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Chapter 20 - Your longing is the seed
The sun may have risen but if you keep your doors closed, for you it is still night. It may be that the whole world is full of light... but you can keep your eyes closed and remain in darkness. So remember, everything depends on you. I am available twenty-four hours, exactly the same.
You are saying, "This morning again you came to me and I wonder: I know how the sun touches me, how your face enters my eyes, your voice my ears. I know those five doors to the world but I wonder what this sixth sense is that feels you. What door do you pass to reach me so deeply?"
In fact, in the East, we have always thought about the sixth sense. There are five senses to go out of yourself, to go to the world, to the objective reality around you. The sixth sense, which has been called in other words the third eye, is to go inwards. If you feel me deeply, it means your third eye receives me -- that is the door about which you are wondering. It is exactly between the two eyebrows and has been known for at least ten thousand years in the East.
You will be surprised... and the Indians will be shocked: we have used, for the women when they are married, a red mark on the third eye center -- nobody has ever bothered why --
and that red mark which is used for a married woman is removed if she becomes a widow.
That red mark is to prevent the woman from coming in contact with the divine. Her God is her husband. And if she comes in contact with the divine, then her husband is almost meaningless.
Man has used every kind of strategy against women. He has used even spiritual discoveries to enslave the woman.
The red color is significant. The psychology of color and the science of color is that whichever color you see -- if you see something red, then one thing is certain, that that thing is not red; it appears red. The sun rays have all the seven colors of the rainbow, and when the sun rays fall on anything, if all the rays are absorbed then you see the thing as black. If all the rays are reflected back and
nothing is absorbed, then you see the thing as white. It is because of this reason that black has some connotation with the devil, with death, and white has become symbolic of renunciation, of simplicity, of purity.
If the red ray is reflected back, is not absorbed, if the other rays are absorbed and only the red is not absorbed, then you see the thing as red. If blue is not absorbed then you see the thing as blue because the returned ray falls on your eye and makes the thing appear of a particular color.
Why has the red mark been used for women? It is a simple science: the red ray is the most powerful in awakening that which is asleep. It is the most powerful ray; it hits deeply and wakes the dormant energy. It can open the third eye. Using a red mark on the third eye is preventing the red ray, so the woman remains unrelated to the divine. This door to the beyond is closed.
This is sheer male chauvinistic attitude. The moment a woman becomes a widow, immediately the first thing to be removed is her red mark because now the idea is that the woman should not come in contact with another man. And the best way to prevent her is to bring her in contact with godliness because then there will be no interest for the lower kinds of love relationship; she will know the higher quality of love, prayer, trust.
The widow in India is not allowed to use any other color of clothes -- only white, as a symbol that she has renounced the world. Although living, she is no longer part of life.
Osho - The Hidden Splendor 200
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