People are living for eating; there are very few people who eat to live. Millions are living only to eat.
Humanity can be divided into two types of mad people: one type is obsessed with food, another type is obsessed with sex. And there is a deep relation between the two. The person who is obsessed with sex will not bother much about food and the person who is repressive of sex will become obsessed with food.*
Whenever a country is repressive of sex it becomes very obsessed with food. That’s what has happened in this country: for centuries it has been repressive of sex. That’s why Indians have been very inventive about food – new sweets, thousands of sweets. The world is completely unaware of all those sweets! And their food is so spicy…. When a foreigner comes he cannot eat it; he cannot see how people can eat it. It is burning hot! Why so much spicy food? It is repression of sex! If your sex is not repressed you will not eat such spicy food.
Just the other day I received two letters, one from a Western sannyasin, Mudita. She says, “Osho, listening to you I feel great joy, but then suddenly I become horny.” She must have been brought up with Victorian ideas, with Victorian education – outmoded thoughts.
And another letter has come from Rekha, an Indian sannyasin. She says, “Listening to you, suddenly I had a great desire to eat spicy food.” Now, she is an Indian! An Indian woman cannot recognize even in herself that she is feeling horny – that is impossible. The whole desire has to move towards spicy food. But both are the same, there is no difference.
Food and sex have one thing in common. Food is needed for the individual’s survival; without food you will not survive. And sex is needed for the species’ survival; without sex the species will disappear.
Another phenomenon: the person who is living a natural life will neither be obsessed with sex nor will be obsessed with food. He will not be obsessed at all. But religions don’t allow that: you have to be obsessed with something or other. If you are not obsessed you will not go to the temples and the mosques and to the churches and to the synagogues. That is the very secret of their trade. This whole business of religion goes on and on with no sign of ever stopping, for the simple reason that you go on being obsessed with something or other.
The person who is obsessed with sex will be less selfish; the person who is obsessed with food will be more selfish, for the simple reason that food means your survival and sex means survival of the species. It is better to be sexual and to be after sexual pleasures than to live just to eat. – OSHO
