Yoga Sutra 24 Non Possessiveness

“… and non possessiveness.” And only after brahmacharya, when you have attained to the fulfillment, you possess the world, without possessing it. But by and by you have to train yourself for nonpossession. Don’t be possessive, because whenever you are possessive you simply show that you are a beggar.

Whenever you try to possess, you simply show that you don’t possess it; otherwise there is no effort. You are the master. There is no need to try for it.

For example, if you love a person: if you try to possess the person, then you don’t love. And you are not certain about his love also; that’s why you create all safety measures, surround him by every trick, cunningness, cleverness, so that he cannot leave you. But you are killing love. Love is freedom, love gives freedom, love lives in freedom – love is, in its intrinsic core, freedom. You will destroy the whole thing. If you really love, there is no need to possess; you possess so deeply, what is the need? You don’t claim; the claim will look shallow. When you really possess, you become non possessive, but one has to train oneself, be aware. Don’t try to possess anything. At the most use, and be thankful that you were allowed to use, but don’t possess.

Possession is a miserliness; and a miserly being cannot flower. A miserly being is always in a spiritual constipation, ill. You have to open, share. Share whatsoever you have and it will grow – share more and it grows more. Go on giving, and you are continuously refilled. The source is eternal; don’t be a miser. And whatsoever it is – love, wisdom – whatsoever it is, share. Sharing is the meaning of non possessiveness.

But you can be foolish, as many people are. They think, “Leave the house, go to the forest, because how can you live in the house if you don’t possess it?” You can live in the house; there is no need to possess it. You will be living in the forest.

Will you possess the forest? Will you say, “Now I am the lord of this forest?” If you can live in the forest without possessing it, what is the problem? Why can’t you live in the house and in the shop without possessing it? Foolish people say, “Leave your wife, your children. Escape, because non possessiveness is to be practiced.” They are stupid.

Where will you go? Where you will go, wherever you go, your possessiveness will be with you. It won’t make any difference. Wherever you are, just understand and drop possessiveness. Nothing is wrong in your wife – don’t say, “my” wife. Just drop the “my.” Nothing is wrong with your children – beautiful children, children of God. You have been given an opportunity to serve and love them – use it, but don’t say, “my.” They have come through you, but they don’t belong to you. They belong to the future; they belong to the whole. You have been a passage, a vehicle, but you are not the owner.

So what is the need to escape anywhere? Be wherever it has happened that you are. Be wherever God places you and live in a non possessiveness, and suddenly you will start flowering – energies will be flowing, you will not be a blocked phenomenon, you will become a flow. And flow is beautiful. To live blocked and frozen is to be ugly and dead.

These five inner self-disciplines are the basic requirement “… regardless of class, place, time, or circumstance.” Whether you are born today or you were born five thousand years before makes no difference. There are preachers in India who say, “In this kali yuga you cannot become enlightened.” And Patanjali says, “…regardless of class, place, time, or circumstance.” You can become enlightened wherever you are.

Time doesn’t matter. It is awareness that matters. Place doesn’t matter. Whether you are in the Himalayas or in the market does not matter. Circumstance doesn’t matter – whether you are a grahasta, a householder, or a person who has renounced everything, no. Class doesn’t matter – whether you are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, brahmin or a shudra, Hindu or a Mohammedan, Christian or a Jew. Nothing matters, because deep down you are one.

On the circumference there may be differences, but they are only on the circumference; the center remains untouched. Attain to the purity of the center.

That’s the goal.