QUESTION – BELOVED OSHO, IS TAKING THE ROLE OF A THERAPIST DANGEROUS TO MY OWN SPIRITUAL GROWTH? IS IT POSSIBLE TO HELP PEOPLE AND STILL LET MY OWN EGO DISSOLVE AT THE SAME TIME? I FEEL THAT A SUBTLE FIGHT GOES ON INSIDE ME BETWEEN ONE PART THAT IS CLEAR AND ANOTHER PART THAT WANTS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLARITY. UNDER YOUR GUIDANCE I HAVE LEARNED NOT TO DOMINATE OTHERS WHEN I USE MY CAPACITY TO SEE, BUT AM I STILL DOMINATING MYSELF?

OSHO – Sagarpriya, the role of a therapist is a very delicate and complex affair. First, the therapist himself suffers from the same problems that he is trying to help others with. The therapist is only a technician. He can manage to pretend and to deceive himself that he is a master — that is the greatest danger in being a therapist. But just a little understanding, and things won’t be the same.

First, don’t think in terms of helping others. That gives you the idea of being a savior, of being a master — and from the back door the ego enters again. You become important, you are the center of the group, everybody is looking up to you. Drop the idea of help. Instead of `help’ use the word `sharing’. You share your insight, whatsoever you have. The participant is not someone who is inferior to you. The therapist and the therapee are both in the same boat; the therapist is just a little more knowledgeable. Be conscious of the fact that your knowledge is borrowed. Never for a moment forget that whatever you know is still not your experience, and this will help the people who are participating in your group.

Man is a very subtle mechanism. It works on both sides: the therapist starts becoming the master, and rather than helping he is destroying something in the participant, because the participant will also learn only the technique. There will not be a loving, sharing friendliness, an atmosphere of trust, but “You know more, I know less… By participating in a few therapy groups I will also know as much as you know.”

The participants slowly, slowly start becoming therapists themselves, because there is no degree required — at least in many countries. In a few countries they have started to outlaw all kinds of unaccepted therapies; only a man who has a university qualification in therapeutics, in psychoanalysis, in psychotherapy will be able to help people in therapy groups.

This is going to happen in almost every country of the world, because therapy has become a business, and people who are unqualified are dominating it. They know the technique, because technique they can learn; by participating in a few groups they know all the techniques, then they can make a concoction of their own. But there is no way of controlling….

But remember: the moment you play the role of a helper, the helped is never going to forgive you. You have hurt his pride, you have hurt his ego. That was not your intention… your intention was just to inflate your own ego, but this can happen only if you hurt other people’s ego. You cannot inflate your ego without hurting others. Your bigger ego will need more space, and the others have to shrink their space and their personality to exist with you.

From the very beginning an authentic loving person… and I make it an absolutely necessary point that there is nothing more therapeutic than love. Technique can help, but the real miracle happens through love. Love the people who participate in therapy and be one amongst them, with no pretensions of being higher or holier. Make it clear from the very beginning: “These are the techniques I have learned, and a little bit is my experience. I will give you the techniques, and I will share my experience. But you are not my disciples; you are just friends in need. I have some understanding, not much, but I can share it with you. Perhaps many of you have their own understanding coming from different areas, different directions. They can also share their experience and make the group richer.”

In other words, what I am saying is a totally new concept of therapy. The therapist is only a coordinator. He just tries to make the group more silent, serene; he keeps an eye that nothing goes wrong… more of a guardian than a master. And you have also to make it clear: “I am also learning while I am trying to share my experience. When I am listening to you, it is not only your problems; they are my problems too. And when I am saying something, I am not only saying it, I am listening also.”

Emphatically make it clear that you are nobody special. This has to be done in the beginning of the group, and this has to be carried on as the group goes deeper, exploring. You just remain an elder, who has gone a few steps ahead; otherwise you will not be able to help people. They will learn the technique and they will become therapists on their own. And there are enough fools — five billion fools — on the earth; they will find their own followers.

It is a human weakness that when people start looking up to you, you start thinking, “There must be something great in me if people are looking up to me.” They are in trouble, they are suffering from human frailties. But you are also human, and to err is absolutely human. Without any condemnation, with great love, help them to open themselves — and this is possible only if you open yourself.

I have come to know a strange fact: strangers tell each other things that they can never say to people they know. In a railway train you meet somebody; you don’t know his name, you don’t know where he is going, from where he is coming, and people start sharing. I have been traveling for twenty years non-stop in the whole country, watching a strange phenomenon: that people give their secrets to strangers, because the stranger is not going to exploit it. Just the next station comes, and the stranger is gone; perhaps you may never see him again. And he is not concerned to destroy your reputation or anything.

On the contrary, sharing your secrets, your weaknesses, your vulnerabilities makes others more confident and more loving and more trusting in you. Your trust provokes their trust in you, and when they see you are so innocent and so open and available, they start opening up: it is a chain reaction. But if you become a master… a few idiot therapists from this commune have become masters. They know nothing about their own being, they know nothing about any mystery of existence; all that they know is a certain mind game. That mind game can be of help, if ultimately you are under the guidance of a man who has arrived. A little clarity, a little less confusion a therapy group certainly can create.
But a therapy group is not the end. It is only the beginning. It is a preparation for meditation, just as meditation is a preparation for enlightenment.

If you understand things in their simple arithmetic, you will not find it difficult — and you will enjoy the group more, because the group will be able to go deeper with you. You will not be only a teacher in the group; you will be also a learner.

Kahlil Gibran’s prophet Al-Mustafa has a beautiful statement. When somebody asks, “Tell us something about learning…” he says, “Because you have asked I will speak. But remember — I am speaking and I am also listening with you.”
I am here on the podium and I am also sitting amongst you. I am not in any way special. That brings people close. Any bragging of speciality creates distance, any ego fulfillment destroys the atmosphere of love. And I repeat again: There is no therapy which is greater than love.

Love the people who have become participants in your group. Love them as they are, not as they should be. They have suffered their whole life from all kinds of religious, political, social, theological, philosophical leaders who would love them if they follow, who would love them if they become just images according to their idea. They will love you only when they have killed you completely, demolished you and put you together according to their idea. All the religions have done that to humanity.

Nobody is left undamaged. And these people have been thinking that they are helping, consciously. They were giving you ideals, ideologies, principles, commandments with the certain fixed attitude that they want to help you; otherwise you will go astray. They cannot trust your freedom and they cannot respect your dignity; they have reduced you so badly — and nobody even objects.

When Jesus told people, “You are the sheep and I am the shepherd…” certainly those people must have been sheep, because not a single one stood up and said to Jesus, “This is too much! You are putting yourself on such a high pedestal, and you are calling us sheep; you are degrading us even from human beings.”

And Jesus said, “I am the savior, I will save the whole humanity. The only condition is that they should believe in me.” But that condition destroys all that is beautiful in you, all that is your right to grow into a beautiful unique being.

