Osho on Special Meditations for Women

Question : Do we need special meditations for Women?
Osho : No. Meditation is concerned with your consciousness -- and consciousness is neither man nor woman. This is one of the fundamentals I want the world to be aware of. All the religions have denied the woman any possibility for spiritual growth, thinking that her body is different, her biology is different: she will not be able to reach to the ultimate flowering of consciousness. But it is strange that nobody down the centuries ever enquired: Who reaches the ultimate flowering -- the body, the mind or consciousness?

The body is different. If the body was going into meditation, then there would be certainly a need of different meditations for women than for men. Because the body is not involved in meditation, there is no question of any difference. For example, in yoga, where the body is very important -- all the yoga postures are basically rooted in physiology -- there are many postures which are not suitable for a woman's body, and there are many which are more suitable for a woman's body than for a man's body.

So yoga can make a distinction: yoga for men, yoga for women. Mind is also different. Man thinks logically, linguistically. The woman is more affected by emotions, sentiments, which are nonverbal. That's why she tends to be not willing to argue. Rather, she would like to scream and fight, cry and weep. That's the way she has been for centuries, and she wins in it -- because the man simply feels embarrassed. He may be right logically, but the woman does not function logically.

So if meditation was concerned with mind, then too there would be a different kind of meditation for women than for men. But meditation is concerned with the very essential core of your being, which cannot be divided into male and female. Consciousness is simply consciousness.

A mirror is a mirror. It is not male, it is not female. It simply reflects. Consciousness is exactly like a mirror which reflects. And meditation is allowing your mirror to reflect, simply to reflect the mind in action, the body in action. It doesn't matter if the body is a man's or a woman's; it does not matter how the mind functions -- emotionally or logically. Whatever the case, the consciousness has simply to be alert to it. That alertness, that awareness, is meditation. So there is no possibility of any difference in meditation between man and woman.