Meera and Krishna: All are women except He.

There is a beautiful story about a great woman mystic of India, Meera. She was really a mad devotee, a mad BHAKTA, in tremendous love and ecstasy with God. She was a queen, but she started dancing on the streets. The family disowned her. The family tried to poison her — the family itself — because it was a disgrace for the royal family.

The husband was feeling embarrassed, very much embarrassed, and particularly so in those days. And the story belongs to one of the most traditional parts of this country, Rajasthan, where for centuries nobody had seen women’s faces; they were covered, always covered. Even the husband might not have been able to recognize his wife in the daylight, because they were meeting only in the night, in darkness.

In those days, in such a stupid climate, in such a milieu, the queen started dancing on the streets! Crowds would gather, and she was so drunk with the divine that her sari would slip down, her face would be exposed, her hands would be exposed. And the family was obviously very much perturbed. But she sang beautiful songs, the most beautiful ever sung in the whole world, because they came from her very heart.

They were not composed, they were spontaneous outpourings. She was a devotee of Krishna, she loved Krishna. She told her husband, “Don’t go on believing that you are my husband — my husband is Krishna. You are not my husband, only a poor substitute.”

The king was very angry. He expelled her from the kingdom; she was not allowed to enter the territory. She went to Mathura, the place of Krishna. Krishna had died thousands of years before, but for her he was as alive as ever. That is the mystery of love: it transcends the barriers of time and space. Krishna was not just an idea to her, he was a reality. She talked to him, she slept with him, she hugged him, kissed him. Nobody else could see Krishna, but she was absolutely aware of him.

Krishna represented to her the very spirit of existence, what Buddha calls dhamma, the law. That is the masculine formation, the masculine expression: the law. Meera calls Krishna “my beloved” — not law but love; that is the feminine heart.

She reached Mathura; there is one of the greatest temples of Krishna. And the head priest of that temple had taken a vow that he would not see any woman in his life; for thirty years he had not seen a woman. No woman was allowed to enter into the temple and he had never left the temple.

When Meera reached there, she danced at the gate of the temple. The guards became so enchanted, magnetized, that they forgot to prevent her. She entered into the temple; she was the first woman after thirty years to enter the temple.

The head priest was worshipping Krishna. When he saw Meera he could not believe his eyes. He was mad. He shouted at her, “Get out of here! Woman, get out of here! Don’t you know that no woman is allowed here?”

Meera laughed and said, “As far as I know, I know that except God everybody is a woman — you too! After thirty years of worshipping Krishna, do you think you are still a male?”

It opened the eyes of the head priest; he fell at the feet of Meera. He said, “Nobody has said such a thing ever before, but I can see it, I can feel it — it is the truth.”

At the highest peak, whether you follow the path of love or meditation, you become feminine.

OSHO