I have had suspicions always that Jesus was not saying any revolutionary things, neither was he in revolt against Judaism. But the problem has haunted me: Then why was he crucified? His whole emphasis without exception was, “I am a Jewish prophet, son of a Jewish God” — a prophet, a messiah for which the Jews have been waiting. Their scriptures were telling them: Soon the messiah will come, the last messiah who will save you all. And on your part only a very small thing has to be done: just believe in him.

My suspicions why Jesus was crucified are not just suspicions; they have enough evidence and proof and argument behind them. Socrates was certainly poisoned for his revolutionary thoughts, for his lifestyle which the Greeks could not allow him. Certainly his influence over the Greek youth was immense, and the older generation was absolutely afraid: soon they will be gone and the whole country will be under the influence of a man who is against tradition, who is against God, who is against heaven and hell and all other nonsense, who insists only on one thing: truth. And that truth is within you, not in the scriptures, not in any savior, not in any messenger.

Socrates was certainly poisoned by the society because he was a tremendous revolutionary — a man in revolt. Of course, whatever he was saying was for the benefit of the whole of humanity, but it went against the past. Anything that is going to enhance your future, make it richer, more beautiful, more humane, is bound to be against the past. The past is barbarous, ugly, condemnable. But Jesus was not doing any such thing. Why was he crucified? He was fully in agreement with the old past, he accepted all that Judaism proposed as fundamentals.

My understanding is: Jesus was crucified because people finally became fed up hearing that they are just sheep and he is the shepherd. He hurt so many people’s egos, he destroyed so many people’s self-respect, a certain dignity of being human beings. That was the reason of Jesus’ crucifixion; otherwise he was utterly innocent. He had not committed any visible crime.

But this crime is far more murderous, although it is invisible, it does not appear on the surface, you cannot catch hold of it. But you can understand: you cannot forgive anybody who pretends to be higher than you, holier than you. He is the only begotten son of God and you are all orphans? — bastards? What are you? If God is the father of all, then who is this man who pretends to be the only begotten son? The emphasis is on only; he takes away the whole humanity’s right to nourish his own ego.

Otherwise whatever he was saying and doing would have been ignored. There was nothing special in it. He was simply repeating the old prophets of the Jews; he was quoting old prophets of the Jews — and not even correctly, because he was not educated and he could not read. He had never been under a rabbi — and the Jews had a long tradition of thousands of years of learning. They had a great university in Jerusalem, where people devoted their whole lives to studying. They were very rich as far as knowledgeability is concerned.

Jesus was not a man of knowledge, and certainly he was not a man of experience either, because a man of experience will not talk such nonsense as, “I am the only begotten son of God.” God is simply a hypothesis, and I have never heard that hypotheses produce children. Only Indians do that, not hypotheses; hypotheses are absolutely barren. The idea that somebody else has to save you, hurts you; he does not allow you even the freedom to save yourself. Jesus has to be understood very clearly: he is one of the men who is against all freedom for man. He talks sweetly, just like any salesman, but the intention is to take away your basic fundamental birthright of growing as an individual, unique — not a carbon copy of somebody else, but just yourself.

He did not accept people as they are and insisted that they should be according to his teachings. He did not allow them even to doubt or argue; you cannot argue with the son of God — what he says is truth. But it accumulated just in three years…. He was not a teacher in the world for more than three years. People could not tolerate him; it was becoming too insulting, too humiliating.

The reason for Jesus’ crucifixion is not — as Christians go on telling to the world — that he was a great revolutionary. The reason is that he was one of the anti-humanitarians, and people crucified him as a revenge. It was becoming too heavy on their heads. Just an uneducated carpenter’s son who has been cutting wood and dragging logs to his father’s shop, suddenly becomes the savior… and savior of each and everyone with his simple cheap condition — that you believe in him.

He does not give you even the freedom to think, the freedom to meditate, the freedom to search, the freedom to seek… no freedom at all. He has created the greatest slavery in the world — Christianity. Now half of the world is Christian, and the responsibility for all these slaves — Catholics or Protestants, it does not matter… he is responsible. But his slavery is very subtle and very psychological.

Now the reality is that he could not save himself, and he pretended to save the whole humanity. And when asked before his death, “How long will it take for you to come back and save humanity?” he said, “Don’t be worried, I am coming soon.” Two thousand years have passed. I don’t think… I can also stretch `soon’, but not that much! Two thousand years is just such an exaggeration.

And still there is no sign…. We don’t see where there is a Virgin Mary; at least before he comes, a Virgin Mary should appear. The carpenter Joseph should appear; he should get married to Virgin Mary, and before he can consummate his marriage, the Holy Ghost should appear: it is a simple case of the rape of a virgin girl. Then with all these difficulties will come Jesus Christ — and how can he save you?

I am reminded of one statement of a great doctor who is my friend. I don’t know whether he is still alive or not, I have not heard anything about him for these last six years. He was the most prominent doctor in the city where I lived before I moved to Bombay and then to Poona.

He said to me, “My whole life’s experience is that the function of the physician is not the cure of the patient. The patient cures himself; the physician simply gives a loving atmosphere, promising. The physician simply gives the confidence and revives the longing to live longer. All his medicines are of secondary help.” But if the person has lost the desire to live, his whole life’s experience was that no medicine, nothing, helps.

The same is the situation for the therapist. The therapist is not the person who is going to cure people’s psychological troubles. He can only create a loving atmosphere, in which they can open up their repressed, unconscious imaginations, repressions, hallucinations, desires, without any fear that they will be laughed at, with absolute certainty that all will feel compassion and love for them. The whole group should function as a therapeutic situation.
The therapist is only a coordinator. He brings psychologically sick or disturbed people together, and just watches that nothing goes wrong. And if he can support them with some idea, some insight, some observation, he should always make it clear that “This is only my knowledge, not my experience” — unless you have the experience.

If you are sincere and truthful and honest and authentic, you will never fall into the trap of becoming a master, a savior — which is very simple to fall in. The moment you become a master and a savior… and you are not — you are not even helping those people, you are simply exploiting those people, their weaknesses, their troubles. The whole psychoanalysis movement around the world is the most exploitative experiment that is going on. Nobody is helped; everybody is exploited tremendously. And nobody is helped because the psychoanalyst, psychotherapist…. Psychology has bifurcated in many branches, but they all do the same work: they reduce you into a patient and they are the physicians.

And the trouble is that they themselves are suffering from the same diseases. Each psychoanalyst goes to another psychoanalyst almost twice a year to be helped. It is a great conspiracy. Listening to all kinds of insanities, unless you are beyond mind and its problems, you are going to be insane yourself. You are going to start suffering from the same problems your patients are suffering from. Rather than making them cured, they are making you sick. But the responsibility is yours.

Bring love, openness, sincerity…. Before they start opening the doors of their heart — they are keeping them tightly closed so that nobody knows their problems — the first function of the psychotherapist is to open his heart and let them know that he is also as human as they are. He suffers from the same weaknesses, the same lust, the same desire for power, the same desire for money. He suffers from anguish and anxiety, suffers from the fear of death.

