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

CHAPTER 18. NON-ATTACHMENT IS NOT AVERSION
being. Let us descend into that shrine of aloneness and solitude. There is no one in that solitude,
not even you, it is a space of absolute silence. What does it mean? Does it mean that if I shut my
eyes to the world I will enter the space of my aloneness and solitude?
Every day we close our eyes, but we are never alone. As soon as we close our eyes we begin to see
the same images we had seen with open eyes. Thoughts and imaginations, dreams and daydreams
surround us from all sides. The world is again with us. Although it is imaginary it is nonetheless the
same world. We use our eyes like a movie camera; what we see with our eyes is imprinted on our
mind’s film, and we then watch it inside with closed eyes. All our thoughts and images are concerned
with the other. And unless they are dropped, unless this inner world of thoughts and dreams goes,
we cannot be free from the other, we cannot be alone.
This inner world of thoughts and dreams and images can be dropped, it is not that difficult. It is there
because we want it to be there; it exists with our cooperation. And it will disappear the moment we
withdraw our cooperation. It is because we relish and enjoy our world of thoughts and images – we
find it pleasurable – that it is alive and flourishing. Not only our enjoyment of it, even our aversion to
it helps to keep it going.
I repeat: not only our addiction to this world, even our aversion is equally responsible. Not only do
we think of our friends and loved ones, we also think of our adversaries and enemies whom we
hate. And it is ironic that those we hate haunt us much more than those we enjoy and love. But
when we neither identify ourselves with something nor condemn it, when we are neither interested
in remembering something nor in forgetting it, then the thing drops and disappears on its own; we
don’t have to do anything. It becomes irrelevant and meaningless, and so it removes itself from the
screen of the mind.
If you watch the movie which is your mind like a spectator, a witness, without identifying with it,
without condemning it, with total disinterest, then you will find the whole movie dropping away.
Before long, it disappears. And by and by the witnessing consciousness alone remains, without
any object before it. This objectless awareness is alone; it is alone ness. And one who attains to
this aloneness attains to non-attachment. The very experiencing of this consciousness, empty and
alone, is non-attachment.
The behavior of a man of non-attachment will be radically different from others, and this behavior
is called anasakti yoga or the discipline of non-attachment. He accepts everything – like a mirror –
without attachment or dislike. Now he knows for himself what self-nature is, what non-attachment is.
He knows that self-nature and non-attachment are inseparably together, and he also knows that
attachment and aversion are just behavioral. Having known and understood it in depth, he is not
going to behave the same as he had behaved before. His behavior with the outside world will be
radically different, because for him the world has ceased to be what it was before. His consciousness
has undergone a mutation. It is no more like the film of a camera; now it is like a mirror, and he will
use it as a mirror.
A mirror reflects everything that appears before it, but unlike the camera it does not retain
impressions when the object has moved away from it. A man of such consciousness will relate
with people and things, but he will not enter into relationships involving attachment and aversion. He
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 342 Osho