According to Osho, the outlook of gain persists because the very mind that judges greed as 'loss' is greed itself; profit-and-loss vision keeps renewing itself by seeking safer profits—shifting targets from world to heaven. As long as you look through gain/loss, greed only hides and returns. Only right seeing—recognizing greed's utter futility, not its harm—ends the chase and dissolves the profit-obsession.
We keep chasing more because our “I want more” glasses turn everything into winning or losing, so we just swap prizes until we see those glasses are useless and take them off.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, the path of sannyas is unfamiliar and I am afraid. What should I do?
But this is everyone’s belief—that love arises from fear. So the husband frightens the wife as much as he can, thinking otherwise there will be no love. And the wife frightens the husband as much as she can, thinking the same. Parents frighten the children; and the children, for their part, do not hold back—they frighten the parents too; they have their own ways, their recipes. All devotees of Baba Tulsidas! Everyone is frightening everyone. Teachers are frightening students; students are frightening teachers. Fear pervades everywhere. Our notion of God is as if he were a policeman. We imagine he watches you twenty-four hours a day; he won’t even leave you alone in the bathroom—sitting there, peeping through the keyhole. I have heard: a Christian nun used to bathe with her clothes on. At last her companions became concerned. They said, “What sort of madness is this? Why don’t you…
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,…
If we take sannyas, what will be the profit?' The perspective of profit itself is the disease; you bring it here too. You cannot do anything without profit! You ask, 'Why seek God? What will be the benefit?' The language of wealth does not leave you. The language of greed does not leave you.\n\n'If this is not the weakness of the hand of desire,\nThen what shall we call the raising of the hands in prayer?'\n\nFirst, you beg in the world: profit, profit. Then you go to the temple and spread hands before God. The begging continues.\n\n'If this is not the weakness of the hand of desire—\nThose hands raised after prayer—are they not the same hand of craving?'\n\nUnderstand: the world means the tendency to ask. The world means the tendency to accumulate. The world means the tendency of greed. The world means you cannot live in non-greed.
Beloved Osho, when you spoke of greed, I was totally horrified. I have finally reached a point where I am willing to see how big a part it plays in my life, and the misery it brings with it. Could you please shed more light on what this thing called greed is, where it comes from? -- and perhaps offer some tools to help me?
It is strange that the word health, and the word holy both come from `wholeness'. When you are feeling one with wholeness all greed disappears. Otherwise... what have religions been doing? They have misunderstood greed as a desire, so they try to repress it: "Don't be greedy." Then one moves to the other extreme, to renounce. One collects -- the greedy person; and the person who wants to get rid of greed starts renouncing. There too there is no end. Mahavira could never recognize Gautam Buddha as enlightened for the simple reason that he still carries three sets of clothes -- just three sets of clothes, which are absolutely necessary. One you are using, one has to be washed, and one for emergency reasons... someday the clothes may not come from being washed or they are not dry, or it is raining the whole day. So three seems to be…
Osho, what is greed?
Look within yourself and you will experience great uniqueness. And all inferiority disappears, evaporates; it was created by you and by wrong education, it was created by a subtle strategy -- the strategy of comparison. Once you know your uniqueness you are joyous, and then there is no need to follow anybody. Learn from everybody. An intelligent person even learns from idiots, because there are few things you can learn only from idiots because they are experts in idiocy. At least watching them, observing them, you can avoid a few things in your life. You can learn from everybody, not only from man but from animals, from trees, from clouds, from rivers. But there is no question of imitating. You can't become a river, but you can learn some quality which is river-likeness: the flow, the let-go. You can learn something from a roseflower. You cannot become a roseflower, you…