Enlightened Women

Part 1

The second woman went through a very difficult phase. Her name was Mallibaiand she belonged to the Jaina tradition. Mahavira and all the twenty-three great masters of Jainism had declared that a woman cannot become enlightened. But Mallibai, who was a Jaina, became enlightened, and gave the evidence and the proof that their argument was simply male-chauvinism. They had to accept her as the twenty-fourth great master. But they played a trick: when she died they changed her name.

So even Jainas don't know that of the twenty-four statues in their temples, one statue is of a woman. They changed her name from Mallibai to Mallinath; it becomes male. And they changed even the statue; the statue is not of a woman, the statue is of a man.

When I came to know about it, I was very angry with the Jaina monks. Whoever visited my place, I used to ask, "Which one of these twenty-four statues is Mallibai? – because they are all men's statues. You are deceiving the whole world. You have even changed the name of the woman just to keep your ideology intact." But Mallibai must have been a great woman. It is not easy to follow the Jaina path. It is hard, very harsh. To become a tirthankara, a great master, one has to even drop one's clothes – no possessions, not even clothes. Mallibai must have been a very courageous woman. She lived naked, and proved that their whole theory was wrong. But after her death they managed – and these are religious people, cunning and deceptive.

The third is a Mohammedan woman mystic, Rabiya al-Adabiya. She seems to be the most significant Mohammedan mystic. Mohammedans don't allow women in their mosques; they have to pray outside the mosque. Women are treated exactly like cattle. Mohammed himself married nine women, and allowed every Mohammedan to marry at least four women – just to produce more children, so that Mohammedanism would spread. But he never thought about a simple problem, that if you marry nine women – nature produces men and women in equal numbers, it has a subtle balance – what about those eight men who will not get a wife?

So in Mohammedan countries homosexuality is tremendously prevalent, although the punishment for homosexuality is death. Knowing that the punishment is death, still homosexuality is much more prevalent in Mohammedan countries than anywhere else.

You have heard that in Africa homosexuality and the disease AIDS is spreading like wildfire. The parts where AIDS is spreading like wildfire are Mohammedan. It has nothing to do with Africa, it has something to do with the Mohammedan idea that one man can marry four women. So people who can afford... and four is not the maximum limit, it is the minimum limit.

The Nizam of Hyderabad in India, just before the Britishers left, had five hundred women. This kind of stupid behavior... and it becomes even more stupid because the Nizam had a big state, Hyderabad; he was a king, and the tradition was that his son would be the successor. When the father dies, he will inherit as his wives, all the wives of his father, except his own mother. That is his inheritance. The woman is something like a thing, money, land – but not a human being. who reached to the point of enlightenment. And she was really a courageous woman. It needs courage.

The stories of her courage are many.

Once a great mystic, Junnaid – who was afterwards the master of Al Hillaj Mansoor, the famous mystic who was killed by Mohammedans... Junnaid used to sit in front of the mosque, tears rolling down his cheeks.... Five times a day a Mohammedan has to pray, and five times Junnaid was found sitting in front of the gate of the mosque, raising his hands to God above, and asking him, "How long is it going to take? When are you going to open the doors? I have been waiting and praying for years." One day Rabiya was passing, and Junnaid was praying with the same words: "Open the door, I have waited enough, I am a frail human being, my patience is not infinite!"

From the back Rabiya hit Junnaid on his head and said, "You idiot!" – and Junnaid was known as a great learned scholar – "The doors of God are always open. Why are you unnecessarily wasting your time? Get in! The doors of God are never closed. And I say it on my own authority, because I have been in and out so many times." She must have been a very courageous woman.

Another mystic, Hassan, was staying with her. And in the morning he wanted her holy KORAN, because he had not brought his own copy – knowing that there must be one with Rabiya al-Adabiya. Rabiya al-Adabiya gave him her copy. He was shocked, because in many places she had corrected the holy KORAN. It is a great sin – the holy KORAN cannot be corrected, it is written by God.

Hassan called her back: "Rabiya, somebody has destroyed your holy KORAN. Corrections in the holy KORAN...? It has never been heard of, never been thought about." She said, "Nobody has distorted it. Those corrections have been made by me, and I had to make them." And she looked at the correction which Hassan was reading. The statement in the KORAN is that you should hate the devil. She had crossed it out.

He said, "I don't understand."

She said, "It is very simple. I am now so full of love that it does not matter whether God comes before me, or the devil – they will both receive love, because I don't have anything else to give. Hate I don't have to give. And this is my copy of the KORAN. From where can I get hate? Hate has disappeared; my whole energy of hate has become love. Now it does not matter – God will receive the same love as the devil. I am helpless: I had to cross out this line, because it is no longer relevant to me." This woman Rabiya was seen once running in the marketplace with a burning torch in her hand, and in another hand a bucket full of water. People gathered and asked, "What are you going to do?"

She said, "I am going to do the thing that should have been done before. I am going to burn this idea of heaven above in the sky, and I am going to drown this idea of hell beneath the earth. Both are bogus; they are not part of geography, they are inside you.

"And it all depends on you, whether you live in hell or you live in heaven. Living in hate, in anger, in jealousy, in depression, you are living in hell. "And living in love, in compassion, in truth, in sincerity, you are living in heaven."

* - From Osho. The Razor’s Edge.