|
I Respect Richness"Richness does not mean only wealth or money; richness is a multidimensional phenomenon."
"Perhaps I am the first person who is respectful of money, of wealth, because it can make you multi-dimensionally rich."
- Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #22"
"I respect richness in all its aspects -- even the material richness, because that helps you to go towards spiritual richness. I don't praise poverty in any way, neither outer nor inner. I am all for richness -- be rich materially, so that one day you are finished with that dream and your energies can move unhindered towards inner richness. Yes, the inner world is the kingdom of God. It is a kingdom -- you have to become kings, emperors. Unless you have become a god in your innermost kingdom, you will remain unfulfilled."
- Osho, "The Revolution, #4"
"Use money, but never be greedy. As a means money is perfectly good; it is a great means of exchange, very utilitarian. Use it but don't be used by it possess it but don't be possessed by it -- remain the master."
- Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 4, #10"
"I am not against money - I am against money-mindedness! I am not against possessions, I am against possessiveness. And these are two totally different dimensions, diametrically opposite to each other. To be against money is stupid. Money is a beautiful means -- a means of exchange. Without money there cannot be an evolved culture, society or civilization."
- Osho, "Philosophia Ultima, #12"
"I am not a worshiper of poverty. That's what those Rolls Royces prove. I respect wealth. Nobody before me has the guts to say it. The pope cannot say that he respects wealth, although he is the wealthiest man on the earth.
I am not a hypocrite. I am the poorest man on the earth. I don't have a single cent with me. But I want to prove to these people that what attracts their mind."
- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 4, #3
"I am not a one-sided person. I am neither for the inner nor for the outer, I am for both together. One has to be rich inside and one has to be rich outside too. Richness is beautiful; outer richness is beautiful just as inner richness is beautiful. Nothing is wrong in creating money."
- Osho, "Philosophia Ultima, #12"
"Poverty is not something to be praised; it is something to be condemned, totally condemned. It is like cancer: it has to be destroyed; no respect should be given to it, because that is nourishment. It should not be praised in any direct or indirect way, because that is how it has been prolonged in the past.
And you can't see the contradiction: on the on e hand these people go on saying that poverty is something beautiful; on the other hand they are all trying to make people richer. the contradiction is in THEM. Why try to make these poor people more rich? Make them more poor so they will be closer to God. Take even what they have got! Deprive them of everything! Then their welcome will be far greater, they will be received more joyously.
And what is the implication of it all? It means God enjoys poverty, it means he wants people to be poor. It simply means that he is against riches, comforts, luxuries. Then why this paradise? -- because paradise is nothing but comforts, riches, luxuries. A strange logic! On the earth people should suffer so that in heaven they can be rewarded. First make people ill so that they can be hospitalized and served; first wound them and then help to heal their wounds. This is ridiculous!
MY arithmetic is very clear: poverty is ugly and it has to be destroyed totally. No trace of it should be left on the earth, and all these consolations should be withdrawn. I can understand why in the past the religious people could not say what I can say today. The simple reason was that scientific technology was not available -- there was no way to destroy poverty. And when you cannot do anything, at least you can sympathize; it costs nothing to be sympathetic. At least you can console; it is better than nothing. And all these words of Jesus and Mahatma Gandhi and others are devices to console, to give opium to people."
- Osho, "Philosophia Ultima, #7"
"I am not an ascetic. I am living herenow in paradise. And I teach you also to live herenow in paradise: this very earth the paradise, this very body the Buddha. I am not against life's pleasures; they are beautiful. I am not against all that life can shower on you. Its beauties, its joys, its blessings have to be received gratefully. I am not in any way condemnatory of anything.
I am not a worshiper of poverty, because poverty is the source of all sins. I would like the whole earth to become richer and richer, more affluent and more affluent. I would like everybody to have all that technology can provide now. Nobody need live starved, beggarly, dirty.
This is possible now. Technology can make this earth better than any paradise that you have invented in your scriptures."
- Osho, "The Secret, #10"
Question : Tell me, if you would, the meaning of the rolls royces?
I am not a worshiper of poverty, as all the religions are. And because of their worship of poverty, they are responsible for poverty in the world.
To me, wealth is as significant as any other creative act. Everybody is not a Picasso, everybody is not a Ford either. And I respect both.
All the religions have created the idea that to be rich is something wrong. Jesus says, "A camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven."
Now these are the people who are responsible for keeping humanity poor. They are giving poor people opium, that "You are the blessed one" -- while they are the cursed one.
I do not agree with Jesus. I can see what he is doing, and that's being done by all the religions in different ways. I am the only man perhaps who is not a hypocrite. Pope goes on worshiping Jesus and still he holds the biggest and the largest empire in the world: six hundred million Catholics and the Vatican is the richest....
- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 3, #12"
I am not against luxury or comfort. I am not a sadist, and I don't want people to be tortured in any beautiful name. In the name of religion, or in the name of socialism, nobody should be sacrificed. No kind of self torture should be supported.
Man is here to rejoice, to live a life as beautifully, as peacefully, as comfortably as possible.
I am all for richness, but the richness will be of the commune. As the commune becomes richer, every individual will become richer. I am against poverty; I am not a worshiper of poverty. I don't see anything spiritual in being poor -- it is sheer stupidity. Neither poverty is spiritual, nor is sickness spiritual, nor is hunger spiritual. A commune should live in a way that it becomes more and more rich, that it does not produce too many children, that it does not overproduce people. Overproduction is bound to create beggars, is bound to create orphans, and once there are orphans there are Mother Teresas.
I don't want any Mother Teresa in the world. Neither do I believe in the virtue of serving the poor, because I don't want anybody to be poor in the world. And it is in our hands: we have all the scientific techniques to produce according to our needs -- or not to produce.
- Osho, "The Golden Future, #22"  Possessiveness shows simply one thing.That you can't trust existence.
If the whole existence is one, and if the existence goes on taking care of trees, of animals, of mountains, of oceans -- from the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star -- then it will take care of you too. Why be possessive? Possessiveness shows simply one thing: that you can't trust existence; you have to arrange separate security for yourself, safety for yourself. You cannot trust existence. Non-possessiveness is basically trust in existence. There is no need to possess, because the whole is already ours.
-Osho, “Beyond Psychology, #28”
All the Religions have been against Wealth
Question 3 : Osho, Can you talk about money? What are all these feelings which are around money? What makes it so powerful that people sacrifice their lives for it?
This is a very significant question. All the religions have been against wealth because wealth can give you all that can be purchased in life. And almost everything can be purchased except those spiritual values -- love, compassion, enlightenment, freedom. But these few things are exceptions, and exceptions always prove the rule. Everything else you can purchase with money. Because all the religions have been against life, they were bound to be against money. That is a natural corollary. Life needs money because life needs comforts, life needs good food, life needs good clothes, good houses. Life needs beautiful literature, music, art, poetry. Life is vast!
