Possessiveness

 

 

There are great misconceptions about possessiveness. Possessiveness is not about having things, it refers to the feeling of ownership over things. Parigrah means possessiveness. It has nothing to do with how many things you have. It all depends on the attitude with which you relate to those things, in what way you are connected to them. And we are not only possessive about things, we are also possessive about people.

 

Yesterday I said a few things to you about violence. Possessiveness is nothing but another dimension of violence. Only a violent person is possessive. As soon as I claim ownership of someone or something, I have immediately moved into deep violence. Without being violent, it is impossible to be an owner. Ownership is violence. Ownership of things is widespread, but we even hold ownership over human beings.

 

Pati, the husband, is the owner of the wife. The very meaning of the word pati is owner. In India the husband is also called swami and that word too means owner. Possessiveness means a desire for ownership. A father may be the owner of his son, a teacher may be the owner of his disciple – but wherever there is ownership there is possessiveness, and wherever there is possessiveness the relationship becomes violent. Without being violent toward someone, one cannot be his owner; without making someone a slave, one cannot be his owner. Without imposing slavery, it is impossible to be possessive.

 

Why is there such a desire in man’s heart to possess? Why is there such a desire to possess someone? Why is there such interest in being the owner of someone? It is an interesting phenomenon – it is because we are not masters of ourselves. In someone who becomes his own master, this idea of ownership disappears. But we are not our own masters, and throughout life we compensate for this lack by possessing others.

 

Even if one becomes the owner of the whole earth, this lack cannot be compensated for because the bliss which comes with being the master of oneself is altogether unique, and becoming a master of others brings nothing but misery. To be the master of oneself is bliss, to be the master of others is always suffering. Hence, the greater the ownership, the greater the misery. In becoming the possessors and owners of others, we spend our whole lives trying to compensate for that one lack: not being our own masters, not being emperors to our own selves.

 

It is like someone trying to quench his thirst with fire; the thirst goes on increasing. Thirst cannot be quenched with fire. Likewise, mastery of oneself cannot be attained by becoming a master of others. Rather – and the interesting point is – the more we become a master of others, the more we become a slave of the enslaved.

 

Ownership is actually a double slavery. The one whose master we become certainly becomes our slave but we also become his slave. The master is also the slave of his slave. However much the husband becomes the master over his wife, he becomes her slave too. And however great an empire the emperor might own, he becomes a complete slave to it. He also becomes a slave to fear, because those we make dependent upon us become afraid, and then opposition and rebellion against us begin. They also want to make us dependent. [....]

 

This is the only difference between master and slave – one’s slavery is visible and the other’s slavery is invisible. Other than that, there is no difference. The one we enslave makes us a slave too. The possessor becomes the possessed. Non-possessiveness arises by searching with the question, “How do I become my own master?” [....]

 

People who are under the illusion that others are emperors are only slaves themselves. The really poor are those who want to destroy their inner poverty with external wealth. And the really dependent are those who, by making others dependent, remain lost in the illusion of their own independence. No one can be independent after making another dependent. Possessiveness is the name of this illusion.

 

I want to be independent so I think, “Let me make someone dependent on me, then I will become independent.” But the dependence is two-sided, the chains tighten on both sides. Prisoners in jail are not the only ones imprisoned. The sentry standing outside the jail is just as much a prisoner. One is imprisoned outside the wall, the other is imprisoned inside the wall. Neither can the one inside the wall escape, nor can the one outside the wall escape. And the strangest thing is that the one inside the wall may even attempt to escape, but the one outside will not even try. He thinks he is independent. [....]

 

It is one of life’s extraordinary secrets that whoever we imprison, imprisons us too. In order to imprison someone, we will also have to be imprisoned. There is a great depth to possessiveness. It is important to understand its subtle aspects, so that the enormity of it can also be understood from the outside.

 

The possessive person first tries to forget the idea that he is dependent, to forget that he is limited, that he is not his own master. But it cannot be forgotten. If I am not the master then I do not exist, and however much distraction I create to forget this, even in the distraction, deep inside me I know that I am not the master.

 

-Osho, "The Art of Living, #2"