Open your heart totally. That will help others to trust you — that you are not a pretender. The days of saviors and prophets and messengers and tirthankaras and avataras are completely gone. None of them will be acceptable today. And this time, if any of them reappears, people are not even going to stone him to death. People are just going to make fun of him. People are simply going to tell him, “You are stupid. The very idea that you can save the whole humanity is mad. First save yourself, and we will see your light and we will see your grandeur and we will see your splendor.”
And trust comes on its own accord.

It is not to be asked. It comes just like a fresh breeze from the mountains, a tidal wave from the oceans. You have to do nothing for it. You have just to be available at the right time, in the right place. Nobody can save you except yourself. I say unto you: be a savior unto yourself.

But help is possible, with a condition: that it comes with love, that it comes with the gratitude that “you trusted me and opened your heart.”

The function of a therapist, Sagarpriya is certainly very complex — and idiots are doing it! The situation is almost as if butchers are doing surgery; they know how to cut, but that does not mean they can become brain surgeons. They can kill buffaloes and cows and all kinds of animals, but their function is in the service of death. The therapist is in the service of life. He has to create life-affirmative values by living them himself, by going to the silences of his heart.

The deeper you are within yourself, the deeper you can reach into the heart of the other. It is exactly the same… because your heart or the other’s heart are not very different things. If you understand your being, you understand everybody’s being. And then you understand you have also been foolish, you have also been ignorant, you have also fallen many times, you have also committed crimes against yourself and against others, and if other people are still doing it there is no need of condemnation. They have to be made aware and left to themselves; you are not to mold them in a certain framework.

Then it is a joy to be a therapist, because you come to know the interiority of human beings — which is one of the most secret hiding places of life. And by knowing others you know yourself more. It is a vicious circle; there is no other word — otherwise I will not use the word `vicious’. Allow me to coin a word: it is a virtuous circle. You open to your patients, participants, and they open themselves to you. That helps you to open more, and that helps them to open more. Soon there is no therapist and there is no patient, but simply a loving group helping each other.

Unless the therapist is lost in the group, he is not a successful therapist. That’s my criterion. Sagarpriya, you are saying, “Under your guidance I have learned not to dominate others when I use my capacity to see, but am I still dominating myself?” They are not two things. Domination is domination, whether you dominate others or you dominate yourself. If you are dominating yourself, then in some subtle way you will dominate others too. How can it be otherwise?

The first domination that you have to drop is not over others… because it is not certain that they will accept your domination. The first domination you have to drop is over yourself. Why become yourself a prisoner, with great effort create a prison around yourself, and then carry it wherever you go? First learn the utter joy of freedom, of a bird on the wing in the vast sky. Your very freedom will become a transforming force for others. Domination is so ugly.

Leave it to the politicians, who don’t have any sense of shame at all. They live in the gutters and they think they are living in palaces. Their whole life is a life in the gutters — they will live there and they will die there. They are prime ministers, they are presidents, they are kings, they are queens….

One of the most significant Egyptian poets was asked once, “How many kings are there in the world?” At that time… he said, “There are only five kings. One is in England, and four are in playing cards.” Now it can be changed: there are five queens, one in England and four in playing cards…. But they don’t have anything more. They are just trying to achieve more and more power simply to fill their inside which they feel is empty.

Looking from the outside, the inside is empty.
Looking from the inside, the whole world is empty.

Only your inside is overflowing, but the things that are overflowing are invisible: the fragrance of your being, the love, the blissfulness, the ecstasy, the silence, the compassion — nothing can be seen with eyes. That’s why if you look from the outside it seems everything is empty. And then a great urge arises… how to fill it? — with money, with power, with prestige, by becoming a president or prime minister… do something and fill it! One cannot live with an emptiness inside, a hollowness inside.

But these people have not gone inside; they have looked from outside. And this is the problem: from the outside you can only see objects, and love is not an object, bliss is not an object, enlightenment is not an object, understanding is not an object, wisdom is not an object. All that is great in human existence and life is subjective, not objective. But from the outside you can see only objects.

That gives a tremendous urgency to fill your hollow inside with any rubbish. There are people who are filling it with borrowed knowledge; there are people who are filling it with self-imposed torture — they become saints. There are people who are beggars to become the prime minister, to become the president. Everywhere the hollow people are in tremendous need to dominate others. That gives them the feeling that they are not hollow.

A sannyasin begins by enquiring into his subjectivity, from within, and he becomes aware of tremendous treasures, inexhaustible treasures. Only then do you stop dominating yourself, and you stop dominating others. There is no need at all. From that moment your whole effort is to make everybody aware of his individuality, of his freedom, of his immense, inexhaustible sources of bliss, contentment, peace.

To me, if therapy prepares the ground for meditation, therapy is going right… ground for the patients and ground for the therapist, both. Therapy should turn at a certain point into meditation. Meditation turns at a certain point into enlightenment. And to have such tremendous potential and just remain a beggar…

I feel so sad sometimes when I think of others. They are not beggars, but they are behaving like beggars, and they are not ready to drop their begging — because they are afraid that is all they have got. And unless they drop their begging, they will never know that they are emperors and their empire is of the within. Sagarpriya, if you have stopped dominating people but you are suspicious that perhaps you have started dominating yourself, then nothing has changed. You misunderstood the whole message.

Becky and Solly Feigenbaum are in bed. “Listen, Becky,” says Solly, “do me a favor and close the window, it is cold outside.”
“And if I close the window, will it be warm outside?” Becky asked.

Try to understand me correctly.

Little David, who was six years old, was beginning to ask embarrassing questions that his Mom and Dad could not get themselves to explain. So they asked their older boy, Martin, to explain to him about the birds and the bees.
That night in bed Martin gave David his first lesson. “Look, David, do you know what it is that Mom and Dad do at night in bed?”
“Sure, I do,” said David.
“Well,” said Martin, “it is just the same with the birds and the bees.”

It is human to err, to misunderstand. But Sagarpriya is an intelligent woman and can manage the new idea of therapy. She can become a pioneer therapist. But there are so many idiots all around: you just start any stupid thing and you will find followers are coming. Just a week before in Rajasthan an eighteen-year-old girl became a widow — perhaps she may have been married six months before, or a year before — and she jumped into the funeral pyre to perform the ancient Hindu ritual of being a sati. The word sati is beautiful; it means `one who can die for truth’. It comes from sat, and sat means truth. The connotation is that she loved the man so much that the man has become her god; without that man life is meaningless. But it is really committing suicide openly.

It is against the Indian constitution, it is against Indian law. But millions of people are going there, and already a big village has become established. Tens upon tens are coming to worship, because the woman has done a great spiritual act. And rather than creating some legal action against the family, the government is making arrangements for the millions of people that are pouring in. Shops have opened, restaurants have opened, hotels have opened, caravanserais have opened. Soon it will become a big city, a memorial city, because an uneducated, highly conditioned young girl committed suicide, following ideals which are simply stupid.

There is no spirituality in it. If there was spirituality in it, then why in ten thousand years has not one single man jumped into the funeral pyre of his wife? And these men are writing in the scriptures that this ritual is a great spiritual act — but only for women? It is not a spiritual act. It is a very cunning strategy to dominate. The man watches his wife continuously, keeps her a slave while he is alive. He is afraid… when he is dead, who knows? — the wife may fall in love with somebody and he will not be able to do anything. It is better to create an ideology so that the wife also jumps in the funeral pyre; then that fool feels immensely contented because now there is no fear.

