Non-Possession

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…

When he got up in the morning, the king invited him to take a dip in the river behind the palace. Both went to bathe. When they were bathing, they heard loud noises. The palace was on fire. The flames were going high up in the sky. The king asked the sanyasi, 'Do you see this'? The sanyasi came out immediately and shouted, 'What do you talk? What is there to see? My clothes are there on the bank, they may catch fire. Let me run.' But when he was running towards the bank, it struck him that the palace of the king is on fire and yet he was still standing in the water, and I am running to save my loin cloth kept on the bank. The fire has not yet reached the palace.

The old religions have taught people to go beyond possessions; I teach you to go beyond possessiveness -- and there is a vast difference between the two. Going beyond possessions is a masochistic thing. Then you are unnecessarily torturing yourself. Mahavira lived naked, he carried the idea of non-possessions to the ultimate extreme, so he did not even have clothes. He had to live naked -- that is the logical consequence of the idea of not possessing anything, not even the begging bowl which was allowed in India for the monks, for all kinds of mystics. But Mahavira would not have anything to do even with a begging bowl. He would eat with his hands, he would beg with his hands. But this is in a way masochistic. When it was cold he must have been shivering and when it was hot and when it was raining....

Ibrahim rose from the throne, touched the fakir’s feet, and said, You stay; now I will go. Where are you going? asked the fakir. He said, I was staying here under the delusion that this is my house. If it is an inn, the matter is finished. I was not attached to these walls; I was attached to the idea that it is mine. If it is an inn—then please, you stay; I am leaving. The emperor left. Did this emperor 'renounce'? No. He saw there was no house—only an inn. The matter ended. Who renounces an inn? In an inn you lodge—and depart. Mahavira was born carrying such a seeing. And such seeing can be attained even in this very life. For such seeing, what is needed is not the renunciation of wealth, but the realization of wealth’s truth. Renouncing wealth may be just as ignorant as accumulating it.