Possessiveness

Osho on Possessiveness - Only things can be possessed; beings cannot be possessed




There is nothing worse than this that you can do, that you are capable of: reducing a being to a thing. And that's what possession is.

Only things can be possessed; beings cannot be possessed.
You can have a communion with a being.
You can share your love, your poetry, your beauty, your body, your mind.
You can share but you cannot do business.
You cannot bargain.
You cannot possess a man or a woman.
But everybody is trying to do that all over the earth.

The result is this madhouse we call the planet earth. You try to possess -- it is naturally impossible, it cannot happen in the very nature of things. Then there is misery. The more you try to possess a person, the more that person tries to become independent of you, because every person has a birthright to be free, to be himself or herself. You are trespassing on the privacy of the person, which is the only sacred place in the whole world. Neither Israel is sacred, nor is Kashi sacred, nor is Mecca sacred.

The only sacred space in the true sense is the privacy of a person -- his or her independence, the being hood. If you love a person you will never trespass.

Remain open: perhaps it may happen again -- if not with this person, then with another person. The question is not persons, the question is of love. Love should remain flowing, it should not be stopped. But in their stupidity people start thinking, "If this person goes out of my hands then I am going to starve my whole life without love." And he does not know that by trying to hold this person permanently in his captivity, he will starve. He will not get love. You cannot get love from a slave. Ownership is double slavery.The one whose master we become certainly becomes our salve,but we also become his slave.The master is also the salve of his salve.

If you are possessed you lose your very soul. Man and Women love eachopther only while they are not yet in a fixed relationship. As the relationship settles, love disappears. Once the relationship is fixed, instead of love, something else takes place: possessiveness. They still go on calling it love, but you cannot deceive existence. Just by calling it love you cannot change anything. It is now hate, not love. It is fear, not love. It is adjustment, not love. It is compromise, not love. It can be anything -- but not love.



Visible and invisible : A man tied a cow with a rope and was dragging it towards the jungle when a sanyasin passes by.The sanyasin stopped and said to."I want to ask a question."Is this cow tied to the man or is the man tied to the cow?" The people of the village said,"It is clear and simple that the cow is tied to the man."Then the sanyasin asked,"If the cow runs away,will the man run after it or not?"They said,"He would have to run."

The sanyasin said,"The cow is tied with the visible rope and the man is tied with an invisible rope.He cannot leave the cow.There is a rope around the cow's neck,which can be seen.The cow has a rope around this man's neck too,which is clear but can not be seen."

This is the only difference between masters and slave- One's slavery is visible and the other's slavery is invisible.The possessor becomes the possessed.

Non-possessiveness arises by looking for answers to the questions : "How do I become my own masters?