According to Osho, constant thoughts about money arise because money symbolizes power and future security; when we feel inwardly empty, we try to stuff that emptiness with money, prestige, and virtue. This thirst is endless. Only by living in the present and meditating (seeing our inner emptiness as already full) do money and power obsessions naturally fade.
We keep thinking about money because we feel empty and fear the future; being present and meditating lets that craving relax.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why am I always thinking of money?
When Sarah, the neighbor, sees Sammy running out of the house, she calls him, "Where are you running to like that? You look so very happy!" Sammy shows her the money and tells her that he is going to spend it on a beautiful young girl. "Give me the money!" proposes pretty Sarah. "You won't regret it, you will see!" Rachel soon comes to know about it. Very indignant, she explodes, "The bitch! When she was pregnant last year, I did the same for Isaac, her husband, for nothing!" People are continuously thinking of money and money and money. It is nothing special to you, Ramdas, you are a normally abnormal person, as neurotic as everybody else. But please come out of this neurosis. Live the moment, drop the future, and money loses its glamor. Live the moment with such totality and abandon, as if there is no other moment…
My greed for money, to have money and to see that I am able to make money, what does it mean?
Solomon and Irving were both partners in the dress business. They had the worst season of their careers, and were at a complete loss as to what to make that would sell. There was not a dress to be cut in their cutting-room. They both decided: the only way out to leave their families any money was to agree to a suicide pact. They drew straws and Solomon was to jump first. Solomon jumped out of the thirtieth-floor window, and as he was falling he noticed that every cutting-room on every floor he passed was busy. He yelled back to Irving, "Don't jump! Cut velvet!" Even to the very end -- you can be dying -- but the business, the business of greed continues. Once you are on the trip, it is very difficult to get out of it. One gets more and more involved. And on the path of…
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, 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…
A friend has asked: Osho, is striving to get more of what is worth having also greed? What would you say about acquiring more wealth in order to give more in charity?
Among the enemies like lust and anger, we have, by and large, done a little injustice to greed. Greed is not, in the same way as anger and attachment, wholly harmful—or else I have completely misunderstood greed. A few things about greed need to be kept in mind. First, lust, anger, attachment—are nothing compared to greed. Greed is a very deep phenomenon. When a small child is born, there is no lust in him, but there is greed. Lust comes later; greed comes with birth. Anger is contextual. It arises when circumstances are adverse. But circumstances feel adverse in the first place because greed is inside. Anger is a by-product of greed. If there is no greed within, there will be no anger. When someone obstructs your greed, anger arises. When someone does not cooperate with your greed—becomes an opponent—anger arises. Greed is at the root of anger. Look deeper,…