And a man who cannot understand classical music is poor. He is deaf. He may hear -- his eyes, his ears, his nose, all his senses will be perfectly right medically -- but metaphysically....
Can you see the beauty of great literature, like THE BOOK OF MIRDAD? If you cannot see it, you are blind.
I have come across people who have not even heard the name of THE BOOK OF MIRDAD. If I am to make a list of the great books, that will be the first. But to see the beauty of it you will need a tremendous discipline.
To understand classical music is possible only if you learn -- and it is a long learning. It is not like jazz music, for which no learning is needed. Even monkeys can understand jazz -- in fact, only monkeys understand it. It is not music, just a few crackpots making all kinds of noises, and you think it is music.
You will find better music in a waterfall, or when the wind blows through the pine trees, or simply when you walk in the forest in autumn on dry leaves, and sounds are created. But to understand that, you will need to be free from hunger, free from poverty, free from all kinds of prejudices.
For example, Mohammedans have prohibited music; now they have deprived man of a tremendous experience.
It happened in New Delhi... one of the most powerful Mohammedan emperors, Aurangzeb, was on the throne. And he was not only powerful, he was really terrible.
Up to his time Mohammedan emperors were saying only that music was against Islam, but that was all; Delhi was full of musicians. But Aurangzeb was not a gentleman, he was really a Mohammedan. He declared that if any music was heard in Delhi, the musician would be immediately beheaded. And Delhi was the center, naturally, because it was the capital for thousands of years. So it was the place where all kinds of geniuses were living.
When this declaration was made, all the musicians gathered together, and they said, "Something has to be done, this is too much! They used to say it is against Islam -- that was okay. But this man is dangerous, he will start killing." So as a protest, all the musicians -- of which there were thousands -- went to Aurangzeb's palace.
He came on the balcony and asked the people, "Who has died?" -- because what they had done... they were carrying a corpse the way it is carried in India. There was no corpse inside, just pillows, but they had managed to make it look like a corpse. Aurangzeb asked, "Who has died?"
And they answered, "Music. And you are the murderer of it."
Aurangzeb said, "Good that it has died. Now please be kind enough to me -- dig as deep a grave as possible, so that it can never come out from the grave again." Those thousands of musicians and their tears had no effect on Aurangzeb: he was doing something `sacred'.
Music is denied by Mohammedans. Why? -- because music was basically played in the East by beautiful women. In the East and in the West the meaning of the word `prostitute' differs. In the West the prostitute is selling her body. In the East, in the past, the prostitute was not selling her body; she was selling her genius, her dance, her music, her art.
You will be surprised that every Indian king used to send his sons who were going to become his successors to live with great prostitutes for a few years, to learn etiquette, to learn gentleness, to learn music, to learn the delicacies of dance -- because a king should be really rich about everything. He should understand beauty, he should understand logic, he should understand manners. That has been the old Indian tradition.
Mohammedans disrupted it.
Music was against their religion. Why? -- because to learn music you had to enter a prostitute's house. Mohammedans are very much against any rejoicing, and the house of the prostitute was full of laughter, songs, music, dance. They simply prohibited it: no Mohammedan can enter a place of music; to hear music is a sin.
And the same has been done by different religions -- for different reasons, but they have all been cutting man's richness. And the most basic teaching is that you should renounce money.
You can see the logic. If you don't have money, you can't have anything else. Rather than cutting branches, they were cutting the very roots. A man without money is hungry, is a beggar, has no clothes. You cannot expect him to understand Dostoevsky, Nijinsky, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, no; that is impossible.
All the religions together have made man as poor as possible. They have condemned money so much, and praised poverty so much that as far as I am concerned, they are the greatest criminals the world has known.
Look what Jesus says: A camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven.
Do you think this man is sane? He is ready to allow a camel to pass through the eye of a needle -- which is absolutely impossible, but even that impossibility he accepts may be made possible. But a rich man entering into paradise? That is a far bigger impossibility; there is no way to make it possible.
Wealth is condemned. Richness is condemned. Money is condemned. The world is left in two camps. Ninety-eight percent of the people live in poverty, but with a great consolation, that where rich people will not be able to enter, they will be received with angels playing on their harps, "Alleluia... Welcome!" And the two percent who are rich are living with tremendous guilt that they are rich.
They cannot enjoy their richness because of the guilt. And they are deep down afraid: perhaps they may not be allowed to enter into paradise. So they are in a dilemma. Riches are creating guilt in them -- they will not be consoled because they are not mourning: they will not be allowed in paradise because they are having so many things on the earth. They will be thrown into hell.
Because of this situation, the rich man lives in a very fearful state. Even if he enjoys, or tries to enjoy things, his guilt poisons it. He may be making love to a beautiful woman, but it is only the body that is making love. He is thinking of paradise where camels are entering, and he is standing outside and there is no way to go in. Now can this man make love? He may be eating the best food possible, but he cannot enjoy it. He knows this life is short, and after that is just darkness and hellfire. He lives in a paranoia.
The poor man is already living in hell, but he lives with a consolation. You will be surprised to know that in poor countries people are more contented than in rich countries.
I have seen the poorest people in India with no dissatisfaction at all. And Americans are going around the world to find some spiritual guidance -- naturally, because they don't want to be defeated by camels; they want to enter into the gates of heaven. They want to find some way, some yoga, some exercises, as a compensation.
This whole world has been turned against itself.
Perhaps I am the first person who is respectful of money, of wealth, because it can make you multi-dimensionally rich.
A poor man cannot understand Mozart. A hungry man cannot understand Michelangelo. A beggar will not even look at the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. And these people who are suffering from hunger don't have enough energy to make them intelligent. Intelligence comes only when you have superfluous energy in you. They are exhausted just in earning bread and butter. They don't have intelligence. They cannot understand THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, they can only listen to some stupid priest in a church.
Neither the priest understands what he is talking about, nor the audience. Most of them are fast asleep, tired after six days of work. And the priest finds it more comfortable that everybody is asleep, so he need not prepare a new sermon. He can go on using the old sermon. Everybody is asleep, nobody will figure out that he is just cheating them.
Wealth is as significant as beautiful music, as great literature, as masterpieces of art.
There are people who have a born capacity to be a musician. Mozart started playing beautiful music at the age of eight. When he was eight, other great masters of music were not anywhere near him. Now, this man is born with that creativity.
Vincent van Gogh was born of a poor father who worked in a coal mine. He never got educated, he never knew any art school, but he became one of the greatest painters of the world. But in his whole life he could not sell a single painting. Now each painting... There are only two hundred of Vincent van Gogh's paintings available; he painted thousands but he gave them away just for a packet of cigarettes, or a meal, or a cup of tea. Now each of his paintings is worth a million dollars or more.
