You are born out of two parents: one was man, one was woman. You carry both within you, half-half. This has to be so, there is no other way to be born. You are not only born out of a woman, otherwise you would have been only woman. You are not only born out of the father, otherwise you would have been only man. You are born out of a duality, man and woman. They both contribute, you are both.

That creates trouble, because when the mind thinks about a woman, it always thinks in terms of the feminine. But you don’t know then… If a woman becomes ferocious, she is more ferocious than any man; if she is angry, no man can compete with her; if she hates, no man can hate like her.

Why? – because her woman is tired, on the surface, and her man is always at rest and is more full of energy. So whenever she is angry, she is more angry because the man starts functioning, and that man is at rest. And whenever a man surrenders or becomes very loving he is more feminine than any woman, because then the woman that is always at rest and hidden behind, and always fresh and young, comes up.

Look at Hindu deities. They have the right thing, they have understood the duality very well. You must have seen pictures of Kali, the Mother. She is a very ferocious woman with skulls around her neck, blood and a head in one hand, and many hands holding weapons to kill. She is the consort of Shiva, and Shiva is lying down and she is standing on his chest.

When for the first time Westerners started to think about this symbol, they were puzzled: “Why? And why do you call this woman “mother”? She looks like death!” But Hindus say that the mother also has death in her, because she gives birth, then who will give you death, the opposite? The mother gives you birth, then she will give you death also. This has to be so.

Kali, the Mother, is both dangerous, destructive and creative. She is the mother, the creative force, and she is also death, the destructive force. She loves Shiva but she is standing on his chest as if ready to kill.

But this is the nature of life. Love kills, birth becomes death, beauty disappears, ugliness comes in. Everything fades into the opposite, melts into the opposite. All logic looks futile and the mind gets dizzy.

When such dualities cease to exist…

And when you see through all of them, they simply cease to exist – because love is hate. The right word will be lovehate – one word, not two words. The right thing will be lifedeath – one word, not two words. The right word will be manwoman, womanman – not two words, one, together.

But then oneness also disappears, ceases to exist. Then what is the use of saying that life is one? Two disappear; in the wake one disappears also.