Millions of sperms

This earth is already overloaded; it is already in such a situation that if we don’t cut its population by half it is going to die. There will be no need for a third world war: just the population itself will be enough to kill everybody, to starve everybody.

And God is continually sending people… either he has no idea… that at least send a small piece of land with each child, or try some new way so there is nobody hungry. Rather than real babies, make plastic babies which run on batteries; that would be easier. Once in a while you go and you can get your battery charged… and for God everything is possible. He has been doing all kinds of miracles, his son was doing all kinds of miracles: this will not be much of a miracle, creating a baby who runs on a battery.

But he goes on giving us stomachs and hunger, and no land – but the old land is losing its fertility every day. And the Catholic pope goes on saying no birth control, no abortion. Why no abortion? – because it is killing. But it is very strange coming from a pope’s mind, because these popes have been making all kinds of crusades in the past and killing thousands of people. That has been their whole business: burning people, burning women just because of a fictitious idea….

[…] Now suddenly their interest is in non-violence: abortion is violence. And the same pope’s predecessors blessed Benito Mussolini in the second world war. That was not violence? The archbishop of Canterbury in England blessed the British forces – and that was not violence? – that was perfectly good?

One wonders at what point abortion becomes violence.

At what point…? A child is conceived this moment – is he alive or dead? He is alive, but from where has the life come? He was alive in the semen cells before he became conceived in the mother’s womb; the semen cells are all alive. They have a small life span, just two hours, so if within two hours they can find a female egg, and can enter the egg, the child is conceived. The egg is alive: half of your being, the feminine part, is in the egg, and half of your being is coming from your father’s semen. And in a single intercourse millions of cells are rushing along….

You will be surprised to know that it is there that politics starts. Everybody is running fast towards the egg, because whosoever reaches first becomes President Reagan. Those who are left behind, just a little behind… finished! Only one sperm is going to enter, then the woman’s egg becomes hard and no more can enter. That is the natural process; it is vulnerable only to one. Only once in a while does it happen that two male cells reach exactly at the same time and enter. That’s why sometimes you have twins, or three or four or five or six – even nine children have been known. But that is a very rare event.

Millions of sperms… and they are really fast. It is almost like a car race. They are all racing, and they have to be quick: within two hours if they don’t reach, they are finished. In a single intercourse you are responsible for killing millions of beings. And what about an abortion? – just one. So whether it’s one million or one million plus one, what difference does it make?

Osho, From Ignorance to Innocence, Ch 9, Q 1 (excerpt)