Osho on purpose of Therapy Groups

Osho – THE PURPOSE OF THE THERAPY GROUPS is not to bring the participants to their natural self – not at all. The purpose of the therapy groups is to bring you to the point where you can see your unnaturalness. Nobody can bring you to your natural self; there can be no method, no technique, no device, which can bring you to your natural self – because all that you will do will make you more and more unnatural.

Then what is the purpose of a therapy group? It simply makes you aware of the unnatural patterns that you have evolved in your being. It simply helps you to see the unnaturalness of your life, that’s all. Seeing it, it starts dispersing. To see it is to annihilate it, because once you have seen something as unnatural in your being, you cannot persist in it any longer.

And seeing something as unnatural, you have also felt what IS natural – but that is indirect, that is vague, that is not clear. What is clear is this, that you have seen that something is unnatural in you. Seeing the unnatural you can feel the natural. Seeing the unnatural, you cannot support it any more. It existed because of your support – nothing can exist without your support. Your co-operation is needed.

If you co-operate something exists. Certainly the unnatural cannot exist without your co-operation. From where will it get the energy? The natural can exist without your co-operation, but the unnatural cannot exist. The unnatural needs constant support, it needs constant care, it needs constant control.

Once you have seen that this is unnatural, your grip on it becomes loose. Your fist opens of its own accord. The group is not a device to open your fist. It is just to help you see that what you are doing is unnatural. In that very seeing, the transformation.

You ask: IS THE PURPOSE OF THE THERAPY GROUPS TO BRING THE PARTICIPANTS TO THEIR NATURAL SELF?

No, that is not the purpose. The purpose is simply to make you aware of where you are, what you have done to yourself – what harm you have been doing continuously and you are still doing. What wounds you are creating in your being. On each of the wounds is your signature – that is the purpose of the group, to make you alert about your signature. That it is signed by you, that nobody else has been doing it.

That all the chains that you have around yourself are created by you. That the prison you live in is your own work. Nobody is doing it to you. Seeing it, that ”I am creating my own prison,” how long can you go on creating it? If you want to live in the prison, that’s another matter – but nobody ever wants to live in the prison.

People live because they think, ”Others are creating the prisons, what can we do?” They always gO on throwing the responsibility on somebody else. Down the ages, they have found new and different devices, but the purpose remains the same: throw the responsibility on somebody else. And you will be surprised at what excuses man has been trying to find.

In the ancient days, man used to think, ”This is the way God has made us, so the responsibility is God’s – what can we do? We are just creatures, and we are the way he has made us. We have to live this misery. This is destined.”

That was a trick. You are relieving yourself of all res-ponsibility. But it happens that when a trick has worked for long it becomes a cliche. It works no more; people are fed up with it. They start searching for new ideas, but the purpose remains the same. And the revolution never comes; it has not happened yet. Not in Russia, not in China – nowhere.

The revolution never comes; it is just a postponement. Man is as miserable in Russia as he is anywhere else, as much in the mire of the mind as anywhere else. Jealousy is as much in Russia as anywhere else. Anger is as much, violence is as much. nothing has changed.

Freud says it is because of the upbringing. In your childhood you have been brought up wrongly – what can you do? It has already happened; now there is no way of undoing it. At the most, you can accept it and live it. Or you can go on fighting unnecessarily – but there is no hope. Freud is one of the greatest pessimists ever. He says there is no hope for man, because in childhood the pattern is settled – settled for ever.

Then you go on repeating the pattern. Again the responsibility is thrown. So your mother is responsible. And the mother thinks what can SHE do? – her own mother is responsible… and so on and so forth. These are all devices, but the purpose is the same – different devices for the same purpose. What is the purpose? To take responsibility off your shoulders.

The group therapy is to make you aware that neither God is responsible nor is society responsible nor are parent? responsible. If there is anybody who is responsible it is you? A group process is a hammering of this simple fact – that it is you who are responsible. And this hammering has a great significance.

Because once you understand that ”This is ME, I myself am doing wrong to myself,” then the doors open. Then there is hope. Then something is possible. Revolution is possible through responsibility, individual responsibility. You can transmute; you can drop those old patterns. They are not your destiny. But if you accept them as your destiny they become your destiny. It is all a question of whether to support them or not.

And I am not saying that parents have not done something to you, remember. And I am not saying that the society has not done anything to you – I am not saying that either. The society has done much, the parents have done much, the education and the priest, they have done much. But, still, the ultimate key is in your hands. You can DROP it, you can drop the whole conditioning.

