"You can leave possessions, that is easy; but to leave possessiveness is difficult because it goes deeper in the mind. You can leave the world, but the mind goes on clinging to it.

"These monks, Nansen's disciples, had left the world behind – their homes, their wives, their children – but now they were fighting over the ownership of a cat. This is how mind works. You leave one thing and the mind claims another, but the basic thing remains the same, and it makes no difference if the object of ownership changes – it makes no difference. The difference, the revolution, the real change, comes only when the subjectivity changes, when the owner changes. This is the first thing to be understood. Monks claiming ownership of a cat looks foolish, but this is how monks have been acting all over the world. They leave their house, then they claim ownership of the temple, of the church. They leave everything but they can't leave their mind, and the mind creates new worlds for them continuously.

"So it is not a question of possessing a kingdom; even a cat will do. And wherever possession comes in, fighting, violence and aggression are bound to be there. Whenever you possess you are fighting, because that which you possess belongs to the whole. You cannot possess anything; you can use it, that's all. How can we possess the sky and how can we possess the earth? But we possess, and that possession creates all types of conflicts, struggle, wars, violence and everything.

"Man has been fighting and fighting continuously. Historians say that within the last three thousand years there have been wars almost continuously somewhere or other on the earth. In three thousand years we have fought at least fourteen thousand wars. Why so much fighting? It is because of possession. If you possess you have started a war with the whole.

"Buddha, Mahavira and Jesus all say, 'If you possess, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle into the gate of heaven,' says Jesus, 'but not a rich man.' It is impossible, because when you possess you are constantly fighting with God."