Renunciation
This game of 'my' and 'mine' is the most absurd game -- but this is the whole game of life. This earth was there before you ever came here, and this will be here when you are gone. The diamonds that you possess were there before you ever came here, and when you are gone those diamonds will remain here -- and they will not even remember you. They are completely oblivious that you possess them.
This game of possessiveness is the most foolish game there is -- but this is the whole game.
Gurdjieff used to say that if you start getting disidentified from things, sooner or later you will fall upon your essential being. That is the basic meaning of renunciation. Renunciation does not mean, sannyas does not mean, renouncing the world and escaping to the Himalayas or to a monastery -- because if you escape from the world and go to a monastery, nothing is going to change. You carry the same mind. here in the world, the house was yours, and the wife was yours; there the monastery will be yours, the religion will be yours. It will not make much difference. The 'mine' will persist. It is a mind-attitude -- it has nothing to do with any outside space. It is an inner illusion, an inner dream, an inner sleep.
Renunciation means: wherever you are, there is no need to renounce the things because in the first place you never possessed them. It is foolish to talk about renunciation. It means as if you were the possessor and now you are renouncing. How can you renounce something which you never possessed? Renunciation means coming to know that you cannot possess anything. You can use, at the most, but you cannot possess. You are not going to be here forever -- how can you possess? It is impossible to possess anything. You can use and you can be grateful to things that they allow themselves to be used. You should be thankful to things that they allow themselves to be used. They become means, but you cannot possess them.
Dropping the idea of ownership is renunciation. Renunciation is not dropping the possessions but possessiveness. And this is what Gurdjieff calls getting unidentified. This is what Bauls call realizing 'Ardhar Manush' -- the essential man. This is what Zen people call the original face.
-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #3"