WHY IS MONEY SO IMPORTANT?

Why has money gained such an importance in our lives? I see, people are ready to do any thing for money. Man’s psychology is full of greed; otherwise money is a simple and perfect means of exchanging things, there is nothing wrong in it, but the way we have worked it out, everything seems very wrong.

Let us understand the nature of this sticky problem.

Money has gained its importance because we have not been able to work out a sane system in which money can be a servant to the whole humanity, and not a master of a few greedy people.

The real question is how much money is enough?

If we don’t have money, we are condemned; our whole life is a curse, so most of our life we are trying to make money by any means possible. If we gather enough money it does not change the basic nature of man, we want more and there is no end to wanting more. Finally when we have too much money, it is never enough but other problem starts. If we posses more money than anybody else we start feeling guilty.

 The means that we have used to accumulate money are ugly, inhuman, and violent. We have been exploiting, we have been sucking the blood of people, we have been a parasite. Now that we have gathered all the money it reminds us of all the crimes that we have committed in gaining it.

People start donating to charitable institutions to get rid of the guilt. They are of course doing good work. They open hospitals, schools, colleges build huge temples. All they are doing is trying not to go mad because of the feeling of guilt. All these hospitals, all these schools and colleges, and all these charitable institutions are outcome of rich guilty people.

I believe money should not be in the hands of individuals, otherwise it will create this problem of being burdened with guilt. Instead of an individual if the commune owns the money everybody’s life will be richer. The commune can manage to give us all the facilities that we need, all the education, all the creative dimensions of life. The society will be enriched and nobody will feel guilty. Since the society has done so much for them, they would like to pay it back by their services.

I feel let society take care of everybody. Everybody creates, everybody contributes, but everybody is not paid by money; they are paid by respect, paid by love, paid by gratitude, and are provided with all that is necessary for life.

Source: BEYOND PSYCHOLOGY - OSHO