Prosperity

Osho, you say that a man’s needs are very few. But if man produces only as much as is needed, the building of civilization and prosperity will become impossible. And you also say that only in prosperity does religion arise. Then what should man do?

Consider the old paintings: Ajanta, Ellora, the Taj Mahal—they were born from a different state of mind. If you look at the Taj Mahal, even in agitation, after a while you will find the inside turning calm. Then there is modern painting—Picasso. If you look at such a painting for a while, you will feel you are going mad. You cannot gaze at it long; if you fix your eyes on it, you are in trouble—because the painting is only restlessness, derangement, tension, turmoil. When civilization is diseased, culture too becomes diseased—because culture is fragrance. When the flower is sick, its scent is no longer a perfume; it becomes a stench. Civilization is the flower; culture is its fragrance. But when the flower itself is rotten, where can fragrance be? Therefore in every direction culture has also fallen ill. No, culture will arise only when people are so fulfilled that…

Beloved Osho, despite forty years of independence, why is this country not prosperous, when in the same period Russia, China, Japan, and others have become world powers? Can your vision of life make India prosperous? Can you bring a paradise like Rajneeshpuram to the whole of India?

Now we must give power to those who have the capacity for creation, who can open a new life-vision and new dimensions. And there is no shortage of such people. When a scientist is born in India he has to work in the West, because in India, first, there are no means for experimentation, no laboratories. At most he can become a professor; nothing truly creative will be possible for him. If India is to be built, we must emphasize creativity. In a commune of five thousand there were scientists, surgeons, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, nuclear physicists. And I can bring them all to India. Among my sannyasins there are no tribals. This is not a Christian missionary affair of orphans and tribals. Among my sannyasins are the most outstandingly gifted people in the world. I can bring them all to India—a full one million sannyasins—and put them to work in…

Osho, in one discourse you said that India is declining in its spiritual values. Please tell us whether any ray of hope is visible ahead?

Love! Do not be in opposition to the naturalness of life; do not deny life. Embrace life, with a great yes. For through that embrace one day you will be able to embrace God too. God is hidden here—in these trees, in these people, in these hills, in these mountains. Learn to love this existence. Your so-called religion teaches you to hate existence—teaches you to hate the nature outside and the nature within you. Love nature, for nature is God’s veil. Love nature, and you will be able to lift the veil. There is certainly a ray of hope. The ray of hope is never destroyed. However dark the new-moon night becomes, the morning will come. Morning is bound to come. However long the night of new moon, and however deeply this country has sunk into wrong notions, still there are some who are thinking, reflecting, meditating. It is precisely…

Osho, India has been a prosperous country!

No. Only a certain class in India was prosperous. India as a whole was never prosperous; only some strata were. From that affluent class came the religious people. From that affluent class the talk of religion also spread. India was never prosperous. As a society it was never prosperous. But yes, India was contented in its poverty. Therefore, rebellion against poverty never arose. Do not take this to mean that India was prosperous. India would still have been content in its poverty if the contact with the West had not come. The poor in India had no anxiety about it. But contact with the West created restlessness, and it planted in the poor the idea that being poor is the result of the social order. Poverty is not a necessity. But the affluent in India had convinced the poor that poverty is the fruit of your own sins, that being…