What is the difference between raga, viraga, and vitaraga?

Osho, someone has asked: what is the difference between raga, viraga, and vitaraga?

If you understand what I have just said, then raga means attachment to something; viraga means opposition to that attachment. One person hoards wealth—this is raga. And another kicks wealth away and runs from it—this is viraga. But the gaze of both is fixed on wealth. The one who gathers it broods over money; the one who leaves it also broods over money. One enjoys collecting and says, “I have so much”—his vanity is fulfilled by the “so much.” The other fulfills his vanity by saying, “I have given up so much.” You will be surprised: those who have wealth keep accounts of how much they have; and those who have renounced keep accounts of how much they have renounced. Lists of monks and renunciates come out enumerating how many fasts they have done—how many kinds of fasts; they keep accounts of everything. Renunciation has its ledger, indulgence has its…

Osho, another thing you said also sounded a bit strange. The analogy you gave about fasting—having eaten yet as if not eating; being married yet as if not married—I can understand up to there. But to beget children and yet as if not; to have intercourse and yet as if not! That process seems such that perhaps it cannot happen at all without lust and craving.

No, the question is always one and the same. If eating can happen without lust and craving, why not intercourse? The issue is not what is done; the issue is how it is done. If, while doing any act, a witness stands behind and sees, then no act is binding. While eating, if the witness within is seeing that eating is happening and “I am standing apart,” then the food is only going into the body. Behind it someone untouched is standing whom nothing can touch, who is only the seer of the eating. Now note: in eating, something goes into the body; in intercourse, something goes out of the body. That too can be witnessed. The witness can be there in any act, whether inward-going or outward-going. In truth, what goes in through food is what goes out through sex in its distilled essence. But it is going and…

Verse (Sanskrit): वासनाऽनुदयो भोग्ये वैराग्यस्य तदाऽवधिः। अहंभावावोदयाभावो बोधस्य परमावधिः।। 41।। लीनवृत्तेरनुत्पत्तिर्मर्यादोपरतेस्तु सा। स्थितप्रज्ञो यतिरयं यः सदानन्दमश्नुते।। 42।। ब्रह्मण्येव विलीनात्मा निर्विकारो विनिष्क्रियः। ब्रह्मात्मनो शोधितयोरेकभावावगाहिनी।। 43।। निर्विकल्पा च चिन्मात्रा वृत्तिःप्रज्ञेति कथ्यते। सा सर्वदा भवेद्यस्य स जीवन्मुक्त इष्यते।। 44।। देहेन्द्रियेष्वहंभाव इदंभावस्तदन्यके। यस्य नो भवतः क्वापि स जीवन्मुक्त इष्यते।। 45।। Transliteration: vāsanā'nudayo bhogye vairāgyasya tadā'vadhiḥ| ahaṃbhāvāvodayābhāvo bodhasya paramāvadhiḥ|| 41|| līnavṛtteranutpattirmaryādoparatestu sā| sthitaprajño yatirayaṃ yaḥ sadānandamaśnute|| 42|| brahmaṇyeva vilīnātmā nirvikāro viniṣkriyaḥ| brahmātmano śodhitayorekabhāvāvagāhinī|| 43|| nirvikalpā ca cinmātrā vṛttiḥprajñeti kathyate| sā sarvadā bhavedyasya sa jīvanmukta iṣyate|| 44|| dehendriyeṣvahaṃbhāva idaṃbhāvastadanyake| yasya no bhavataḥ kvāpi sa jīvanmukta iṣyate|| 45|| Translation: When, in the presence of the enjoyable, no desire arises—that is the limit of dispassion. Where the ‘I’-sense does not arise at all—that is knowledge’s supreme limit.।। 41।। The non-reemergence of a wave once stilled—this is the boundary of cessation. He is the ascetic of steady wisdom, who ever tastes bliss.

I am not saying it will not arise. I am not saying that at all. I am saying: whatever happens, be a witness to it. By becoming a witness it will slowly stop arising. Then you will come into contact with people and nothing will arise in between. There will be a person there and a person here; in between, nothing. Neither raga nor dvesha. To put it rightly, our amurchha—our non-intoxication, our non-possessiveness—is the way to freedom from raga-dvesha. Our murchha—our swoon of identification—is falling into raga-dvesha. We are unconscious; that is why we seize whatever appears. When anger comes it doesn’t feel as if anger has come to me—it feels as if I have become anger! Look closely: it feels “I have become anger!” Fire has ignited—I myself have become fire!

They say Banka began to laugh. From that day she was called Banka—she must have been a witty woman. She laughed and laughed. Ranka was puzzled. He asked: What is the matter? Why are you laughing? She said: I laugh because you are putting mud upon mud. You feel no shame putting mud upon mud? Here are two standpoints. One is the renunciate whose renunciation is centered on possession. He still sees gold. However much he may say ‘Gold is mud’—he is saying it to contradict what he sees. Gold still calls to him. Gold still invites. By saying ‘mud’ he lectures himself: it is mud—where are you going? Don’t go. But gold is still gold. What Banka said is supreme renunciation—true sannyas. Putting mud upon mud—have you no shame? The very idea is absurd. Gold is as it is.