Osho Teachings Osho Discourses Osho Quotes

Question – Osho, What is Wisdom?
Osho – Stephen Crane writes: I met a seer, he held in his hands the book of wisdom. “Sir,” I addressed him, “let me read.”"Child…” he began.
“Sir,” I said, “think not that I am a child, for already I know much of that which you hold.”
“Ah, much!” he smiled. Then he opened the book and held it before me. Strange, that I should have gone so suddenly blind.

Wisdom is not knowledge. The knowledgeable person cannot see it, he is blind. Only the innocent person can see it, only a child, one who knows nothing, one who functions from the state of not knowing, can know what wisdom is. Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge, not at all; it has something to do with innocence. Something of the purity of the heart is a must, something of the emptiness of being is needed for wisdom to grow.

“Only those who are like small children will be able to enter into my kingdom of God.” Yes, Jesus is right. Knowledge comes from without, wisdom wells up within. Knowledge is borrowed, wisdom is original. Wisdom is your insight into existence — not Buddha’s insight, not Atisha’s insight, not my insight, but your insight, absolutely your insight into existence.

When you are able to see with no dust of knowledge on the mirror of your soul, when your soul is without any dust of knowledge, when it is just a mirror, it reflects that which is. That is wisdom. That reflecting of that which is, is wisdom.

Knowledge gratifies the ego, wisdom happens only when the ego is gone, forgotten. Knowledge can be taught; universities exist to teach you. Wisdom cannot be taught, it is like an infection: you have to be with the wise, you have to move with the wise, and only then will something start moving inside you.

The movement in the disciple is not caused by the master, it is not under the law of cause and effect. It is what Carl Gustav Jung calls “synchronicity.” The master is so full of silence, so overflowing with innocence, that his presence triggers a process in you, simply triggers a process in you. Nothing is transferred; your inner being starts remembering that “I also have the same treasure as my master, I had simply forgotten about it. I had moved into the without, keeping the within at the back. The treasure was not lost but only forgotten; I had fallen asleep.”

And the asleep person at the most can dream that he is awake. But that too is a dream. That dream is knowledge. The person who is asleep and thinks that he knows… that is knowledge. But the person who really awakes is wise. Knowledge is a false, plastic substitute for wisdom.

Wisdom is true knowledge — rather knowing than knowledge, because it has no full point to it. It goes on growing, it goes on flowing. The man of wisdom goes on learning; there never comes a stop. Don’t be knowledgeable, be wise.

Source – Osho Book “The Book of Wisdom”

Question – Osho, Why am I always thinking of Money?

Osho – What else is there to think about? Money is power. Everybody else is thinking of money, don’t be worried. Even those who are thinking of the other world… they have different coins but they are also thinking of money. Money represents power, with money you can purchase power.
Your saints are also thinking of money — they call it virtue. By virtue you can purchase a better house in heaven, a better car, a better woman. A few people are not that greedy, they are thinking only of the money that is current in this world. A few people are more greedy, they think of the other world. And if you are thinking of virtue to attain to paradise, what is it except money?

A man stops thinking about money only when he starts living in the present. Money is the future; money is security for the future, a guarantee for the future. If you have a good bank balance your future is safe. If you have a good character, even life after death is safe.

The whole world is thinking in terms of money. Those who think in terms of power politics are thinking in terms of money, because money is nothing but a symbol for power. That’s why you can go on accumulating more and more money, but the desire never leaves you to have still more — because the thirst for power is unlimited, it knows no end.

And people are thirsty for power because deep down they are empty. Somehow they want to stuff that emptiness with something — it may be money, power, prestige, respectability, character, virtue. Anything will do; they want to stuff their inner emptiness.

There are only two types of people in the world: those who try to stuff their inner emptiness, and those very rare precious beings who try to see the inner emptiness. Those who try to stuff it remain empty, frustrated. They go on collecting garbage, their whole life is futile and fruitless. Only the other kind, the very precious people who try to look into their inner emptiness without any desire to stuff it, become meditators.

Meditation is looking into your emptiness, welcoming it, enjoying it, being one with it, with no desire to fill it — there is no need, because it is already full. It looks empty because you don’t have the right way of seeing it. You see it through the mind; that is the wrong way. If you put the mind aside and look into your emptiness, it has tremendous beauty, it is divine, it is overflowing with joy. Nothing else is needed.

Only then a person stops thinking about money, stops thinking about power, stops thinking about paradise — because he is already in paradise, because he is already rich, because he is already powerful. But ordinarily, Ramdas, it is not just to do with you; everybody thinks in some way or other about money.

