In this article, we want to share with you the most thought-provoking Osho quotes on women.
Osho was an Indian spiritual leader, who during his lifetime received quite wide popularity and many followers all around the world. It is Osho who was responsible for the birth of lots of new ideas and radical ways of thinking.
Osho had the ability to say the things that most women can’t say, or be heard saying. It is always great to see a man who is not afraid to voice some of the gender discrimination problems we still have in modern society. And what makes us especially happy is that he had millions of people who followed him and heard these messages. We hope Osho quotes on women that we collected in this article will open your mind to some new ideas about women’s role in our society and our lives.
Here they are 38 Osho quotes on women!
38 Osho Quotes On Women
#1
“If you cannot respect women, you cannot respect anybody else — because it is from women you come. The woman mothered you for nine months, then she took every care, she loved you for years. And then again… you can’t live without a woman. She is your solace, your warmth. Life is very cold; the woman becomes your warmth. Life is very uninspiring; the woman becomes your inspiration. Life is very very arithmetical; the woman becomes your poetry. She gives grace to your life. She takes care of you. She loves you, she goes on loving you, tremendously, totally.”
#2
“Man has ruled over women for millennia. He has been given every opportunity and chance and woman has been repressed continuously, has been crippled. She has not been allowed to compete with man shoulder to shoulder in life. That’s why we don’t know how many Gautam Buddhas on the women’s side did not get the opportunity to blossom. We don’t know how many Albert Einsteins have simply been denied any possibility for growth. It is a very strange thing that even dimensions like poetry, music, dance are dominated by men. The greatest dancers in the world have been men, not women. In fact, women should have been ahead of any male dancer. But one needs opportunity. One needs education, one needs training. If you bar the whole of womankind from education, training, discipline, you are making the whole society and the whole world poor, unnecessarily poor.”
Osho
#3
“Every man should be respectful to women: they are your mothers, they are your beloveds. Every woman should be respectful towards men: they are your children, they are your lovers. There is no question of any conflict between man and woman: they are two sides of the same coin.”
#4
“If all over the world the woman is allowed freedom to grow to her potential, there will be many, many women enlightened; many, many women mystics, poets, painters. And they will enhance not only the woman’s part of the world – because the world is one – they will enhance the whole world. They will give man also new dimensions because their ways of seeing things are different. Man looks at things in one way; the woman looks from a different perspective. Life will become richer.
It is for the betterment of both man and woman that the woman should be given every freedom and equal opportunity for her individuality. Then there will be a sense of humor. And the woman can laugh more gracefully than man, she has every potential for it – but it is repressed, condemned, criticized. She has lived a life of such misery that you cannot hope that she will show some sense of humor.
But the day is not far away…then the whole earth will be full of laughter. Instead of talks about war, instead of politicians giving speeches all around the world, instead of the sermons of stupid priests who know nothing, it will be far better that every man and every woman is able to see the hilarious side of life and to enjoy it.”
Osho
#5
“Women have been loved, but not respected. And without respect the love is nothing but lust; you label it with a beautiful word, but deep down inside you it is always sex, always sex. Man has reduced woman and her spirituality to such a state that she has become only an object of sex. And if the American trend has to be followed — where everything has to be used once and thrown away — the ultimate consequence is coming closer: use the woman once and throw away. They are already doing it in a way.”
#6
“In 3000 years, 5000 wars have been fought — this is what the male mind has done. I am in support of a matriarchal system. I would like the power to go to women because basically they are non-aggressive; they are loving, they are compassionate. But it has nothing to do with biology really; even the male mind can become feminine. And the whole process of transforming the male mind is the art of meditation.”
Osho
#7
“Christianity destroyed thousands of wise women, burned them alive. Even the name “witch” – which means “a wise woman” and nothing else – became so condemnatory…and the same happened in the East. All the religions prohibited women, and I can see that the reason is a great fear that if women are allowed the same opportunity as is given to men, they will be far ahead in the experience of God. And that is against the ego of man.”
