Ownership

A friend of yours, who owns a nice house with a large compound, decides to go to United States to expand his career opportunities. He asks you to “house-sit” for him while he is gone. You will live in the house and protect it from vandals. He will not charge you rent, but you are expected to do ordinary maintenance and pay the insurance and taxes while you live there. Since this is a very good deal for such a fine house, you quickly accept. Your friend, who does very well in the States, form year to year postpones returning home to reclaim his property. One day while you are at work, you receive an overseas telephone call from your friend. He is jubilant. He has struck it rich in a mining syndicate and is settling abroad permanently. In a magnanimous gesture, he is making gift of the house you are now possessing, to you. He has already instructed his lawyer to prepare and record a deed.

That night when you go home, nothing physical, nothing tangible will have changed about you and the house. You still live there as you have for the past five years. You intend to continue living there. You have been paying for the maintenance, taxes and insurance. You will continue to do so. You don’t intend to sell the house. There has been no material change, but now you are the “owner” of the house, and your whole attitude toward it has changed. You call a real estate broker to see how much it is worth. You decide to put up a fence. You inquire about the zoning laws. You go across the street to get a better perspective and look at the house with a proprietary feeling. No fact has changed. You haven’t even received the deed yet. But your attitude has changed. In is now “your” house and you consider yourself as the “owner”.
* From "The value of values" by Swami Dayananda