Panch Mahavrat or The Perennial Path The Art of Living

Author(s): Osho Rajnish
Publisher: Osho Rajnish

Page 23

CHAPTER 3
Material prosperity and nonpossessiveness
11 November 1970 am in
Material prosperity is the basis of spiritual life, without which no building is constructed Foundations can be there without buildings. Some one may leave the foundation as it is after filling it to the top; then the building will not be there in spite of the foundation. Prosperity is the basis of the condition which is above passions and passionlessness. Without being materially prosperous none can realize the uselessness of prosperity; without getting wealth, none can know that nothing is achieved by wealth. The greatest gift of wealth is the disillusion about its worth. If one does not get wealth, one can never know the worthlessness of wealth. The distressed, the needy and the poor will find great difficulty in being free from the Lure of riches. How can one be free from that which one has not got. To be free from a thing, one should have it. One should have the thing first, then and Then only can one be free from it. That is why I always say an affluent society - community - can become religious and only prosperity takes a person beyond riches.
When I said in my previous discussion on nonpossessiveness that a few things make a person less attached and many things make him more attached, many friends might have felt there is some contradiction in these two statements. This doubt has been raised. To be free from a smaller bondage is very difficult, and it is possible to be free from a greater bondage. If chains are few, a person can endure them; but when they are many, a person would revolt. The poor man has so few chains that he has no idea of breaking them. And a rich person has many chains, so he gets the idea of breaking them. When things are multiplied, a person realizes that he has collected a useless load around him. The load which I thought, would give me freedom, did not free me but on the contrary I am simply burdened. I had thought the load would be such that it would help me rise to a higher level; but that rising up did not materialize but made it difficult for me to walk. A greater bondage takes one nearer freedom.