It is true that all great qualities are feminine—love, compassion, sympathy, kindness. All these qualities have a flavour of the feminine. Male qualities are those of a warrior, like courage. They are hard qualities; one has to be like steel. Because man’s qualities have developed through war, and female qualities have developed at home, in the garden of love, with the husband and children—she has lived in a totally different world. Man has lived continuously fighting. In three thousand years there have been five thousand wars on the earth—as if killing is man’s only profession.
The world has lived in two parts. Man has made his own world while the woman has lived in a shadow—she has created her own world in this shadow. It is very unfortunate because a man or a woman, to be complete, to be whole, must have all the qualities together. Both men and women should be as soft as a rose petal and as hard as a sword—both together. So whatever the opportunity and whenever the situation demands it… if the situation needs you to be a sword, you are ready; if the situation needs you to be just a rose petal, you are ready. This flexibility—between the rose petal and the sword—will make your life richer. And it is not only between two qualities, it is between all the qualities.
Man and woman are two parts of one whole; their world should also be one whole, and they should share all the qualities without any distinction—no quality should be stamped as feminine or masculine. When you make somebody masculine that person loses great things in his life. He becomes juiceless, he becomes stale, and he becomes hard, almost dead. And the woman who completely forgets how to be hard, how to be a rebel is bound to become a slave, because she has only soft qualities. Now roses cannot fight with swords, they will be crushed and killed and destroyed.
A total human being has not been born yet. There have been men and there have been women, but there have not been human beings. My whole approach is to bring the whole man to the earth — with all the beautiful qualities of woman and with all the courageous, rebellious, adventurous qualities of man. And they should all be part of one whole. But from the very beginning we start telling children… a small boy, if he wants to play with toys like girls, we immediately stop him and say, “Be ashamed of yourself; you are a boy, you are a man, don’t be girlish. And if a girl tries to climb a tree we stop her immediately: “This is not ladylike, climbing a tree; this is for the boys, it is rough. You just come down!”
From the very beginning we start dividing man and woman into parts. Both suffer—because climbing a tree has a joy of its own, no woman should miss it. To be on top of a tree when the wind is strong, in the sun, with the birds singing… if you have not been to that point, you have missed something. And just because you are a woman? Strange…
To be adventurous, to climb the mountains, to swim the oceans—should not be prevented just because you are a woman, because that thrill is something spiritual. A man should not be prevented when he wants to cry. He is prevented, he cannot bring tears—tears are only for women: “You are a man; behave like a man!” And tears are such a beautiful experience. In deep sadness or in great joy, whenever something is overflowing, tears give expression to it. And if tears are repressed, at the same time what they were going to express—the deep sadness or the great joy—is also repressed.
And remember perfectly well that nature has not made any difference. It has given every man and woman the same tear glands, of equal size. But if you are a man and you are crying, then everybody condemns you, as if, “You are behaving like a woman.”
You should say, “What can I do? Nature itself has given me tear glands. Nature is behaving like a woman. It is not my responsibility; I am simply enjoying my nature. Tears are my right.”
All qualities should be available to everybody.
There are men who become incapable of love because they are trained for certain qualities: “You have to be hard. You have to be competitive. You are not to show emotions. You must not be sentimental.”
Now how do you expect a man who is not emotional, not sentimental, who is not allowed to feel… how can you expect him to love? And when he misses love, his life becomes miserable. And the same is happening on both sides.
I would like all distinctions to disappear. Everybody should be allowed everything that is naturally possible to the person whether he is a man or a woman.
And we would have a richer world consisting of richer people.
Excerpted from Beyond Enlightenment/Courtesy Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com
This was first published in the March 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.
Spot an error in this article? A typo maybe? Or an incorrect source? Let us know!