According to Osho, material prosperity is the necessary foundation for authentic spirituality—but a foundation alone never makes a house. By fully experiencing wealth, one discovers its futility; great possession intensifies bondage until awareness and renunciation arise. Poverty’s few chains keep people chasing, while abundance exposes emptiness and invites inner revolt. Yet prosperity guarantees nothing; realization requires conscious insight, whether in this life or through past-life experience.
Having plenty helps you realize that plenty isn’t enough, which can push you to grow on the inside.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, you often say that material prosperity is the foundation of spiritual growth; but in your last discourse on non-possession you said that the fewer things one has, the less enslaved one is, and the more things one has, the more enslaved one becomes. Please clarify this fundamental paradox between prosperity and non-possession, and also explain how more things make a person more enslaved. And how does the possessor become possessed?
Material prosperity is the foundation of spiritual life, but a building is not raised by the foundation alone. It can happen that the foundation is there and the house is never built. A house never exists without a foundation, but a foundation can exist without a house. One may lay the footings and leave them filled in—then there will be a foundation, not a building. But wherever there is a building, it cannot be without a foundation. Prosperity is the base of detachment. Without becoming prosperous, no one ever really discovers that prosperity is futile. Without having wealth, no one ever realizes that nothing essential is gained by wealth. The greatest gift of wealth is not wealth—it is the breaking of the illusion about wealth; it is disillusionment. If wealth is never attained, its futility is never known. The poor, the needy, the destitute find it very hard to be…
Material prosperity is the basis of spiritual life, without which no building is constructed Foundations can be there without buildings. Some one may leave the foundation as it is after filling it to the top; then the building will not be there in spite of the foundation. Prosperity is the basis of the condition which is above passions and passionlessness. Without being materially prosperous none can realize the uselessness of prosperity; without getting wealth, none can know that nothing is achieved by wealth. The greatest gift of wealth is the disillusion about its worth. If one does not get wealth, one can never know the worthlessness of wealth. The distressed, the needy and the poor will find great difficulty in being free from the Lure of riches. How can one be free from that which one has not got. To be free from a thing, one should have it.
So, Osho, you seem to be placing more emphasis on material prosperity rather than on spiritual growth coming first!
Spiritual growth is a stage that comes after material development; it cannot come first. Individually it may be possible—one or two people can do it—but they will have to pass through great austerities. Austerity is required precisely because such a person is trying to act against the very laws of nature. In my understanding, the body comes first; the soul follows. The material comes first; the spiritual follows. One whose body is still unsatisfied, troubled, and tormented cannot even think about the soul. And for someone in whose life we have not yet been able to make ordinary arrangements for material comfort, talk of spirituality is opium. Marx said that rightly. He is speaking of spirituality only to forget his misery. Therefore my view, my emphasis, is that there should be a complete and well-ordered provision of the material. But do not think my goal is materiality. My emphasis is…
Some say the prosperity of mankind is increasing by leaps and bounds. God save us from this kind of prosperity! This is not prosperity, it is just a cover-up for our poverty for our weaknesses. Prosperity and power are ways to escape from one's self. It fills my heart with sorrow and pain when I see the inner poverty and anguish that lies beneath the mantle of this so-called prosperity. Anyone who gives this the slightest thought will easily realize that material affluence is only a way to conceal inner poverty. Those who suffer from a sense of inferiority are the ones who hanker after position and wealth. To escape from his inner being, form what he really is, a man tries to project another being, another personality on the outside. What a man pretends to be outwardly is generally the opposite of what he is really like.
Osho, you say, “As He wills, let us become mere instruments; whatever role in life we have been given, let us fulfill it.” But letting what happens happen—i.e., flowing along with the body, mind, and ego—gives rise to suffering. So should we keep applying the principle of instrumentality even in relation to the body, mind, and ego, and go on suffering? How do we solve the riddle between the principle of instrumentality and the continuous reality of suffering?
That supreme bliss is beyond both pleasure and pain. It is neither like night nor like day. It is twilight. The sun has set, night has not yet come; the light remains—very gentle, sweet, non-aggressive—that is twilight. Morning has come, the sun is not yet risen, the night has gone—such is the twilight. One who abides in that twilight—that is what we call prayer. That is why Hindus call their prayer sandhya. Sandhya means one who has stopped in between the dualities, who has found the truce between the two. Between pleasure and pain, love and hate, victory and defeat, night and day, life and death—one who has found the pact and stands in that concord. Seek that interval of conjunction. Krishna says, it is simple to find. If you cease to be the doer, you will find it instantly. It is only through your doer-ship that you keep missing.…