Whatsoever they have done, you can erase it – because your consciousness at the deepest core always remains free. That is the purpose of a therapy group, to bring this truth home: that you are responsible. ’Responsibility’ is the MOST important word in a group-therapy process. Nobody wants to take the responsibility, because it hurts. Just to see the point, ”I am the cause of my misery,” hurts very much.

If somebody else is the cause, one can accept it, one is helpless. But if I am the cause of my misery, it hurts. It goes against the ego, it goes against the pride. That’s why group therapy is a difficult process, hard. You want to escape – from encounter, from tao, from primal therapy, you want to escape. Why do you want to escape? Because you have always believed that you are perfectly right, you are perfectly good – others have been doing harm to you.

Now the whole thing has to be changed; you have to put everything upside-down. Nobody is doing any harm to you. And if they are doing any harm, it is through your co-operation. So finally you are responsible, you have chosen it. You say, ”My husband is doing harm to me” – but you have chosen THIS husband, in fact, only so that he can do harm to you. You wanted to be harmed and that’s why you have chosen THIS husband, THIS wife.

Just watch people who go on changing their wives. You will be surprised – again and again they find the same type of woman. It is a difficult thing to find the same type of woman, but they find. And within six months they are complaining again. And the complaints are exactly the same.

I have heard about one man who married eight times, and again and again he managed to find the same type of woman. Just see the point: the point is that he has a certain kind of mind, a certain conditioning. In that conditioning, only a certain type of woman appeals to him. A blonde or a brunette – a certain kind of woman appeals to him. The long nose, the black eyes, or something.

Always he is attracted by a certain kind of woman. And then that woman starts doing the same things. And then he is puzzled – and he was thinking he was changing the woman. You ARE changing the woman, but you have not changed your mind! So your choice remains the old, because the chooser is the old. It is not going to help; you will be in the same trap.

The colour of the trap may change, the fiber of the trap may change, but the trap is there and you will be trapped again and again. And the same misery will arise. Group therapy is a great process of understanding ”What I have been doing to myself!”

And if you go still deeper… where no group therapy has yet gone, not even primal therapy. But Buddha has gone deeper. He says: If you have chosen a certain kind of parent, that too is your choice. See the point. Millions of foolish people were making love when you were hovering to take birth. But still you have chosen a certain couple – why? You must have a certain idea; it is your choice.

And then you say, ”My parents have done harm to me.” In the first place, why did you choose them? Then your wife, your husband… and you think they have done harm? Then the society – who has created this society? You have created this society. It does not come out of the blue. The beggar on the road has not appeared suddenly from the blue. WE have created him. If you want to become rich, somebody has to become a beggar.

And seeing the beggar you feel very sorry. Whom are you trying to deceive ? And you still carry the idea of becoming rich. If you want to become rich, somebody is going to become a beggar. If you want to become somebody, then somebody will not be able to reach that fame, name. It is a competitive world. You don’t want wars, but you are violent – in everything you are violent. And you condemn wars.

And have you seen the pacifists and their processions How violent they look! Their slogans against war, their shouts against war – and sooner or later the procession turn into a riot. And they are burning cars and destroying offices and burning buses and trains and attacking the police – and they had gone to protest against war!

Now what is happening? These people are violent people; war is just an excuse. Their protest is nothing but their expression of violence. They are not concerned about war, they are using it as a pretext. This society is created by you. And then you say that society is responsible.

NOBODY IS RESPONSIBLE EXCEPT YOU. This is one of the hardest truths to accept. But once you accept it, it brings great freedom, it creates great space. Because with this, another possibility immediately opens up: ”If I am responsible then I can change. If I am not responsible, how can I change? If I am doing it to myself, then it hurts but it also brings a new possibility – that I can stop hurting myself, I can stop being miserable.”

A group process is not to make you natural; it is to make you aware of your unnaturalness, of your phoniness.

IS THE PURPOSE OF THE THERAPY GROUPS TO BRING THE PARTICIPANTS TO THEIR NATURAL SELF?

No, not at all. The purpose is just to make them aware of the unnatural self. And then the natural self comes of its own accord. Nobody can bring it – when the unnatural disappears, the natural is found. The natural has always been there, hidden under the rubbish. Unnatural gone, you are natural. You don’t become natural; you have always been natural. How can one become natural? All becoming will lead you into unnaturalness.