BELOVED OSHO
THERE HAVE BEEN VERY FEW ENLIGHTENED WOMEN IN THE WORLD, AND NONE THAT I KNOW OF IN THIS CENTURY. IS THERE HOPE FOR US WOMEN?
It is not hard — but man has not allowed it.
Man suffers from a deep inferiority complex, and to keep it repressed he keeps the woman in every possible way inferior to himself; otherwise if she is allowed freedom, allowed all her talents, her genius, the great fear of man is that she can prove superior in many dimensions. And she has many things which man is missing.
Naturally the only simple way was to cut all possible ways in which the woman could grow. So all women have been left retarded. Their roots have been cut: don't give education to them, don't let them have the freedom of movement in society, don't let them have friends from the other sex.
And for thousands of years it has been going on. Naturally if a woman cannot become a scientist, if a woman cannot become a poet, if a woman cannot become a great architect, a great sculptor, then the question of a woman becoming enlightened becomes very difficult. So many steps in between have been completely removed. My whole vision is to put those steps back.
And I am trying my best to put those steps back, so any woman of any quality has the full possibility, freedom and support to grow. Some of the women will grow to become enlightened, but no such possibility has ever before existed.
So it is true you have not heard of enlightened women, particularly in this century — although there have been a few women who, in spite of all this imprisonment of their being, became enlightened. But they are not the rule, they are the exceptions. They simply prove one thing: that just to be a woman does not mean that the doors of enlightenment are closed to you.
One woman was Rabiya al-Adabiya, in Arabia, one woman was Meera in India. One woman was in the very ancient times, in the days of the RIG VEDA — that may be five thousand years old, or ninety thousand years old; it is undecided by the scholars… but these women can be counted on less than ten fingers.
But it is enough proof that to be a woman does not mean that enlightenment is not for you. As far as I am concerned, I feel that because you have been prevented from being enlightened, or even from moving in that direction, you have more possibility now than man, for the simple reason that just as land that has not been used for many years is more fertile, just it needs seeds…
OSHO