What happened? Why couldn't people understand his paintings? His paintings need tremendous intelligence to be understood.
Just a few days ago I saw a picture of one of his paintings. For that painting he was laughed at by all painters, what to say about others? -- because he had painted stars in a way nobody had seen stars: like nebulae, every star in movement, like a wheel turning continuously. Who had seen stars like that?
Even other painters said, "You are going mad -- these are not stars!" And moreover, the trees that he painted underneath the stars are going higher than the stars. Stars are left far behind, trees have reached far ahead. Now who has seen such trees? This is just madness!
But a few days ago I saw a picture of this type. Physicists have now discovered that van Gogh is right: stars are not as they look, they are exactly the way van Gogh has painted them. Poor van Gogh! What eyes that man must have had, to see what physicists took one hundred years to find out, with all their big labs and big technology. And Vincent van Gogh, strangely enough, just with bare eyes figured out the exact shape of the stars. They are whirling, they are whirling dervishes; they are not static the way you see them.
And when he was asked about his trees, that "Where have you found these trees which go above the stars?" he said, "These are the trees I have found, sitting by their side listening to their ambitions. I have heard the trees say to me that they are the ambitions of the earth to reach to the stars."
Perhaps a few more centuries may be needed for scientists to discover that certainly the trees are the ambitions of the earth. One thing is certain, that trees are moving against gravitation. The earth is allowing them to move against gravitation -- supporting, helping them. Perhaps the earth wants some communication with the stars. The earth is alive, and life always wants to go higher and higher and higher. There is no limit to its aspirations.
How are the poor people going to understand? They don't have the intelligence.
Just as there are born poets, born painters, I would like you to remember there are born wealth-creators. They have never been appreciated. Everybody is not a Henry Ford, and cannot be.
Henry Ford was born poor, and became the richest man in the world. He must have had some talent, some genius for creating money, for creating wealth. And that is far more difficult than to create a painting, or music, or poetry. To create wealth is not an easy job. Henry Ford should be praised just as any master musician, novelist, poet. In fact, he should be praised more, because with his money all the poetry and all the music and all the sculptures of the world can be purchased.
I respect money. Money is one of the greatest inventions of man. It is just a means. Only idiots have been condemning it; perhaps they were jealous that others have money and they don't. Their jealousy became their condemnation.
Money is nothing but a scientific way of exchanging things. Before there was money, people were in real difficulty. All over the world there was a barter system. You have a cow and you want to purchase a horse. Now it is going to be your whole lifelong task.... You have to find a man who wants to sell a horse and wants to purchase a cow. It is so difficult a job! You may find people who have horses but they are not interested in buying cows. You may find people who are interested in buying cows but they don't have horses.
That was the situation before money came into existence. Naturally, people were bound to be poor: they could not sell things, they could not buy things. It was such a difficult job. Money made it so simple. The man who wants to sell the cow need not search for the man who wants to sell his horse. He can simply sell the cow, take the money and find the man who wants to sell the horse, but is not interested in a cow.
Money became the medium of exchange; the barter system disappeared from the world. Money did a great service to humanity. And because people became capable of purchasing, selling, naturally they became more and more rich.
This has to be understood. The more money moves, the more money you have. For example, if I have one dollar with me.... It is just for example, I don't have one; I don't have even a cent with me. I don't even have pockets! Sometimes I get worried that if I get a dollar, where am I going to keep it?
For example, if I have a dollar and I go on keeping it to myself, then in this mandir there is only one dollar. But if I purchase something and the dollar moves to somebody else, I get the worth of the dollar -- which I will enjoy. You cannot eat the dollar. How can you enjoy it just by keeping it? You can enjoy it only by spending it. I enjoy; the dollar reaches to somebody else, Now if he keeps it, then there are only two dollars -- one I have enjoyed already, and one is with that miser who is keeping it.
But if nobody is a clinger, and everybody is moving the dollar as fast as possible -- if there are three thousand people, three thousand dollars have been used, enjoyed. That is one single round. Just give more rounds and there will be more dollars. Nothing is coming in; there is, in fact, only one dollar, but by movement it goes on multiplying itself.
That's why money is called currency. It should be a current. That's my meaning. I don't know about others' meanings. One should not keep it. The moment you get it, spend it. Don't waste time, because that much time you are preventing the dollar from growing, from becoming more and more.
Money is a tremendous invention.
It makes people richer, it makes people capable of having things that they don't have. But all the religions have been against it. They don't want humanity to be rich, and they don't want humanity to be intelligent, because if people are intelligent, who is going to read the Bible?
Just the other day, I received the information that one atheist group in America has published a Bible with pictures. That Bible will be condemned by all the Christians, by the government, because it is pornographic. It is more pornographic than anything else, because in the Bible there is so much pornography....
Just by reading it you are not aware. Now, when I was talking to you about Sodom... in this new Bible they have made pictures of men making love to animals, women making love to animals. There is adultery, there is homosexuality, there is sodomy, there is rape. You name it and it is in the Bible!
I have said that we should immediately order it. My people should start reading the real Bible! And order it immediately, because there is every possibility it will be prohibited. Never in the world has any book been so pornographic as this Bible.
And they are not doing anything which is not in the Bible -- they are just making pictures of it. You can understand pictures better. Just reading the word `rape' is nothing, but when you see a series of rapes pictured, then you become suddenly aware -- this is a holy Bible.
Religions never wanted man to be intelligent, never wanted man to be rich, never wanted man to rejoice, because people who are in suffering, poor, unintelligent -- they are the clients of churches, synagogues, temples, mosques.
I have never gone to any religious place. Why should I go? If the religious place wants to have some taste of religion it should come to me. I am not going to Mecca, Mecca has to come to me! Otherwise I don't care. I am not going to Jerusalem, I am not mad -- just a little bit crazy, but not mad. And when we can create a place of joy and laughter and love here, what is there in Israel? We have created the new Israel.
Drop all ideas that have been imposed upon you about money.
Be respectful to it.
Create wealth, because only after creating wealth do many other dimensions open for you.
For the poor man all doors are closed.
I want my sannyasins to be as rich as possible, as comfortable as possible. This is the first commune in the whole history of man where every house is centrally air-conditioned. Never before has any commune happened with air-conditioning.
This is the only commune where, while I am talking to you, you can laugh, you can enjoy, you can dance, you can do anything -- because your laughter connects you to me more than your sitting there sad, with a long face.
You cannot laugh in a church the way you are doing here. Just looking at Jesus Christ hanging on the cross all laughter will die.
In fact, for the first time we are giving religion its true color, its music, its dance, its love, its laughter.
- Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #22, Q3"
I am the rich man's guru.
Question 5: Are you not a rich man's guru?
