... have the strangest fame. Before you leave the world, please let me understand the secret of your greatness. Your stealing is not just for money; your stealing is simply to keep your mastery sharpened so you don't forget the art." It is almost like a musician. Once Yehudi Menuhin was asked, "If you don't practice one day, what happens?" He said, "Only I understand that the thing is...

... tonight, finished -- I don't want to learn this art. It is beyond my capacity. The man was doing things, so at home, and he took the boy into the innermost part of the house, opened a big cupboard and there were very costly things inside, valuable diamonds, very costly, and rare clothes. Everything was dazzling. The boy could not believe his eyes, that people have so much money. The old man said, "...

... the stalls except our stall, but the opinion of the people was totally different. An old man used to come every day in the morning; because he had no money, he would sit there and read as much as he could manage until closing time. And he said to Lani -- obviously asking her not to mention his name -- that Russia needs Rajneesh, not vodka! Because people don't have private money they started...

... Italian government has issued a warrant against the manager of the bank, because the bank is doing only one thing: it is turning all Italian mafia money into white money. That is its only source of income. Otherwise from where...? The pope goes on getting the money and wasting it. Now he is going for a tour to America; estimated expenses will be twenty million dollars. When he went to Australia his...

... expenses were more than Queen Elizabeth, who had visited just before him. All this money is heroin money. Now rather than allowing the Italian government to arrest the man... they cannot enter into another country; they have to wait for whenever the manager comes out. The manager was only a bishop, but the pope has raised him into an archbishop, because he has been doing such good work! These people have...

... desire will flower, you have to attain to self-realization. Again the future enters in, again you can dream. Before, it may have been money, power, prestige. It may have been God, moksha, nirvana, the kingdom of God. Now it is self-realization. But you have to keep some goal there. And Hakuin says all is here. You want to have something on the other shore. And Hakuin says this is the only shore. The...

... woman, their man. They don't know how to read - but what is there to read? They know how to read nature, they know how to talk to trees, they know how to have a dialogue with the sky. They know REAL reading, because they read the book of life and nature. Yes, they will not accumulate much money. They will not become Fords and Andrew Carnegies and Morgans, they will not become so rich. There is no need...

... have happiness. Somebody has asked a question: 'Osho, you say that children should listen to the birds and not look at the black-board. Then what will happen?' Then beautiful things will happen, then great things will happen. If for one hundred years all the universities are closed, and all the colleges and all the schools, man will again become alive. Yes, I know there will not be so much money to...

... grab, money will disappear. But there will be more life - and that is what is needed. And you cannot purchase life with money, you cannot purchase love with money. Money you have. And the person who has asked has also asked how they will earn their living. Do you think that five thousand years ago when people were not educated they were not able to earn their bread and their butter? They were. Living...

... desires - money, power, prestige - then naturally there is poverty, starvation, war. The wars and the starvation and the poverty exist because of your schools. Your schools teach ambition. Your schools teach people to be jealous of each other, to be competitive of each other. What do we teach in our schools? For example, a teacher asks a question and the small boy cannot answer it. He may not have done...

... only hope. And one thing more: the person has asked what will happen to people's life if they don't know arithmetic and if they don't know geography and history. How will they earn their living? And what kind of a society will it be? Yes, there will not be much money. There may not be big palaces, there may not be rich gadgets, technology. But there will be joy. And the whole technology is not worth...

... same word being used for both desire as such, and for sexual desire, has a tremendously important message in it. All desire is basically sexual desire; that is the message in it. Desire as such has the flavor of sexuality in it, and you can observe it. This understanding is based, rooted in great observation. A man who is mad after money - watch his behavior, his being, look into his eyes, and you...

... will be surprised that he loves money in the same way somebody else loves a woman or a man. Now psychologists have performed a few experiments. They have made a few cards, one hundred cards, ordinary playing cards. Just two or three cards are there, inside the whole pack, of naked women. They give you the whole pack, shuffled in such a way that the psychologist himself is not aware where the cards...

... the doors. The same happens with people who are mad after money, money maniacs. Seeing a hundred-rupee note their pupils become immediately big. They may not be interested in a woman - and women are aware of it, hence so many ornaments, beautiful saris and all kinds of arrangements for these foolish people. They may not look at the face of the woman but they will be immediately interested in her...