Two mothers were talking. One said to the other, “I haven’t seen you in a long time. How is your son and what is he doing?”
She replied, “My son is a famous actor in Hollywood and he’s making a fortune. He just built a new home that cost three hundred thousand dollars. What is your son doing?”
Said the other mother, “My son is doing even better. He is gay and lives in Hollywood; he just moved in with an actor who has a three-hundred-thousand-dollar home.”

A young woman has decided to put aside some money for a rainy day and informs her husband that each time they make love she will expect him to put five dollars in the piggy bank.
That night, as he begins to make advances, she reminds him of her requirement. He finds that he has only four dollars in his wallet and so the wife agrees to only four-fifths of a love affair. However, as her passion mounts, she offers to lend him a dollar until the next day.

Rachel is pregnant and Sammy, her husband, a very temperamental man, suffers from the pains of celibacy. Rachel, who manages the household, takes pity on him and gives him a hundred liras to visit the red-light district. When Sarah, the neighbor, sees Sammy running out of the house, she calls him, “Where are you running to like that? You look so very happy!”

Sammy shows her the money and tells her that he is going to spend it on a beautiful young girl.
“Give me the money!” proposes pretty Sarah. “You won’t regret it, you will see!”

Rachel soon comes to know about it. Very indignant, she explodes, “The bitch! When she was pregnant last year, I did the same for Isaac, her husband, for nothing!”

People are continuously thinking of money and money and money. It is nothing special to you, Ramdas, you are a normally abnormal person, as neurotic as everybody else. But please come out of this neurosis. Live the moment, drop the future, and money loses its glamor. Live the moment with such totality and abandon, as if there is no other moment to come to you again, as if this is the last moment. Then all desire for money and power simply leaves you.

If suddenly you come to know that today you are going to die, what will happen? Will you still be interested in money? Suddenly all desire for money will leave you. If this is the last day, you can’t waste it thinking about tomorrow, having more money in the world; there is going to be no tomorrow.

Because we live in the tomorrows, money has become very important. And because we don’t live, we only imitate others, money has become very important. Somebody makes a house, and now you are feeling very inferior. You were not at all dissatisfied with your own house just a few days before, but now this man has made a bigger house: now comparison arises, and it hurts, it hurts your ego. You would like to have more money. Somebody has done something else, and your ego is disturbed.

Drop comparing and life is really beautiful. Drop comparing and you can enjoy life to the full. And the person who enjoys his life has no desire to possess, because he knows the real things of life which are worth enjoying cannot be purchased. Love cannot be purchased. Yes, sex can be purchased. So one who knows what love is will not be interested in money. But one who does not know what love is, is bound to remain interested in money, because money can purchase sex, and sex is all that he knows.

You cannot purchase the starry night. One who knows how to enjoy the night full of stars won’t bother much about money. You cannot purchase a sunset. Yes, you can purchase a Picasso — but one who knows how to enjoy a sunset will not be interested at all in purchasing a painting. Life is such a painting, such a moving, alive painting.

But people who don’t know how to see a sunset are ready to purchase a Picasso for millions of dollars. They will not even know how to hang it, whether it is upside down or right side up, but they want to show to others that they have a Picasso painting.

I have heard that once a rich man came to Picasso; he wanted two paintings, immediately, and he was ready to pay as much as was demanded. Picasso demanded a fabulous price — thinking that he would not be able to pay it — because only one painting was ready. But the rich man was ready to pay. So Picasso went in, cut the canvas in two, and the rich man thought they were two paintings.

I have heard another story: in an exhibition, a Picasso exhibition, people are appreciating his paintings. All the critics have gathered around a certain painting which looks the most absurd, hence the most appealing — because when something is absurd it is a challenge to your intellect, and every critic is trying to prove that he understands what it is.

And then came Picasso, and he said, “Wait. Some fool has hung it upside down. Let me put it right first.” And they were expressing great appreciation for the painting!

If you know how to enjoy a roseflower, a green tree in your courtyard, the mountains, the river, the stars, the moon, if you know how to enjoy people, you will not be so much obsessed with money. The obsession is arising because we have forgotten the language of celebration. Hence money has become the only thing to brag about — your life is so empty.

I will not tell you to renounce money. That has been told to you down the ages; it has not changed you. I am going to tell you something else: celebrate life, and the obsession with money disappears automatically. And when it goes on its own accord, it leaves no scratches, it leaves no wounds behind, it leaves no trace behind.

Source – Osho Book “The Book of Wisdom”

Osho – You have lost the night; you could not wake up in the night. But it can be forgiven: it was night and you slept. But you cannot be forgiven when death is coming closer — now it is time to wake up! And if even death cannot wake you up, then what is going to wake you up? And if a person wakes up in death, then for him there is no more any birth, no more any death.