I AM - BECAUSE ONLY A RICH MAN CAN COME TO ME. But when I say 'a rich man' I mean one who is very poor inside. When I say 'a rich man' I mean one who is rich in intelligence; I mean one who has got everything that the world can give to him, and has found that it is futile.
Yes, only a rich person can become religious. I am not saying that a poor person cannot become religious, but it is very rare, exceptional. A poor person goes on hoping. A poor person has not known what riches are. He is not yet frustrated with it. How can he go beyond riches if he is not frustrated with them? A poor man also sometimes comes to me, but then he comes for something which I cannot supply. He asks for success. His son is not getting employed; he asks, "Bless him, Osho." His wife is ill, or he is losing money in his business. These are symptoms of a poor man, one who is asking about things of this world.
When a rich person comes to me, he has money, he has employment, he has a house, he has health - he has everything that one can have. And suddenly he has come to a realisation that nothing is fulfilling. Then the search for God starts.
Yes, sometimes a poor man can also be religious, but for that very great intelligence is needed. A rich man, if he is NOT religious, is stupid. A poor man, if he is religious, is tremendously intelligent. if a poor man is not religious, he has to be forgiven. If a rich man is not religious, his sin is unpardonable.
I am a rich man's guru. Absolutely it is so. Let me tell you one anecdote:
They were married for twenty-five years and had their biggest argument on the day of their silver anniversary. She never hit harder or lower: "If it weren't for my money, that TV set wouldn't be here. If it weren't for my money, the very chair you're sitting on wouldn't be here!"
"Are you kidding?" he interrupted. "If it weren't for your money - I wouldn't be here!"
And let me say this to you: If it were not for your money, you would not have been here. You are here because you are frustrated with your money. You are here because you are frustrated with your success. You are here because you are frustrated with your life. A beggar cannot come because he is not yet frustrated.
Religion is luxury - the last, ultimate luxury I call it, because it is the highest value. When a man is hungry, he does not bother about music, cannot. And if you start playing sitar before him, he will kill you. He will say, "You are insulting me! I am hungry and you are playing sitar - is this the time to play sitar? Feed me first! And I am so hungry I cannot understand music. I am dying!" When a man is dying of hunger, what use is a Van Gogh painting? or a Buddha's sermon? or beautiful Upanishads, or music? - meaningless. He needs bread.
When a man is happy with his body, has enough to eat, has a good house to live in, he starts becoming interested in music, poetry, literature, painting, art. Now a new hunger arises. The bodily needs are fulfilled, now psychological needs arise.
There is a hierarchy in needs: the first is the body; it is the base, it is the ground- floor of your being. Without the ground-floor, the first storey cannot exist.
When your bodily needs are fulfilled, psychological needs arise. When your psychological needs are also fulfilled, then your spiritual needs arise. When a person has listened to all the music that is available in the world, and has seen all the beauty, and has found that it is all dream; has listened to all the great poets, and has found that it is just a way to forget yourself, just a way to intoxicate yourself, but it does not lead you anywhere; has seen all the paintings and the great art - amusing, entertaining, but then what...? Then hands remain empty, more empty than they ever were before. Then music and poetry are not enough.
Then the desire to meditate, the desire to pray, a hunger for God, a hunger for truth arises. A great passion takes possession of you and you are in search of truth, because you now know: unless you know what the secretmost truth of this existence is, nothing can satisfy. All else you have tried and it has failed.
Religion is the ultimate luxury. Either you have to be very rich to come to this luxury, or you have to be tremendously intelligent. But in both the cases you are rich - rich with money or rich with intelligence. I have never seen a person who is really poor - poor in intelligence, poor in riches - ever become religious.
Kabir becomes religious. He was not a millionaire, but he was tremendously intelligent. Buddha became religious because he was tremendously rich. Krishna and Ram and Mahavir became religious because they were tremendously rich.
Dadu, Redas, Farid, they became religious because they were tremendously intelligent. But a certain sort of richness is needed.
Yes, you are right: I am the rich man's guru.
-Osho, “The Discipline of Transcendence Vol 3, Q5”
◈
Question : Osho, There is a perception that you and your religious following are extremely wealthy. Is it true, where did the money come from?
A: My people are rich. In fact, only the very rich, educated, intelligent, cultured can understand what I am saying. Beggars cannot come to me. Poor people cannot come to me. The gap is too big. They can hear me but they cannot understand me. So it is natural: I am the rich man's guru.
Q: Isn't that a contradiction with the traditional perception of a life of austerity led by religious leaders and ascetics?
A: I simply think those traditions just rubbish. There is no question of contradiction; I am simply against them. I don't want to be consistent with them. I want to drop all connections with the past. They have done enough harm.
My conception of a beautiful, flowering being is not that of austerity, it is of luxury. He will enjoy all that is beautiful in the world -- great paintings, great music, poetry. I don't conceive of him standing on his head in the hot sun of Oregon, fasting, slowly destroying himself. To me, all religions of the world up to now have been sado-masochistic. My religion is for the first time life-affirming.
Q: Osho, One thing I think people on the outside remember about you when they read stories or see you on television is the fact that you own so many, or have so many Rolls Royces. Why is that?
A: How many?
Q: Eighty?
A: No.
Q: Forty?
A: Ninety. And they are not so many.
Q: Why do you need ninety?
A: I don't need even a single one. And they don't belong to me, either. But my people want 365, one for every day. And I go for a drive only for one hour. But if my people want it, if they are happy and rejoice doing it, I don't want to destroy their joy. It is perfectly okay.
Q: Couldn't you tell them to give their money for something else, other than for Rolls Royces?
A: All other religions are doing that. Let them do that as their work. Let me do my work. All other religions are looking after the poor. At least leave me alone to look after the rich.
-Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 1, #1”
Osho on Richness
"Richness does not mean only wealth or money; richness is a multidimensional phenomenon. A poet may be poor, but he has a sensitivity that no money can purchase. He is richer than any rich man. A musician may not be rich, but as far as his music is concerned, no wealth is richer than his music.
To me the rich man is one who has sensitivity, creativity, receptivity. The man of wealth is only one of the dimensions. According to me the man of wealth is also a creative artist: he creates wealth. Not everybody can be a Henry Ford. His talents should be respected, although what he creates is mundane. It cannot be compared to Mozart's music or Nijinsky's dance, or Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy. But still, he creates something which is valuable, utilitarian, and the world would be better if there were many more Henry Fords.
So when I accepted the definition, my meaning was richness in any dimension. Only a rich being can have some connection with me. A certain sensitivity is absolutely needed, a certain vision is needed."
