Possessiveness – In Gita Verse 6.8 A person is said to be established in self-realization and is called a yogī [or mystic] when he is fully satisfied by virtue of acquired knowledge and realization. Such a person is situated in transcendence and is self-controlled. He sees everything – whether it be pebbles, stones or gold – as the same.
Krishna says that the person who is self-realized lives in the objective world to play his role and in his subjective world he is always blissful. For him everything has got its meaning without attaching any meaning to it. For him if in the present moment if he needs pebbles, he uses it, he will not think that it is pebble and its lower or higher with anyone. As in this moment he requires for the objective world, pebble so he uses it. If at this moment he needs stones or diamonds he will use that also without any comparison with pebble or gold, he has nothing to do with the worldly calculation of the pebble to Diamonds. If he needs this moment gold he will use that also. I am using the word need and not desire. Means for a self-realized person whatever is needed for this moment he will utilize it without attaching any meaning or desire to possess that.
In my Bhagavad Gita Verse 1.12, blog I wrote the distinction between Need And Desire.
Modern man, the modern mind, wants to possess everything and not be possessed by anything. Modern man wants to be the master of everything, and you can only be the master of things – not of happenings. You can be the master of a house, you can be the master of a mechanical device; you cannot be the master of anything which is alive. Life cannot be mastered; you cannot possess it. On the contrary, you have to be possessed by it. Only then is there contact with it.
Love is life, and it is greater than you. You cannot possess it. I would like to repeat it: love is greater than you; you cannot possess it. You can only allow yourself to be possessed by it; it cannot be controlled. The modern ego wants to control everything, and you become scared of whatsoever you cannot control. You become afraid; you close the door. You close that dimension completely because fear enters. You will not be in control. With love you cannot be in control, and the whole trend which has led to this century was one of how to control. All over the world, and particularly in the West, the trend is for how to control nature, how to control everything, how to control energies.
Man must become the master, and you have become the master – of course, only of those things which are possible to possess, and side by side you have been developing an incapacity for those things which cannot be possessed. You can possess money; you cannot possess love. And because of this we have been turning everything into a thing. You even go on turning people into things because then you can possess them. If you love a person, you are not the master; no one is the master. Two persons love each other, and no one is the master – neither the lover nor the beloved. Rather, love is the master and both are possessed by a greater force than themselves, encircled by a greater force – a whirlwind. If they try to possess each other, they will miss each other. Then they can possess each other. Then the lover will become the husband and the beloved will become the wife. Then they can possess, but a husband is a thing and a wife is a thing. They are not people. You can possess them. They are dead entities, legal labels – not alive.
We go on turning persons into things just to possess them, and then we feel frustrated – because we wanted to possess the person and the person cannot be possessed. When you possess a person, he is no more a person; he is a dead thing, and you cannot be fulfilled by a dead thing. Look at this contradiction: you can be fulfilled only by persons, never by things, but your mind desires possessions – so you turn them into things. Then you cannot be fulfilled. Then frustration sets in.
Possessiveness, the attitude to possess, has killed the capacity to love. Don’t think in terms of possession. Rather, think in terms of being possessed. That is what surrender means – being possessed: you allow yourself to be possessed by something greater than you. Then you will not be in control. Then a greater force will take you. Then the direction will not be yours. Then you cannot choose the goal. Then the future is unknown; you cannot be secure now. Moving with a greater force than yourself, you are insecure, afraid.
If you are afraid and insecure, it is better not to move with the great forces. Just work with lower forces than you; then you can be the master, and you can decide the goal beforehand. Then you will achieve the goal, but you will not get anything out of it. You will have just wasted your life.
Krishna tells Arjuna that a self-realized person surrenders and is possessed by the universe. So he has no desire for himself, but he without any desire, uses all the available resources required to use for this moment.
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