According to Osho, possessiveness and chauvinism arise from inner inferiority and poverty masked by pretended superiority—hoarding power, people, or ‘spirituality’ to cover a wound. Freedom comes by seeing this strategy clearly, dropping hypocrisy, and turning inward: acknowledge the inner lack, cultivate awareness/meditation, and live authentically. When inner richness flowers, the urge to own, dominate, or prove disappears.
See that wanting to own or boss others hides feeling small; admit the hurt, meditate, and the grip of control fades.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, I am too possessive in nature. How to get away from this indian male chauvinistic mind? Osho, please help me.
Buddha has introduced a totally new vision of life -- it WAS spiritual. But he was against the Vedas and he was against the whole idea of Hindu gods. And the Hindus of course said, "He is destroying our culture, our religion, our spirituality." In a way they were right -- he was destroying -- because what you think is culture, spirituality, religion, is not so, is not the case. It is only your hypocrisy; it is something false. And unless you see the false as the false you cannot know the real. And Buddha tried hard to make you understand that reality is just the opposite -- opposite to your beliefs about yourself. Hence the Hindus have never been able to forgive him; they destroyed his whole heritage. He was uprooted from India. And you can see it in every way. Their whole idea of spirituality is repressive. When…
Why do I allow women to hold power over me, to accept or reject me? This old rut makes nonsense at heart. I want to get out.
And the day that happens and you start turning in, then you can get out. By getting into yourself to such a depth where you can find your inner woman... it is there. If you are a man, then your conscious is masculine, your unconscious is feminine. If you are a woman, then your conscious is feminine, your unconscious is masculine. Just dive deep into the unconscious. And that is what meditation is all about. Go on loving, go on experiencing the joys and the miseries that love brings. They are all needed to make you ripe and mature. And meanwhile go on meditating. Both these processes, love and meditation, if they continue simultaneously, slowly slowly will make you aware that whatsoever you are finding outside can be found inside in a far better way. And ONCE that happens, then your unconscious and conscious meet, you become ARDHANARISHWAR -- you…
Osho, in one discourse you said that for men the “I-sense” and for women the “mine-sense,” that is, possessiveness, are obstacles. Isn’t possessiveness just another form of love? Must I really drop such a loving quality, which has overtaken my life? And then will I have to live dry and arid? Please guide me.
Kashmeera, you are right. If I were producing monks of the old style, your statement would be absolutely right—that then life would become dry and arid. But I am talking of a very different sannyas: a renunciation that does not run away from love, rather awakens to the truth of love; a renunciation that does not accept love as merely momentary, but embraces it as its eternal truth; that does not flee the world or flee love, but drops the ego. For sorrow does not come from love; from love comes joy, even if momentary. Yes, when love goes and the ego becomes strong, then sorrow comes. This is a subtle process; you will understand only if you look carefully. Sorrow never comes from love. Sorrow comes from ego, from attachment, from possessiveness, from the sense of I. Therefore in the beginning, love relations are very pleasant and delightful. The…
Unless this needy love is dropped and a totally new love arises in you -- love that knows how to give, love that enjoys giving; not the love of a child but the love of a mature person -- you will remain possessive. You will turn the other into a thing, you will reduce her to the thing, and when you reduce the other, the other reduces you. The so-called love affairs are almost like enmity. They are not love -- no friendship, not at all. Each is just trying to exploit the other. It is a mutual arrangement of exploitation: 'I will exploit you, so I have to allow myself to be exploited by you.' Love can be defined... they have in China a very ancient definition -- it is: 'Scratching the other's back so that the other can scratch your back.' That's all.
Why am I so possessive about things?
The question is from Anam. Ordinarily everybody is possessive of things, because nobody possesses themselves; it is a substitute. When you don't possess yourself, you start possessing things. It gives a sort of security -- at least you possess something: a big house, a big balance in the bank, a beautiful woman, a wife, a husband. children, security, respectability. You possess something, you don't possess yourself. To take your eyes away from that inner zeroness, nothingness, that emptiness, you go on filling things all around you. But it is not going to satisfy, because whatsoever you possess will never make you full inside; you will remain empty. The idea to possess things arises because we don't possess our being. Because the being is missing, we start moving into the world of having -- 'Have this, have that' but you will remain frustrated. Deep down the emptiness will be felt again…