But a person can wake up in death only if he has tried hard to wake up in life, if his whole life has been a consistent effort to find a center in his being, a persistent effort to know “Who am I? Only then is it possible that when death comes… and death is a great shock! It shatters all that you have made. It takes away all that you have been clinging to; it dispossesses you of all your possessions. It simply leaves you utterly naked and alone. If death cannot wake you up, then you are not simply asleep — you are in a coma. And that’s how people are.

Every day millions of people die. They lived in darkness. they die in darkness. They lived dreaming, they die dreaming. They lived in a stupid way, they die in a stupid way. They miss all opportunities.

And three are the great opportunities in life. The first is birth. Only once in a while is a man so intelligent that he uses that opportunity — only very rarely. Maybe a Lao Tzu — hence the story.

It is said Lao Tzu lived in his mother’s womb for eighty-two years. Now this is nonsense, but it has some truth in it. It is not factual, but it has some truth in it. And that is the difference between the Western way of thinking and the Eastern. If you tell such a story to the Western mind, he simply says, “This cannot be. How can a person live for eighty-two years in the mother’s womb? And what will happen to the mother? Eighty-two years? This is not believable; this cannot be historical.”

The Western mind immediately asks about the facticity of the phenomenon — but it is a parable! It has nothing to do with facts; it certainly has something to do with truth. And truth can only be expressed through parables; there is no other way to express truth. Truth can only be expressed through metaphors, through poetry, not through history. It is poetry, pure poetry, and of tremendous power.

It means that when Lao Tzu was born he was already so mature, so ripe, that he used his first opportunity to wake up. Ordinarily it takes eighty-two years for a person to wake up, and even then, how many people wake up? People wake up at the time of death, but how many? — that too is very rare.

Lao Tzu must have been of immense intelligence, must have carried the intelligence from his past lives — maybe just a little bit was missing, just the last straw on the camel. He used the opportunity. The first opportunity is birth. It is as important as death. It is a death in a way, because the child in the mother’s womb lives in one way, one kind of life, and then is simply thrown out, expelled. He wants to cling to his home where he has lived for nine months, and so peacefully, so silently, without any worry, without any responsibility, in such warmth….

He clings to the womb, he does not want to go out. He feels it as a death, and it is natural — because what does he know about what is going to happen? One thing is certain: his home is being shattered; he is being thrown out of all his comfort and security. He knows he is dying! Hence the birth trauma — because the birth enters into the child’s consciousness as death. He dies and is reborn.

Lao Tzu used his first opportunity. And the same is the case with Zarathustra, another beautiful story. It is said that Zarathustra is the only child in the whole history of man who laughed when he was born. Children cry, they don’t laugh — and Zarathustra laughed — must have shocked his mother and… a real belly-laughter. He must have used the first opportunity.

These two names are known TO have used the first opportunity. The first shock, and they became awakened. The second opportunity in life is love. A few people have become awakened through love. And the second opportunity is available to more people than the first or the third — because birth is almost unconscious and so is death, but love can bring a little consciousness to your heart.

Hence my insistence on love — and Kabir’s insistence is also on love, because this is the opportunity many many people can use and become awake. If you love, you will have to drop your ego — and that will be the death, the death of the ego. If you love you will have to learn how to melt, merge, disappear. If you love you will have to know that there is much more to life than logic, calculation… there is much more to life than having money, more possessions, power.

If you love, you will have a glimpse of the divine. And if you go deep in love, you will start entering into the temple of God — that is the second opportunity. The society has destroyed it.
The first opportunity is very rare, but the second opportunity could have been available to almost everybody — that has been destroyed by the society. Your love has been contaminated. You have been brought up in fear, not in love. You have been brought up to fight, not to love. You have been brought up as if the whole existence is your enemy, not your friend — how can you love? Love has been made impossible by the society.

The only possibility of people turning to religion, the only possibility of revolution in people’s lives, has been destroyed by the society. Society is so much afraid of love that it is not afraid of anything else like it is of love. Love is the most potential and dangerous thing for your so-called society, because love will wake up people, love will stir people’s hearts. And they will start living through the heart, and they won’t listen to the head. And if they don’t listen to the head then the society will be at a loss; it will be impossible to dominate people who live through the heart. Only the head can be dominated only heads can be reduced to slaves. The heart is always the king, the master.

And the third opportunity is death — the last. If you have missed birth, if you have missed love, don’t miss death. At least the last chance should not be missed.

Source – Osho Book “The Fish in the Sea is not Thirsty”