Question 4
Osho,
Why do i always feel that sex and money are somehow deeply connected with each other?

 

 

Nirmal, they are connected. Money is power; hence it can be used in many ways. It can purchase sex, and down the ages that has been the case. Kings have been keeping thousands of wives. Just in this century, the twentieth century, just thirty years ago, forty years ago, the nizam of Hyderabad had five hundred wives!

 

It is said that Krishna had sixteen thousand wives. I used to think that this was too much, but when I came to know that the nizam of Hyderabad had five hundred wives just forty years ago, then it doesn't seem too much -- only thirty-two times more! It seems humanly possible. If you can manage five hundred, why not sixteen thousand?

 

All the kings of the world were doing that. Women were used like cattle. In the great kings' palaces the women were numbered. It was difficult to remember names, so the king could say to his servants, "Bring number four hundred and one" -- because how to remember five hundred names? Numbers...just as soldiers are numbered; they don't have names but only numbers. And it makes a lot of difference.

 

Numbers are absolutely mathematical. Numbers don't breathe, they don't have any heart. Numbers don't have any soul. When a soldier dies in the war, on the notice board you simply read, "Number 15 died." Now, "Number 15 died" is one thing; if you say exactly the name of the person, that is totally different. Then he was a husband and the wife will be a widow now; he was a father and the children will be orphans now; he was the only support of his old parents, now there will be no support. A family is deserted, the light of a family has disappeared. But when number fifteen dies, number fifteen has no wife, remember; number fifteen doesn't have any children, number fifteen doesn't have any old parents. Number fifteen is just number fifteen! And number fifteen is replaceable -- another person will come and will become number fifteen. But no individual human being is replaceable. It is a trick, a psychological trick, to give numbers to soldiers. It helps...nobody takes any note of numbers disappearing; new numbers go on coming and replacing the old numbers.

 

Wives were numbered, and it depended on how much money you had. In fact, in the old days, that was the only way to know how rich a man was; it was a kind of measurement. How many wives has he?

 

Now, Hindus, particularly ARYA SAMAJIS, criticize Hazrat Mohammed very much for having nine wives -- and they don't think of Krishna who had sixteen thousand wives. And he is not an exception, he is the rule. In this country, as in other countries, down the ages, the woman has been exploited -- and the way to exploit is money! The whole world has suffered through prostitution, it degrades human beings. And what is a prostitute? She has been reduced to a mechanism, and you can purchase her with money.

 

But remember perfectly well that your wives are not very different either. A prostitute is like a taxi, and your wife is like your own car, it is a permanent arrangement. Poor people cannot make permanent arrangements, they have to use taxis. Rich people can make permanent arrangements -- they can have their own cars. And the richer they are, the more cars they can have.

 

I know one person who had three hundred and sixty-five cars -- one car for every day. And he had one car made in solid gold....

 

Money is power, and power can purchase anything. So, Nirmal, you are not wrong that there is some connection between sex and money.

 

One thing more has to be understood. The person who represses sex becomes more money-minded, because money becomes a substitute for sex. Money becomes his love. See the greedy person, the money maniac: the way he touches hundred-rupee notes -- he touches them as if he is caressing his beloved; the way he looks at gold, look at his eyes -- so romantic. Even great poets will feel inferior. Money has become his love, his goddess. In India, people even worship money. There is a particular day to worship money -- actual money -- notes and coins, rupees, they worship. Intelligent people doing such stupid things!

 

Sex can be diverted in many ways. It can become anger if repressed. Hence the soldier has to be deprived of sex, so that the sex energy becomes his anger, his irritation, his destructiveness so he can be more violent than he ever was. Sex can be diverted into ambition. Repress sex: once sex is repressed, you have energy available, you can channel it into any direction. It can become a search for political power, it can become a search for more money, it can become a search for fame, name, respectability, asceticism, etcetera.

 

Man has only one energy -- that energy is sex. There are not many energies within you. And only the one energy has been used for all kinds of drives. It is a tremendously potential energy.

 

People are after money in the hope that when they have more money, they can have more sex. They can have far more beautiful women or men, they can have far more variety. Money gives them freedom of choice.