#8
“Millions of women hate their husbands for the simple reason that they feel used as if they are just machines for your sexual lust to be relieved so that you can have a good night’s sleep. No woman can ever respect you if she feels she is being used. Each being is an end unto himself. Never use a woman, never use a man, never use anybody. Nobody is a means for your purposes. Respect — love is a sharing, it is not using the other, it is not trying to snatch something from the other. On the contrary, it is giving wholeheartedly for no reason at all, just for the sheer joy of giving.”
Osho
#9
“Man has been beating women, repressing women, condemning women. And not knowing that condemning women, repressing women is making them inferior, half of humanity is deprived of raising its consciousness. And you are deprived because you could also have learned the art of moving upwards from half of the universe. You could also have moved on the same way, on the same path; hence I always say, the liberation of women is also the liberation of man. It is more the liberation of man than the liberation of women.”
#10
“I have accepted women for the first time on an equal basis to men. I am in favor of women’s liberation because I know that unless women are liberated, men will never be liberated. Their liberation is together because they are two sides of the same coin. Naturally many more women have come because for centuries they were denied, they were insulted, they were never accepted as equal to men. Naturally, more and more women will be coming – and only those men will be here who are ready to accept women as their equal. No male chauvinists can remain around me. It is a family of equal people, with equal dignity.”
Osho
#11
“Nobody bothers about the woman, what is her situation. In fact, women are very non-aggressive as far as sexuality is concerned. NO woman can rape a man, only a man can rape a woman. Man’s sexuality is aggressive, woman’s sexuality is receptive. Woman can live without sex far more easily than man, hence nuns are far more true than the monks — the monks are hypocrites. But the poor woman is condemned continuously. I would like to change this whole ugly tradition. The woman will be respected only when sex is also respected, remember it. The woman will be accepted only when sex is also accepted as natural. These popes, these shankaracharyas, these IMAMS, these so-called saints have created a very ugly situation. It has to be completely destroyed and a new beginning has to be made in which man and woman are no more separate, are no more thought separately, in which man and woman are considered equal because they are two aspects of the same sex, two sides of the same coin.”
Osho
#12
“If women had been respected in the past, humanity would not have been in such a mess as it is today – because women are half of humanity. Half of humanity has remained undignified, uneducated, deprived of all freedom, all movement. We have hampered, handicapped ourselves. We have destroyed half of ourselves, and if we are in misery then who is to be blamed?”
Osho
#13
“A woman always wants to belong. That has nothing to do with any particular individual; it is something to do with the very nature of womanhood. It is part of the feminine mind to lean to somebody, to possess and to be possessed. So it is not a question of somebody being like that. All women, more or less, are like that. That is their intrinsic quality. And when a woman loses that quality, she loses something of her womanhood. Then she is not worth much. She is almost like a man; she has a male mind. You will not feel that softness, that fragileness that gives grace and beauty to a woman.”
Osho
#14
“I am all in favor of women’s liberation – but not the way the women’s liberation movement is going. It is taking a reactionary attitude, it is not a real revolution. It is trying to imitate man. And remember, imitation never makes you equal; imitation at the most will make you a carbon copy – but the original is original.”
Osho
#15
“All religions of the world are male-oriented and are somehow afraid of women. The greatest fear is that the women can distract their attention from God. And in fact, there is no God, just their idea that any beautiful woman will be able to distract… They are right!”
Osho
#16
“Almost all the religions have denied women the possibility of entering into paradise from the body of a woman. She can be virtuous. Her husband is her god. She should serve the husband with total commitment and devotion. This is the only religion as far as the woman is concerned. This will bring her into the body of a man in her next life, and then the doors open. Then she can strive for spiritual heights. Then she can become an enlightened master.
There are religions which don’t allow women to read the religious scriptures. There are religions which don’t allow the women to enter their temples. The woman has been enslaved. She has been reduced into producing children, taking care of them her whole life. She has not to be respected as a human being. She is just a reproductive mechanism.”
