If you take life as a whole, then to waste life only in economics and politics is a great wastage. If you take life as a whole, then ultimately whatsoever you achieve, the only achievement is what is inside you. All else is just superficial.

Religion and meditation cannot help to make a poor country rich in any way. It cannot. But it can help a poor man to be rich – in a very non-economic sense. If riches only mean the outward thing, then religion is absolutely irrelevant, but if you think in terms of inner consciousness, peace, a blissful attitude, a life lived as an inner celebration, then it can help. And to me, that is more meaningful.

Osho,
What are your ideas on socialism?

Socialism to me is a very non-psychological way of thinking.

There is a longing to be equal, but that longing only shows that human beings are not equal in any dimension. They are unequal; the inequality is a fact. The concept of equality is only a fiction and whenever society hankers after a fiction, it falls into a chaotic way of life.

So socialism is not possible. It is an impossibility. It can only be possible if two conditions are present. The first is if the human mind is destroyed and man becomes a human automaton instead. Then socialism becomes possible because machines can be equal.

And socialists will go on trying to do this. They have been trying to wipe out the mind. Freedom of the mind will be the first target for socialism to clear away because freedom of the mind basically creates inequality.

Osho,
What about socialism not as a means of creating equality but only as a means of providing everyone with the basic necessities of life?

This vision of providing the basic necessities of life cannot be fulfilled, because one of the basic necessities is to be unequal. It is one of the very basic necessities. To be unequal to be oneself, to not be just a number but a name – not even a name, but a signature. That is one of the basic necessities, more basic than food, Food seems to be basic because the world is poor, but the moment everyone is fed it will cease to be a basic necessity; it will be forgotten. Clothes are not a basic necessity. They only seem to be because the world is naked. The moment plenty of clothes are available, it will not be a necessity.