Osho Shivo is an enlightened mystic who lives his life in totality as a channel of divine love. He has coached and conducted workshops for couples which leads the lovers through creativity, intelligence, and sensuousness to the celebration of love. He is also an Osho Sanyasin going through an intense spiritual journey through Oshodhara.
Mansi Bhagdeo has realized that while she enjoys her adventures in chemistry, tarot, yoga, and mindful cooking, the true essence of her life is to give and receive love. Shivo and Mansi have co written a mystical tale “Dancing with the Timeless Beast” which is based on the transformational power of unconditional love.
In this current series “Man woman Relationships: From Conflict to Celebration”, they attempt to articulate the essential conflict between man and woman and highlight the polarity between them to ultimately synthesize those polarities into a divine union. This article “Man Woman Relationship: From Agony to Ecstasy” is the first interaction in this series.
Interview
Mansi: Shivo, the crux of the interaction is that women in the 21st century have more opportunities in education and in professional lives and as a result they can create more wealth and are more financially independent but this has to be good thing. As a teacher, I see for example that when a student starts doing well in math, he learns how to learn and the ripples of this starts spreading to other subjects and we see an improvement in other subjects. Hence, even for women, this financial success must also translate to other areas of life. But then why aren’t we more happier and content in our relationships compared to women of past?
Osho Shivo: You are so very true Mansi, that financial independence should cause the love to blossom, but it is not so. However, I am quite an optimist and I see this trend as a transition phase and I feel, that eventually financial independence of women would lead to the blossoming of true love. But current transition phase is painful, as women are still struggling to come out of her financial dependence and insecurities. There was an equilibrium earlier, where man was the provider and woman was dependent on him, but now we are grappling with a whole new reality.
It is difficult to say, if the women were content earlier. It was more of a compulsion, where they had accepted their fate, and they regarded men as their masters. Now, when woman has got independent, she no more accepts man as her master. Men are finding it difficult to deal with this new found freedom of women and I feel, even women have over asserted themselves their new found independence. All this has caused women to get dissatisfied. They have got the power, but love is still missing. In earlier times, they considered men to be essential in their lives, and now, they find it difficult to stand men’s presence in their lives. They often tend to question the role of men in their lives.
Also, I would say that though the Women’s Lib movement was necessary, it caused it’s own contradictions. Necessary, because women must come out of centuries of oppression, but unfortunate since it was reactionary in nature and did not offer any vision to women. It only prompted women to be like men. So women started to compare themselves with men and started to act like men, as far as possible. That is why we observe that today’s women has lost the fragrance of femininity and have become much more masculine. And this has also adversely affected their capacity to love, as they have become more and more aggressive.
Mansi: Shivo, what you have said here rings very true to me. To make the most of the opportunities in education and career, woman has looked at the only role model she had who had been successful at both and that was the man. So she adopted those qualities and went against her own nature. Now as you said, these masculine qualities have diminished her capacity to love. But then what , in your opinion, should she do to find true love? Going to the other extreme and giving up her financial independence and professional life sounds like going back to the dark ages.
Osho Shivo: You are so very true. Why go back to the dark ages. And however nostalgic we may become, past never comes back. And I feel, the financial independence is a wonderful opportunity not just for women but for men too. Till now, men have claimed right over women, as a prerogative of him being successful. This only caused his ego to get a boost and obviously, he lost his capacity to love. Love blossoms in surrender and with the booming of ego, men found it difficult to enjoy the love.
You have raised a beautiful concern about how women can discover love in these altered circumstances. To get deeper insight into love, first we must understand that till now, women have not really known what the love is (except few rare women). Women have often mistaken feeling secure as love. She does not need similar security from men any more, at least not the financial security. Hence she is grappling under the assumption that there is no love. Actually what has happened is that she has lost the feeling of man providing security and she depending on that and she has confused this as loss of love. I must say, only a woman who is totally secure, is capable of love. When she feels her own incompletion at spiritual level, she feels a longing to unite with her other half and that is the true basis of love. I feel, that the women who are authentic about themselves, have much more chances of finding and enjoying love, as they are no more insecure. However, they have to come out of old mindset of hankering after successful men and rather look for men who can truly love. I feel, for today’s woman the criteria for choosing love, should not be success, but compatibility, respect and trust. Only with a men they can trust and surrender to deeply, they can explore the fragrance of their femininity and reach the deep satisfaction and completion.
