Osho on Money and Enjoyment

[A sannyasin says he feels disturbed because he wants more money to enjoy himself more.]

Osho – For what do you want to have money? Because money in itself is neither good nor bad. It depends on what you want it for….

But have you seen any person who has money and can enjoy life too? It is very difficult… almost impossible. one has to be really a great master to have money and enjoy it! Because there are a few things to be understood: you can earn money only if you stop enjoying life. That is the first necessity to earn money. Because soon, if you go on enjoying it, you will not be able to earn it. By the time you have earned enough, you have also earned a habit of not enjoying life; they go together.

For example, if you want to have a million dollars it may take you fifty years. You can have a million dollars but then fifty years asceticism will have destroyed you. For fifty years you have lived for a goal which is going to be there, somewhere in the future. By the time you arrive your eyes are fixed on fifty years ahead again. That’s the dilemma of the rich man. Slowly slowly, the means become the end.

Everybody thinks that he needs money to enjoy. By and by he learns that he has started enjoying having money. Once you have learned that – enjoying having money – you cannot enjoy anything. So my suggestion is: whatsoever you have, start enjoying right now. And if you don’t have anything, start enjoying nothing. But enjoy it immediately; don’t postpone it for tomorrow. If you want to become rich you have to postpone. If you really want to enjoy tomorrow more, practise enjoyment today, because fundamentally it is not money that will make you capable of enjoying life – it will be enjoyment itself. Just start enjoying! What is missing?

Source – Osho Book “The 99 Names of Nothingness”

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