Groups

If groups are a safer and more stimulating place to begin to expand any conceivable, personal boundaries, why have you not encouraged the creation of indian groups with indian leaders?

In my childhood I used to go with my father. He is a great burper. Whenever he went to somebody else's house he would burp loudly. So I asked him, 'Why do you do it that much? You never do it that much at home?' He said, 'It has to be done otherwise the people will think that we are not satisfied.' The burp gives a satisfactory expression. It says the stomach is full and it is perfectly satisfied and it is happy. It is a physical expression. I was reading one of Janov's books in which he gives a few certificates from his patients who have been helped by primal therapy. In one certificate one patient says, 'I am very, very thankful to you because after primal therapy I began to burp for the first time in my life.' He said that it was amazing. I also say it…

Osho! Why are Indians not being included in group therapy, in collective psychotherapy? Is it only the West that needs group therapy and not the East? But that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, ninety percent of Indians are found to be sexually neurotic. In this context, please kindly clarify how it is justified to deprive Indians of this particular method, and why? Asked by Dr. Tapan Kumar Chaudhary. He is a doctor, so certainly he knows what the real mental condition of Indians is. All right—it's not just ninety percent; ninety-nine percent of Indians suffer from sex-repression. And I kn

I have broken no law. Everyone has the right to be naked in a room—otherwise all husbands and wives will have to be put in jail. I have broken no law. I am moving with full awareness on this count. There is no legal charge against me, nor against my ashram. We have taken care that in a legal way they cannot catch us. Otherwise, do you think they would spare me? If they can file twenty-two cases against Sanjay Gandhi, they would file two hundred and twenty against me. But even all the 420s together could not bring two hundred and twenty cases against me. There is no cause for a case. Hence there is a sense of impotence: what to do—nothing is within their power; otherwise they would have erased me. Still, they keep trying as far as they can. You say: Why don’t I include Indians in…

Osho, to rise above mental afflictions like lust, anger, greed and attachment, and states like ego and stupefaction, the Buddha, Mahavira, and all Indian saints have prescribed only practices such as meditation-awakening, devotional singing and chanting, and satsang. But why are you—on what basis—adding new means like therapy-groups (group psychotherapy) along with other methods for Indian friends? Kindly explain.

I have no desire for your respect or your applause. I am not here to reproduce any enlightened one. I will live in my own way. I will say what is mine to say. So drop these expectations. Don’t keep throwing names like Buddha, Mahavira, and the rishis and munis at me; you bore me with them. Let them be. If you meet them somewhere, ask them why they don’t conduct group psychotherapy! I will live in my own way. I am a category unto myself. I am not a repetition of anyone, nor do I have any taste for that. Time is changing. It changes every day. What was needed then, the Buddha would have done. What is needed today, I will do. That need did not exist then. People were simple, straightforward, rural. Understand a little. If a woodcutter who chops wood daily comes here, I will not…

Beloved Osho, in the west, most of our growth methods tend to be group-oriented -- like encounter groups and psychodrama. In the east, although there are ashrams where seekers live together, the stress seems to be on the individual. Would you tell us about the two approaches?

In the East, people are in the community too much. So whenever they want to be religious, they want to go to the Himalayas. Society is too much around. They are not fed up with themselves, they are fed up with the society. This is the difference. In the West, you are fed up with yourself and you want some bridge, how to be communicative with the society, with others; how to create a bridge, how to move to the other, so you can forget yourself. In the East, people are fed up with the society. They have lived with it so long, and the society is all around so much that they don't feel any freedom. So whenever somebody wants to be free, to be silent, he runs to the Himalayas. In the West, you run to the society; in the East, people run from the society. That's why…