Greed / Beyond Greed

-------- Excerpt from the book 'Osho Transformation' -------

GREED

Whenever people become very greedy, they become very hurried, and go on finding more ways to gain more speed. They are continuously on the run because they think that life is running out. These are people who say, “Time is money.” Time is money? Money is very limited, time is unlimited. Time is not money, time is eternity – it has always been there and will always be there. And you have always been here and you will always be here.

So drop greed, and don’t be bothered about the result. Sometimes it happens that because of your impatience, you miss many things.

BEYOND GREED

Man is full if he in tune with the universe. If he is not in tune with the universe then he is empty, utterly empty. And out of that emptiness comes greed. Greed is to fill it – with money, with furniture, with friends, with lovers, with anything – because one cannot live in emptiness. It is horrifying, it is a ghost life. If you are empty and there is nothing inside you, it is impossible to live.

To have this feeling that you have much inside you, there are only two ways: either you get in tune with the universe…… Then you are filled with the whole, with all the flowers and with all the stars. They are within you just as they are without you. That is real fulfillment. But if you don’t do that – and millions of people are not doing that – then the easier way is to fill it with any junk.

Greed simply means you are feeling a deep emptiness and you want to fill it with anything possible, it doesn’t matter what it is. And once you understand it, then you have nothing to do with greed. You have something to do with coming into communion with the whole, so the inner emptiness disappears. And with it, all greed disappears.

But there are mad people all over the world, and they are collecting things to fill their emptiness. Somebody is collecting money although he never uses it. People are eating; they are not feeling hungry and still they go on swallowing. They know that this is going to create suffering, they will be sick, but they cannot prevent themselves. This eating is also a filling-up process. So there can be many ways to fill emptiness, although it is never full - it remains empty, and you remain miserable because it is never enough. More is needed, and the more and the demand for more is unending.

You have to understand the emptiness that you are trying to fill, and ask the question, “Why am I empty? The whole existence is so full, why am I empty? Perhaps I have lost track – I am no longer moving in the same direction, I am no longer existential. That is the cause of my emptiness.”

So be existential.

Let go, and move closer to existence in silence and peace, in meditation.

And one day you will see you are so full – overfull, overflowing – of joy, of blissfulness, of benediction. You have so much of it that you can give it to the whole world and yet it will not be exhausted.

That day, for the first time you will not feel any greed – for money, for food, for things, for anything. You will live naturally, and whatever is needed you will find it.