Only sell what truly helps people be healthy, not what takes advantage of their hurts—and if possible, help heal the hurt.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, for a commercial organization, marketing is the ultimate life source; however, some marketing professionals suffer from an element of contradiction in their personal lives. Vis-a-vis professional objectives, are we selling things to people that they don't need?
The responsibility of the journalist is to bring before the people authentic facts, to make them aware how to avoid perversions. Homosexuality is not a disease; it is just a symptom of a disease. The real disease is celibacy, which is being preached by all religions. Now it is a strange game. The same people who are the cause of creating AIDS are condemning homosexuals. And they are the real criminals -- if anybody needs to be behind bars, it is all your saints and all your preachers and all your priests. But not the homosexuals, they are victims -- victims of an absolutely wrong psychology being preached for centuries. Don't fulfill sick needs. Expose the fact that those sick needs are arising from a certain source. And create a protest in the minds of people so that the sources can be stopped. You cannot fight with the sick needs…
Beloved Osho, you seem to be fulfilling two roles: an outer one in which you provoke and expose the structure of our society, and a more intimate one in which you encourage your disciples towards the ultimate.
But I would not have been of any help to anybody, because who is going to destroy all that rubbish? And the rubbish has to be destroyed first, it is blocking the way. It is your whole conditioning. You have been programmed from your very childhood with absolute lies, but they have been repeated so often that you have forgotten that they are lies. That's the whole secret of advertisement: just go on repeating. On the radio, on the television, in the films, in the newspapers, on the walls, everywhere, go on repeating. In the old days it was thought that wherever there is a demand the supply happens on its own accord. Now, that is not the rule. The rule is, if you have something to supply, create the demand. Go on hammering in people's minds certain words so that they forget completely that they have been listening to…
Osho, you said the Indian mind has been held up on the basis of personal character. But if someone of lax character—say a thief or an adulterer—utters a truth, isn’t it better if the same words come from the mouth of a person of character? Wouldn’t that prove more effective in society?
Two things. First, what do we mean by character? It is what I have just said about morality. The one you call a man of character, I call merely a man made virtuous by force. He is suppressed. Whatever you call bad, he has pushed down inside. It is all there; it has not gone anywhere. The one you call virtuous—yes, if he has cultivated nonviolence on the surface, then violence is present within. On the surface he has cultivated forgiveness; inside, anger is there. Because your method of producing character is repression. So the so‑called man of character is inwardly as characterless as the other man who appears characterless to you on the outside. In fact, I hold that generally the one we call characterless may be more simple, straight, and clear; while the one we call virtuous is very cunning, complex, and conniving, because he has to manage…
Osho, my question is the same as Mr. Nirmal Ghosh’s. Command me—what should I do so that this country’s wretchedness, hunger, hypocrisy, laziness, and stench may be wiped out!
The boy was twelve or thirteen! The Englishman smacked his forehead: “This brat too is a scoundrel! He says he’s been with the guru three hundred years! If the guru says seven hundred, he must be—surely! And there go my five rupees! The boy’s a rogue!” “Can you guarantee that rubbing this medicine will make hair grow on the head?” Chandulal asked the drug peddler. “Guarantee? Sir, last week a gentleman used it. Yesterday evening husband and wife got into a shoe‑throwing brawl. Neighbors grabbed them by the hair to pull them apart and were left wondering—which head belonged to the husband and which to the wife! In seven days!” There is hypocrisy because you have made the impossible into your values. In this country we have never given people the chance to be normal. We have not allowed them the space to be ordinary, natural. We have not accepted…
Osho, can society get by with an imposed, showy morality? Then does it no longer need morality arising from religion, nor the presence of saints?
Hence society says: become moral; we have no use for religion. Be religious if you wish—that’s your business; we won’t get into that mess. Be atheist if you like; don’t believe in God if you don’t want to—only be well-behaved. So society has no need of religion. Religion is a personal necessity—an inner need—an individual’s need. Society can run without religion. The individual will not be able to. He will stagger, perish, break. For society, makeshift, behavioral morality is enough; nothing more is needed. But if you too are satisfied with that, your inner world will remain a desert. No trees will ever turn green within you, no flowers will bloom. The possibility of an oasis will vanish. However skillful you become in dealing with others, with yourself you will remain foolish. Your self-ignorance will remain deep. Therefore I say: morality is social skill; religion is the hunger of your…