According to Osho, India’s poverty stems from idealizing renunciation: after Buddha and Mahavira, poverty was equated with holiness, so the masses accepted deprivation as blessed. Yet only voluntary poverty—chosen after abundance—can yield ‘richness’: inner freedom, peace, and dignity beyond anxiety. Compulsory, inherited poverty is misery; conscious simplicity after fulfillment creates authentic wealth of being, not social destitution.
Don’t think being poor is holy; only when you freely choose a simple life after having enough can it feel rich inside—being born poor just hurts.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what are the causes of poverty in india, and the downfall of the economic condition? How can india come out of this mess and create richness?
Don't harm anybody, but don't let anybody harm you. Then only can a nonviolent person survive in the world, and not become a coward. Jesus says, "If somebody hits one of your cheeks, give him the other cheek too." Christians are hypocrites, they have never followed it. They have been killing, they have been murdering, they have been burning living people. They have been doing everything which goes against Jesus -- and still they go on preaching Jesus in the churches. And no Christian raises the question: "Our lifestyle for two thousand years is absolutely against the teachings of Jesus." The West has made an arrangement: a teaching is a teaching; it is good, pay respect to it. The Bible is holy -- but your religion is Sunday religion, only on a holiday. You go to the church and that's all. Six days do everything wrong that you can do;…
Osho, India has been a prosperous country!
No. Only a certain class in India was prosperous. India as a whole was never prosperous; only some strata were. From that affluent class came the religious people. From that affluent class the talk of religion also spread. India was never prosperous. As a society it was never prosperous. But yes, India was contented in its poverty. Therefore, rebellion against poverty never arose. Do not take this to mean that India was prosperous. India would still have been content in its poverty if the contact with the West had not come. The poor in India had no anxiety about it. But contact with the West created restlessness, and it planted in the poor the idea that being poor is the result of the social order. Poverty is not a necessity. But the affluent in India had convinced the poor that poverty is the fruit of your own sins, that being…
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…
A few have ridden that golden bird for a long time. But real India has always been hungry, destitute, and meek. Real India has never been wealthy. After thousands of years of poverty, slowly we became reconciled to it. We dropped even the idea that we could be prosperous. Not only dropped the idea—we developed a philosophy that poverty is sublime, and wealth is something to be kicked away. This is cunning in the extreme. It is the poor man’s last consolation—to deem wealth not worth having. He says, “What is there in riches? Gold is dust!” The country can’t even get dust, and we call gold dust! We have died hungry, for millennia. We have forgotten that we could also live with a full belly. Long hunger becomes habit. Not only habit—it breeds a sense that even poverty can be honorable.
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…