 

The person who is free of sexuality, whose sexuality has become a transformed phenomenon, is also free of money, is also free of ambition, is also free of the desire to be famous. Immediately all these things disappear from his life. The moment sex energy starts rising upwards, the moment sex energy starts becoming love, prayer, meditation, then all lower manifestations disappear.

 

But sex and money are deeply associated. Your idea, Nirmal, has some truth in it.

 

A wizened little client in a fancy whorehouse is heard shouting from the upper floor: "No! Not that way! I want it my way, the way we do it in Brooklyn. So quit it! Do it my way or forget it!"

 

The madam climbs the stairs and erupts into the girl's room. "What is the matter with you, Zelda?" she says. "Give it to him his way."

 

She leaves, the girl lies down, and the man makes love to her in perfectly routine fashion. She sits up, puts on her dressing gown, lights a cigarette and says, "That's your way, Hymie, huh?"

 

"That's it," he says proudly from the bed.

 

"That's how you do it in Brooklyn?"

 

"Right you are!"

 

"So what is so different about it?"

 

"In Brooklyn I get it for nothing."

 

People can be so obsessed with money, as much as they are obsessed with sex. The obsession can be shifted towards money. But money gives you purchasing power and you can purchase anything. You cannot purchase love, of course, but you can purchase sex. Sex is a commodity, love is not.

 

You cannot purchase prayer, but you can purchase priests. Priests are commodities -- prayer is not a commodity. And that which can be purchased is ordinary, mundane. That which cannot be purchased is sacred. Remember it: the sacred is beyond money, the mundane is always within money's power.

 

And sex is the most mundane thing in the world.

 

A man enters a modern Chicago whorehouse-nightclub run by the gangland syndicate which is now planning to streamline its image. The whorehouse takes up various floors of a skyscraper hotel, and he is received by a lovely young receptionist in a sexy uniform, who sits him at a teakwood interview desk and asks how much money he wants to spend. She explains that prices range from five dollars up to one thousand dollars, depending on the quality and number of girls wanted. Everything is shown on the television intercom. The higher prices are for the lower floors, which have higher ceilings, mirrors over the beds, three and four girls in bed with you at one time, etcetera. Lower prices are for lesser delights, ending with five dollars for a "coal-black nigger mammy with big nostrils," as the lovely young receptionist explains.

 

The client thinks it over. "Haven't you anything cheaper than five?" he asks at last.

 

"Of course," says the receptionist. "Seventh floor -- roof garden. One dollar a shot. Self-service."

 

Money is certainly associated with sex, because sex can be purchased. And anything that can be purchased is part of the world of money.

 

Remember one thing: your life will remain empty if you know only things which can be purchased, if you know only things which can be sold. Your life will remain utterly futile if your acquaintance is only with commodities. Become acquainted with things which cannot be purchased and cannot be sold -- then for the first time you start growing wings, for the first time you start soaring high.

 

One great king, Bimbisara, reached Mahavira. He had heard that Mahavira had attained DHYANA -- meditation, samadhi. In Jaina terminology it is called SAMAYIK -- the ultimate state of prayer or meditation. Bimbisara had everything of this world. He became worried: "What is this samayik? What is this samadhi?" He could not rest at ease, because now for the first time he was aware that there was one thing he had not got -- and he was not a man to remain contented without getting anything that took his fancy.

 

He traveled to the mountains, found Mahavira, and said, "How much do you want for your samayik? I have come to purchase it. I can give you anything you desire, but give me this samayik, this samadhi, this meditation -- what is this? Where is it? First let me look at it!"

 

Mahavira was surprised at the whole stupidity of the king, but he was a very polite man, soft, graceful. He said, "You need not have traveled so far. In your own capital I have a follower who has attained to the same state, and he is so poor that he may be willing to sell it. I am not willing, because I don't need any money. You can see I am naked, I don't need any clothes, I am utterly satisfied -- I don't have any needs, so what will I do with your money? Even if you give me your whole kingdom I am not going to accept it. I had my own kingdom -- that I have renounced. I had all that you have got!"