Mansi: Shivo, you offer a new criteria for woman looking for love in this new world. But as you said earlier, we are going through a transition, so there is still a newness and we are still trying to settle into this paradigm shift. When a woman chooses someone who is less materialistically successful than she is, will the relationship work long time? Since the society or the woman might feel that she is compromising and can a man’s ego accept the fact that she is more successful than him?
Osho Shivo: Well, if a woman is still presuming herself to be more eligible for love, just because she is more successful, then she is not really authentic about her feminine longing. Such a woman is not really ready for love and she is likely to look for a ambitious and successful man and then resent the absence of love in her life. An authentic woman will acknowledge that in spite of her materialistic success, she still feels incomplete and ecstasy of love will be far more important to her than success. In such case, she will obviously have deep regard for her man, however more materialistically successful she is in comparison to him.
Also, man’s ego does find it difficult to deal with a woman more successful than him, but them egoistic men are not capable of love. So a woman longing for true love will not choose an egoistic man. A man who is capable of love, have a high self esteem and that means that his self image is not dictated by how successful he is. Hence a high self esteem man has no issues about, who is more successful.
Mansi: Shivo, thank you for those clear insights. Moving on to the more practical everyday observations. I am amazed at the number of beautiful, intelligent, successful intelligent women I know who do not have a partner in their lives. Where do they go wrong? For e.g. Why do these women seem to find themselves attracted to unavailable men?
Osho Shivo: You have pointed out a beautiful insight of female psychology. Woman tends to get attracted to those who are already paired with someone. This is not the phenomenon just now, but it has always been so. In old times, if you see, there were few men who had many wives and many men had to remain bachelors. Women always get attracted to men, who are already loved by other women. Why is that so? The reason is simple- their insecurity. Women tend to think that if other women love some man, than he must be good. Also, unfortunately a woman who considers herself successful, seem to find a special pleasure in snatching a non available man. And the reason is her low self esteem. In my experience, most of those hankering for success (both men and women) have low self esteem and they are trying to get over it by attaining outer world success. So, a successful woman tends to judge herself, based on whether she can snatch a guy from someone else. Obviously, even if she is able to get someone like that, she cant love him, as he is just an award for her victory, so she loses interest in him quickly. Also, a man who can be won this way, also has a low self esteem and he also finds a special joy in treating women as trophy, so he is very much open to some other women trying to get him. Obviously, these are just mind games and they never work. It is impossible to discover love this way.
Mansi: Shivo, in the previous question, I also meant women being interested in men who were unavailable since they were not that interested in them. But I think your reply encompasses that question as well. Talking about mind games, they seem to make their way into relationships. In ancient times, men were hunters and women were gatherers. They followed the same stereotype even while finding a mate: a man was active and a woman was passive. In India, it is usual for families to find a mate for you. But that doesn’t always work in this new reality. So if a woman likes a guy, what is she to do? Bat her eyelashes, make him jealous, ask him out and pursue him? Help her out, Shivo.
Osho Shivo: I feel, if a girl has not found a guy, she herself is at fault. She is not really ready for love. If she was ready, love would happen. Longing for love itself, makes her attractive. I have seen so many girls, who are beautiful but not attractive. And I have discovered that these girls do not want love. Mostly, they are looking for a husband and not a lover. And it is really difficult to attract a husband, as guys normally have an apathy for marriage, as it hampers their adventurous instincts. It is only when a men is in deep love, he can be persuaded to get married. But, if a girl is looking for husband from the very beginning, it is natural that guys are not interested. Also, I have seen that such girls are not really excited and charmed by the prospects of love, they want a man just for convenience. I can tell you, if a woman truly respect the masculine principle, guy would appear in her life.
