MY PARENTS KEEP ON SAYING THEY WANT ME TO LEAD A ’USEFUL’ LIFE AND DO SOMETHING ’USEFUL FOR SOCIETY’. AM I?
The society wants you to be reduced to a commodity. To say it politely they say, ”Do something useful.’ They are saying, ”Be useful. Function as a commodity so that people can USE YOU. Be a machine, efficient, functional.”
The society has been doing that, down the ages – reducing people to utilitarian commodities. But they talk as if they are saying it out of great love. And I am not saying that your parents are cheating you– they may be simply repeating what THEIR parents have done to them. That’s how it goes on, generation after generation: the same diseases are being handed on. THEIR parents must have told them, ”Be useful– otherwise you will be a nobody, a hobo. Do something for which society pays you. The more it pays, the more your work has been useful.”
The utility of a certain thing is decided by money, how much money you can get out of it. Now, how much money can you get out of meditation? You cannot get any money out of meditation; you may even lose that which you have. While you are meditating, somebody may rob you. And you cannot do both things – meditating and keeping an eye on your money bag– that is impossible.
Love is not a utility. You can be as loving as possible, but you will not become famous because of your love. See: people become famous because of their violence, not because of their love. How much you have the power to kill – that makes you famous. The more power you have to kill, the more important you are. Love? Who cares about love? It is good for poets to talk about it and painters to paint about it and mystics to sing about it. But these people are not the real people – they are not the real society, they exist on the fringe. They are always on the outer fringe. The society somehow tolerates them, that’s all. But the society does not need them.
One of the most calculating thinkers of the world, Plato, decided that in his ideal society called ”Republic”, poets would not be allowed; there would be no place for poets. Why was this man so much against poets? The only reason is, they talk nonsense.
Poetry cannot be reduced to any utility. Sannyas is poetry – poetry in life, poetry as living.
Your parents must be worried, I can understand. They feel for you – although their feeling is not ENLIGHTENED, still they feel for you. They must be worried: ”What is going to happen to my child?
If one goes on meditating and dancing and singing, then from where is the money going to come? And who is going to support you? How will you live? Where is the security?” They must be worried about you.
I can understand their sympathy, but their sympathy is ignorant. Life can be lived in a poetic way – SHOULD be lived in a poetic way. Life should not be reduced to any utility, and yet you can earn enough. But always remember Jesus: ”Man cannot live by bread alone.” You should not become just a bread-producer, a bread-earner. Bread is needed, but bread is needed only so that you can sing a song. The bread is needed for the song, the song is not needed for the bread– the bread is a means, it is not an end.
Once your perspective changes, life will have a totally different significance. It will not have utility but it will have significance, which is far more important. You will earn – needs are not many, needs are very few. Any intelligent person can fulfill his needs very easily. But when needs become the whole life and you are nothing but a means, then needs cannot be fulfilled – they become neurotic.
Neurotic needs are called desires. That’s what Buddha calls them – neurotic needs. Bread is needed, but you don’t need a great treasure. Clothes are needed, but one need not be mad about clothes. One is not here just to go on collecting clothes. Yes, it is beautiful sometimes to put flowers in your hair, to have a garland of flowers or just a rose in your buttonhole. But you are mad if you are running after diamonds and wasting time. Any stone, any beautiful stone from the beach will do. A seashell will do.
There is no need to put your whole energy and life into things which are really unimportant, insignificant. But that’s how people are living. They live for the bank balance. Once they have started living for the bank balance they completely forget what the use of the bank balance is; they go on increasing it.
Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men of the world, was once asked: ”You could have stopped earning any time, because you always had more than you needed.” He said, ”Yes, that’s right – but I could not stop. I had forgotten HOW to stop.”
Once you get into things it becomes almost impossible to stop. Now he knew that he had more than he needed and there was no need to go on earning. But he worked from the morning till late in the night. Even the day he died he was working – late, up to twelve in the night he worked, and by twelve-thirty he died. And he was ill, and the doctors were saying, ”You need rest.”
But how can you rest? The whole life becomes money-oriented – money means utility.