... necklace. They may be immediately interested in her earrings, her hair clip; if it has a diamond, a big diamond, they become interested in the diamond, and via the diamond they become interested in the woman. Their sexuality has become perverted, it has become focused on money. And so is the case with power-hungry people, those who are after political power, those who want to become presidents and prime...

... MIND IS BOUND AS CLOSELY AS A CALF TO ITS MOTHER. In fact, Buddha does not mention women. What he is trying to say is: WHILE A MAN desires, HIS MIND IS BOUND AS CLOSELY AS A CALF TO ITS MOTHER. Any desire is a bondage. Desire AS SUCH is a bondage, because when you desire, you become dependent on the other, on the desired object. Whether it is a woman, money, a man, power, prestige, it does not matter...

... his bow and arrow, so you cannot escape." He was shocked. He said, "What are you saying? Are you joking? I have been doing a religious act. Everybody has praised it, great saints have come and praised it." I said, "Those people must have been fools just like you." Mind can desire anything. Now, he is not collecting money, but more and more names of Rama.... It is the same...

... me he has been out with my wife and her sister, too, and there ain't a nickel's worth of difference between them." Every desire is the same. The objects differ, but not the quality of desiring. You desire money, somebody else desires God; you desire power, somebody else desires paradise. It is all the same. Hence there are no religious desires, remember. Nondesiring is religious. Desiring is...

... already gave at the office!" The Jew is a Jew. He has fallen into a deep pit and the danger of death is all around, but he is more interested in saving a little money. Just hearing the name 'Red Cross' reminds him only of one thing: they must have come for donations. T.S. Eliot has written these beautiful lines: WHERE IS THE LIFE WE HAVE LOST IN LIVING? WHERE IS THE WISDOM WE HAVE LOST IN KNOWLEDGE...

... changed. And what is the point of going again and again, giving money and playing the same kind of games? These therapists who had been working here in the world of the sannyasins will soon feel frustrated, tremendously frustrated. One thing, sannyasins will stop going to them, knowing that it is no longer part of a spiritual movement. Secondly, those who go will see that it is pointless. Just again and...

... else to be released on bail but Osho should not be released on bail." This must be something unprecedented! They have not proved anything against me. Why should I not be granted bail? The reasoning was that I was capable of jumping the bail, whatever the bail would be -- ten million dollars or twenty million dollars. Does it mean nobody in America who has money will ever be allowed bail? Strange...

...! The people who don't have money cannot be allowed bail because from where will they get money for bail? And the people who have money cannot be allowed bail because they can jump. So bail is simply out of the question in America. Simple logic can show the stupidities. Then finally they had to drop the case, but they had taken three persons on bail -- Jayesh, Devaraj, Vivek -- at twenty-five thousand...

... these people should be sent for any day; our attorneys were waiting there. They said, "You give us the time and the date, and we can call our people and they will be here." But because they had dropped the case, now they were afraid that they would have to return the seventy- five thousand dollars. To keep that money, this letter has been sent: Because these three people have not appeared...

..., their bail money is to be taken up by the U.S. government. And they have confiscated my things, which they had said would be released when I am released -- they were not given back. Then they told my attorneys, "After three days we will be releasing them." They were not released; then seven days... months have passed and they go on postponing. Now the case is dropped. Even the bail money has...

... married. It was such a trouble, because girls could be married only if you gave enough money, land with the girl to the man whom she was going to marry - unless the girl was exceptionally beautiful, which was rarely the case. And people were so poor, they could not afford to have one dozen girls. It was simply impossible for them to manage. You cannot blame them for killing the girls. It was better than...

... animals every day. I once met a man, an African, who himself was not a cannibal - but in Africa there are a few small tribes of cannibals still in existence. The tribes go on becoming smaller and smaller because they go on eating their own people. They will disappear. This man was caught by a cannibal tribe and they were going to eat him. But he happened to have so much money - he told them, "I can...

... give you much money if you spare me." The money was so much, those poor cannibals could not resist the temptation; they said, "Okay, we can spare you, but we cannot trust you; the money has to arrive first. Our man will go with your letter. The money has to be here and then we will release you." So he had to stay three days with them, and while he was with them he had to eat what they...

... it. He said, "But you are supposed to be a saint." Kabir said, "Not supposed to be - I am! If I was only 'supposed to be' a saint then I would not have participated in this act of stealing. And I would not have murdered my own son if I were only 'supposed to be' a saint. I am really a saint, and at my peak of consciousness, nothing matters. "Your money is not your money, so what...