- Osho, "Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, #3"
“I teach you richness: richness of the body, richness of the soul, richness of this world and that world. Both are possible, there is no problem at all. What I am saying I am living, and I don't see there is any conflict. I can be as meditative in my Rolls Royce – in fact, more meditative – than in a bullock cart! I have been in a bullock cart, I have been on a camel. I have used all kinds of vehicles – and to be meditative on a camel is really difficult. Camels don't like meditation at all, they are very non-meditative animals – and in a bullock cart on an Indian road…
I don't see any point of dividing the outer and the inner. I have been poor, I have lived in utter poverty, I have lived in richness. And believe me, richness is far better than poverty. I am a man of very simple interests: I am utterly satisfied with the best of anything, I don't ask for more."
- Osho, "The Wild Geese and the Water, #9"
“To live in the present is the only way to live at all. And when you live in the present with no past dragging you backwards and no future dragging you forwards, when your total energy is concentrated in the moment, life takes on a tremendous intensity; it becomes a passionate love affair. You become aflame with your own energy, you become full of light because at a certain intensity fire becomes life, intensity becomes light.
- Osho, "The Miracle, #12"
“Man in the West has succeeded in attaining to all the affluence that the whole of humanity has been longing for down the ages. The West has succeeded materially in becoming rich, and now it is too weary, too tired. The journey has taken all its soul. The journey has finished the Western man. Outwardly all is available, but the contact with the inner is lost. Now everything that man needs is there, but the man is no more there. Possessions are there, but the master has disappeared. A great imbalance has happened. Richness is there, but man is not feeling rich at all; man is feeling, on the contrary, very impoverished, very poor.
Think of this paradox: when you are outwardly rich only then do you become aware of your inner poverty, in contrast. When you are outwardly poor you never become aware of your inner poverty, because there is no contrast. You write with white chalk on blackboards, not on white boards. Why? Because only on blackboards will it show. The contrast is needed. When you are outwardly rich, then suddenly a great awareness happens that ‘Inwardly I am poor, a beggar.’ And now a hopelessness also comes as a shadow that ‘All is attained that we had thought – all imagination and fantasies fulfilled – and nothing has happened out of it, no contentment, no bliss.’
The West is bewildered. Out of this bewilderment a great desire is arising: how to have contact with one's self again. Meditation is nothing but getting your roots again into your inner world, into your interiority. Hence the West is becoming very much interested in meditation, and very much interested in the Eastern treasures. The East was also interested in meditation when the East was rich; this has to be understood. That's why I am not against richness and I don't think that poverty has any spirituality in it. I am utterly against poverty because whenever a country becomes poor it loses contact with all meditations, all spiritual efforts. Whenever a country becomes poor outwardly, it becomes unaware of the inner poverty."
- Osho, "The Secret, #8"
“All the religions have been against wealth because wealth can give you all that can be purchased in life. And almost everything can be purchased except those spiritual values – love, compassion, enlightenment, freedom. But these few things are exceptions, and exceptions always prove the rule. Everything else you can purchase with money. Because all the religions have been against life, they were bound to be against money. That is a natural corollary. Life needs money because life needs comforts, life needs good food, life needs good clothes, good houses. Life needs beautiful literature, music, art, poetry. Life is vast!” [....]
Perhaps I am the first person who is respectful of money, of wealth, because it can make you multidimensionally rich.
A poor man cannot understand Mozart. A hungry man cannot understand Michelangelo. A beggar will not even look at the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. And these people who are suffering from hunger don't have enough energy to make them intelligent. Intelligence comes only when you have superfluous energy in you. They are exhausted just in earning bread and butter. They don't have intelligence. They cannot understand The Brothers Karamazov, they can only listen to some stupid priest in a church.
Neither the priest understands what he is talking about, nor the audience. Most of them are fast asleep, tired after six days of work. And the priest finds it more comfortable that everybody is asleep, so he need not prepare a new sermon. He can go on using the old sermon. Everybody is asleep, nobody will figure out that he is just cheating them.
Wealth is as significant as beautiful music, as great literature, as masterpieces of art.”
- Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #22"
“Inner richness means having a great heart. Not only a big house, but a great heart. Inner richness implies having an expanded vision. Inner richness means having not only outer wealth, but inner wealth too. Until someone attains inner wealth and the inner kingdom, his outer affluence, outer wealth, and outer kingdom have no value.”
- Osho, "Falling in Love with Darkness, #10"
“There are many kinds of richness, and the man who is rich because of money is the lowest as far as the categories of richness are concerned. Let me say it in this way: the man of wealth is the poorest rich man. Looked at from the side of the poor, he is the richest poor man. Looked at from the side of a creative artist, of a dancer, of a musician, of a scientist, he is the poorest rich man. And as far as the world of ultimate awakening is concerned he cannot even be called rich.
Meditation will make you ultimately rich by giving you the world of your innermost being and also relatively rich, because it will release your powers of mind into certain talents that you have. My own experience is that everybody is born with a certain talent, and unless he lives that talent to its fullest, something in him will remain missing. He will go on feeling that somehow something is not there that should be.
Give the mind a rest – it needs it! It is so simple: just become a witness to it and it will give you both things.
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology, #25"
on Rolls Royces- I am not a worshiper of Poverty -
"I am not a worshiper of poverty. That's what those Rolls Royces prove. I respect wealth. Nobody before me has the guts to say it. The pope cannot say that he respects wealth, although he is the wealthiest man on the earth. I am not a hypocrite. I am the poorest man on the earth. I don't have a single cent with me. But I want to prove to these people that what attracts their mind.
I am not a hypocrite. I am the poorest man on the earth. I don't have a single cent with me. But I want to prove to these people that what attracts their mind. If there were no Rolls Royces here, perhaps there was nothing for the whole world to be asked about me, about you, about meditation, about initiation into sannyas, about love, about anything.
It is for those idiots that I am keeping all those Rolls Royces, because they cannot move their eyes away from those Rolls Royces. And meanwhile I will go on pouring other things in their minds. Without those Rolls Royces they would not have asked a single question. Those Rolls Royces are doing their work. Every idiot around the world is interested in them. And I want them to be somehow interested -- in anything in Rajneeshpuram. Then we will manage about other things.
So tell those people - anybody asks, tell that, "These Rolls Royces are for you idiots. Otherwise you are not interested in anything. Once you stop asking about Rolls Royces, then I will have to think for something else: whether to have rockets which are going to the moon. Something else I will have to think about.“
-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 4, #3"
It is part of my whole device to change the very structure of human consciousness.
The past has revered poverty, asceticism, masochistic attitudes. A man was respected if he was renouncing all that is pleasant, all that is comfortable. He was respected for torturing himself – the greater the torture, the greater the respect. The whole human past is masochistic, and all the religions have contributed to this insanity.
My effort is to change such a vast past and its influence. So it has been only a device. I have not been creating desires for materialistic things in people; they are there without anybody’s creating them. Yes, they have been repressed so deeply that people have even forgotten that they had them. I am not creating them; I simply want to remove the cover-up, the repression, and to make the person realize that he wants a Rolls Royce more than enlightenment.