And I am surprised… newspapers report it, the government officials are making arrangements, and nobody is bothered that it is illegal, it is unconstitutional, it is illogical. It is male chauvinist ideology. It is a domination beyond conception. You even want to dominate when you are dead! But misunderstanding goes on and on….

A little girl was in the park crying when an old gentleman asked her why.
She said, “I want one of those things like my brother’s got, that sticks out, then lays down and then sticks out again.”
The old gentleman began to cry too.

One night a man is stopped on a dark street by a ragged looking figure, clutching something in his hand.
“Please sir,” the figure mumbled, “please spare a few dollars for a poor man who has lost his job, his wife, his home, everything.” Then lifting his hand he added, “And all I have got left is this gun.”

Sagarpriya, try to understand yourself as deeply as possible. Therapy comes second. And unless you have refined your being through meditation and silences… I am not saying, stop the work; I am saying, transform its quality. Make it real work. Open your heart, tell them your weaknesses, tell them your problems, ask their advice — can they help you? And once the participants understand that the therapist is not an egoist, they will come with absolute humbleness, opening their hearts. Then you can help them. But always and always remember: therapy in itself is incomplete. Even the perfect therapy is just the first step. Without the second step it is meaningless.

So leave the patients on the point from where they start moving towards meditation. Your therapy is complete only when your patients start enquiring about meditation. Create a great longing in their hearts for meditation, and tell them that meditation too is only a step — the second step. In itself that too is not enough, unless it leads you to enlightenment; that is the culmination of the whole effort. And I trust in you, that you are capable of it.

A Jew from Odessa was sitting in the same compartment as a Czarist Russian officer who had a pig with him. To annoy the Jew, the officer kept calling the pig Moishe. “Moishe! Keep still! Moishe! Come here! Moishe! Go there!”
This went on all the way to Kiev. Eventually the Jew got fed up and said, “You know, Captain, it is a great shame your pig has a Jewish name.”
“Now why is that, Jew?” smirked the officer.
“Well, otherwise it could have become an officer in the Czar’s army.”

There is a limit to everything! Make it a point that the limit of therapy is where meditation begins, and the limit of meditation is where enlightenment begins. Of course, enlightenment is not a step to anything: You simply disappear into the universal consciousness, you become just a dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean. But it is the greatest experience…. It makes life finally meaningful, significant. It allows you to become part of the universe from which your ego has separated you. And it is so easy, as easy as this silence…. Nobody can think that there are thousands of people sitting here….

You just have to move in the right direction. A sense of right direction, and everything can become a steppingstone towards higher states of consciousness. I have been using everything, but the direction is the same. I have used many kinds of meditations. On the periphery they look different. There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation. They look very different from each other, and you may think, “How can all these different methods lead to meditation?”
But they lead… Just as a thread running through a garland of flowers is not seen, you see only the flowers, those one hundred and twelve flowers have a running thread: that thread is witnessing, watching, observation, awareness.

So help the patients as much as you can to understand their problems, but make them clear that even if these problems are solved, you are the same person. Tomorrow you will start creating the same problems again — perhaps in a different way, with a different color. So your therapy should become nothing but an opening for meditation. Then your therapy has a tremendous value. Otherwise it is just a mind game.

Source – Osho Book “The Great Piligrimage: From Here to Here”

Osho - To be a therapist, a groupleader, is a very great responsibility. One who is not ready should not move into it. It should not be an ego trip — otherwise rather than helping, you can harm.

Only somebody who is not on an ego trip can be of help. The egoistic person can be a do-gooder, but deep down he will harm. He will poison the system of others too, and in subtle ways he will start dominating — because that is the only way he can feel fulfilled as far as his ego is concerned.

If he becomes a therapist he will dominate the patient, if he becomes a groupleader he will dominate the participants, if he becomes a teacher he will dominate the students. Wherever he is, that is not the point — he will try to dominate. If he is a husband he will try to dominate the wife and destroy the wife — because domination destroys; there is nothing more destructive than domination.

So particularly when one is thinking to become a groupleader or a therapist and wants to move into some therapeutic dimension, one should be perfectly aware of whether one is ready or not. Otherwise in the name of therapy you can go on playing a game. It will destroy others and finally it will destroy you, because one has to pay the price.

No destruction is without a price: when you destroy somebody, you are destroying yourself meanwhile. Maybe right now you are not alert, but one day you will find that the same ditch that you have dug for others has proved your own grave. So it is always very very essential to feel, to know, to be certain.

And that is the whole purpose of being in the proximity of a master — because there are points where you cannot really feel exactly. How can you feel unless you move into it? One never knows when the ego will pop up, what situation it may be waiting for to pop up in; one is never certain beforehand, and cannot be.

For Madmen Only (Price of Admission: Your Mind)

[A visitor said she had trouble becoming involved in the meditations here, adding that she could not stay much longer as she was a psychiatrist and had patients to see.]

Osho – A psychiatrist needs to be meditative more than anybody else — because your whole work is dangerous in a way. Unless you are very calm and quiet, unless you can remain unaffected by things that happen around you, it is very dangerous.

More psychiatrists go mad than any other professional people and more psychiatrists commit suicide than any other professional people. This is something to be pondered over. The proportion is really too much. Twice as many people commit suicide. That simply shows that the profession is full of dangers. It is — because whenever you are treating a person who is psychologically disturbed, in a mess, he is constantly broadcasting his vibes. He is constantly throwing out his own energy, his negative waves upon you, and you have to listen to him. You have to be very attentive. You have to care, you have to love and be compassionate towards him; only then you can help him. He is constantly throwing negatively charged energy — and you are absorbing it. In fact the more attentively you listen, the more you absorb it.

Living continuously with neurotic and psychotic people, you start thinking, in an unconscious way, that this is what humanity is. We become by and by like the people we live with, because nobody is an island. So if you are working with sad people, you will become sad. If you are working with happy people, you will become happy, because everything is infectious. Neurosis is infectious; suicide also is infectious.

If you live around people who are enlightened, very aware, then something in you starts responding to this higher possibility. When you live with people who are very low, abnormally low, in a perverted state, in a morbid state, then something morbid in you starts corresponding and relating to them. So to be continuously surrounded by in people, is in a way dangerous, unless you protect yourself.

And there is nothing like meditation to give you protection. Then you can give more than you are giving and yet you will remain unaffected. You can help more than you are helping, because the higher your energy, the more is the possibility to help. Otherwise the psychiatrist, the healer and the healee are almost on the same ground; maybe a little difference of degrees, but the difference is so small that it is not worth considering.

The psychiatrist can go into madness very easily — just a slight push, some accidental thing, and he can move into the condemned territory. People who are neurotic were not always neurotic. Just two days before they were normal people, and again they can become normal. So normality and abnormality are not qualitative distinctions — just quantitative: ninety-nine degrees, one hundred degrees, one hundred and one degrees — that type of difference.

