According to Osho, many revered spiritual leaders share responsibility for global poverty because they preached turning inward while dismissing outer transformation through ideas like fate or karma. This one-sidedness diverted energy from improving material conditions, keeping societies lopsided. Real spirituality demands a tightrope balance: cultivate meditation and awareness while actively developing the outer world. Wholeness—inner and outer—alone is holy and prevents poverty’s persistence.
Don’t just meditate and accept fate—grow inside while also working to improve the world, or poverty remains.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho: are krishna, mahavira, buddha and lao tzu also responsible for the poverty in the world, just as jesus christ is? I myself want to serve the poor and the downtrodden. Can I do it with your blessings?
The first technological devices were invented in China, but science did not develop there. And the sole cause was Lao Tzu, because Lao Tzu said that to invent a machine is to cheat nature. The story is that an old man, a gardener, was drawing water from a well with his young son. Both were perspiring -- it was a hot summer day -- and they were pulling up the water and watering the trees. A man of scientific mind, a Confucian, was passing by. He looked -- the old man was really old, must have been beyond ninety. At this age he was working so hard, from the early morning to the evening, and the well was very deep, sixty, seventy feet deep. "He has wasted his whole life just watering trees, and now the same will happen to his son. His whole life from the morning to the…
Osho. Are you also the poor man's guru?
Certainly! Whenever you give me an opportunity to contradict myself I never lose it. I contain contradictions. I am vast. I never feel uneasy about contradictions; I love them. Yes, I am a poor man's guru. But if you understand me there is no contradiction. My definition of a rich man and my definition of a poor man have to be understood well. Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor because theirs is the kingdom of God." And mind you, he does not say theirs will BE the kingdom of God; he says theirs IS the kingdom of God. Let me repeat it: he says, "Blessed are the poor, because theirs is the kingdom of God." But who are the poor in Jesus' definition? -- the same people I call rich. I call a man rich who has become absolutely frustrated with the world, who has known all that it can…
Osho, “Ashanaya vai patmamatiḥ.” That is, hunger is the root of all sin; it corrupts the intellect. Osho, when and why did people who understood this aphorism from the Aitareya Brahmana begin to honor poverty?
Without materialism there can be no prosperity. Without materialism, the Aitareya Brahmana’s aphorism cannot be fulfilled—poverty will remain. What Gulzarilal Nanda is saying—give him a new name: Gulzari Lal Andha, Mr. Blind. These blind people can’t even see that for centuries the same nonsense has been repeated: “We must cultivate spiritual qualities.” People are dying of hunger; there is no bread in their stomachs; and these men want to develop their spiritual qualities! These full-bellied men keep chanting Rama’s name. They think that since their bellies are full, everyone else’s must be too. In this country ninety percent are hungry; fifty percent are utterly hungry. And you want to cultivate spiritual qualities in them! The possibility that they might turn toward materialism gives Gulzari Lal Andha great pain. And why is he in pain? Because the trade is in danger. You have been cultivating spiritual qualities for ten thousand years—how…
Osho, in a country like India, where inequality and poverty have deep roots, don’t your teachings help maintain the status quo? Religion in the past offered no effective challenge to feudal injustice. How are you dealing with the apparatus that sustains poverty, unemployment, and corruption?
On the other hand, in my ashram, talent is coming from the West—and you won’t let them come. Scientists, engineers, doctors, physicians, professors want to come and live here, but Morarji Desai doesn’t want to let them in. All Indian embassies abroad have been instructed: if anyone wishes to come to my ashram, do not grant entry. And you know Indian “efficiency”... such foolishness that they even write such things in official letters. A famous dentist wanted to come and live in India. He wrote to apply, and the Indian embassy in America replied: if you wish to go to Shri Rajneesh Ashram, Poona, permission cannot be granted. They wrote that outright. What to say of Indian efficiency! At least keep it hidden. If you wish to go to any other ashram, permission can be granted. But he doesn’t wish to go to any other ashram. I could gather the…
Why is india so poor?
The so-called saints are responsible. Down the ages, India has lived with a wrong philosophy -- a philosophy that teaches other-worldliness, a philosophy that teaches that the world is illusion and only the other world is true. You have not seen the other world, the true world; you have to believe. And the world that you have seen, and see every day and experience every day, is illusory, is maya. This foolish philosophy is the root cause of India's poverty. If the world is illusory then why care about science, why care about technology? What is the point? If the world is illusory, poverty is also an illusion, the beggar on the street is also an illusion, the starving person is also an illusion. The West has lived with the idea that only this world is real. Hence it has become rich, at least outwardly rich. The West has denied…