Osho – Only a man of Tao could have changed that hell into a heaven. A man of Tao, wherever he is, is at peace, at ease. Only the essential is done, and if you can do the essential for him, he is happy. The nonessential is dropped.
You cannot drop the nonessential. Really, ninety-nine percent of your energy is wasted on the nonessential. The essential is not enough, and the mind always hankers for the nonessential, because the essential is so little, so small, it can be fulfilled easily. Then what will you do?
People are not very interested in having good food. They are more interested in having a big car because good food can be attained very easily. Then what? People are not interested in having good healthy bodies. That can be attained very easily. They are interested in something which cannot be attained so easily, something impossible, and the nonessential is always the impossible. There are always bigger houses, bigger cars, they go on getting bigger and bigger and you are never allowed to rest.
The whole world is trying to fulfill the nonessential. Ninety percent of industry is involved with the nonessential. Fifty percent of human labor is wasted on that which is not useful in any way. Fifty percent of industry is devoted to the feminine mind, rather, feminine body: designing new dresses every three months, designing new houses, clothes, powders, soaps, creams; fifty percent of industry is devoted to such nonsense. And humanity is starving, people are dying without food, and half of humanity is interested in the absolutely nonessential.
To reach the moon is absolutely nonessential. If we were a little wiser we would not even think about it. It is absolutely foolish wasting as much money as could feed the whole earth. Wars are nonessential, but humanity is mad, and it needs wars more than food. It needs to go to the moon more than food, more than clothes, more than the essential, because the essential is not enough.
And now science has created the greatest horror, and that horror is that now the essential can be fulfilled very easily. Within ten years, all humanity’s needs can be fulfilled, this whole earth can be satisfied as far as the necessities are concerned. Then what? Then what will you do? You will feel in the same position as the priest. He thought that he was in heaven, and then he found that it was hell. Within ten years the whole earth can become a hell.
The nonessential is needed for your madness to remain engaged. So moons are not enough, we will have to go further, we will have to go on creating the useless. It is needed. People need it to be occupied.
A man of Tao is not a man of much activity. His actions are the most essential – those which cannot be avoided. That which can be avoided, he avoids. He is so happy with himself there is no need to move in actions. His activity is like inactivity; he does without there being anybody doing. He is an empty boat, moving on the sea, not going anywhere.
Source – Osho Book “The Empty Boat”