In fact in a better world, every psychiatrist should be trained deeply in meditation, otherwise he should not be allowed to practise. That is the only way that you can protect yourself and not be vulnerable — and you can really help. Otherwise even great psychiatrists, great psychoanalysts, even they become in a way very hopeless about humanity… even Freud. After a whole life’s experience he finally said that he could not hope for man; he felt hopeless. And it is natural — forty years of being with people who are in a mess, the only experience of humanity being of people who are mad. By and by it started to look to him as if abnormality is normal… as if man is bound to remain neurotic, as if there is something natural in man which drives him towards neurosis.

So at the most the healthy person is one who is a little more adjusted to the world, that’s all. Adjustment becomes the standard of health, but it cannot be. If the whole society is mad you can be adjusted to it and you will Still be mad. In fact in a mad society, a person who is not mad will be maladjusted. And that’s what is really the case.

When a Jesus walks in this world he is maladjusted. We have to crucify him. He is such a stranger — we cannot tolerate him. His very presence becomes unbearable. We have to kill him. We are not concerned with him, we are simply concerned with ourselves. Because of his presence, only two things are possible either he is mad or we are mad. Both cannot be healthy. We are many and he is alone. Of course we kill him; he cannot kill us.

When a Buddha walks, he looks strange a healthy man, a really natural, normal man, moving in an abnormal society. So Freud came to conclude that there is no future for humanity. At the most we can hope that man can be adjusted with the social pattern, that’s all. But there is no possibility for man to be blissful. It cannot be by the very nature of things. Why such a pessimistic conclusion? — because of his whole experience.

Freud’s whole life is a long nightmare of mad people, of working with them. And by and by he himself became abnormal. He was not really healthy. He was not a blissful person. He had never known what wholeness is. He was afraid of small things — so much so that it looks absurd. He was afraid of death. If somebody talked about ghosts, he would start perspiring. Twice he fainted because somebody started talking about death! This seems to be a very unbalanced mind, but in a way it can be accounted for. Even this is a miracle — that he remained sane for his whole life.

One of the most penetrating psychiatrists, Wilhelm Reich, went mad. And the only reason that he went mad and others have not, was because he was really penetrating. He had a really deep talent to go into the roots of things — but it is dangerous. Freud or Reich or others’ whole life shows one thing — that had they been trained in deep meditation, the whole world would have been different. Then these neurotic people would not become the standard.

Maybe it is very difficult to become a Buddha, but he is the norm. And a normal person is one who comes closer to the norm. It has nothing to do with adjustment. One comes closer to the idea of wholeness, happiness, health. Start a little meditation. And whenever you can come, for at least six, seven weeks, be here. It will be helpful in your work.

Source – Osho Darshan Diary Book “The Passion for the Impossible”

Question – Beloved Master, The west is overpopulated with psychotherapists and their patients, but why does no one seem to be helped?

Osho – Patrick, the help is possible only through a buddha. The help is possible only through the awakened one.

The psychotherapists are as asleep as you are; they are in the same boat. There is no qualitative difference between you and them — in fact they may be crazier than you are. They may be more in a mess than you are because they constantly deal with mad people; day in, day out, they are surrounded by mad people. Rather than helping the mad people to become sane, just the opposite happens: being constantly in contact with mad people, slowly slowly they become mad themselves.

This is natural. They don’t have yet that awareness which can remain aloof, unaffected. They don’t have that distance, that coolness, that detachment. They are not living on sunlit peaks; they are groping in the same dark valley where you are groping. They are as blind as you are, but they have to pretend that they are not blind — and that is more dangerous.

If a person is blind and knows that he is blind and never pretends otherwise, there is every possibility he will walk more cautiously. If he pretends that he is not blind, if he projects that he is not blind, if he convinces others that he is not blind, slowly slowly he will be hypnotized by his own sayings, auto-hypnotized. He will start believing that he is not blind and he will start walking less cautiously. And that is more dangerous.

I have heard:
Once a blind man came to visit a Zen master. When he was leaving — it was night, a dark night, no moon, and so many clouds — the master said to the blind man, “Please take this lamp with you.”
The blind man laughed loudly. He said, “Are you joking? What can a lamp do for me? I cannot see! It is all the same to me whether I have a lamp or not.”

But the master said, “That I know, that you cannot see, but at least others will be able to see in the darkness that you are coming so they will not stumble into you.”
The argument appeared right. The blind man took the lamp, went away. He had just walked only a hundred yards and a man just walked into him. He said, “What is the matter? Are you too blind? Can’t you see this lamp?”

And the man said, “I am not blind. Excuse me, but your lamp is no longer lit; its flame has gone out.”
The blind man went back to the Zen master and said, “Look, never give a lamp to another blind man again. If there was no lamp I would have walked more cautiously. I always walk cautiously. Because of the lamp I walked as if I were no longer blind — and the lamp went out. But how was I to know that the lamp went out? Because of this lamp, for the first time I have been hurt by a man. Otherwise, I have walked my whole life in every possible situation, but because I was so cautious, always making noise with my stick on the road so people can feel that some blind man is there, always groping with my stick in the darkness so I know where I am, whether I am facing a wall or a door…. It was the first time that I walked without any fear.”

And that’s what is happening to your psychotherapists, Patrick. They think they know — they know nothing. They are more informed, but information is not knowing. They are well educated, but they have not a higher being than you. And help is possible only when somebody higher than you gives you a hand.

More psychotherapists go mad than any other profession and more psychotherapists commit suicide than any other profession. And it is natural. Living with mad people, one can understand — they become affected.

A few scenes will be helpful to you….
The first scene:
A man walks into a psychiatrist’s office.
“You must help me!” he exclaims.
“What do you do for a living?” asks the shrink.
“I am an automobile mechanic.”
“Get under the couch!”

The second scene:
First psychiatrist: “Hello!”
Second psychiatrist: “I wonder what you mean by that?”

The third scene:
The patient: “Of course I am upset, doctor. I have eleven children and I find out my husband does not love me.”
The doctor: “You are very lucky. Imagine if he did!”

The fourth scene:
“Doctor, my wife accuses me of being a compulsive card-player.”
“That’s ridiculous. Now shut up and deal!”

And the fifth scene:
“Doctor, now that you have cured me of my homosexual tendencies and since this is our last session, may I kiss you goodbye?”
“Don’t be ridiculous — men don’t kiss. I shouldn’t even be lying on the couch with you!”

You ask me, Patrick, “The West is overpopulated with psychotherapists and their patients, but why does no one seem to be helped?”

Help is possible only from higher sources. A person who is on the same ground as you cannot be of any help to you. Help is possible only when a fully conscious man tries to help the unconscious. It is as if you are asleep; do you think somebody else asleep can help you in any way? Only somebody who is awake can wake you. If you want to be awakened at a particular hour, you don’t say to somebody else who is asleep, “Please wake me up at five o’clock in the morning. I have to go for that goddamned Dynamic Meditation!” You have to ask somebody who is awake. Only somebody awake can wake you up. In fact, the person who is asleep may help you to fall into a deeper sleep.