Mansi:You have highlighted a very astute observation: a man’s need for adventure and a woman’s need for security. I can understand a man’s instinctual apathy to marriage. But for so many women, love and marriage are synonymous and husband is also the lover. And we don’t marry for convenience, but sometimes marriage does increase convenience. For example, a man and woman are partners in marriage, so each might share and take up chores or responsibilities that plays to their strengths. This definitely makes things easier for married people as opposed to their single counterparts.
Osho Shivo: Let me rephrase this first. Man’s potential is adventure and woman’s potential is love. When they both relate in a way, which includes love and adventure both, the relationship attains immense depth and potential. However, when the masculine and female principles get corrupt, they manifest as aggressive ego for men (we can call this domination) and passive ego for women (we can call this insecurity). Marriage can turn beautiful, if you primarily deal with men as lover, as this can also prompt him for being a good husband (although, let me tell you, this can be truly cumbersome for him, but if he is in love, he can go through that). It is true that women are looking for convenience, but men do nto feel that convenience is so important for them. Men are gypsies by nature and they love to roam around. They hanker for new experiences in life and they abhor the same routine. So, as soon as woman start to look at marriage as a way towards convenience, she is bound to lose the affection of her man. And then, it is not surprising, that the man begins to look for another woman in life, as he feels that this can bring some new adventure in life.
Mansi : Thank you for this very enlightening interaction. It has truly been a pleasure. Blessings and love to you, Shivo.
Dear Shivo and Mansi! That was really a wonderful piece of creation by both of you.
Let me write a few things that I observe in the current social scheme.
Both, man and woman, have been assigened a certain roles in the society traditionally. And, surprisingly, these traditions were set at the time when man still lived in caves. And more surprisingly, we are still following it, as a society.
It is generally said that man by nature is dominating and egoistic. But in my observation and experience, both, man as well as woman are EQUALLY dominating and EQUALLY egoistic. BUT…there is one thing in woman which gives them an edge over man, when it comes to handling the relationships. And the society is responsible for this mismatch. Let me explain.
As I said, that both men and women are equally egoistic, women have a better method of dispersing away the frustrated ego energy. And that method is ‘crying’.
Traditionally, crying or shedding tears is considered to be a sign of weakness and something feminine (That means the society and even women themselves consider women to be weak !! What a great irony! ) Thats why men, throughout the ages have always been discouraged from crying. And this suppressed frustrated energy converts itself into a more maniac form which many people call ‘male ego’
Women themselves perceive those men who express their frustration and pain through tears as a sign of weakness. They want MACHO men..to love them!!! HAHAHA. So, in one way, its the women who encourage men to be more and more egoistic. And when it backfires, they begin to give all sorts of names to male gender.
Remember my friends, Hitler was a product of such suppressed tears. Traumatizing childhood, traumatizing social life, frustration in his first career as an artist..all produced a tremendous amount of negative energy inside him, which he could not disperse in any form. That energy came out in the form of wars and killings.
Every male in the society is a kind of ‘Hitler’ moving around. And every woman out there is a ‘fool’ expecting such a ‘Hitler’ to love them and have a harmonious relationship with them!
So, what we basically need is a complete overhauling of the social perceptions. Men need to get down a bit more in the heart and express themselves a bit more and the women need to rise up a bit more into their minds and be a bit more practical in their approach. Only then can there be a real ‘hand-shake’ between the two. Nobody is superior and nobody is inferior. There is a middle way which is the golden path to harmonious relationships.
Dear Sarvesh,
Thanks for taking the time and effort for writing such a detailed and passionate comment. I am in agreement when you say nobody is superior and nobody is inferior.
When a woman cries or is in tears, it could be one or a combination of a myriad of reasons. It could be that she feels helpless, she is grieving, or it could be way of gaining attention or manipulating people around her or she is empathizing with someone who is in pain, or sometimes she might be just overwhelmed by the beauty in this universe.
One such time was when I saw my son for the first time via ultrasound. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I had never seen such beauty or felt such love in my life.