Osho
#17
“Women live longer than men, almost five years more; that’s why you see so many widows in the world. And women are more resistant to illness, disease. Women are more tolerant, more accepting. From where comes this strength? — it comes from their receptivity.”
Osho
#18
“Most of the differences between men and women are because of thousands of years of conditioning. They are not fundamental to nature, but there are a few differences which give them unique beauty, individuality. Those differences can be counted very easily.
One is that the woman is capable of producing life; man is not. In that way he is inferior, and that inferiority has played a great role in the domination of women by men. The inferiority complex works in this way: it pretends to be superior – to deceive oneself and to deceive the whole world. So man down the ages has been destroying the woman’s genius, talents, capacities, so that he can prove himself superior – to himself and to the world.
Because the woman gives birth, for nine months or more she remains absolutely vulnerable, dependent on man. Men have exploited this in a very ugly way. And that is a physiological difference; it makes no difference at all.
The psychology of the woman is corrupted by man telling her things which are not true, making her a slave to man, reducing her to a secondary citizen of the world. And the reason for that was that he is muscularly more powerful. But the muscular power is part of animality. If that is going to decide the superiority, then any animal is more muscular than a man.”
Osho
#19
“Women are more patient, more tolerant than men. Men are very impatient and very intolerant. Women are less violent than men. Women don’t commit murders; it is the man who commits murders, who wages crusades, who is always getting ready for war, who invents all kinds of deadly weapons — atomic bombs, nuclear weapons. The woman is completely out of this whole game of death.”
Osho
#20
“A woman is more capable of love than a man is. A man’s love is more or less a physical necessity; a woman’s love is not. It is something greater and higher; it is a spiritual experience. That’s why the woman is monogamous and man is polygamous. The man would like to have all the world’s women, and still he would not be satisfied. His discontent is infinite.
The woman can be satisfied with one love, utterly fulfilled, because she does not look at the body of the man, she looks at his innermost qualities. She does not fall in love with a man who has a beautiful muscular body, she falls in love with a man who has charisma – something indefinable, but immensely attractive – who has a mystery to be explored. She wants her man not to be just a man, but an adventure in discovering consciousness.”
Osho
#21
“Women cannot be competitive: they cannot fight, they cannot struggle. And if you find a woman somewhere who struggles and fights, who is competitive, then something of womanhood is missing in her. Physically she may be a woman, psychologically she is a man.”
Osho
#22
“The man is very weak as far as sexuality is concerned; he can have only one orgasm. The woman is infinitely superior; she can have multiple orgasms. And this has been one of the most troublesome matters. The man’s orgasm is local, confined to his genitals. The woman’s orgasm is total, not confined to the genitals. Her whole body is sexual, and she can have a beautiful orgasmic experience a thousandfold bigger, deeper, more enriching, more nourishing than a man can have.
But the tragedy is that her whole body has to be aroused, and the man is not interested in it, he has never been interested in it. He has used the woman as a sex machine just to relieve his own sexual tensions. Within seconds he is finished. And by the time he is finished, the woman has not even begun.”
Osho
#23
“Men and women should not be in a contract, like marriage. They should be in love — but they should retain their freedom. They don’t owe anything to each other.”
Osho
#24
“While you are making love with the man on top of the woman…it is known as the missionary posture. The East became aware of this ugliness that the man was heavier, taller and more muscular; he was crushing a delicate being. In the East, the way has always been just the opposite: the woman on top. Crushed under the weight of the man, the woman has no mobility. Only the man moves, so he comes to orgasm within seconds and the woman is simply in tears. She has been a partner, but she was not involved in it. She has been used.
When the woman is on top she has more mobility, the man has less mobility, and that will bring their orgasms closer to each other. And when both go into orgasmic experience, it is something of the other world. It is the first glimpse of samadhi; it is the first glimpse that man is not the body. He forgets the body, he forgets the world. Both the man and the woman move into a new dimension they have never explored.
