WHAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE TO MONEY?

I have lived without money, I have lived with money, and I have one confession to make:

it is always better to live with money than without. Money is useful. 
One should not be used by it, that's all. I'm not against money; it should be used. 
It is a good, utilitarian invention. It helps.

It is tremendously useful; but use it, don't be used by it.

Money should not be your master; you should be the master, that's all. And if you have to choose, then my suggestion is: always choose to be with money. I am not saying that you

will be more happy; I am saying only that you will have more choice to choose your misery according to your heart.

A poor man has not much choice: he has to be miserable, whatsoever the misery happens to be. A rich man has much more choice. The poor man has to suffer in a limited way.The rich man suffers unlimitedly: he can suffer here, he can suffer in New York, he can suffer in London, he can suffer in Peking. He has the whole world to suffer in.And sooner or later, he will be suffering on the moon and Mars. he has more freedom, and freedom is good.

If you are poor you have to suffer one woman; if you are rich you have to suffer many women. It opens doors. So if you ask me, I will suggest that if you are trying to choose to live with money or without, I would say to live with money. it will give you more

experience, it will bring you to God sooner -- because you will be tired sooner.

A poor man is never tired of money, remember. Because he has no money -- how to be 
tired of something you don't have? A poor man always hankers and desires and dreams about money. Only a rich man is finished with money. In fact, that is the definition of a rich man: one who is finished with money, he is the rich man. he has known, he has seen what money can give. And now he would like to have something more that Money can never give.

I am not saying money can give you God, or peace, or happiness. But there are foolish people...

One MAHATMA came to see me a few years ago, and he said, "I have renounced money because through money you cannot have bliss.

" But I said, "Who told you, in the first t you will have bliss? Through money you can have a beautiful house. Who told you that you will have bliss? Who has told you that you will have happiness? You will

have a big car."

There are foolish people who expect that through money bliss is going to happen. Then they become disillusioned one day.

Money is not wrong; their illusion, their projection, was wrong. Money is not at fault. If you go and try to squeeze oil out of sand, and oil does not come out of it, will you say that the sand is at fault?

You were foolish, you were stupid. In the first place, who had told you that by squeezing sand you would get oil?

Money cannot give you bliss, cannot give you peace, cannot give you God, cannot give you paradise.

But to come to know this, one has to have money. Then you become clearly aware of what money can give and what money cannot give. When a person has known what money can give, his efforts start moving beyond the money, beyond the world.

Money is a beautiful invention, one of the most important inventions man has ever made, next only to language -- the first is language, the second is money.

These are the two most important foundations for civilization, society, culture.

I am not against it; I am simply saying what money can give and what money cannot give.

If you are thinking that by hoarding money, one day suddenly you will become meditative, then you are a fool. Not bye hoarding money are you going to become mediative. And remember, not by renouncing money are you going to become meditative.These are both foolish people. First they think that through money they will get God, then one day they think that by renouncing money they will get God -- but in both cases they remain money-oriented.

God has nothing to do with money. You can have God with as much money as you want, and you can have God without money, without as much money as you want. God has

nothing to do with money. A rich man can become meditative, a poor man can become meditative.

But my understanding is this: that if a poor man wants to become

meditative, he will need TREMENDOUS intelligence -- because he will have to see the

futility of money which he does not have. He will need tremendous intelligence.

Kabir must have been tremendously intelligent -- I think more intelligent than Buddha and Mahavir.

My reason for saying so is this: Buddha had money, Mahavir had money. If they became fed-up, it is simple, it is logical. It is as simple as "two plus two are four." If

Buddha had not renounced the palace, then it would have proved only one thing: that he was stupid.

If he renounced, that does not prove that he was very greatly intelligent, that simply proves an average intelligence.
But Kabir, Christ, Mohammed -- they are more intelligent people. They didn't have money, they didn't have anything, and still they became aware that money is useless. They didn't have a great kingdom, and without having it they renounced it.

They must have been very sharp people, tremendously alert.

They could see through things that they didn't have. Their transparency, their clarity, was tremendous, incredible.

If a poor man wants to be religious, he will need great intelligence. If a rich man wants to be religious, he needs only average intelligence.

So, if a poor man becomes Spiritual, he is a great sage. And if a rich man does not become spiritual, he is a fool, stupid.

OshO

The Path of Love