 

And Bimbisara knew it, that Mahavira had had all and had renounced, so it was difficult to persuade this man to sell. Certainly, money meant nothing to him. So he said, "Okay, who is this man? Give me his address."

 

And Mahavira told him, "He is very poor, lives in the poorest part of your city. You may never have visited that part. This is the address...you go and ask him. He is your subject, he can sell it to you, and he is in much need. He has a wife and children and a big family and is really poor."

 

It was a joke. Bimbisara returned happy, went directly to the poor parts of his capital where he had never been. People could not believe their eyes -- his golden chariot and thousands of soldiers following him.

 

They stopped in front of the poor man's hut. The poor man came, touched the feet of the king, and said, "What can I do? Just order me."

 

The king said, "I have come to purchase the thing called samadhi, meditation, and I am ready to pay any price you ask."

 

The poor man started crying, tears rolled down his cheeks, and he said, "I am sorry. I can give you my life, I can die for you right now, I can cut off my head -- but how can I give you my samadhi? It is not sellable, it is not purchasable -- it is not a commodity at all. It is a state of consciousness. Mahavira must have played a joke on you."

 

Unless you know something which cannot be sold and cannot be purchased, unless you know something which is beyond money, you have not known real life. Sex is not beyond money -- love is. Transform your sex into love, and transform your love into prayer -- so one day even kings like Bimbisara may feel jealous of you. Become a Mahavira, a Buddha, become a Christ, a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu. Only then have you lived, only then have you known the mysteries of life!

 

Money and sex are the lowest, and people are living only in the world of money and sex -- and they think they are living. They are not living, they are only vegetating, they are only dying. This is not life. Life has many more kingdoms to be revealed, an infinite treasure which is not of this world. Neither sex can give it to you, nor money. But you can attain to it.

 

You can use your sex energy to attain it, and you can use your money power to attain it. Of course, it cannot be attained by money or by sex, but you can use your sex energy, your money power, in such an artful way that you can create a space in which the beyond can descend.

 

I am not against sex, and I am not against money, remember it. Always remember! But I am certainly for helping you go beyond them -- I am certainly for going beyond.

 

Use everything as a step. Don't deny anything. If you have money, you can meditate more easily than the poor person. You can have more time to yourself. You can have a small temple in your house; you can have a garden, rosebushes, where meditation will be easier. You can allow yourself a few holidays in the mountains, you can go into isolation and live without worry. If you have money, use it for something which money cannot purchase, but for which money can create a space.

 

Sexual energy is a wastage if it only remains confined to sex, but it becomes a great blessing if it starts transforming its quality: sex not for sex' sake -- use sex as a communion of love. Use sex as a meeting of two souls, not only of two bodies. Use sex as a meditative dance of two persons' energies. And the dance is far richer when man and woman are dancing together -- and sex is the ultimate in dance: two energies meeting, merging, dancing, rejoicing.

 

But use it as a stepping-stone, as a jumping-board. And when you reach the climax of your sex orgasm, become aware of what is happening, and you will be surprised -- time has disappeared, mind has disappeared, ego has disappeared. For a moment there is utter silence. This silence is the real thing!

 

This silence can be attained through other means, too, and with less wastage of energy. This silence, this mindlessness, this timelessness, can be attained through meditation. In fact, if a person consciously goes into his sex experience, he is bound to become a meditator sooner or later. His consciousness of the sex experience is bound to make him aware that the same can happen without any sexuality involved in it. The same can happen just sitting silently by yourself, doing nothing. The mind can be dropped, time can be dropped, and the moment you drop mind and time and the ego, you are orgasmic.

 

The sexual orgasm is very momentary, and whatsoever is momentary brings frustration in its wake, brings misery and unhappiness and sadness and repentance. But the quality of being orgasmic can become a continuity in you, a continuum -- it can become your very flavor. But it is possible only through meditation, not through sex alone.

 

Use sex, use money, use the body, use the world, but we have to reach God. Let God remain always the goal.

 

Enough for today.

 

- Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2, #4"