The woman has the capacity for multiple orgasms, so the man has to be as slow as possible. But the reality is, he is in such a hurry in everything that he destroys the whole relationship. He should be very relaxed so that the woman can have multiple orgasms. His orgasm should come at the end when the woman’s orgasm has reached to the peak. It is a simple question of understanding.”
Osho
#25
“Women have a totally different kind of being. Her whole body needs love. It is not sexuality. Her whole body is orgasmic. That’s why there is tremendous trouble. Man comes to orgasm quickly — within two minutes — and the woman has not even started. The woman takes a little time. Her whole body has to become ready, ecstatic. Her whole body has to join the dance. Only then can she feel orgasmic joy. So she is not actually interested in the prick. She is more interested in hugging, in being close to you, in the warmth of your body. She wants to be surrounded by your love, she wants to surround you with her love.”
Osho
#26
“A woman is more centered than a man… She is more serene, more silent, more patient is capable of waiting. Perhaps because of these qualities, she has more resistance to diseases and she lives longer than a man. Because of her serenity, her, she can fulfill a man’s life immensely. She can surround man’s life in a very soothing, cozy atmosphere.
But the man is afraid – he does not want to be surrounded by the woman, he does not want to let her create a cozy warmth around him. He is afraid because that way he will become dependent. So for centuries, he has been keeping her at a distance. And he is afraid because he knows deep down that the woman is more than he is. She can give birth to life. Nature has chosen her to reproduce, not man.”
Osho
#27
“Love should be the only way for men and women to live together. No other ritual is needed.”
Osho
#28
“Man has dominated women for centuries and forced the idea on them that they are the weaker sex, that they cannot do anything that man can do. They can do small homely things – that is their world. I want to destroy that idea completely…
And this is a strange way: to keep half of humanity in a downtrodden state. How much is the loss? Half of humanity means that women if they were accepted as equal, would have produced a Dostoevsky, a Turgenev, a Chekhov, a Gorky, a van Gogh, a Picasso, a Nijinsky. They may have proved a Buddha, a Jesus. Half of humanity! It is a vast ocean to whom you have denied all possibilities of creation, expression. And you have behaved with women as if they are cattle, not human beings.”
Osho
#29
“Women’s liberation is automatically men’s liberation. Women’s slavery is automatically men’s slavery. They go together.”
Osho
#30
“We say: ‘Boys will be boys.’ Men have created this saying because they think that a man will not be satisfied with one woman, that a man wants many women, but that a woman will be satisfied with only one man. These are just male tricks. A woman should be satisfied with one man – and that one is you! But you? – how can you be satisfied with one? You are a man! You think there should be more freedom for a man…
Your wife has as much right to her freedom as you demand for yourself. And if you find that, no, it is not right that your wife becomes interested in other men, then you’re being interested in other women is also not right. What you expect of your wife you should become, you should act in the same way. Only then do you have any right.”
Osho
#31
“Women all over the world are trying in every possible way to behave like men. They are wearing men’s clothes, smoking cigarettes like men, and whatsoever they can do. They use language like men have always used it, becoming arrogant, aggressive, losing the feminine quality. See the women of the liberation movement: they have lost something — something soft, feminine, receptive, passive, is no more there.”
Osho
#32
“Man has been taught to be just a man: never to show any feminine traits, never to show any softness of the heart, never to show any receptivity, always be aggressive. Man has been taught never to cry, never weep – because tears are feminine.
Women have been taught never to be in any way like the male: never to show aggression, never show expression, to always remain passive, receptive. This is against reality, and this has crippled both.
In a better world, with better understanding, a man will be both, a woman will be both – because sometimes a man needs to be a woman. There are moments when he needs to be soft – tender moments, love-moments. And there are moments when a woman needs to be expressive and aggressive – in anger, in defense, in rebellion. If a woman is simply passive, then she will turn into a slave automatically. A passive woman is bound to become a slave – that’s what happened down the ages. And an aggressive man, emphatically aggressive and never tender, is bound to create wars, neurosis in the world, violence.”
