Question – Is the Desire to stay near you, not going away, also a Bondage?
Osho – It depends, because bondage is never in a situation, it is in the attitude. If you want to go away and cannot, then it is a bondage. If you don’t want to go away, the question doesn’t arise. The reverse is also true: you want to be here near me and you cannot, then going away is also a bondage. If you want to be near me and you can be easily, there is no problem; the question doesn’t arise. Bondage or freedom are attitudes. They are not in situations.
Do you follow me? If you want to be near me and some inner obsession goes on forcing, “Go away! Don’t be here,” you would like to be here but some demon inside goes on forcing, “Go away!” — that’s a bondage, going away is a bondage. If you want to go away and some fear within you goes on insisting, “Don’t go away! If you go away you will lose the contact, you will lose the Master, the contact with the Master… don’t go away!” — a certain fear goes on forcing you to be here, and you want to go away — then it is a bondage.
So what is a bondage? Bondage is something which you have to do as an obsession, as a compulsion: you never wanted to do it and you have to do it. You have to go against your self, then it is a bondage — whatsoever it is. If you are just floating, it is what you always wanted to do and you are doing it with your total heart, your total being, it is freedom. Now let me state it as a paradox: if you are free as an obsession, in your freedom is bondage; if you are a slave with total acceptance, in your bondage is freedom. It depends. It is the attitude, not the situation. So only you can know about it, what it is.
If you want to go away, simply go away, float away. Don’t create any trouble. If you want to be here, be here. Then don’t create any trouble. But you are confused; you are always in conflict. You are not one, you are a crowd — that is the trouble. One part of you wants to be here; another part of you wants to go away. And when you are away, one part would again want to come back. And this goes on.
You have to decide something within you. You have to drop the conflict, the crowd. You have to be one. In your oneness is freedom; in your split state is bondage. When you are one, nobody can make you a slave — nobody! You can be thrown in an imprisonment, you can be chained, but you cannot be made unfree. Your body may be chained: your soul will soar high. There will be no problem for it. How can your prayer be in bondage? How can your meditation be in a bondage? How can your love be in a bondage? How can your spirit be in bondage? In fact the very definition of the spirit is that which cannot be forced to be a slave.
But you don’t have any spirit. You are just a crowd, so many people inside with no unity. That’s the trouble. If you are here you will feel in bondage; if you go away you will feel in bondage. Wherever you go you will carry your inner conflict with you. So the question is not of being near me or away from me, that is not the question at all. The question is: to be here as a unity, or, to be away as a unity.
And I don’t say anything, that you should be here or you should go away — I have no “shoulds.” It is for you. If you can float with me, float. If you feel floating away from me will be beautiful, float away. Don’t pay any attention to me, just pay your whole attention to your inner being. Wherever it can float easily, wherever it can have its movement without any hindrance, let that be your goal.
Source – Osho Book “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol6”