This sutra seems very dangerous: Desire possessions above all. Possessions? The very word will create a disturbance in your mind because all the great teachers have taught: don’t desire possessions. Buddha says, “Be nonpossessive.” Mahavira says, “Aparigraha: nonpossession.” Jesus says, “Leave all riches, all possessions.”

Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to pass through the gate of the kingdom of my God.” This sutra says: Desire possessions above all. But the sutra is beautiful. It means the same thing that Mahavira and Buddha and Jesus are saying, but it says it in a very contradictory way.

It says that all those things that you think are possessions are not possessions because you cannot really possess them. Can you possess things? Can you possess others? Can you possess anything in the world? You can only deceive yourself that you possess something. You cannot really possess anything because death will destroy everything.

Another thing: whatsoever you possess becomes your possessor. The possessor is possessed by his possessions. You become a slave, you are never the master. So what is the use of saying that you possess the world? No one possesses anything. Only one thing can be possessed and that is your own self. Nothing else can be possessed.

You can become master only of your own self.

If you try to be the master of someone else you will be just a slave. You may call this slavery mastery, you may label it mastery. You can deceive yourself, but deceptions are deceptions. Nothing is changed by just changing the label.

Look at your possessions, at whether you possess them. If your house is destroyed you will weep, you will scream, you will go mad; but if you die, your house is not going to weep, it is not going to go mad. So who was the real owner? The house owned you. It doesn’t care a bit about you, whether you live in it or not. Really it will feel very good if you leave; it will be more at ease. It is not dependent on you. You are just disturbing its peace. If you are dead the house will feel good. So who is the possessor?

This sutra is meaningful in this sense that only the self can be possessed and nothing else. And if you cannot possess yourself, what do you think you can possess? So be a master – the master of your own self – and don’t make any effort to possess anything.