You may have watched it happen. If a few people are sitting just by your side yawning, you start feeling sleepy. They create a certain vibe; they create a certain atmosphere in which anybody vulnerable will start feeling it is better to go to sleep. The same happens with awakened people: a buddha creates a totally different vibe. He shakes you up, he wakes you up. He goes on shocking you in many ways; he finds devices to shock you.

Kavita has asked, “Beloved Master, sometimes you use such words that I feel shocked — and I used to think that no word can ever shock me. Don’t you have any couth?”

Kavita, I will go on using these words unless you wake up. You would like to listen to lullabies — but lullabies are not going to help. What appeals to you, what you like is not going to help. Something that shocks you…. I am going to use rough words till you stop yawning.

Whenever I see somebody yawning somewhere, immediately I have to say something which shocks you — and I can see his yawning disappears. The moment I say “bullshit” — immediately I say it he stops yawning! His spine is erect, his kundalini is rising upwards! Unless you all become awakened I am not going to leave you at ease; I will go on hitting you in every possible way.

Help is possible, Patrick, only from the awakened ones. You don’t need psychotherapists, you need buddhas. Secondly: you go to the psychotherapist, but you don’t really want to be helped. You have great investment in your pathology.

A few scenes again.

First:
“Doctor, my wife thinks she is a refrigerator.”
“Why don’t you divorce her?”
“I would but I need the ice.”

Second scene:
“Doctor, my girlfriend thinks she is a rabbit.”
“Bring her in. I will see what can I do.”
“Okay, but whatever happens, I hope you don’t cure her.”

Nobody wants really to be helped. People are only playing games. They go to the psychiatrist in the hope that he can’t do anything, that he is not going really to change them. Nobody wants to be changed; everybody wants to remain the same as he is. You have become so accustomed to your misery, to your pathology… it is your life, it is your way of life. If you want to be changed you will seek a master, not a psychotherapist.

Source – Osho Book “The Dhammapada, Vol 10″

Question – Beloved Osho, How can we Avoid being Authoritative?

Osho – It is very simple. The people who are authoritarian are the people who are suffering from an inferiority complex. To hide their inferiority they impose their superiority. They want to prove that they are somebody, that their word is truth, that their word is law. But deep down they are very inferior beings.

This is one of the reasons that all of the politicians suffer from an inferiority complex. Anybody who does not suffer from an inferiority complex will not go into politics at all. There are so many beautiful things in the world to do — to paint, to sing, to dance, to create literature, to make beautiful statues, to create a Khajuraho. There is so much creativity available, but that is available only to a person who does not suffer from inferiority.

So we have to make clear to all our sannyasins that nobody in the world is inferior and nobody in the world is superior. The whole idea is artificial and created by people who have a vested interest in it. They have created the same idea in many ways… man is superior, woman is inferior — on what criterion?

The woman lives longer than man, five years longer. The woman falls sick less than man. For one hundred boys born, only ninety girls are born, because by the time the boys will be marriageable, ten will have gone down the drain. At the time of marriage they will be equal, ninety of both. The girl has more stamina, more resistance to disease. She talks about committing suicide but she never does. Men commit suicide almost twice as much as women.

In what way is man superior? But the idea had to be created because it helped man to keep woman a slave. She is inferior, so inferior that in countries like China, woman has no soul. A husband can kill his wife — it is not a crime. It is just like you destroy your chair. It is your chair, you have paid for it: what crime is there? And men have convinced women that they don’t have any soul because they never allowed them to be educated, they never allowed them to move in society. Naturally, they could not argue.

Why is it so difficult to argue with a woman? Nobody thinks about it. If you argue with a woman she will start screaming, crying, throwing things; but she will not argue. And you, seeing this whole scene, will feel it is better to accept whatever she is saying; otherwise she will put the whole house on fire. And neighbors are watching, people in the street are gathering around your house. So it is better — whether you are right or wrong does not matter — to say she is right.

But who has put her in this condition? It is because you never gave her education, you never taught her logic. You never allowed her to be as intelligent as you are because you were always afraid. And you can see the fear in the universities. Women are always ahead of men, they top the list more than men. They always achieve more first class honors than the man. We have created this idea of superiority and inferiority for some vested interests.

The sudras are inferior. Nobody has proved why. There seems to be no reason that the brahmin should be superior and the sudra should be inferior, but you have managed for thousands of years to keep them uneducated. You have kept them doing things which need no intelligence, and you have not allowed them to do anything else.

A man who has been making your shoes — his family has been making shoes for thousands of years, generation after generation. Now there is no need of intelligence. There is no challenge — he has only to make shoes. These are all strategies of exploitation.

We have to explain to our sannyasins that nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, and nobody is equal either. Everybody is unique. That point has to be remembered, because if you say nobody is superior and nobody is inferior, people are certain to conclude that everybody is equal — which is not true.

Equality is psychologically wrong. Everybody cannot be an Albert Einstein and everybody cannot be a Rabindranath Tagore. But that does not mean that Rabindranath Tagore is superior because you cannot be him. Rabindranath cannot be you either.

My whole point is that everybody is a unique manifestation. So we destroy the whole idea of superiority and inferiority, equality and inequality, and we replace it with a new concept of uniqueness. And every individual is unique.

Just look lovingly and you will see that every individual has something which nobody else has. Once the idea of uniqueness spreads in the commune, there will be nobody who will try to enforce authority.

Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Question – BELOVED OSHO, I HAVE HEARD IT SAID THAT SOME SANNYASIN THERAPISTS NOW IMAGINE THAT THEY ARE ON THE SAME PLANE AS YOU ARE, DOING THE SAME KIND OF WORK — IF PERHAPS ON A SOMEWHAT SMALLER SCALE. THEY NO LONGER EVEN MENTION YOUR NAME, AND APPEAR TO HAVE DISCARDED THE MALA AND RED CLOTHES ENTIRELY.
HAVE THEY ACHIEVED — OR WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON WITH YOUR THERAPISTS?

Osho – What is going on is hilarious.
These people think they have become individuals, they have attained freedom. But they don’t even see a simple thing… I said to them, “You can drop your malas, and you can drop your clothes, and you can be free” — and they immediately followed! They proved that they are followers — chronic followers! If I had not said that, they would have been wearing the mala and red clothes still. Their freedom is not their attainment, but just my joke!

Naturally when I said, “I am your friend,” they started thinking that they are my friends. These are two totally different things! When I say I am your friend, that does not mean that you are my friend. For the second to be real, you will have to travel long.

I say out of my compassion that I am your friend, and you say out of your ego that you are my friend. Naturally, when you are my friend, then you are doing the same work as I am doing. It is just out of humbleness that they are saying, “Perhaps you are doing it on a bigger scale and we are doing it on a smaller scale.” But deep down they may be thinking that they are doing it on a bigger scale — or a more personal and intimate scale.

They have been with me for years, but they have been less with me than with their patients. The people who have missed me most are the therapists.

