it very close to our heart—we know this duality.

Accept your other half

Man is attracted towards the woman, the woman is attracted towards the man, and yet when they are together they constantly fight. They cannot live separately and they cannot live together either. Attraction is tremendous, repulsion too. When you are with your woman or with your man, you start thinking of how to be alone. You start thinking of freedom, of being alone, and the beauty and the silence and all that. When you are alone you simply start feeling lonely and you start hankering for the other, and you start thinking of those loving spaces, warmth and all that. When alone you want to be together, when together you want to be alone.

Watch it; it has a great message for you. It simply says: you are half and the woman is half. Together you become one. But then a problem arises. In that moment of oneness, you are ecstatic, you rejoice, but then the problem arises: this oneness, is it man or woman? Which is the dominating factor? That is the conflict. Man and woman want to be one, but man wants to remain the dominating factor in that oneness; the woman should surrender, submit. And the same is the desire from the woman’s side that the man should surrender and submit.

Both want to be one, but that oneness has to be ‘mine’. If I am man then that oneness has to be man’s; the woman has to disappear into the man. If I am a woman then it has to be that of woman; the man has to disappear into the woman. Hence the conflict, the attraction and the repulsion, and the whole comedy and tragedy of life.

Realise the importance of the other

The feminine principle is receptive and the masculine principle is creative, and both can only go together. Separate, they both suffer. Then the woman has nothing to receive and feels empty. And if there is nobody to receive, the man’s creativity is lost because there is nobody to appreciate, inspire. The woman receives, inspires and helps the man to flow in his creativity. Man’s creativity helps the woman to flow into her receptivity. This receptivity of the woman is not only biological, it is spiritual too. Behind all great poets, you will find the inspiration of a woman. The women have not themselves been great poets—they need not be—but no great poetry is ever born without a woman. She functions as a lighthouse. Men have been great poets, but without a woman, the poetry simply dies and withers away.

Receptivity and creativity are two wings of the bird. This flight towards the unknown can be completed only with both wings. With one wing, the bird is not going to go anywhere. And remember, creativity is not more valuable than receptivity—they are equal, they are utterly equal. No wing, right or left, is greater than the other; cannot be. They are not similar but they are equal.

Now there is a great desire in women’s hearts to be creative—for a certain reason: because creativity is praised. Nobel Prizes are given only to creators, not to those who show tremendous receptivity. Now this is an ugly situation, which creates an obsessive desire to be creative, because the receptive person is not appreciated at all, is not valued at all, is not talked about at all. So all over, the world the woman wants to be creative, but the moment she wants to be creative, she starts losing her femininity, her grace. She starts becoming more and more masculine, because the creative is the masculine principle. She starts becoming more and more hard. She loses softness and roundness, starts growing corners, starts fighting. You can see the shouting Lib Movement women—their shouts are ugly. And I know their fight is right, but fighting is not the way of woman!—the very fight will destroy their womanhood. It has to be done in some other way. In fact, man should fight for woman’s equality.

Follow your nature

The people, who are intelligent, should create a man’s movement for women’s liberation. They should fight! It is their imposed slavery on woman—they should feel guilty, they should undo whatsoever they have done. But if the woman starts fighting—and then naturally she starts thinking to be creative, paint, dance, sing, sculpt, compose—very unconsciously she is imitating man. And remember, woman imitating man will always be a second-rate man. And that is ugly. The very effort of being equal is lost. The woman can only be a first-rate woman. If she wants to be a man, she will only be a second-rate man. It is just the same way if a man wants to be receptive: he can’t have that natural receptivity of a woman. He will become a second-rate woman. To be first-rate you have to follow your nature.

Never imitate. Follow your own intrinsic nature. Follow your own built-in nature; because only from the fulfilment of that nature does one arrive to a state of bliss, fulfilment, contentment.

Woman creates life, life in general, life as a universal phenomenon. Man, or the male element, creates human nature. Man is particular; woman is universal. Man goes into details of things. Man becomes a specialist. That’s why male-dominated fields all become fields of specialisation sooner or later.

Man has created much knowledge and has gone into deep detail, but now there is nobody to make a whole out of that knowledge. Nobody knows how to create a synthesis. That synthesis is possible only through a woman, not through a man, because woman is a universalising principle.

Man dissects. Woman unites. That’s why a woman feels closer to religion than a man, and has always felt closer to religion than a man. You may not have observed the fact. The fundamental fact is that religion thinks in terms of one, wholeness, totality. That’s what Tao is, or God, or whatsoever you will.

Think holistic

Man is no longer one unity; there are so many specialists. Nobody thinks about the man as a whole, as a totality. That is one of the greatest problems that medical science is facing and has to face and find a solution for—because the patient is not thought to be one unity. If his head is in trouble, then the head has to be taken as a separate part. Just give some medicine—aspirin or something. Nobody bothers about the whole system. The aspirin will first go to the stomach; it can’t go directly to the head. What is going to happen to the stomach?— that is nobody’s concern.

Man is a unity. You cannot treat him like a machine. If something is wrong with your car you go to the garage; he changes the part. Because the machine has no soul, it is only the sum total of its parts. And what is a soul? Soul means that something more is there than the sum total of its parts. There is a unity behind. Modern medical science is facing it tremendously, and the reason is because all of these sciences have been developed by men. The impact of the woman is missing.

The woman always universalises. She thinks in terms of unities, she never thinks in terms of parts. A woman is never mathematical; she cannot be. Her whole approach is holistic. That is the meaning of this statement made twenty-five centuries ago; it is yet contemporary.

Excerpted from The Secret of Secrets. Courtesy: Osho International Foundation | osho.com
Osho
Osho was never born never died. He only visited this planet earth between 11 December 1931 and 19 January 1990. He was a charismatic and gifted speaker who became the leader of a worldwide new spiritual movement.

1 COMMENT

  1. the words of osho really mesmerises, it hones up ones thinking ,whenever i read his articles or books i always discovered myself, i think i am blessed.

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