Osho: On the Attitude of Priests and Prophets towards Women… (Part 5)

Even Buddha was very disrespectful about women. He wouldn't allow women to become nuns, he would not initiate them. There seems to be some fear of women deep inside him. And it is clear in his statement -- for almost fifteen years he continued to deny them: 'I am not going to initiate women.' What is the fear? Why not initiate a woman, when the women are asking to be initiated? Why prevent them from seeking and searching the truth? Is it man's monopoly? Truth also, is it a commodity and man's monopoly?

Finally, very reluctantly he agreed -- but not happily. He had to agree, because the woman who came to ask was the woman who had mothered him. His own mother died in giving birth to Gautam Buddha. His mother's sister remained unmarried, sacrificed her whole life to raise Gautam Buddha. And she gave him more love than any mother can give and she sacrificed her own life, naturally; she poured all that she had on him. When she came -- her name is Mahamaya -- old, tears in her eyes, and she said, 'I know for fifteen years you have been rejecting women, but I am your mother. Just remember, I have sacrificed my whole life. Can't you even give initiation to me? Can't you share the truth that you have found?'
It was under compulsion; he could not refuse Mahamaya, it would have been too cruel. But what he said is still cruel. He accepted her, he gave initiation to her, sadly, without any ceremony, and said after the initiation, 'My religion was going to last for five thousand years, now it will last only five hundred years, because I have allowed women to enter. They will destroy it.' How can women destroy it? I don't see the point at all.
In my commune there are more women than men; they work as hard as men, perhaps more lovingly than men. They have the capacity of love, more than man has. They have not destroyed, they have created the commune.
Why is Buddha so afraid? I know why he is afraid. His own fear, deep down, is that perhaps he is still fascinated with women. At least he is not able to trust his monks. He knows that they will be fascinated, and soon what he has been teaching – celibacy -- will be destroyed. It is celibacy that will be destroyed, why the religion? What has religion to do with celibacy? In fact, with men and women together, the religion will grow. There will be children and there will be more children and it will become a vast tree.
If I was in his place I would have said, 'My religion was going to last only five thousand years, now it is going to last forever; because a woman has entered, now it is complete. With only men it is incomplete. Now it is a real commune, alive, because it can give birth to living beings.' But the fear...and the fear is possible only if it is somewhere deep down in your own unconscious too.

Osho, From Unconsciousness to Consciousness, Talk #6