10 Eye-Opening Osho Quotes On Money and How It Affects Happiness

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Excerpt: Can money buy happiness? According to Osho, the answer is a resounding, “No.” Check out our list of 10 Osho quotes on money to find out why…

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Introduction:  Happiness Versus Comfort

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed.  Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”

Denis Waitley

Is it true that money cannot buy happiness?  According to Osho, author of Fame, Fortune, and Ambition, the answer is a resounding, “Yes.”  What money can buy, however, is comfort.  And what Osho points out is that it is better to be comfortably miserable than uncomfortably miserable.  He states in his book, “I have lived in poverty and I have lived in richness, and believe me: Richness is far better than poverty.”

That is why neither he nor I are against money.  But don’t get it twisted, comfort is not to be confused with happiness, and wealth is not to be confused with richness.  What you should be fighting for is not a life of comfort and wealth, but a life of balance and happiness.

Money can buy you a house, but not a home; fancy cars, but not class; medicine, but not health; sex, but not love; luxury, but not culture.  And while fulfilling desires can feel good, living a life that is fulfilling will always feel better.  The first step we should all take to leading a fulfilling life is to put into check our needs versus our desires.

When we are mindful of when our needs of food, water, shelter and clothing are met, then we need to check how far above our needs our desires are leading us.  Because in the society that we live in today, it’s easy to get caught in the never ending cycle of upgrading.  The mindset we have to have is that there will always be a fancier house, car, and new material possession and as long as we continue to desire that upgraded thing we will be in a state of discontent.

Does that mean that you should only live on the absolute basic needs required for survival and nothing more?  No.  It’s not what I would want to do and it’s not what I would want for you to do either.  Living a life that is comfortable is a blessing and is something that every human should pursue and work to achieve.

But it’s important to again, be mindful of how much comfort you’re accumulating—there are millions of people who don’t even have enough to fulfill their basic needs let alone any of their desires.  Let’s resolve to drop superfluous desires and rather use our money as a tool to improve not only our life, but the lives of others, every day.  Instead of being, “Happy but never satisfied,” let’s resolve to be, “Always happy and always satisfied with an intention of continuing to do better each day.”

Below, you will find 10 Osho quotes on money that will send this message home and fill in any gaps that I might have left out.  As you’re reading, think about all of the needs and desires you have fulfilled and have left unfulfilled in your life.  Reflect on how you feel about them and think about how you might change your mindset moving forward to improve.  All it takes is one decision to change your life.  Our hope is that the message will be powerful enough to lead you to that change.  Good luck!

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The List:  10 Eye-Opening Osho Quotes On Money and How It Affects Happiness

“Needs are small: yes, you need food, shelter, you need a few things.  Everybody’s needs can be provided for; the world has enough to fulfill everybody’s needs—but desires… it is impossible.  Desires cannot be fulfilled.  And because people are fulfilling their desires, millions of people’s needs are not being fulfilled.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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“Have you ever seen a bird poor?  Animals in the forest—nobody is poor, nobody is rich.  In fact, you don’t even see fat birds and thin birds.  All the crows are almost identical; you cannot even recognize which is which.  Why?  They enjoy; they don’t hoard.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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“Kill desires—you will not find any blood coming out of them, because they are bloodless.  But kill a need, and there will be bloodshed.  Kill a need, and a part of you will die.  Kill a desire, and you will not die.  Rather, on the contrary, you will become freer.  More freedom will come out of dropping desires.  If you can become a person of need and no desires, you are already on the path, and heaven is not far off.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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“Money is a loaded subject because man’s psychology is full of greed; otherwise, it is a simple means of exchanging things, a perfect means.  There is nothing wrong in it, but the way we have worked it out, everything seems to be wrong.  If you don’t have money, you are condemned; your whole life is a curse, and for your whole life, you are trying to get money by any means.  If you have money, it does not change the basic thing: You still want more, and there is no end to wanting more.  When finally, you have too much money—even though it is not enough, it is never enough, but it is more than anybody else has—then you start feeling guilty, because the means that you have used to accumulate the money are ugly, inhuman, violent.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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“You don’t possess the stars; still you can enjoy them.  Or do you first have to possess them, and only then will you be able to enjoy them?  You don’t possess the birds in the sky, but you can enjoy them.  What you need is not more possessions.  What you need is more sensitiveness, more aesthetic sensibility, more musical ears, more artistic eyes.  What you need is a vision that transforms everything into something significant and meaningful.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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“People go on postponing everything that is meaningful. Tomorrow they will laugh; today, money has to be gathered… more money, more power, more things, more gadgets. Tomorrow they will love; today there is no time. But tomorrow never comes, and one day they find themselves burdened with all kinds of gadgets, burdened with money. They have come to the top of the ladder, and there is nowhere to go except to jump in a lake.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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Related: 25 Tony Robbins Quotes on Money and Achieving Financial Freedom

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“Greed is an effort to stuff yourself with something —it may be sex, it may be food, it may be money, it may be power.  Greed is the fear of inner emptiness.  One is afraid of being empty, and one wants somehow to possess more and more things.  One wants to go on stuffing things inside so one can forget one’s emptiness.  But to forget one’s emptiness is to forget one’s real self.  To forget one’s emptiness is to forget the way to god.  To forget one’s emptiness is the most stupid act in the world that a man is capable of.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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“This is my idea of being successful—be a nobody!  Just be ordinary, nobody, and life will be a tremendous joy to you.  Just be simple.  Don’t create complexities around yourself.  Don’t create demands.  Whatever comes on its own, receive it as a gift, and enjoy and delight in it.  And millions are the joys that are being showered on you, but because of your demanding mind, you cannot see them.  Your mind is in such a hurry to be successful, to be somebody special, that you miss all the glory that is just available.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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“Meditation cannot be purchased, love cannot be purchased, friendship cannot be purchased, gratitude cannot be purchased—but nobody is concerned with these things.  Everything else, the whole world of things, can be purchased.  So every child starts climbing the ladder of ambitions, and he knows if he has money, then everything is possible.  The society breeds the idea of ambition, of being powerful, of being rich.  It is an absolutely wrong society.  It creates psychologically sick, insane people.  And when they have reached the goal that the society and the educational system have given to them, they find themselves at a dead end.  The road ends; there is nothing beyond.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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“[The] will to power is the greatest sickness man has suffered from.  And all our educational systems, all our religions, all our cultures and societies are in absolute support of this sickness. One has to understand that this tremendous urge to power is arising from an emptiness within you.  A man who is not power-oriented is fulfilled, contented, at ease, at home as he is.  His very being is an immense gratitude to existence; nothing more is to be asked.  Whatever has been given to you, you had never asked for.  It is a sheer gift out of the abundance of existence.”

Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition

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Read Next: 13 Osho Quotes on Life and Death That Will Make You Feel Enlightened

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If you enjoyed these Osho quotes on money, you should definitely consider reading his book in full. It comes highly recommended:

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