Is taking the role of a therapist dangerous to my own spiritual growth?

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?

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…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, AM I REALLY A GOOD THERAPIST? The good therapist will create a friendliness, a deep intimacy with the patient. He should not remain on a high pedestal, far above, as if he has no problems. The fact is therapists have more problems than anybody else. They have their own problems and they have other people's problems too; hence four times more therapists go insane than any other profession, and four times more therapists commit suicide than any other profession. It is not just accidental. But if you can be friendly, if you can hold the hand of the patient, if you can tell him that these are your problems too and it is good to have a companion, to have a friend, "We can work it out together. It is not only that you will be helped, I will be helped also...

Beloved master, I heard you say that the psychologist is slowly taking the role of the priest. Group leaders tend to become arrogant and often hallow themselves as authorities, well-disguised in humbleness. They thus give juice to their participants' dependency on authority, even though that is what they came to therapy to grow out of. Isn't this exploitation of trust even more dangerous than any other exploitation?

It is happening around the world. The therapist, the psychoanalyst, the psychiatrist -- they are the new priests. The old priests are out of date with the new generation. The gap between the old people and the new generation is widening every day. The gap is widening, but your conditioning is done by the older generation: your parents, your teachers, your priests. So now you are in a situation where you have to find new priests, new father figures, and that is being fulfilled by the psychologists of different schools. One of the functions here in our university is to destroy this role. The therapists have to be aware not to become authoritative. But they can become nonauthoritative only if you are ready to drop the idea of authority. So it depends on both the therapist and the people who are participating in the therapy. The persons who are participating…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, IT FEELS VERY DANGEROUS TO ME, THE WAY YOUR THERAPISTS ARE WORKING AT THE MOMENT: CLAIMING TO BE ON THE SAME LEVEL AS YOU ARE, AND DOING THE SAME WORK. WHAT THEY SAY THEY HAVE TO OFFER -- FLYING SCHOOLS AND "FREEDOM" -- SOUNDS VERY APPEALING TO THE EGO, BUT DOESN'T SEEM TO HAVE ANY CONNECTION WITH YOUR WORK. I'M CONCERNED THAT INNOCENT PEOPLE, WANTING TO BE CLOSER TO YOU AND WANTING SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE, WILL PUT THEIR TRUST IN THESE PEOPLE WHO HAVE AUTHORITY AS YOUR CHOSEN THERAPISTS. WE SAW WITH SHEELA WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE MISUSE OF WORLDLY POWER. THE MISUSE OF SPIRITUAL POWER SEEMS A FAR GREATER MENACE AS IT WORKS WITH PEOPLES' VERY BEINGS. YOU HAVE ALWAYS SAID THAT THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A MASTER LEAVES HIS BODY.

[A therapist visitor says: It is very difficult for me to listen to myself. I can see problems for other people but I cannot for me.] That happens always to people who are helping others -- groupleaders, psychoanalysts, therapists. It happens to all such people because by and by they become too much other-focused. They listen to their problems and they try to solve them, but this whole effort may be just an escape from their own problems. This is my understanding because so many psychoanalysts, therapists and groupleaders have come to me. This is the problem for almost every therapist. You may have chosen the therapy as a deep occupation, a preoccupation; as an escape from your own problems. It is very easy to get involved in others'problems; very easy to become a messiah, very easy.