.... But these so-called seers were accumulating immense money. They were in favor of the ugly caste system of India - in fact they created it. One fourth of the country is condemned to live like cattle, and the responsibility goes to the VEDAS. They were very ordinary people; if you look at the prayers that they have written in the VEDAS, you can see their utter ordinariness. And that has continued to...

..., because it is a blessing to work for Osho." Jayesh was very much influenced, but in the next sentence the man said, "I will work just for the sheer joy and the blessings that will come to me from working for Osho. But money also is needed...." Jayesh asked me what to do with such people. "He knows you not, he has never read you, he has never heard you. He talks about blessings, looks...

... very spiritual - and ends up with the sentence that money is also needed." I said to him, "Ask him to choose between the two: either the blessings or the money." He said, "Osho, you will destroy my whole work. He is the man I am depending on." I said, "But make it clear... because he cannot have both." He said, "It was better I should not have told you. Now I...

... am in a fix. I know he needs money, I know he is working for money. And if I ask this question, he will certainly be very much annoyed." This greed, this money infatuation, this materialism comes exactly down from the seers of the RIGVEDA. It still constitutes the unconscious of the Hindu mind. On the surface, everything is spiritual; underneath, everything is so ugly, so obscene. And the...

... such a man will provoke many egos, will hurt those who think they are very important and powerful people. The presidents and the queens and the prime ministers and the kings will become immediately worried, concerned. A man who has no power has suddenly become the focus of attention of the people, attracts more people than the people who have power and money and prestige. Such a man cannot be...

... paintings - a pioneer. And the pioneer is always laughed at; a creator who is not repeating the past, but bringing in the future, is bound to be misunderstood. His brother told a friend, "I will give you the money; at least purchase one of his paintings. He will feel happy that at least one person understands his paintings." The man had no sense about paintings, but he went. Van Gogh was very...

... happy, and showed him this painting, that painting, but the man said, "Any will do. Don't waste my time; here is the money." It was a shock. The man did not even look at the paintings: "Any painting will do - you just take the money and give me the painting." Van Gogh said, "These paintings are not for sale, and tell my brother not to waste money unnecessarily. This is not...

... your money, because I can see you don't have any sensitivity. You have been sent by my brother just to give me some consolation. Just get out of this place! My satisfaction is not in my paintings being sold; I am utterly content in creating them." The creator's joy is in creation itself; there is no other reward. And the moment you start thinking of any reward beyond your act, you are only a...

... ready to give him money to be a priest, but he was not ready to give him money to be a painter or to send him to a painting school. His brother felt deeply for him. He asked a prostitute, "In his whole life" - Van Gogh was thirty - "he has never known love. It would be very kind of you... I will give you the money... you pretend to love him." The prostitute was willing; it was her...

... beneficial. I was sitting in his shop when a man came, he was very annoyed. He said, "I have been taking this medicine since last month but it has done no good to me, no benefit to me. So give me back the money I have paid for it." Mulla said, "It is written on the packet that the money will be returned if it is not beneficial. Well, you may not have benefitted but I have, so why should I...

... return the money?" It all depend on one's own definition. You see life as you want to see it. Accordingly, the meanings of words change and the meanings of truths change. You build up a world of your own beliefs and you go on living in it. To keep up those beliefs one goes on finding one's own reasons to strengthen them so that they may not break. Mulla Nasruddin quarreled with someone in the...

... there asking for money, someone goes asking for a wife and someone goes asking for a son. You do not realize that you never step out of the market. Is this the way to go to the temple? You are taking the whole of the market with you to the temple. If you are like this, then the temple cannot purify you, you will pollute the temple. The temple is not a place, it is a state of mind. There can be no...

... says that if the time devoted to meditation could have been utilized in doing business, then some money could have been earned, or "I would have become a leader by contesting an election. The whole world is busy doing something or the other and I am doing meditation! I am not attaining the divine and am losing the world as well." This thought arises only because you still have attachment to...

... this world. Therefore it will be better if you go back to the marketplace because your sannyas will not be real and your meditation also cannot be real. Your attraction to money is still there. You are only curious about meditation. You are not thirsty, you are not a seeker yet. That is why I say that you had better return to the marketplace instead of sitting and thinking that existence is being...

.... If the attraction for women remains in the mind then running away from your wife is not going to help you; some other woman will attract you. If you are interested in money, giving it up will not make any difference. You will start collecting coins in some other sense - maybe this time the coins are of renunciation and austerity, but coins are coins. You will start amassing the other kind of wealth...

