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To Have or not to Have?

When I was visiting Bangalore, in February 2014, I shot a photo of two vendors in the flowers market. One had nothing to sell, while the other one’s shop was full of flowers. One had nothing and the other had a lot. But I cannot avoid thinking: what if I had to visit the market again the next day? Would I have seen the same scene? Or maybe the situation would have been the complete opposite. I will never know for sure, but what is certain is that our possessions are always in a state of movement. Sometimes we have, and sometimes we don’t have. We buy and we sell. We receive and we give.

We definitely cannot, then, rely on what we have.

Can we rely then on what we are? “To be” is also related to a certain movement, but an internal movement: the movement of our own consciousness. To be is not only to know oneself, to know who we are. It is to know our potential, our qualities, but also our inner shadows, our weaknesses. Being conscious allow us to avoid the shadows and to awaken our potential. This movement depends only on us. On our own will, on our own choice.

To be is the path towards freedom, to chain ourselves to a movement we cannot control, is to enslave ourselves to external circumstances.

Today it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to renounce “having”, but we can reach an equilibrium, and try to have just what we need, not less not more. Just what is necessary. To be free. To be ourselves.