So it is not about the tears or crying per se but the sentiment behind them.
Mansi
Dear Mansi,
You are right. And thats what I have been saying.
Men too feel the SAME emotions which you have mentioned above, but it does not appear so, since men tend to hold themselves back while expressing their emotions, especially where they need to cry. So there is no release of energy which eventually makes them cold-hearted.
Both, men and women, tend to manipulate or grab attention by different ways. So, I was not dealing with that part of the issue.
I wanted to focus on CATHARASIS. The release of suppressed and frustrated ego, which happens quite smoothly in women, whereas men tend to suppress a bit to much, due to so called social reasons which I have mentioned. All this makes them completely mind-oriented and eventually, a complete failure in relationships. Morover, I also wanted to point out as to how women also share the responsibility in making the men more egoistic.
Dear Mansi,
I missed a point in the last post.
I said that men tend to hold themselves back while expressing delicate emotions.
One very important thing I forgot to mention is that when such basic emotions are suppressed, they get converted into ANGER. Men tend to suppress their sorrow, their tears so that they do not appear weak in the eyes of the women. But they dont realise that this suppressed energy will very soon get converted into GIGANTIC form of anger. And thats why we find men all over the world to be a bit more aggressive. Thats why all the social problems of riots, wars etc.
Woman’s ego destroy homes where as man’s ego destroy nations! So, one can get an idea as to what gigantic proportions a man’s ego get converted to, just because of their tendency to suppress..
Since this topic is on the male-female relationships, there is one more interesting thing I would express my comment on.
My self and my friend Hrushikesh, a few days back, casually happened to discuss on the issue as to whether a mother is closer to the child/ baby than the father. The general perception is of course that mother is closer. I find this topic relevant here because, again since fathers have held themselves back while ‘apparently expressing’ their emotions towards the baby, the shallow -thinking society immediately jumped to the conclusion that mothers are closer. Let me present an alternate view.
Imagine a CEO of a company who takes utter care of his/her company. He/she will do everything that can be done to keep the company happy and healthy. Now he/she will develop a special attachment to the company. The CEO’s wife/husband will not have so much affection and attachment to the company as much as the CEO. Reason is simple. Physical closeness. So, it can be said that the CEO is more ‘attached’ to the company since he/she carries the company. Its the physical closeness.
Just like this CEO, a mother is ‘physically closer’ to her baby. And this develops a certain sort of ‘attachment’. This attachment cannot be called ‘love’ by any stretch of sensible imagination (as the society especially the BOLLYWOOD and HOLLYWOOD imagines it to be ๐ )
When it comes to loving the baby, both mother and father are on equal footing. The nature has just chosen female as a ‘caretaker’ of the baby for 9 months. But the love involved by both father and mother is SAME. Mother will cry and shout if she loses her baby. Father will also go through the same emotions, BUT as I mentioned earlier, he wont be able to cry, which will make him a sophisticated mad-man. Both, father and mother will be instinctively ready to steal, kill etc to make their babies survive.
However, since women express their emotions of love a bit too much, society feels that mothers are closer to their kids.
So the bottom line is, apart for hormonal and physical differences, there is NO other difference between men and women. Mode of expressing the good/bad emotions are different. But the basic emotions remain the same. So, if we want harmonious relationship to exist, then this fact should first be accepted.
Also, considering the CEO example, its the incidents and the situation that brings the emotions of closeness and attachment, and not the gender.
Very True !!!
Dear Sarvesh,
Thanks for that peek into your conversation with your friend. In another case of synchronicity, I have been discussing the very same topic of a mother and fathers’ love with my friends and family since I am pregnant. So am sharing some personal experiences here.
I agree with you completely that a father’s and mother’s love is equal. From the moment we conceived, I have been focused on my baby while my husband has been focused on me because he understands that to support me at this point is to support the baby. So it is another example of the love being equal but not expressed in the same manner.
Thank you Sarvesh for your sharing.
Mansi
Thats really wonderful..
Yes..you have given a perfect example..Thats what a husband can do at the maximum.