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The Bliss of Non-Possession · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  In the Titeria Upanishad there's an interesting chapter often
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  referred to as the Calculus of Bliss.
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  It starts from the measure of one human being who has
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  everything, health, strength, all human opportunities fully
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  available to him. That is the measure of human
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  bliss. The recitation goes on to
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  systematically increase the amount of bliss 100 and 100 fold
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  to reach the next successive level, and this goes on for 10
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  successive levels until the bliss of Brahman is attained,
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  representing a form of bliss millions of times greater than
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  the greatest experience of the fortunate human being.
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  Since the conception of this quanta of bliss beyond the
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  experience of the human being is not able to be grasped by us,
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  this is of course just interesting until we come to the
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  important part repeated at each level.
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  Quote. And this is the bliss of the
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  Veda wise, whose soul the blight of desire touches not.
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  End Quote. If we consider for the moment
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  the stress that arises from the attempt to acquire, own,
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  possess, or retain possession, we can easily recognize the
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  pressures and even suffering that goes along with any attempt
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  to own anything. Ownership is a fiction of the
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  ego and the illusion of the external reality.
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  If we reflect deeply, we understand that we depart this
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  world without all of the accumulation of wealth or
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  possessions, that we work so hard and with so much stress to
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  acquire. If we condition our happiness on
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  possession, we find that to be a very transient, weak and
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  variable thing indeed. Someone wins a lottery and has
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  $1,000,000 in their hands. They are happy about winning
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  that sum of money. Then they find out that
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  relations, friends and others have expectations or at least
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  attempts to 'cause that money to depart.
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  We have to deal with the complexity of taxes, investment
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  decisions, and all kinds of pressures that either lead to
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  dispersal of those winnings or to struggles to hold on to them.
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  During the Great Depression, individuals who had accumulated
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  great wealth and financial power found themselves suddenly
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  bankrupt. Many were those individuals who
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  were found on a sidewalk after having leaped from a tall
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  building window to end their lives.
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  At the end, assuming we have maintained the accumulation we
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  work so hard to achieve, we die and cannot even use the assets
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  we work so hard to acquire to buy our way into some heaven of
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  the afterlife. This does not imply that one
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  must adopt the attitude of the renunciate, the ascetic, the
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  monk who has taken a vow of poverty.
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  This is an extreme that our mental logic frequently presents
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  as the only true option if one wants to avoid the suffering of
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  possessions. There is another way.
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  Some people take the attitude that they do not own or possess
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  anything but act as trustees, and as trustees they handle what
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  comes to them with care and in a proper and appropriate way.
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  They work to put those things to use in ways that enhance the
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  overall well-being and purpose of the creation.
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  And when it is time to put those things aside, they do it with a
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  feeling of satisfaction and then enjoy the new focus or tasks
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  they are given to undertake. When do we feel the greatest
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  unalloyed joy in our hearts? The moments are generally those
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  that do not involve possession. It may be when an individual
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  walks along a beach, at the seaside, the sun shining, the
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  waves lapping at his feet, and he does not feel a care in the
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  world for anything other than the experience of being.
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  It may come when some light of illumination descends on him and
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  he sees and understands something that was hidden from
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  him previously. Or it may come when he sees or
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  experiences A selfless sense of giving or a sense of surrender
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  to the divine force. The issue here is not the lack
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  of involvement with the various powers, forces, objects and
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  activities of the world, but the lack of any form of desire or
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  attachment to them. The secret, as the Upanishad
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  told us, is to avoid the blight of desire in order to achieve
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  bliss. The Dhammapada states.
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  Quote. Happy indeed are we who own
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  nothing. We shall feed upon delight like
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  the radiant gods. End Quote, the mother observes.
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  Quote. We could translate it the verse
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  like this. Happy is he who possesses
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  nothing. He will partake of the delight
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  of the radiant gods. To possess nothing does not at
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  all mean not to make use of anything, not to have anything
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  at one's disposal. Happy is he who possesses
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  nothing. He is someone who has no sense
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  of possession, who can make use of things when they come to him,
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  knowing that they are not his, that they belong to the Supreme,
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  and who for the same reason does not regret it when things leave
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  him. He finds it quite natural that
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  the Lord who gave him these things should take them away
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  from him for others to enjoy. Such a man finds equal joy in
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  the use of things as in the absence of things.
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  When you have them at your disposal, you receive them as a
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  gift of grace, and when they leave you, when they have been
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  taken away from you, you live in the joy of destitution.
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  For it is the sense of ownership that makes you cling to things,
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  makes you their slave. Otherwise one could live in
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  constant joy and in the ceaseless movement of things
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  that come and go and pass, that bring with them both the sense
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  of fulness when they are there and when they go.
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  The delight of detachment, delight.
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  Delight means to live in the truth, to live in communion with
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  eternity, with the true life, the light that never fails.
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  Delight means to be free, free with the true freedom, the
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  freedom of the constant, invariable union with the divine
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  will. Gods are those that are
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  immortal, who are not bound to the vicissitudes of material
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  life in all its narrowness, pettiness, unreality, and
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  falsehood. Gods are those who are turned to
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  the Light, who live in the power and the knowledge.
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  That is what the Buddha means. He does not mean the gods of
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  religion. They are beings who have the
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  divine nature, who may live in human bodies but free from
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  ignorance and falsehood. When you no longer possess
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  anything, you can become as vast as the universe.
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  End Quote Reference Sri Orovindo and the Mother Looking from
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  Within, Chapter 5. Attitudes on the Path, pages 158
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  to 160.