According to Osho, asanga (nonattachment) is the clear recognition that, at the core, you are alone and not truly 'with' anything—persons, possessions, or circumstances remain outside you. Deepen this understanding in every situation: relate, love, and use wealth, yet inwardly remain free, unpossessed and unpossessing. Nonattachment is the inner independence that prevents clinging and keeps awareness centered in itself.
It means remembering that nothing and no one really belongs to you inside, so enjoy and care without clinging.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What does asanga (nonattachment) mean—that to anyone...?
We are not with anything. We may be together—as we are sitting here; you are all sitting with me—but still I am alone and you are alone. We appear to be together, but who is truly with whom? There is a wife, a child, a mother, a father—everyone, all together—yet ultimately you are alone. The point is to deepen this sense. In every situation, in every situation. Even if wealth is close by, it is still outside us.
[An elderly woman, the mother of a sannyasin who was also present, says: I turned my back on religion many years ago, so I've been saying no for a very long time.] That's very good! I was talking about you this morning! (Osho had talked about yea-sayers and no-sayers that morning in the discourse.) The religion to which you were saying no is not religion at all, and it is good to say no to it. Only religious people will say no to it. [The woman says: I've been calling myself a humanitarian.] Yes, that is a new name for it, but not as good as 'religion'. (a little chuckle) Because unless the human mind tries to reach beyond itself, it cannot grow. All growth comes to you only when you try to reach higher than your best. When you try for the impossible, then only the possible happens.
Osho, what is attachment? Why do we become so attached to things, ideas and persons? And is there freedom from attachment?
“So do one thing,” she told the courtesan. “I will pay you whatever you ask. Go to him at midnight. He meditates at midnight—has done so for thirty years. I want to know whether meditation has happened or not before I die. His hut door is only latched; no one ever goes there. Open it and go in. Whatever he says, notice every word and tell me. Go and embrace him—then come back and report. Before I die, I want to be sure that my service was not in vain.” The courtesan went. She opened the door. The monk was startled. He opened his eyes—he had been sitting in meditation—and shouted, “You wicked woman! Why are you here? Get out! What need have you to come at midnight?” But his tongue faltered; his body trembled. The woman had taken her money; she went right in. He cried, “Stay back! Why…
Questioner: krishna says that by giving up desiring and attachment, which he calls niskamta and anasakti respectively, one is released from bondage and he attains to the supreme. But it is so difficult for ordinary men and women to be free of desiring and attachment. Please explain the significance of desirelessness and non-attachment and ways to achieve them.
In the first place try to understand the meaning of the word anasakti or non-attachment. It is unfortunately one of the most misunderstood words. Non-attachment is generally taken to mean aversion, but it is not aversion. Aversion is a kind of attachment -- the opposite of attachment. Someone is attached to sex and someone else is attached to its opposite -- brahmacharya or celibacy. Someone is attached to wealth; he is running after wealth, and someone else is attached to renunciation of wealth; he is running away from wealth. One person is obsessed with the idea of looking handsome; another person is obsessed with the idea of looking ugly. But those who are averse to sex, money or good looks appear to be non-attached because their attachments are negative. Attachment has two faces, positive and negative. You can fancy a thing so much that you madly run after it, you…
This non-attachment—someone has asked—how can it arise in an ordinary person?
All are ordinary until non-attachment arises. So the question is not how it can come to “ordinary” people. Until it comes, everyone is ordinary; only when it flowers does extraordinariness bear fruit in life. Hence there are not two paths—one for the ordinary and one for the extraordinary—because “extraordinary” only means one who has attained non-attachment. Ask instead: how to attain it? How is this non-attachment to be realized? And before we ask that, first see how it was missed in the first place. How have we gone astray from non-attachment? In Krishna’s vision, non-attachment is our very nature. How did we miss our nature? So it is not that we have to do some special practice to acquire non-attachment. We only need to understand how we drifted from our nature. How did we lose non-attachment? Someone came to me and said, “I am searching for God.” I asked him,…