According to Osho, it isn’t past-life karma but the game you choose. In the outer race for money, power, and status, the cunning naturally prevail; in the inner journey toward silence, peace, and bliss, the virtuous flourish. You can’t have both prizes. Real goodness yields inner riches, not palaces. So don’t be jealous—be compassionate: the ‘winners’ of the world often suffer within, while true virtue enjoys every moment.
Kind people might not get money or titles, but they get a peaceful heart; tricky people may win prizes, yet feel empty inside—so choose what truly matters.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, why is it that sincere, gentle and kindhearted men are suffering and neglected? Why is it that the cunning, the cheap and the evil are flourishing and respectable? Is it the result of their past life karma, prarabdha?
There is no need to believe in prarabdha, in fate. There is no need to believe that people are suffering because of their past evil acts, karma. The reality is that the good people, the nice people, the virtuous people are bound to suffer. You cannot have everything in life. If you have goodness, enjoy it; if you have virtue, enjoy it; if you have a niceness, enjoy it. Why should you be jealous of the cunning people becoming prime ministers, of the evil people becoming rich? The evil people are bound to win in the race with the good people if the race is for money, if the race is for power, prestige, respectability. But if the race is for inner silence, peace, calm, coolness, silence, meditation, godliness, then the evil people will not get anything, anywhere. I don't see any problem at all. If you had asked this…
Kusum has asked: Why does a truly religious person suffer while sinners seem to enjoy themselves?
Examine within yourself, and you’ll find: whenever you are aligned with truth, immediately there is a shower of bliss, the sun breaks out, flowers burst forth, you become fragrant. What is the world? What is maya? A web we have woven—like a spider’s web— and in which we ourselves are trapped. Every day I move beyond where I was, and then I return to the very same place. I have broken those walls time and again, yet I keep crashing into these very walls. Every day many new towns are settled, every day they sink back into the earth. There used to be a little warmth in the tremors— now even those come every single day. From body to soul it is sand upon sand: no sunlight, no shade, not even a mirage. How many longings lie buried in which desert? Who keeps the count of all these graves? The…
Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?
The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…
There is great strength in Bādarāyaṇa’s statement. Those who have seen, have seen thus. Do not stop at noticing that good acts bring good fruit and bad acts bad fruit. Search deeper, and you will find that good follows good because an intelligent power everywhere has appreciated that good act; it has welcomed it. And sometimes you do something thinking it is good, yet the result is bad. You do not see good fruit from your virtuous deed. People get worried. They come to me and say, “We did good; it is said good yields good—but it didn’t.” I tell them: examine your goodness. You thought you did good, but it wasn’t truly good; therefore existence has repaid you accordingly. Descend more deeply into your goodness; there will be some hidden ill within it. You cannot deceive the intelligence of the universe! Suppose you give charity to someone.
Question: THE MIND WHICH IS UNATTACHED TO ALL THINGS IN THE WORLD, DOES NOT THINK, DOES NOT FEEL, IS FLUID AND FLEXIBLE. ALL BUDDHAS AND BODHISATTVAS ACHIEVE BUDDHAHOOD AND NIRVANA AS A RESULT OF THE MERCIFUL VOW. THE BUDDHA-NATURE MEANS NON-BIRTH, NON-EXTINCTION; THEN KNOW THAT ILLUSION IS BIRTH, DEATH, REINCARNATION. THOUGH YOU PRACTISE VIRTUE, DO NOT GRIEVE THAT MISFORTUNE ARISES; THE GUILTY KARMA OF THE PREVIOUS WORLD IS VANISHING AWAY. WHEN THEY ARE NOT TWO THINGS, THEY ARE NOT ONE THING, AND THE WIND IN THE INDIAN-INK PICTURE IS COOL INDEED. WHY ARE PEOPLE CALLED BUDDHAS AFTER THEY DIE? BECAUSE THEY DON'T GRUMBLE ANY MORE, BECAUSE THEY DON'T MAKE A NUISANCE <q>THOUGH YOU PRACTISE VIRTUE, DO NOT GRIEVE THAT MISFORTUNE ARISES; THE GUILTY KARMA OF THE PREVIOUS WORLD IS VANISHING AWAY.</q> THIS QUESTION ARISES again and again to those who start searching into the religious truth of life.