I teach Truth.

Q: WHY DO YOU TEACH NUDITY TO PEOPLE?

Osho: DO YOU SEE ANYBODY NUDE HERE? Are you utterly blind?

I teach TRUTH — truth is bound to be nude. Truth cannot hide itself. I don’t teach nudity: I certainly teach nude souls. And your clothes sometimes become a hindrance; they hide, they become defenses.

Once in a while, whenever the opportunity is possible and nobody is disturbed by your being nude, be nude. I am not telling you to go nude in the marketplace, but whenever the opportunity arrives and whenever you can be nude in the sun and in the wind and in the rain, be. Just by dropping the clothes you will feel a tremendous liberation – because your clothes are representative of your civilization, of your conditionings.

Your clothes are not just clothes — they are hiding you from everybody else’s eyes. And it is good sometimes to be with the birds and with the animals and with the trees, just as they are, utterly nude. I am not saying go to your office nude or sit in your shop nude. But I certainly say to you that if once in a while you cannot be nude and natural, you will miss something of immense value.

But why has the question arisen in you? You should ask God why he creates nude people.

He does not send you with clothes. He has not learnt yet that man is afraid of being nude. I have heard about a lady who used to take her baths with her clothes on. Somebody asked her, “What is the matter with you?”

She said, “It is simple. I have heard that God goes on looking at you wherever you go — and I can’t be nude before God.”

If you can’t be nude even before God, then what kind of ugliness are you carrying within yourself?

But please don’t misunderstand me. I am not telling you to be nude twenty-four hours a day; that will be an extreme. Mahavira did that — he lived nude twenty-four hours a day for forty years. I don’t teach that kind of extremism — because when it is cold, don’t be nude. And when you are functioning in the society where clothes are respected, don’t be nude. But I cannot tell you to take your bath with clothes on — that is another extreme.

I teach simplicity and I teach the golden mean. But you must be hearing something else.

You must have come with that idea. Yes, nudity sometimes happens in the therapy groups, because therapy groups are meant to destroy all your hypocrisy. And dropping your clothes is a great step in dropping your hypocrisy. Dropping your clothes is a great step in accepting your body as it is.

Why are you so much afraid of dropping your clothes?

Many people have ugly bodies. And the reason why they have ugly bodies is because they have never allowed their bodies natural growth. And clothes are a good strategy to hide your ugly bodies behind. People are afraid of being nude because they know their bodies don’t look good. They don’t accept their bodies.

Dropping your clothes sometimes gives you a great acceptance of your body. And dropping your clothes will help you to have a beautiful body too — because then you will start contemplating about it. You have not even seen your own body in total nudity, so you are not aware of what you are doing with your body — that you are eating too much or that you are not eating enough, that your ways of life are unhealthy.

The first step to free the world from sexuality is to allow children to remain nude, as much as possible, in the home. As far as it is feasible, it is advisable to allow children, both boys and girls, to play in the nude, so that they become totally acquainted with each other’s bodies. Then, tomorrow, there will be no necessity for them to snuggle up to each other in the streets. Then there will be no need to print nude pictures in books. Then they will be so familiar with each other’s bodies that no kind of perverted attraction will be possible in the future.

But the way of the world is just the opposite. The people who have covered and concealed the body have unwittingly created so great an attraction for it that, although it has overtaken our minds, we still haven’t felt the full impact.

Children should remain nude and should play in the nude for a long time, so no seed of madness remains to plague them the rest of their lives.

But the disease is already there, and it is on the increase. The existence of the disease can be observed in the bulk of obscene literature now being published. People read it, hiding it between the covers of the holy books. We shout that obscene books should be banned, but we never pause to think where the men who read them are coming from; we protest the displaying of nude pictures but never stop to ask why they are exhibited in the first place.

Sex is natural, but sexuality is the product of anti-sex teachings. If these teachings are followed, if the advice given in these unscientific sermons is taken, the soul of man will be totally filled with sexuality. It has almost happened. But thank God, such teachers are not very successful. And because of their failure, man has been able to salvage some of his conscience, some of his discrimination. If man understands sex properly, he can rise above it. He should rise above it; it is necessary that he rise above it.

It is perfectly good to be nude — perfectly good to be nude with friends, perfectly good to be nude in your family with your children, because if small children know the bodies of their parents from the very beginning they will never become obsessed. They will never become obsessed with anybody’s body; they will have a totally different kind of approach. They KNOW what bodies are — they have known their mother, they have known their father, their brothers. But even that is impossible.

In deep love relationships one should be nude! — with friends, with family. Once in a while it is tremendously helpful; it brings you closer to nature.

But when I say these things, you are there with your minds to interpret. You don’t listen to what I say — you have your prejudices, and you go on listening through your prejudices.

You are deaf. Your prejudices and your old ideas are clamoring in your mind.

I have heard about a great Zen Master. The emperor of Japan went to see him — he had heard that the Master lived totally nude. The emperor thought maybe he had no clothes, so he prepared, ordered the best clothes possible. He took beautiful velvet clothes and gowns studded with diamonds as a present to the naked fakir.

The Master started laughing. He said, “Thank you for your present, but you will have to take it back.”

The emperor said, “Why?“

The Master said, “You know, I am the only human being here. All my friends are trees and birds and animals — they will laugh at me; they will think I have gone mad. They are all nude, they understand nudity. They won’t understand these beautiful clothes, they won’t understand these diamonds, they won’t understand at all. And if I wear these clothes, they will not only laugh at me and they will not only ridicule me — they will start going away from me. We will lose contact. You please take your clothes back.”

If you live in the mountains and if the weather allows you, be nude. And that will give you a tremendously new thrill. A new life will surge up in you.

In a better world, we will learn more and more to be nude. Clothes should be used for comfort, not for any other reason. Clothes should be used for convenience, not for any other reason. Clothes have no morality in them!

Osho: Philosophia Perennis, Vol 2: Chapter #2: Chapter title: Zorba The Buddha Q 3 (Excerpts)
Osho: From Sex to Super Consciousness: Chapter 2 : From Repression to Emancipation (Excerpts)

हमें है शौक़ कि बे-पर्दा तुम को देखेंगे
तुम्हें है शर्म तो आँखों पे हाथ धर लेना………..दाग़ देहलवी

hame.n hai shauq ki be-parda tum ko dekhe.nge
tumhe.n hai sharm to aa.nkho.n pe haath dhar lenaa………….DAGH DEHLVI

I have the desire to see your face,
just cover your eyes if you are bashful.

I love this phenomenal, and my all-time favorite qawwali from the superhit movie ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ sung by the legendary singer Mohammad Rafi, Lyrics: Anand Bakshi Music Director: Laxmikant-Pyarelal. — as if telling us — “पर्दा नशीं को बे-पर्दा न कर दूँ तो — Parda nashin ko be-parda na kardun to…” — We, who are staying behind the curtains will soon be unveiled….hahaha…Enjoy.

(196) Parda Hai Parda | Amar Akbar Anthony | Mohammad Rafi | Rishi Kapoor | Neetu Singh – YouTube