Once I declared some people enlightened — and they became enlightened! And when I said it was just a joke, they became unenlightened again. I had told them, “You are now free.” So they are free! Tomorrow I can call them back and put them in red clothes and in the mala: “This much freedom is enough; more than that is dangerous. Just come back and be your old self!”

If you are really understanding me, you will see the point: I give you chances to show your ego to yourself, to show your reality to yourself. And that’s what is happening, and it is really hilarious. I saw one therapist who has even shaved his beard and mustache. Perhaps he thinks by shaving the beard and mustache, he has shaved himself spiritually too. And all that he looks like is like a well-shaved ape — just stupid.

It is unfortunate but it is true that the therapists have missed me most, for the simple reason that in the commune they were working on people’s psychology and they started getting a subtle ego that they are helping my work. They forgot completely that they have not even started working on themselves.

They had a certain knowledge of therapy; they were useful for people and they helped to bring people close to me. Their patients became more intimate to me, more open to me, became more understanding of my work than the therapists. Because they were therapists and they were answering questions from people, running groups, they would not ask questions to me about themselves.

They had come for themselves, but they got lost because they had brought a load of knowledge. It was useful for others, and I told them that they should help people. But all their knowledge was not able to indicate a simple small thing to them, that “we have come here to realize ourselves. We can do the therapy, but that is not what we have come here for.”

They went on doing therapy, and when the commune dispersed, they went back to their countries thinking that now they are doing exactly the work I am doing — and they don’t know even the ABC of my work. They were the most blind and the most deaf, because they were the most knowledgeable people.

They have missed the first opportunity. Now in the second opportunity, all those therapists who are just behaving like buffoons will be called back and put to some other work — not therapy. They have to be completely removed from their knowledge; otherwise it is very simple for them to think like this.

They are afraid to mention my name because that may create the feeling in people that they are still not free of me. Their fear shows that they are not free of me. If they were really free of me, there would have been gratitude. They would have taken my name to different parts of the world with great respect and love if they were really free.

But they know they are not free; hence the fear. If somebody discovers that they have been my sannyasins, then what will happen to the sudden mastery that they have attained? A few of them have become “enlightened,” a few of them have become “liberated” — and they are simply proving one thing, that they are utter fools. And the sooner they realize it, the better!

Source – from Osho Book “Beyond Psychology”

[A sannyasin asks about becoming a Primal therapist.]

Osho – It is always good to find something that you like – because it is your life; it should not be wasted in any way. And if you have the feeling that you don’t like any job and that you have to do it, it becomes destructive. Then you are pushing somehow, dragging yourself… and any kind of dragging is destructive. When there is no joy, there cannot be any creation.

When you are simply doing it for the sake of doing and your heart is not in it, then so much time is wasted. One should not do a job only for a living. A living is a consideration, but is only secondary; life is the most primary consideration. And a job should be such that it gives you a living and life too.

One should not sell one’s life for a living. Otherwise one day or other One is bound to be in deep misery about it, and then nothing can be done when the time is lost. Change your work! There was no need to remain in it so long if you were not liking it. It is not too late yet change it.

It always happens: the mind clings to the known, to the familiar, to the secure. Now that your job is secured, changing a job means moving into new difficulties, new situations. One never knows whether one will be able to cope with them or not. Maybe the new job will not pay so much – but these things should never be considered. A little less pay will do, a little more inconvenience will do, but if you are happy doing it then everything should be sacrificed for happiness.

And the work that you do is a major part of your life. It is not only that you do it; by and by it shapes you into a certain pattern. You do it and at the same time it is creating you. So people who are in certain jobs which they don’t like – in fact which they hate – by and by become full of hatred towards life itself. So get out of it. There is no need to be in it any more! And Primal therapy is good….

Osho – Love is therapy, and there is no other therapy in the world except love. It is always love that heals, because love makes you whole. Love makes you feel welcome in the world. Love makes you a part of existence; it destroys alienation. Then you are no more an outsider here, but utterly needed. Love makes you feel needed, and to be needed is the greatest need. Nothing else can fulfill that great need.

Unless you feel that you are contributing something to existence, unless you feel that without you the existence would be a little less, that you would be missed, that you are irreplaceable, you will not feel healthy and whole. And prayer is the highest form of love. If love is the flower, then prayer is the fragrance. Love is visible, prayer is invisible. Love is between one person and another person, prayer is between one impersonal presence and the impersonal presence of the whole. Love is limited, prayer is unlimited. If you can pray, no other therapy is needed.

Therapies are needed in the world because prayer has disappeared. Man was never in need of therapy when prayer was alive, flowing, when people were dancing in great gratitude, singing songs in praise of God, were ecstatic just for being, for being here, were grateful just for life.

When tears were flowing from their eyes – of love, of joy – and when there were songs in their hearts, there was no need for therapy. Therapy is a modern need, a poor substitute for prayer.

Psychoanalysis is a poor substitute for religion, very poor. But when you cannot get the best, then you settle for second-best or the thirdbest, or whatsoever is available. Because temples have become rotten, churches have become political, religion has been contaminated by the priests, man is left alone, uncared for, with nobody to support him.

The very ground on which he has been standing for centuries has disappeared. He is falling in an abyss, feeling uprooted. Psychoanalysis comes as a substitute: it gives you a little bit of rooting, it gives you a little bit of ground to hold onto, but it is nothing compared to prayer. Because the psychoanalyst himself is in need, he himself is as ill as the patient, there is not much difference between the psychoanalyst and the patient. If there is any difference, that difference is of knowledge – and that makes no difference at all. It is not a difference of being.

If there is any difference it is quantitative, it is not that of quality, and quantity does not make much difference. The psychoanalyst and his patient are both in the same boat. In the o]d days there was a different kind of person moving in the world, the religious person – the Buddha, the Christ. His very presence was healing. Because he was healed and whole, his wholeness was contagious. Just as diseases are contagious, so is health.

Just as illnesses can be caught from others, so can you catch something of the healing energy from the other. But for that, the psychoanalyst will not be of much help. He may help a little bit to solve your problems intellectually. He may find out the causes of your problems – and when you know the cause you feel a little better, you are not in ignorance – but just by knowing the cause nothing is helped. You are suffering: the psychoanalyst will show that you are suffering because of your mother, because of your upbringing, because of your childhood.

It makes you feel a little good: so it is not you who is the cause, it is the mother. Or, there is always something else you can put blame on. Psychoanalysis shifts the responsibility, makes you feel a little weightless, unburdened, but the problem is not solved. Just by knowing the cause, the cause does not disappear.

Source: from Osho Book “The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2″

Osho – One thing is: you should not be too much burdened with your own problems. That is happening – you are not burdened too much with your own problems. They are there, they have not disappeared, but you have become alert about them and a distance has arisen; you can look at them. The second thing: to help people you need to be in a very deep flow of energy, otherwise people’s problems, their anxieties, their tensions, will start entering in your being.

If you are not flowing towards them, they will start flowing towards you, and that tires a leader very much… that kills the therapist! So it is not just accidental that in theWest psychotherapists go mad more than any other professional people, because they treat mad people and they themselves are not ready. So rather than flowing towards the patient, the patient starts flowing towards them. You should not be in a lower energy than the people you are helping.

