According to Osho, Mahavira left not to escape a physical house but to step beyond the narrow walls of mine-ness that make life stale and divided. Home and outside are one vastness; attachment carves boundaries and breeds suffering. By moving into the open sky of non-possessiveness, he entered a bigger home, the whole existence, where the line between inside and outside disappears and freedom becomes possible.
He left to drop the “this is mine” feeling and live in the big open home of everything, where he could be truly free.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, why didn’t Mahavira do his spiritual practice while remaining at home? What need was there to go out?
In Gandhi’s ashram a hymn was sung: “Call only that person a Vaishnava who knows the pain of the other.” Someone once recited it to me and I said it needs a slight correction. In truth, a Vaishnava is one who does not even know that anyone is “other.” Knowing the pain of the other is a second thing. To know the other’s pain, you must first accept that there is “other” and there is “mine.” A Vaishnava is one who does not know anyone as other—and only then can the pain of the other be felt as one’s own, because there is no “other” left. We live within the circle of “I,” of “mine.” That is our home: my house, my wife, my father, my son, my friend—an entire world fabricated by “mine.” Around this “mine” we have raised many kinds of walls: of stone, of love, of hatred,…
Osho, what family or social discontent did Mahavira have? Isn’t his renunciation an escape from responsibilities?
Such a person can rightly be called an escapist—not a person like Mahavira. He raises no new entanglements and flees from no fear; out of understanding, out of a knowing consciousness, he changes staircases—he goes to another step. I see it like this: if someone runs out of fear from something, that is one thing; if someone runs to gain something, that is entirely different. The man with a gun at his back runs; and the man who has seen a diamond mine runs. Both run. But one runs out of fear of the gun; the other runs because he has seen diamonds. You cannot call the second one an escapist. You can call him one who is in motion, running—but not fleeing. He is not running from something; he is running to something. The emphasis of his vision is not on what he leaves but on where he goes.…
None of us desires to be mean and low because our nature is the Lord. If this is understood, then whatever we do not desire points toward our nature, gestures toward it. Whatsoever we do not desire—our nature will be other than that. If this contemplation is born in someone, if his inner being is churned by this, seized by this pain and longing, seized by this thinking—if he begins contemplating each truth of life, Why do I not want suffering! If this contemplation arises— I am searching for bliss, but where did I lose it! If this contemplation begins, from its result an astonishing thirst will begin to arise in one’s life. That tendency which blindly sought outside will, because of the questioning, fall away; obstacles will arise in outward seeking, and a leaning will begin toward the inner.
Osho, in the third discourse on non-possession (aparigraha) you said that Mahavira, by entering the life of sannyas, became an emperor, while his elder brother, though living amid affluence, remained impoverished and enslaved. Attaining inner wealth yet staying beyond material wealth—that is, becoming free of possession—does this not amount to a one-sided, unilateral life? Why can they not accept both inner and outer prosperity together?
Mahavira left everything, not because it was wealth; he left precisely because it was not wealth. Mahavira left everything, not because there was something worth abandoning; he left because there was nothing worth holding. But what do we see? We see that he left palaces; we see that he left diamonds and jewels; we see that he left riches. That is what we notice. As far as Mahavira is concerned, he left nothing but pebbles and stones. We see diamonds and jewels; Mahavira saw pebbles in those diamonds and jewels. And in such diamonds and jewels there is nothing other than pebbles and stones anyway! Yes, those who wrote Mahavira’s story recorded how many diamonds, how many rubies, how many emeralds, how many pearls he left. If someone were to ask Mahavira, he would say, “How foolish you are! You’ve even given different names to pebbles?” Had Mahavira left only…
Leaving the house is easy; leaving the attitude of lack is difficult. Whatever I have, if I die this very moment, at the moment of death it should not feel that something is lacking — that there was something more to get; if I had lived till tomorrow I would have gotten it. Such a state that if death suddenly arrives she finds you utterly willing and you say, “I am ready.” For whatever was to be has happened; whatever was to be attained is attained; whatever could be received has been received — I am content. There was no demand for more. Life has opened its full meaning. Think: if death comes now, will she find you willing? Or will you say, “Wait for two days!