Meditation opens doors to inner richness. And the outer richness is only a false substitute: it keeps you in a kind of illusion that you are rich. Deep down you remain poor because the outer richness cannot change your inner world.
“If you are poor in a hut, miserable in a hut, you will be poor and miserable in a palace too. The palace cannot change your misery, it has nothing to do with your misery.
Your misery can only be changed by some inner transformation.
“So there are two kinds of poor people in the world; the poor poor and the rich poor – but both are poor. And in fact, the rich-poor person is far more poor, poorer than the poor poor, for the simple reason that he has contrast. He can see that the outside has become rich and in contrast, his inner poverty shows more clearly.
“The poor man cannot feel that. Both sides are poor, in and out, so there is no contrast. It is like writing with white chalk on a white wall – there is no contrast. You can write something, but you cannot read it.
The rich man is like a blackboard on which you write with white chalk; it comes clear and loud. Hence all rich societies have felt a tremendous urge to find inner richness.
“That is how religion is born – religion can be born only in a rich society. The poor society can only have a pseudo kind of religion; it cannot have real religion because it cannot feel its inner poverty, there is no contrast.
“That’s why when people from the West come to India they are surprised and puzzled: people are so poor and yet they don’t seem to be so miserable. They should be very miserable, but they don’t seem to be as miserable as people in the West are – and they are rich. They have all the technology and all the industry and all the scientific gadgets, but they are very very miserable.
They feel that life is a meaningless project, they feel life is absurd. So when they come to the East and see poor people in a way contented they start thinking it must be because of religion. It is not so.
“And the Indian gurus go on saying it is because of religion – that is sheer nonsense! It is not because of religion, it is because there is no contrast.
“The poor man can still hope, the rich man cannot hope, he becomes hopeless. The poor man can hope that one day he will become rich and then everything will be all right; so he can go on dreaming, he has something to dream about.
The rich man has come to the very end of the road.
“He has all that he had ever dreamt of or even more than he ever dreamt of. Now, what to do? Nothing is happening. All that he wanted he has, and the emptiness still continues; in fact, it looks very clear now.
“One thing is certain: that this road leads nowhere; he has come to a full stop. Something else is needed. His inner search begins. When the outer search has failed completely because it has succeeded – nothing fails like success – he has to turn in.”
Religion happens only in a rich society.
“Then a new journey starts, a journey for inner treasures. We have not found it on the outside so maybe it is not on the outside – let us look in. It is simple logic – turn in. And those who have gone in have always found it, without exception.
“Meditation means turning in, and then you immediately see explosions of joy, richness. Suddenly your life has meaning, splendor. Suddenly a quality of dance, of rejoicing, of celebration, arises in you. All meaninglessness disappears and now you know you have something which is intrinsically yours and there is no need to hanker for anything because nothing can be found to… any improvement is not possible.
Once you have known the inner there is nothing more to know, there cannot be anything higher.
“You start overflowing with your richness; in fact you start sharing it with others.
“Meditation brings you tremendous richness, inexhaustible richness, and a deep longing to share it, to give it to everybody for no reason at all, for the sheer joy of giving it.”
END
Excerpted from Osho, Just the Tip of the Iceberg, Talk #21
You can read more of this topic in Osho, Pharmacy for the Soul
