The second question:

Question 2

I HEARD THAT WOMEN DO NOT ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT. IT DID NOT DISTURB ME -- ONLY MADE ME WONDER IF IT IS TRUE. AND IF SO, THEN WHAT IS POSSIBLE OR WOMEN?

Pratipada, you must have met some male chauvinist pig. There is no difference in the consciousness of man or woman. The only difference is in the chemistry, and chemistry docs not make any difference in consciousness. Consciousness is neither male nor female, it is transcendental. It cannot be categorized in the dualities. It is beyond both, it is one.

But man has always been saying things to women. Man has always been trying to prove the woman is inferior. The reason is that man feels inferior to woman. And the basic inferiority is because the woman can give birth to a child and man cannot. Man is envious, jealous. The woman seems to be so powerful: she can give birth to a new being, she can contain a new being in her womb. And man has always felt a little inferior about that. He takes revenge, he tries to prove that the woman is inferior -- she cannot do this, she cannot do that.

About enlightenment, these foolish people have been saying that woman cannot attain it. Why? What has that to do with a man or a woman? To be a man or a woman is simply irrelevant!

When you go deeper into your being, when you are just a witness, is the witness still going to be a woman? The witnessing consciousness will simply witness outside the body of a woman or a man, but the witnessing consciousness will not be sexual; it w ill be asexual. It will simply be there, it will be a mirror.

But man tries in every way to put the woman down. He's afraid. Either he can worship the woman, he can put her very high, a goddess, or he can condemn her and put her very low, evil, but he cannot accept that she is equal to him. These are both ways of dominating the woman. You put somebody on a high pedestal, then you are capable of dominating. Man says, "Woman is holy" -- that means man is forgiven if he goes to a prostitute, because he is not so holy. Woman cannot be forgiven. That's why male prostitutes have not existed.

Man can do many things; he's allowed. They say, "Boys are boys." The woman is not allowed. Her holiness, her being a goddess, is a trick, a strategy to encage her. Worship her, give all the good qualities to her, then she is in your hands. She cannot move down because she will be afraid that she will be losing her godhood -- this is one strategy. The other strategy is: declare her evil. Then you are allowed to torture her, to keep her in boundaries. Because she is evil she cannot be allowed total freedom, she cannot be allowed independence. She is dangerous. She will let hell loose in the world.

And your so-called saints ALL finally prove to be just ordinary men. You can judge it. If a saint is condemning women, you can judge it -- you can know perfectly well that he has not known anything of saintlihood. He does not know anything of the whole, where men and women are transcended. He's still concerned with his being a man and is still afraid of women. There is no reason to be worried about such things.

You say, "I HEARD THAT WOMEN DO NOT ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT."

Never pay much attention to such crap.

And you say, "IT DID NOT DISTURB ME...."

Very good, because if it disturbs you, then there is danger. The danger is that you may become part of the 'lib' movement. That is another polarity. Man has been ugly; through the 'lib' movement, women are turning ugly. Man's nonsense is driving women towards nonsense. Both have to be dropped.

It is good that you were not disturbed. Never be disturbed by such things. By being disturbed you allow them to enter into your being, and then their impact will change you.

"IT ONLY MADE ME WONDER IF IT IS TRUE."

It is not true. How can it be true?

A Buddha is born out of a woman. Buddha can be born out of a woman, and Buddhahood cannot be born in a woman? What kind of nonsense is this? All Buddhas are born out of a woman. It is the woman who carries the Buddha in the womb. If she can carry the Buddha in her womb, why can't she carry Buddhahood in her innermost womb of consciousness? There is no problem.

The reason is somewhere else. The reason is that in the past, religions have been against sex. And man has been afraid, very much afraid of woman, because the moment he comes close to a woman he starts feeling tempted. He's afraid of his temptations. Nothing is wrong in those temptations; they are natural. But they have been condemned. And because those temptations come only in the presence of a woman, or when he thinks of a woman -- so not only the woman physically, but the idea of woman becomes an evil -- he throws his responsibility on the woman. The woman becomes a scapegoat. She has nothing to do with it. She also feels tempted when she comes close to a man, but she has not been so ugly and rude as men have been. She has not said that the man is the door to hell. But the so-called saints have been saying again and again that woman is the door to hell, avoid woman if you want to avoid hell.

The whole point is based on a fallacy: that sex is something wrong. Once sex is accepted as a natural phenomenon the problem will disappear. That's what I am trying to do here.

You may not be aware of what I am trying to do here, of how I am trying to do things. You may not be aware of the implications; the implications are far-reaching.

I am trying to destroy the whole old foundation of religion and give it a totally new foundation -- a foundation which is natural, a foundation which is spontaneous, a foundation which is human, a foundation which accepts a man and woman relationship in all its beauty and glory.

And this I have to say to you: that unless you accept your sexuality totally and gracefully and lovingly, you will never transcend it. The way to transcend goes THROUGH it. Those who have tried to avoid it have remained always in it. Any experience denied will persist, will hammer, will try to enter into you again and again, will go on knocking on your doors. You cannot deny any part of your being, and if you deny you will never be whole. And how can you be holy if you are not even whole?

Nothing has to be denied. All has to be accepted and transformed.

I call that man wise who accepts all that has been given by God and transforms it, with no rejection -- because nothing wrong can be given by God to you. If you think something is wrong it is your prejudice, it is your idea, it is your interpretation. Anger is there: if anger becomes your meditation, you will find, out of anger, a new phenomenon arising -- compassion. Only an angry person can be compassionate. If there is no anger the person will never be compassionate, he will simply be impotent. He will not have any spine, that's all.

It is out of sex that SAMADHI starts entering into your being. Sex is the lowest rung of the ladder called SAMADHI, SAMADHI is the highest rung; but you cannot move to the highest unless you have moved from the lowest. In the lowest are the roots. The highest depends on the lowest. The lowest is not low. When I am calling it 'lowest' I am not evaluating it, I am simply indicating its position. The foundation has to be lowest, only then can the building arise on it. But by being lowest it is not low. It supports the whole building; without it the whole building would be gone.

Sex is the very fabric of life: it supports. All that happens, happens through the same energy. Yes, there are many, many new transformations of the energy -- it becomes love, it becomes prayer, it becomes SAMADHI; ultimately it becomes God.

Sex is the seed of God. Sex is not God itself yet, but the seed contains the tree. Sex contains the possible, and unless you love the seed and you sow the seed in the soil of your consciousness, you will never have the tree, and you will never have those beautiful flowers, that glory. That one-thousand-petalled lotus will never arise in your being.

Women have been condemned because sex has been condemned. The condemnation of the woman is secondary; the basic condemnation is of sex. Unless sex is accepted the woman will never be accepted. Hence, I am giving a totally new vision: accept life as it is. All is good. That does not mean that you have to remain stuck where you are. All is good: it simply means that all can be used for higher and higher experiences. Everything can be used as a stepping-stone.