The Nobel Prize involves very large sums of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the prize constantly increases because money is becoming more and more deprecated. And Nobel likely earned a huge pile of money because all the prizes awarded annually are paid only from the interest—the principal sum remains untouched. The annual interest is so great that it is possible to award the prize to twenty candidates.
All charity is, in reality, an attempt to wash away a sense of guilt. Literally. After Pontius Pilate ordered Christ to be crucified, the first thing he did was wash his hands. Strange! An order for crucifixion does not make the hands dirty, so why did he decide to wash them? It is very simple: he felt a sense of guilt. It took people two thousand years to realize this. For two thousand years, no one even paid attention to it, no one bothered to comment on the fact that Pontius Pilate washed his hands. But Sigmund Freud discovered that people experiencing guilt often wash their hands. It is a symbolic act. As if their hands are stained with dirt, with blood.
Therefore, if you have money, you will experience a sense of guilt. Charity is a wonderful way to wash your hands. Various religions use these emotions of yours. They manipulate the feeling of guilt very skillfully—they support your ego, claiming that by engaging in charity, you are on a spiritual path. However, all of this has nothing to do with spirituality; these are merely attempts to comfort criminals. It also happens that a person feels so guilty that they either go insane or commit suicide. Their existence turns into unbearable torment. It becomes hard for them to breathe. The strangest part is that they spent their life earning all this money, all because society aroused in them the desire to get rich, the desire to acquire power. Money truly gives power; you can literally buy everything with it, except for a very few things. But no one cares about these trifles.
Meditation cannot be bought, love cannot be bought. Friendship and gratitude cannot be bought. But none of this interests anyone. Everything else, this whole world—can be bought. Therefore, every child begins to climb the ladder of ambition, and from infancy, they already know that if they have money, they can do anything.
Society cultivates your ambitions, your desire for power, the desire to be rich. This is an absolutely wrong society. This is a society of mentally ill, insane people. And when they achieve the goal set before them by society and the educational system, they find themselves at a dead end. The road ends, and there is nothing beyond it. Therefore, they either become pseudo-spiritual people, go insane, or commit suicide and destroy themselves.
Money can become something beautiful if it is not in the hands of individuals, if it is part of a commune, part of a society in which everyone cares for each other. Everyone creates something, everyone makes their contribution, but no one is paid money; people are repaid with respect, love, gratitude, and are given everything necessary for life.
Money should not be in the hands of individuals. Otherwise, the problem of guilt arises. And money does not make people's lives richer. If the commune owns the money, it can give you everything you need; it will give you both education and the opportunity to engage in Creation. Society will be rich, and no one will feel guilty. Because society has done so much for you, you will want to repay it with your services, with your work.
If you are a doctor, you will try your absolute best; if you are a surgeon, you will do everything to save the patient, because society helped you become a surgeon, gave you an education, gave you everything necessary, and cared for you from early childhood.
This is what I mean when I say that children should belong to the commune, and the commune should care for everyone. Everything created by people will not be secretly accumulated in the hands of individuals; it will be a common resource. It will be yours, it will be for you, but it will not be in your hands. Then you will have no reason to manifest ambition; on the contrary, it will help you become more creative, more generous, more grateful, and then society will become ever better and more beautiful. Then money will cease to be a problem.
Osho