Which is more valuable – wealth or wisdom?

I have heard about one Jewish mystic, Baal Shem. Someone came and asked Baal Shem, ”Which is more significant, which is more valuable – wealth or wisdom?” The man was asking the question for a reason, so Baal Shem laughed and said, ”Of course, wisdom is more significant, more valuable.”

Then the man said, ”Then, Baal Shem, the second question: I always see you, the wise man, waiting on the wealthy. You always go to rich people’s houses. I have never seen any wealthy man waiting on you, the wise one, and you say that wisdom is more valuable than wealth. Then explain this phenomenon to me.”

Baal Shem laughed and said, ”Yes, wise men go to the wealthy ones because they are wise and they know the value of wealth, and the wealthy ones are just wealthy – simply wealthy and nothing else – and they cannot understand the value of wisdom. Of course, I go – because I understand the value of wealth. And those poor idiots? They are just wealthy – nothing else. They cannot understand the value of wisdom, so they never come to me.”

If you see a saint going to a palace, you will say, ”Okay! This man is not the saint.” It is finished because you look through your own eyes. Wealth has meaning for you. You can only follow a saint who renounces wealth because you are wealth obsessed. You look through you, and whatsoever you say is more about you than about anyone else. It is always about you; you are the reference. When you say that Buddha is not enlightened, you don’t mean that. You simply mean, ”For me he does not look enlightened.”

But who are you? And does his enlightenment depend in any way on your attitude, your approach, your standpoint? You have fixed categories of thought and you go on using them. To you pathology is recognizable, but enlightenment is not. And you cannot understand that which is higher than you – remember. You can only understand that which is lower than you or at the most on the same level. You cannot understand the higher, that is impossible. To understand the higher you will have to move higher. You can understand the lower.

Look at it in this way: a madman cannot understand you. It is impossible for a madman to understand you; he looks through his madness. But you can understand a madman. He is lower than you. The normal human being can understand abnormal who have gone below, pathological, but he cannot understand higher ones.

OSHO