This realization will be a basic step towards enlightenment, because it will make him aware of his own reality, his greed.
There was no need for ninety-three Rolls Royces. I could not use ninety-three Rolls Royces simultaneously -- the same model, the same car. But I wanted to make it clear to you that you would be ready to drop all your desires for truth, for love, for spiritual growth to have a Rolls Royce. I was knowingly creating a situation in which you would feel jealous.
All the traditions and the whole past have done just the opposite. The so-called saint, in all the traditions, lives in such a way that you will never feel jealous of him. Note that point.
You will feel sympathetic towards him, respectful towards him; but respectfulness is not your reality, sympathy is not your nature. The saint is torturing himself, that is not his nature either. He is being unnatural to gain respect, to fulfill his ego. He is not interested in spiritual growth; he is interested in respectability, in being worshipped like a god. And he is ready to do anything for it.
He is living in an illusion, and he is creating a great illusion in people who come to him. He helps them to feel that they are religious, that they are spiritual, because they respect a saint, they worship a saint. They are not yet ready to do such ascetic disciplines for themselves, but they hope some day … this is their ideal. They are completely forgetting that they are jealous human beings. And the saint is helping them to forget their jealousy; he is helping them to repress it.
My work is bound to be totally different. I want to provoke your jealousy, because that is the only way to get rid of it. First you have to know that you have it; then you can drop it, because it is misery and hell. But you can repress it so deeply that the question of dropping it does not arise.
I have lived in abundance because to me there is no division between the material and the spiritual.
The teaching to live in poverty is dangerous: you will be materially poor, and you will be spiritually poor too, because there is no division. I teach you to live richly, in abundance, materially and spiritually -- both. It is not a question of whether you should live materially in abundance, or spiritually. The basic question is whether you should live in abundance, in richness -- which is natural and existential. It is your very basic urge to blossom in abundance, to know all the colors, to know all the songs, to know all the beauties of life.
But certainly I am bound to come in conflict with the old, because the whole human past has been praising poverty and making it equal to spirituality, which is absolute nonsense.
Spirituality is the greatest richness that can happen to a man, and it contains all other richnesses. It is not against any other richness; it is simply against all kinds of poverty. So what I have been trying is something so radical that it is bound to create antagonism all around the world from every corner. People have lived with certain values for so long that although those values have given them only misery, they don't see the connection. Those values have not made them fulfilled, contented -- but they don't see the connection.
I want my people to become symbolic... to make the whole world aware that their misery is caused by their wrong values, that they are poor because they have respected poverty -- and their behavior is so insane. On the one hand they will respect poverty, and on the other hand they will say, "Serve the poor." Strange! If poverty is so spiritual then the most spiritual thing will be to make every rich man poor, to help the rich man to be poor, so he can become spiritual. Why help the poor? Do you want to destroy their spirituality? [....]
I will be condemned, I will be criticized. Every religion, every tradition, every morality, every ethical code is going to condemn me. That does not surprise me! I expect it, because what I am saying and doing is changing the very course of human consciousness.
I don’t think that by torturing yourself you can meditate more easily; on the contrary, if your body is pleasantly at ease you can meditate more easily. I don’t think that when you are fasting you can meditate. You can only think of food and nothing else; you will dream of food and nothing else. But if you are well fed, well nourished, you don’t think of food – there is no need. The body is completely satisfied, it does not create any disturbance.
To live pleasurably, to live joyously is not against meditation. It is really the basic need of meditation. I know many kinds of ascetics but I have never seen any intelligence in them, I have never seen any creativity in them. I have never seen in their eyes a light of the beyond, or in their gestures some message that cannot be said through words. They don’t have anything. They are simply starving – and starving because it fulfills the ego, because the more they starve, the more they torture themselves, more and more people come to worship them.
Now this is to me just an insane chapter in the history of man; it has to be closed. It is time that we start a new chapter – natural, existential, life-affirmative – and create a bridge between the body and the soul … not a wall but a bridge.
There is no need for any conflict and war. Fighting with yourself, you are not going to get anything; you will be simply destroying yourself slowly. All your so-called saints are mostly mentally sick, and they have made the whole of humanity sick.
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology, #9"
(The Rolex Osho’s Day-Date Diamond and Ruby in Yellow Gold was customized for Osho)
on Money
“Money is your love of things, money is your escape from persons, money is your security against death, money is your effort to control life, and money is a thousand and one things. Money is not just a note in the currency; otherwise things would have been very easy. Money is your love – your love of things, not of persons. The most comfortable love is of things because things are dead; you can possess them easily.”
- Osho, "Tao - The Three Treasures, Vol 2"
"Our whole attitude about life is money-oriented. And money is one of the most uncreative things one can become interested in. Our whole approach is power-oriented and power is destructive, not creative. A man who is after money will become destructive, because money has to be robbed, exploited; it has to be taken away from many people, only then can you have it. Power simply means you have to make many people impotent, you have to destroy them — only then will you be powerful, can you be powerful."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"A man becomes too much attached to money — money is accidental. It has nothing to do with essential life. A man becomes too much attached to his house or to his car, or to his wife, or to her husband, to children, to relationship. Relationship is accidental; it has nothing essential in it. It is not your real being. And in this century, the twentieth century, the problem has become too deep. There are people who call the twentieth century ‘the accidental century’ — they are right People are living too much identified with the non-essential: money, power, prestige, respectability. You will have to leave all that behind when you go. Even an Alexander has to go empty-handed."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"If you love money and you want to be creative, you cannot become creative. The very ambition for money is going to destroy your creativity. If you want fame, then forget about creativity. Fame comes easier if you are destructive."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"If you know how to enjoy a roseflower, a green tree in your courtyard, the mountains, the river, the stars, the moon, if you know how to enjoy people, you will not be so much obsessed with money. The obsession is arising because we have forgotten the language of celebration. Hence money has become the only thing to brag about — your life is so empty. I will not tell you to renounce money. That has been told to you down the ages; it has not changed you. I am going to tell you something else: celebrate life, and the obsession with money disappears automatically. And when it goes on its own accord, it leaves no scratches, it leaves no wounds behind, it leaves no trace behind."
- Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"
"Searching for money, what are you really searching? You are searching power, you are searching strength. Searching for prestige, political authority, what are you searching? You are searching power, strength — and strength is all the time available just by the corner. You are searching in wrong places."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"We have been distracted into unnatural motivations: money, prestige, power. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you money. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you power, prestige. Watching the butterfly is not going to help you economically, politically, socially. These things are not paying, but these things make you happy."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"You are not feeling empty because you don’t have much money. You are feeling empty because you have not yet encountered your real self, you have not come to your authentic individuality."
- Osho, "Be Still and Know"
"When you don’t have any money, any things, any house — if you are unattached, what is the difficulty in it? But when you have everything and you remain unattached — a beggar in the palace — then something very deep has been attained."
