Money isn’t just coins—it shows how we hide from loving people to feel safe, so it scares us; use it as a tool, don’t let it own your heart.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is money and why are most people deeply uncomfortable about it in one way or another?
A wandering monk came to see me two or three years ago and he was very much against money. He would not even touch it -- this is a neurosis. There are people who only count money the whole day, and in the night also, in their minds, they go on counting. They touch only money with a loving hand, they never touch anybody else with a loving hand. When they look at their currency notes, watch their eyes -- they sparkle. They are hypnotized. These are neurotic people. Then there are other neurotics... This wandering monk came to me, he would not touch money. So I said: Then it must be very difficult for you. How did you come to Bombay to see me? He said: There is nothing difficult. He showed two other men, his disciples: they could touch, they were not such evolved beings. What foolishness! They…
Beloved Osho, why is money such a loaded issue? It seems as though when we have money, either we feel guilty about it, and thus compelled to spend it, or insecure, and therefore want to hold onto it. Obviously it affects a multitude of areas that revolve around the pivot of power and freedom. The curious thing is that even to discuss the subject of money is somehow as much a taboo as discussing sex or death at the dinner table. Please comment.
It seems very strange to say that the religions exist almost on irreligious things, or it will be better to say, on anti-religious things. They use those things, but on the surface you don't see that. You see charity, but you don't see from where charity comes, and why. In the first place, why should there be a need for charity? Why should there be orphans, why should there be beggars? Why in the first place should we allow beggars to happen and orphans to happen? And in the second place, why are there people who are very willing to do charity work, to give money, to give their whole lives to charity and serving the poor? On the surface everything seems to be right because we have lived in this kind of structure for so long; otherwise it is absolutely absurd. No child is an orphan if the commune…
Beloved 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?
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…
What is your attitude to money?
God has nothing to do with money. You can have God with as much money as you want, and you can have God without money, without as much money as you want. God has nothing to do with money. A rich man can become meditative, a poor man can become meditative. But my understanding is thins: that if a poor man wants to become meditative, he will need TREMENDOUS intelligence -- because he will have to see the futility of money which he does not have. He will need tremendous intelligence. Kabir must have been tremendously intelligent -- I think more intelligent than Buddha and Mahavir. My reason for saying so is this: Buddha had money, Mahavir had money. If they became fed-up, it is simple, it is logical. It is as simple as "two plus two are four." If Buddha had not renounced the palace, then it would have…
Beloved Osho, I have tried for so long to write a question to you about money. The question is so complex, I can't even get it on paper. It involves friendships, self-image, integrity, trust, intelligence, identification, letting-go, holding-on, guilt, relationships, and most importantly, my discipleship. Please help me with the question and the answer.
In the Jaina tradition, those Jainas who are very orthodox, fast for ten days every year in the rainy season. This woman has been fasting for ten days for almost ten years, and she said to me, "Now I know that was not fasting, that was simply starving because I was continuously thinking of food, food and food. I could not sleep in the night because of hunger; even if I fell asleep for a few moments or a few hours I was dreaming of food. I was thinking of food, I was dreaming of food; except food there was nothing in me. For these three days while you stay in my house I know what fasting is. I never think about food at all. It just comes naturally that I don't feel any hunger; I feel so fulfilled." Onassis' immense riches have created a hell for the poor girl,…