Osho
#33
“A man is not necessarily masculine, a woman is not necessarily feminine. A woman can be masculine, for example, Joan of Are or, in India, Laxmibhai. These women were warriors, great soldiers; they were not feminine at all. Biologically, of course, they were feminine, their bodies were those of women, but their very souls were those of men. They have to be counted as masculine. And there have been men — poets, dancers, musicians, singers, painters — who were very feminine. So soft, so round was their being that psychologically they were women. They may have been able to reproduce children, they may have been able to become fathers and husbands, but deep down they were not masculine; their psychology can only be called feminine.”
Osho
#34
“The first thing to be understood: men and women are different; not only different, but opposites. But they are not unequal, they are equal. There is difference, there is oppositeness, there is a polarity, but they are not unequal, they are equal. Two opposites are always equal, otherwise, they cannot oppose each other.
The second thing to be understood: The female body exists for a totally different purpose – biologically, physiologically, chemically. It has a different function to fulfill than the male body. And it is so different from the male body that unless you penetrate into the deeper layers of biology you will not be able to understand the difference. They exist as if in two worlds apart. The woman carries a womb.
The very word ‘woman’ comes from ‘man with a womb’. And the womb is so important – nothing is more important than the womb, because a new life has to come through it. The whole moving phenomenon of life passes through it; it is the very gate into this world. And because of the womb, the woman has to be receptive, she cannot be aggressive. The womb cannot be aggressive; it has to receive, it has to be an opening, it has to invite the unknown. The womb has to be a host; the man will be the guest.
Because of the womb being a central phenomenon in the feminine body, the whole psychology of woman differs. She is non-aggressive, non-inquiring, non-questioning, non-doubting, because all those things are part of aggression. The man doubts, he inquires, he goes in search; she waits. The man will come in search of her. She will not take the initiative, she simply waits – and she can wait infinitely.“
Osho
#35
“Women have to learn karate, aikido, judo — they have to learn all sorts of subtle techniques — which are feminine techniques but which can make women tremendously strong. Women are not as tall as men, they are not as hard as men, but there is no need — there are softer and tremendously powerful ways.”
Osho
#36
“The feminine mind cannot have a sense of time. It is the male, aggressive mind who is time-worried, time-conscious. The feminine is not in any hurry. Really, there is nowhere to reach. That’s why women cannot become great leaders, great scientists, great warriors. Joan of Arc or Laxmi Bai: they are only feminine in body; the mind is not feminine at all. It is masculine. For the feminine mind there is no goal, and our world is man-oriented. So women cannot be really great in a man-oriented world, because greatness is related to the goal. Some goal has to be achieved; then you become great — and the feminine mind is not after any goal. Here and now she is happy. Here and now she is unhappy. That’s why the feminine curiosity is never for the far-away; it is always about the neighborhood. She is not interested in what is happening in Vietnam. She is interested in what is happening in the other house — the intimate, the here. Time doesn’t exist. There is no hurry.”
Osho
#37
“A woman has perfect qualities to become a disciple. Surrender is easy for her. It is natural, part of the feminine being. Surrender is easy; surrender comes easily. A woman becomes a good disciple. And you will always find: wherever you will find four disciples, three will be women. This will be the proportion all over the world. Mahavir had forty thousand sannyasins — thirty thousand were women. The same proportion with Buddha. You go in any church, any temple and just count — you will always find the proportion three to one. In fact, all the religions are supported, fed, by women; but they are disciples.”
Osho
#38
“I would like the woman to become as feminine as possible, only then can she flower. And the man needs to be as masculine as possible, only then can he flower. When they are polar opposites, a great attraction, a great magnetism, arises between them. And when they come close, when they meet in intimacy, they bring two different worlds, two different dimensions, two different richnesses, and the meeting is a tremendous blessing, a benediction. We can make a better world together. Men and women should be really half-and-half of a whole. There are qualities which men have and women do not have; there are qualities which women have and men do not have. Both together, the human being will be richer in every possible way.”
Osho