- Osho, "And The Flowers Showered"
"I am not against money, remember. Don’t misinterpret me: I am not against money — I am not against anything. Money is a means. If you are happy and you have money, you will become more happy. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will become more unhappy because what will you do with your money? Your money will enhance your pattern, whatsoever it is. If you are miserable and you have power, what will you do with your power? You will poison yourself more with your power, you will become more miserable. But people go on looking for money as if money is going to bring happiness. People go on looking for respectability as if respectability is going to give you happiness. People are ready, at any moment, to change their pattern, to change their ways, if more money is available somewhere else."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"The materialistic pattern of life is that where money predominates over everything. The non-materialistic life is that where money is just a means — happiness predominates, joy predominates; your own individuality predominates. You know who you are and where you are going, and you are not distracted. Then suddenly you will see your life has a meditative quality to it."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"Have you watched it? A man who is too greedy about money, by and by starts having the qualities of money. He becomes just money. He loses spirituality, he is no more a spirit. He is reduced to a thing. If you love money, you will become like money. If you love your house, by and by you will become material. Whatsoever you love, you become. Love is alchemical. Never love the wrong thing, because it will transform you. Nothing is so transforming as love. Love something which can raise you higher, to higher altitudes. Love something beyond you."
- Osho, "The Beloved, Vol 1"
"Money should not be in the hands of individuals; otherwise it will create this problem of being burdened with guilt. And money can make people’s lives very rich. If the commune owns the money, the commune can give you all the facilities that you need, all the education, all creative dimensions of life."
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology"
"One of the greatest problems that money creates is that you never know whether you are loved or your money is loved, whether you are desirable or your money is desirable. And it is so difficult to figure out, that one would have preferred not to have had money; at least life would have been simple."
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology"
"People go on postponing everything that is meaningful. Tomorrow they will laugh; today, money has to be gathered… more money, more power, more things, more gadgets. Tomorrow they will love — today there is no time. But tomorrow never comes, and one day they find themselves burdened with all kinds of gadgets, burdened with money. They have come to the top of the ladder — and there is nowhere to go except to jump in a lake."
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology"
"The mind always hankers for more and more. If you have money, it hankers for more money; if you have prestige, it hankers for more prestige; if you have knowledge, it hankers for more knowledge. Mind lives in the “more.”"
- Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"
"There are many kinds of richness, and the man who is rich because of money is the lowest as far as the categories of richness are concerned. Let me say it in this way: the man of wealth is the poorest rich man. Looked at from the side of the poor, he is the richest poor man. Looked at from the side of a creative artist, of a dancer, of a musician, of a scientist, he is the poorest rich man. And as far as the world of ultimate awakening is concerned he cannot even be called rich."
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology"
"You earn money, you become the richest man in the world — you become an Andrew Carnegie. And at the peak, when you have become the richest man in the world, suddenly you see your whole life has been a wastage. Money is there, but there is no contentment inside — and life has gone down the drain.
You can see the misery of an Andrew Carnegie. When he was dying, somebody who was writing a biography said to him, “You must be the most contented man in the world.”
He said, “Contented? I am the MOST discontented man in the world! Don’t you know I am the wealthiest man in the world? That is my discontent. Now I know there is no more to wealth: all that is possible I have attained, and yet I am dying empty. My life has been just a wastage. Next time, if God gives me another opportunity, I am not going to try money any more — it has failed.”"
- Osho, "Be Still and Know"
"What is wrong in having money? One should not be possessive; one should be able to use it. And Jews know how to use it! One should not be miserly. Money has to be created and money has to be used. Money is a beautiful invention, a great blessing, if rightly used. It makes many things possible. Money is a magical phenomenon. If you have a ten-rupee note in your pocket, you have thousands of things in your pocket. You can have anything with those ten rupees. You can materialize a man who will massage your body the whole night! Or you can materialize food or you can materialize ANYTHING! That ten-rupee note carries many possibilities. You cannot carry all those possibilities with you if there is no note; then your life will be very limited. You can have a man who can massage your body, but then that is the only possibility you have with you. If you suddenly feel hungry or thirsty, then that man cannot do anything else. But a ten-rupee note can do many things, millions of things; it has infinite possibilities. It is one of the greatest inventions of man; there is no need to be against it. I am not against it.
Use it. Don’t cling to it. Clinging is bad. The more you cling to money, the poorer the world becomes because of your clinging, because money is multiplied if it is always moving from one hand to another hand. In English we have another name for money which is more significant — it is “currency.” That simply indicates that money should always remain moving like a current. It should always be on the move from one hand to another hand. The more it moves the better.
For example, if I have a ten-rupee note and I keep it to myself, then there is only one ten-rupee note in the world. If I give it to you and you give it to somebody else and each person goes on giving, if it goes through ten hands then we have a hundred rupees, we have used a hundred rupees’ worth of utilities; the ten rupees is multiplied by ten. And Jews know how to use money; nothing is wrong in it. Yes, greed is bad. Greed means you become obsessed with money; you don’t use it as a means, it becomes the end. That is bad, and it is bad whether you are a Jew or a Jaina, Hindu or Mohammedan; it doesn’t matter."
- Osho, "Ahh This"
"If you watch carefully, money, power, prestige — nothing satisfies. On the contrary, they make you more discontented. Why? — because when you were poor there was a hope that one day the money was going to happen and all would be settled and settled forever, and then you would relax and enjoy. Now that has happened, and there seems to be no sign of any relaxation. In fact, you are more tense than before, you are more anxiety-ridden than before.
Money has brought a few blessings, but in the same measure it has brought many curses too. You can have a bigger house, but now you will have less peace. You can have a bigger bank balance, but you will also have a bigger madness, anxiety, neurosis, psychosis. Money has brought a few things which are good; in the wake of it many other things have arrived which are not good at all. And if you look at the whole thing, the whole effort has been a sheer wastage. And now you cannot have even the hope that the poor man can have.
The rich man becomes hopeless. He knows now the money will go on increasing and nothing is going to happen — just death, only death. He has tasted all kinds of things; now he only feels a tastelessness. A kind of death has already happened, because he cannot conceive of how to fulfill that desire for expansion.
- Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"
Look at American newspapers and you will see that you are missing: happiness can be purchased just through money. They create a feeling that you are missing something; then you start working for it, then you earn money, then you purchase it. And then you feel that you have been deceived. But that feeling is not very deep, because before you feel that you have been deceived some new deceptions have entered the mind, and now they are pulling you ahead. You must have a hill station house, or you must have a summer resort, or you must have a yacht -- something is always there to be achieved. Only then will you be happy. They will go on pulling you up to your death. Until you die, those advertisements, that propaganda, will go on pulling you."