.... First you used to announce about the amount of money you possessed. Now you will announce about how much you have renounced. Your vanity will remain just the same. I want to free you from the world; I do not want to break you off from it. In this commune I am trying to make you free to live. If you can be free while living in this life then that is real freedom. You walk in water, but your feet should...

... tell you to run away from a woman; I say, "Wake up from the attachment to women." I do not say, "Give up money"; I say, "Understand money." In that understanding is freedom. Money is not holding you, you are holding it. It is your inner condition, it is your attraction. You can be free of this attraction only when the experience of life will tell you that this is useless...

... will think that you have gone mad. If it is rubbish, then throwing it away does not mean renunciation. And if it was not garbage, then why did you renounce it? When you announce your renunciation, you are actually saying that I had money but I renounced it under the influence of someone. You were not ready yet, you were not ripe yet; you were still raw and you took the step in a hurry. No one ever...

... division; that if you are hungry you won't purchase a television, you will purchase food which is a more basic necessity. But if you have enough food you are not going to go on purchasing food. You will start thinking of purchasing something else - better furniture, a better house, a television, or radio or literature or music. You will start, but if suddenly your money is gone then the first things to...

..., but you cannot become a good man. It happened that just in the last part of the last century, Rani Rasmani built a temple in Calcutta, in Dakshineshwar on the bank of the Ganges. But Rani Rasmani was not a high-caste Hindu, she was a sudra, she was untouchable. So no brahmin was ready to worship in her temple, although she was immensely rich and she was ready to give as much money as you wanted. And...

... she explained to the brahmins, "I have not even entered the temple; I simply go up to the steps and bow down from there. I have not entered the inner shrine; I have not even seen the statue of Krishna that is inside the temple. It is made with my money, but money cannot be sudra because money is continuously changing hands from sudra to brahmin, from brahmin to chhatriya. So you cannot call the...

... temples are made by sudras, there is no question about it. And money does not matter - money goes on moving. And I cannot refuse her because it is a question of Krishna being there, unworshipped. You have made Krishna also a sudra, an untouchable. The rani herself cannot enter. I am going." He went. The rani was happy but alerted because the man looked a little eccentric. But someone was better...

... society is based on judgment. Even our so-called fair courts are all judgmental, prejudiced. Just the other day I was looking at a judgment one court in America has given against my commune. In the judgment the judge has made it clear that all the laws are in favor of my commune, but still he feels that the money - one hundred and forty thousand dollars - should be given to this man, from the commune's...

... fund. He says in his judgment "I assume" - that is a strange word in a judgment - "I assume that this man needs that money. All the laws are in favor of the commune. They are for the commune." And that man was a servant of the commune. He was receiving one thousand dollars per month. He managed, with the clerk who was giving the salaries, that rather than getting one thousand...

... been damaged. His act has not been yet decided, whether he cheated the commune or not, but because we have put the case against him and published it in the paper, his name has been condemned, and he needs the money. And the judge himself feels that all the laws are in our favor, but still he "assumes". Our whole society depends on aspects, judgmental. Now this judge must have been feeling...

..., that I have thousands of followers who can do anything for me, that I have unaccounted sources of money, that however big the bail is - five million dollars, ten million dollars - I can jump it and go out of America. I have not committed any crime. My arrest is unjustified, but bail cannot be given because I am capable of getting out of America. This raises two points. One, is America such a weak...

... much money he may manage to get out of America. Then no rich man should be given bail. But for me a special reasoning has been found: the real thing has been put aside, that I have been arrested illegally without any arrest warrant, without any reason for arrest; and a secondary thing, which is absolutely illogical, has been used. That means only poor people can get bail, the very poor who cannot...

... escape, who cannot purchase a ticket from one place to another place, who don't have any friends - only these people can get bail. Anybody who has friends, who has money, who has sources, cannot be given bail. And the real reason... when I came back to the jail, the jailer was very much shocked. The old man's eyes had tears. He told me, "This is sheer injustice as I have never seen in my life...

...... and not only your condemnation, the way you told me, the way you looked at me." I refused to go in that car. I got out. I said, "Tell the ashram to send another car. This lady smells too much of smoke." The driver said, "I will be in trouble because you were not smoking and this woman is dangerous. She gives money, so she has great hold in the ashram." I said, "Either...