Osho: Sex Guru or Tantra Master?

Again and again Osho has been called “Sex Guru” by the media, both in India and the West. Is this really true? He certainly dared to address the topic of sex more than any spiritual teacher, which – especially in his native India – shocked many people. But a closer look at his talks on sex and Tantra, which are published in many Tantra books, show that the label “Sex Guru” is not much more than cheap journalistic sensationalism.

In this answer to a seeker’s question, Osho himself explains how he wants to take his sannyasins beyond sex so that they can move, as one of his books is titled From Sex to Superconsciousness:

Yes, I teach you how to go deep in love. I teach you how to go deep in sex too, because that is the only way to go beyond. To go through it is the only way to go beyond it – but my goal is to take you beyond. Now this is a problem, and I am going to be misunderstood again and again, all over the world.

People have become accustomed: They think religious people have to be against sex; and those who are not against sex, how can they be religious? […]

I can only be understood by a NEW kind of being who has seen this totality: that man is both body and soul, and that life matures only through experiences.

Sex can become a stepping-stone towards SAMADHI. If you understand it deeply, if you experience it deeply, you will be free of it – but that freedom will have a totally different quality I It will not be a repressed sex. A repressed sex continues underground, goes on in your unconscious, on and on, and goes on affecting your life. […]

If you can make love consciously, you will be surprised: Love has all the keys to SAMADHI. If you go deeply into love with full consciousness, alert and aware, you will see that it is not love that attracts you; but in the highest peak of love, in the orgasmic explosion, your mind disappears, your thoughts stop, and that is from where the nectar flows into you. It is not really sex that gives you that beautiful experience. Sex simply helps you, in a natural way, to come to a point where mind is dissolved – of course, for a moment. The clouds disperse, and you can see the sun. Again those clouds will be there and the sun will be lost, and again you will start fantasizing about sex. If you go unconscious, then you will miss this whole secret again and again.
It is not sex that is keeping you tethered to the world; it is unconsciousness! So the question is not how to drop sex; the question is how to drop unconsciousness. Be conscious and let your natural being have its whole flow.

From: The Secret of Secrets, Vol. 2, Chapter 6

(This and many other of his discourses are available on Osho discourses MP3s.)

For anyone familiar with Osho books it is clear that Osho was probably the greatest Tantra master ever. So it is no surprise that Osho sannyasins, many of whom work as therapists, have published the results of their research in a host of Tantra books.

Sourced from Osho Viha Connection magazine