An intelligent person knows that money is not the goal. And remember, I am not against money, but money is not the goal. There are two kinds of people: those who are for money, and those who are against money. Both are unintelligent. An intelligent person is neither for nor against. He knows that money has some utility, it fulfills certain needs – you need clothes, you need a shelter, you need food, so it is perfectly all right. But you need not make money your god.
You say: MY PARENTS KEEP ON SAYING THEY WANT ME TO LEAD A ’USEFUL’ LIFE AND DO SOMETHING ’USEFUL FOR SOCIETY’. This is a very strange logic. This is being told to everybody.
Create war, it is useful. Exploit people, it is useful Destroy people, it is useful.
Your parents must love you, that’s why they are worried. Feel thankful for their love, but beware: their love is ignorant. It has no light in it, it is dark, it is dangerous. Feel grateful that they think of you, but don’t be trapped by them.
What utility has a rose-flower? And what utility have these birds who are singing? this cuckoo far away, calling you– what utility? What utility do stars have? and the mountains? and the rivers?
Existence is a celebration. It is not a marketplace, it is a festival, it is a carnival of joy. It is dance, it is song, it is love. It has no utility. It is not a means to any other end; it is an end unto itself.
That’s what I teach you: Be joyous, be a celebrant. Love life utterly, live life utterly. And of course that is taken for granted that you will be intelligent enough to provide bread and butter for yourself. And that is not such a big problem– it can be very easily arranged, with very little effort. One need not waste one’s whole life for it.
So, make your parents understand what is happening here to you. My people are not going to be beggars; I am against begging. The new commune is not going to beg for anything – it will be a productive commune, it will itself produce whatsoever it needs. But it will not reduce people to utilities. All that is done is done only so that you can celebrate, so that you can sing, so that you can dance.
Dance is the goal. Everything else has to be just a part. And if YOU are joyous, you help people to be joyous. If YOU can laugh, you create ripples of laughter in existence. That is the real service.
Do you know? Before Albert Einstein died, somebody asked him, ”If another chance is given to you and God is willing for you to come back to the earth, what would you like to become?” He opened his eyes, and said, ”One thing is certain – never again a physicist, never again a scientist! I would rather become a plumber.”
There is a reason, great experience in it, great repentance in it. Albert Einstein knows perfectly well that he has wasted his life, and he has been the cause of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – that he has been even more dangerous to humanity than Adolf Hitler. There is a possibility that any day the whole world may disappear, and the reason and the cause will be Albert Einstein. But when he was discovering atomic energy, he thought he was being of great use to the society.
Please avoid being so useful to the society. Plant a rosebush – enough of the Hiroshimas and Nagasakis. Water a small plant: let there be a little greener in the world, a little more pink in the world, a little more gold in the world. Play on a guitar: let there be a little more music in the world, a little more harmony in the world. Love. Love for love’s sake.
Osho: Take It Easy, Vol 2: CHAPTER 13. THE REAL ISRAEL Q 4 (excerpts)
हज़ारों काम मोहब्बत में हैं मज़े के ‘दाग़’
जो लोग कुछ नहीं करते कमाल करते हैं…………….दाग़ देहलवी
hazāroñ kaam mohabbat meñ haiñ maze ke ‘dāġh’
jo log kuchh nahīñ karte kamāl karte haiñ……………………….DAGH DEHLVI
There are thousands of delightful pursuits in love, O Daagh,
Those who do nothing at all, perform wonders.
I am reminded of the humorously critical song “Na Biwi Na Bachcha, Na Baap Bada Na Bhaiya, Sabse Bada Rupaiya,” which perfectly reflects society’s obsession with wealth and material possessions. The song satirically portrays how people blindly chase money, often placing it above everything else—even relationships, values, and inner peace. The desire for excessive wealth, luxury, and material things is a neurotic need that distracts us from true contentment. Through its witty lyrics, the song mocks this endless greed, reminding us that money is merely a tool, not the ultimate purpose of life. Sung by The Legendary Actor Mehmood, written by Majrooh SUltanpuri and composed by Basu Manohari for the film “Sabse Bada Rupaiya” (1976).
Na Biwi Na Bachcha – Video Song | Sabse Bada Rupaiyya | Mehmood | Moshumi Chatterjee Old Hindi Song