Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 18. NON-ATTACHMENT IS NOT AVERSION
Non-attachment is altogether different; it is freedom from both the positive and the negative kinds
of attachment. Non-attachment means one is neither attached to something nor averse to it. Nonattachment
is transcendence of both attachment and aversion.
In the world of spiritualism there are many words like non-attachment, which have been badly
distorted and misconstrued. Veetrag is one such word which means transcendence of attachment,
but it has become synonymous with aversion. When someone goes beyond both attachment and
aversion, he achieves the state of veetrag or transcendence. This word veetrag belongs to the
tradition of Mahavira, while anasakti belongs to the tradition of Krishna, and they are synonymous.
But there is a difference in the approach of the two.
While Mahavira attains to the state of veetrag by renouncing both attachment and aversion, Krishna
attains to the state of anasakti by accepting both positive and negative attachments. And these are
the only possible ways. While their ends remain the same, their means are different. While Mahavira
insists on renunciation of attachment, Krishna emphasizes its acceptance. So in a deeper sense
veetrag is negative and anasakti is positive.
A non-attached mind, according to Krishna, is one who accepts everything unconditionally. The
interesting thing is that if you accept something totally it does not leave a mark, a scar on your mind;
your mind remains unscathed and undisturbed. But when you cling strongly to a thing it leaves a
mark on your mind. And when you are strongly averse to something you detest and deny it, then
also it leaves a mark on your mind.
But when you neither cling to a thing nor run away from it, when you become receptive to everything
– good or bad, beautiful or ugly, pleasant or painful – when you become like a mirror reflecting
everything that comes before it, then your mind remains unscathed and unmarked. And such a
mind is a non-attached mind; it is established in non-attachment.
You want to know how an ordinary person can achieve non-attachment. In fact, everyone is ordinary
until he attains to non-attachment. So the question how an ordinary person can become nonattached
does not arise. As long as one is attached or averse to something he remains an ordinary
person. Extraordinariness comes with non-attachment, not before. It is not that ordinary people
come to non-attachment in one way and extraordinary ones come to it in another way. Only one
who has transcended both attachment and aversion is extraordinary. So the right question to ask is:
How can one attain to non-attachment?
Before we go into the question of non-attach ment, let us understand the matter of attachment itself.
How is it that one ceases to be non-attached and becomes attached to persons, things and ideas?
According to Krishna, non-attachment is embedded in the very nature of a human being, in his
very being. Non-attachment is our basic nature, our original face. So the real question is how one
deviates from his nature. We ,don’t have to practice non attachment, we don’t have to do something
to come to it. We have only to know how we have gone astray from our nature. This is our basic
question.
Someone came to me the other day and said, ”I want to find God.” I asked him when and how he
had lost his God. His answer was that he had never lost him.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 337 Osho