You should be on a higher point from where things can flow towards them but nothing can flow from them towards you. So you are just a little higher, not enough yet – you have to go higher a little more – otherwise rather than helping, you will get into trouble. It will be very tiring and very puzzling, and you will get stuck many times, you will not know what to do. So for this I will give you one meditation – start doing it.

The third thing that is needed in the therapist, which is a must, is impersonal love – not towards
anybody in particular, just a loving quality. It is not the therapy that helps; it is love that helps. That you have, and it can grow more. In fact, women can become better therapists than men.

In a future world therapy will become absolutely feminine. Right now just the opposite is the case: the therapists are ninety-nine percent men and the patients are ninety-nine percent women! Now it is just topsy-turvy: ninety-nine percent of therapists should be women and ninety-nine percent of patients should be men… because man needs more love – he lacks many things which a woman can give.

So this is the method which you can start; start it from tonight, mm? You have a box with you?… Good. So keep the box under the pillow and lie down on the bed. You can have one pillow
underneath your feet to make it more comfortable; you can have a small pillow just underneath
your back so you are perfectly at ease. Mm? – feeling at ease is very essential, the body should be in perfect rest. Then close your eyes and start relaxing, just have the feeling that you are relaxing – nothing special, just the feel that you are relaxing.

Just go on repeating ’I am relaxing, relaxing, relaxing…’ and make the word ’relaxing’, longer and longer and longer: r-e-l-a-x-i-n-g, r-e-l-a-x-i-n-g’. Make it as long as possible, and very silently repeat inside, ’relaxing’. You can do it in [your own language], mm? that will go deeper….
And always remember, whenever you are suggesting anything yourself, suggest it in your mother tongue. Never suggest anything with any other tongue that is not your mother tongue because it never goes deep. All other languages we learn later on, so they are superficial. Always suggest in the same language in which you dream – then it will go deep. And we almost always dream in our mother tongues. That is our deepest core, our first language; our first language remains our deepest language.

So for just two minutes feel that you are relaxing, suggest to yourself that you are relaxing the body. Then start feeling one thing…. From inside move to your feet – from the inside. Close your eyes and start moving inside your body from the belly to the feet. Go to the feet and feel where the feet are, then start feeling that the feet are growing, becoming bigger, longer – two inches longer.

When you feel now they are two inches longer, stop for one minute, then bring them back again to their normal size, then again two inches, then again back to their normal size – do that three times. After three times, leave the feet two inches long, and now move towards the head and feel that the head is growing two inches longer. Do it three times, and then leave the head also… so now you are four inches longer.

This is only for the beginning – after two, three weeks, start growing longer: four inches, six inches, twelve inches. Two feet is the perfect height – two feet from one end, two feet from another end, that means four feet. When you have come to four feet and you can almost visualise that it has happened, then the meditation will start working.

With that extra height of four feet you can do miracles. Then you can imagine anything and that will happen. Once this has happened – this is a basic requirement – once you have learned this, then everything can happen. Then in a single jump you can say ’I am bigger than the house’ –and you will be bigger than the house! Only up to four feet does the mind resist. Beyond four feet the mind relaxes, the mind says ’Now you are mad. Go to whatsoever height you want!’ Four feet or forty feet, then it makes no difference. Up to four feet it goes on resisting, ’This is nonsense – what are you doing?’

Mm? The mind goes slowly, slowly – it is very stubborn up to four feet. Once the four feet boundary has been touched, the mind says ’It’s okay – now you are incurable, you can do whatsoever you want. You can feel bigger than the house, you can feel bigger than the earth, you can feel that you are filling the whole sky!’ Always fall asleep filling the whole sky. And in the morning you will feel more love for the whole existence than you have ever dreamt. You will feel more love than you ever felt for your beloved – even for an ordinary tree you will be full of love. You will be almost in a romantic love with an ordinary pebble.

But this method will take at least ten minutes, mm? And then for ten minutes you remain as big as the whole sky, and then fall asleep in that state. Continue this and start the tao group. Whenever you feel stuck just close your eyes and feel that you are filling the whole room and that all these people are inside you. Immediately you will be able to help them, because then you become a mother and they are all in your womb. Then suddenly, intuitively, you know what their problem is, where their problem is.

That is the right way to become a therapist – to become a mother, to feel people inside you. Then there is no problem at all. You can simply see where their problem is and then you can find a solution. This will be intuitive, and tao is an intuitive group – it is not intellectual. Perfectly good!

Source: from Osho Book “This Is It”

[The new sannyasin says she is a doctor.]

Osho – You will become capable. You just need a little more love flowing. It works more than any medicine. Up to now medical science has not been able to find anything more potent than love. If you can be loving to the patient, you will be tremendously successful, because medicines are secondary. They are still not primary. Therapy is a function of love. Love is therapeutic.

You can even sometimes just give water to the patient with deep love, deep compassion, and it will function. There have been many experiments in which the proportion is almost the same. You give the medicine; it works. You give water; it works the same way – what you call a placebo. But if it is given with love and the patient trusts, it functions. When you love, you create trust. And it is one of the most beautiful professions to choose because it allows you to be loving.

It becomes ugly, it has become ugly, because it has become a sort of exploitation. You are exploiting people’s diseases, illnesses. That’s why one feels it is a little heavy. Otherwise it is one of the most beautiful professions – if you love. You may not become very rich if you love, but you will feel tremendously enriched inside.

So if you don’t bother about money too much, there is no problem. Then you can help many people to be healthy and whole. Their prayers will be for you,. and their hearts will be for you and you will be tremendously fulfilled. But if you make money the consideration, then it is one of the worst professions. In a better world, money should not be a relationship at all between the doctor and the patient because it destroys love.

Money is the most anti-love thing in the world. And when you are treating a patient for money, of course the patient becomes irrelevant. He is just a number; he has no being in him. Because he pays you, you treat him, but you become impersonal, indifferent. In fact, deep down, if the patient is very rich, in your unconscious you want him to remain ill a little longer. It creates guilt also, because if a rich patient is cured easily, he will not be paying too much.

So if the patient is rich, the unconscious desire remains in the doctor to let him linger a little. This is very dangerous, but it is so. So make it more meditative, make it more loving. Whatsoever time you are here for, meditate as deeply as possible. Your meditation has started. I have started working on you. Forget everything, and let your love grow.

By the time you go back, you will be able to have a totally different outlook about your profession. I cannot guarantee that that will help you to earn much money, but money is not a consideration. You can always get enough for your needs, but that’s all… more than enough.

But make it a function of your loving heart. Let it be a service, and then you will see that it is helping you. It will help you to grow. What more can you expect? If you are serving human beings, you are doing one of the best things that can be done.

Somebody is painting on the canvas, somebody is writing a poem, and somebody is playing on a musical instrument – you are playing on human beings, you are painting on a human canvas. You are doing something with the most evolved phenomenon in the world. One should be happy. But a different vision is needed, that’s all. It will come….

Source: from Osho Book “The Passion for the Impossible”