- Osho, "A Bird on the Wing"
"The materialistic pattern of life is that where money predominates over everything. The non-materialistic life is that where money is just a means — happiness predominates, joy predominates; your own individuality predominates. You know who you are and where you are going, and you are not distracted. Then suddenly you will see your life has a meditative quality to it."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"One of the greatest problems that money creates is that you never know whether you are loved or your money is loved, whether you are desirable or your money is desirable. And it is so difficult to figure out, that one would have preferred not to have had money; at least life would have been simple."
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology"
"A real spirituality must be rooted in earthliness. Any spirituality that denies the earth, rejects the earth, becomes abstract, becomes airy-fairy. It has no more blood in it; it is no more alive. Yes, Jews are very earth-bound. And what is wrong in having money? One should not be possessive; one should be able to use it. And Jews know how to use it! One should not be miserly. Money has to be created and money has to be used. Money is a beautiful invention, a great blessing, if rightly used. It makes many things possible. Money is a magical phenomenon.
If you have a ten-rupee note in your pocket, you have thousands of things in your pocket. You can have anything with those ten rupees. You can materialize a man who will massage your body the whole night! Or you can materialize food or you can materialize ANYTHING! That ten-rupee note carries many possibilities. You cannot carry all those possibilities with you if there is no note; then your life will be very limited. You can have a man who can massage your body, but then that is the only possibility you have with you. If you suddenly feel hungry or thirsty, then that man cannot do anything else. But a ten-rupee note can do many things, millions of things; it has infinite possibilities. It is one of the greatest inventions of man; there is no need to be against it. I am not against it.
Use it. Don't cling to it. Clinging is bad. The more you cling to money, the poorer the world becomes because of your clinging, because money is multiplied if it is always moving from one hand to another hand. In English we have another name for money which is more significant -- it is "currency." That simply indicates that money should always remain moving like a current. It should always be on the move from one hand to another hand. The more it moves the better. For example, if I have a ten-rupee note and I keep it to myself, then there is only one ten-rupee note in the world. If I give it to you and you give it to somebody else and each person goes on giving, if it goes through ten hands then we have a hundred rupees, we have used a hundred rupees' worth of utilities; the ten rupees is multiplied by ten. And Jews know how to use money; nothing is wrong in it. Yes, greed is bad. Greed means you become obsessed with money; you don't use it as a means, it becomes the end. That is bad, and it is bad whether you are a Jew or a Jaina, Hindu or Mohammedan; it doesn't matter."
- Osho, "Ahh This"
"Our whole attitude about life is money-oriented. And money is one of the most uncreative things one can become interested in. Our whole approach is power-oriented and power is destructive, not creative. A man who is after money will become destructive, because money has to be robbed, exploited; it has to be taken away from many people, only then can you have it. Power simply means you have to make many people impotent, you have to destroy them -- only then will you be powerful, can you be powerful. Remember: these are destructive acts. A creative act enhances the beauty of the world; it gives something to the world, it never takes anything from it. A creative person comes into the world, enhances the beauty of the world -- a song here, a painting there. He makes the world dance better, enjoy better, love better, meditate better. When he leaves this world, he leaves a better world behind him. Nobody may know him; somebody may know him -- that is not the point. But he leaves the world a better world, tremendously fulfilled because his life has been of some intrinsic value.
Money, power, prestige, are uncreative; not only uncreative, but destructive activities. Beware of them! And if you beware of them you can become creative very easily. I am not saying that your creativity is going to give you power, prestige, money. No, I cannot promise you any rose-gardens. It may give you trouble. It may force you to live a poor man's life. All that I can promise you is that deep inside you will be the richest man possible; deep inside you will be fulfilled; deep inside you will be full of joy and celebration. You will be continuously receiving more and more blessings from God. Your life will be a life of benediction.
But it is possible that outwardly you may not be famous, you may not have money, you may not succeed in the so-called world. But to succeed in this so-called world is to fail deeply, is to fail in the inside world. And what are you going to do with the whole world at your feet if you have lost your own self? What will you do if you possess the whole world and you don't possess yourself? A creative person possesses his own being; he is a master. That's why in the East we have been calling sannyasins 'swamis'. 'Swami' means a master. Beggars have been called swamis -- masters. Emperors we have known, but they proved in the final account, in the final conclusion of their lives, that they were beggars. A man who is after money and power and prestige is a beggar, because he continuously begs. He has nothing to give to the world."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"Everybody is immensely strong because everybody is immensely divine. Everybody is strong because everybody is rooted in God, in the very origin of existence. Remember it The human mind tends to forget it. When you forget it, you become weak. When you become weak,.you start trying some artificial ways to become strong. That's what millions of people are doing. Searching for money, what are you really searching? You are searching power, you are searching strength. Searching for prestige, political authority, what are you searching? You are searching power, strength -- and strength is all the time available just by the corner. You are searching in wrong places."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"Don't be too much concerned about money, because that is the greatest distraction against happiness. And the irony of ironies is that people think they will be happy when they have money. Money has nothing to do with happiness. If you are happy and you have money, you can use it for happiness. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will use that money for more unhappiness. Because money is simply a neutral force.
I am not against money, remember. Don't misinterpret me: I am not against money -- I am not against anything. Money is a means. If you are happy and you have money, you will become more happy. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will become more unhappy because what will you do with your money? Your money will enhance your pattern, whatsoever it is. If you are miserable and you have power, what will you do with your power? You will poison yourself more with your power, you will become more miserable. But people go on looking for money as if money is going to bring happiness. People go on looking for respectability as if respectability is going to give you happiness. People are ready, at any moment, to change their pattern, to change their ways, if more money is available somewhere else."
- Osho, A Sudden Clash of Thunder
"You earn money, and one day money is there -- then life says to you, 'What have you got?' But you don't listen. Now you think you have to put your money into politics, you have to become a prime minister or a president -- then everything will be okay. One day you are a prime minister, and life again says, 'What have you got?' You don't listen. You go on thinking of something else and something else and something else. Life is vast -- that's why many lives are wasted."
- Osho, The Art of Dying
"We have been distracted into unnatural motivations: money, prestige, power. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you money. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you power, prestige. Watching the butterfly is not going to help you economically, politically, socially. These things are not paying, but these things make you happy."
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"
"People go on postponing everything that is meaningful. Tomorrow they will laugh; today, money has to be gathered… more money, more power, more things, more gadgets. Tomorrow they will love — today there is no time. But tomorrow never comes, and one day they find themselves burdened with all kinds of gadgets, burdened with money. They have come to the top of the ladder — and there is nowhere to go except to jump in a lake."
- Osho, "Beyond Psychology"
|
Oshofriends Links
"Just sitting silently doing nothing, Witnessing whatsoever is happening, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself."
All Osho Talks on this site © OSHO International Foundation .
2007 ~ 2024. Oshofriends.com by Flowerrain - The New Man