People ask me why there are not many Indians here listening to me. It is not surprising; they are not interested in meditation. Their interest is in material things, their whole obsession is with matter. Of course they talk about spirituality but that is mere talk, a hangover from the past. It gives them a good feeling: at least they are spiritual. If they are missing in material things they can brag about their spirituality. But to me, spiritualism is a higher stage than materialism: materialism functions as a stepping-stone. Only a rich country starts feeling spiritual poverty. And if you have started feeling spiritual poverty then there are only two possibilities: either you commit suicide or you go through an inner transformation.

 

Meditation is the method of inner transformation. When suicide and meditation remain the only two alternatives and nothing else is left -- either destroy yourself because your whole life is meaningless, or transform yourself into a new plane of being -- one has to choose between suicide and meditation.

 

The rich countries of the world have always been in this dilemma of choosing between suicide and meditation. Rich countries suffer more from suicide, from madness, than poor countries. A poor person has no time to think about suicide; he's so preoccupied with life. A poor person has no time to think of transforming his energies; he's so occupied with how to feed his children, how to have a shelter. He's not interested at all in anything else higher than the body, deeper than the body -- and it is natural, I am not condemning it. It is absolutely natural, it is how it should be. That's why poor countries of the world are leaning more and more towards communism, and the capitalist countries of the world are leaning more and more towards spiritualism. Marx's prediction has failed.

 

Marx has said that rich countries will become communist: it has proved nonsense. Only poor countries have become communist. Russia was one of the most poverty-stricken countries, so was China, and so is India. India can be a victim of communism any day: it is preparing, it is on the way.

 

America has not turned communist. Marx predicted that rich countries would become communist. I predict that rich countries always become religious, poor countries become communist. And once, through communism, a country becomes rich, it will start searching and seeking for religion. That's what is happening deep down in the Russian soul now. Now Russia has come to a point where it can again think of God and meditation, prayer. You will be surprised to know that in Russia people meet in secrecy to pray, because prayer is not allowed by the government any more. To be religious is to be a criminal.

 

Here, there are temples and nobody goes, and churches are there and people have to be persuaded somehow to go to the churches, at least on Sunday. People have to be bribed to go to the temples, to the churches, to the mosques, to the gurudwaras. Can you conceive of a country where people meet in secrecy, in their basements, to pray silently, so that nobody can hear? Deep in the Russian soul religion is surfacing again; it HAS to surface. Now Russia is rich enough to think of higher things.

 

In my vision of life materialism and spiritualism are not contraries; materialism paves the way for religion. Hence I am utterly materialistic and utterly spiritualistic. That is one of the most fundamental teachings that I am delivering to you: never create an antagonism between the body and the soul, between the world and God. Never create any antagonism between materialism and spiritualism -- they go together, just as body and soul. Remain materialistic and use your materialism as a stepping-stone towards spirituality. That creates much confusion in people's minds because they have always been thinking that poverty is something spiritual. That is utter nonsense. Poverty is the most unspiritual thing in the world. A poor man cannot be spiritual. He can try, but his spirituality will remain superficial. He has not yet been disillusioned by riches -- how can he be spiritual? A great disillusionment is needed, a great disillusionment with the outer world; then you turn in. The turning in comes only at a certain point when you are utterly disillusioned with the outside -- when you have seen the world, you have lived the world, you have experienced and you have come to know that there is nothing in it, all soap bubbles, momentary experiences. They promise much but they deliver nothing, and in the end only emptiness is left in your hands. The outer world can only give you death and nothing else. Life has to be searched for within. The sources of life are IN you.

 

The tree is in the seed. If you cut the seed open you will not find the tree, true, because that is not the way to find it. You will have to let the seed grow; then the blueprint that is hidden in the seed comes out. When a child is conceived in a mother's womb he is just a seed, but he has all the blueprint, all the possibilities -- what kind of body he will have, what kind of face, what color of eyes, hair, height, age, how long he will live, healthy or unhealthy, man or woman, black or white -- all is contained in the seed. Life grows out of that seed.

 

Meditation is turning back towards the innermost core from where all has arisen -- the body has arisen, the desires have arisen, the thoughts have arisen, the mind has arisen. You have to go back to the source. Religion is a return to the source -- and to know the source is to know God. To know the source is to know the goal, because they are both one. To come back to your innermost core, from where you had started, means you have come to the ultimate where you wanted to reach. The circle is full. There is a moment where the alpha becomes the omega, and then there is fulfillment. When the circle is complete there is fulfillment.

 

And that is the whole teaching of THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER of Master Lu-tsu. He's trying to make the path clear to you: how the circle can be complete, how the light can circulate, how you can move inwards, how you can also have a little bit of sky, a little bit of heaven. And then you can be happy anywhere -- even in hell you will be happy.

 

Right now, as you are, you would be unhappy anywhere, even in heaven. You will find ways and means of being unhappy there too, because you will carry all your jealousies, all your anger, all your greed, all your possessiveness. You will carry all your rage, all your sexuality, all your repressions; you will carry this whole luggage. The moment you reach heaven, you will create hell around yourself there too, because you will be carrying the seeds of hell.

 

- Osho, "The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2, #1"