Question :

Is not the proclivity toward psychology appointments or psychiatry appointments -- where people are trying to essentially, as they state it, find out about themselves -- somewhat the same parallel as to what you're offering here in rajneeshpuram?

 

 

No! Because your psychologists, even the founders -- Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Adler, Assagioli -- even they knew nothing about themselves, so how can they help you to know yourself?

 

Jung had been to India. He went to see the Taj Mahal, he went to Calcutta, to Bombay, and everywhere he was told, "You being a great psychologist, the place you should go first is to a man in south India, Maharishi Raman." That man was conceived by the whole country as one who knows himself "You should go there and see whether it is true or not. And if he knows himself, perhaps you can learn something from him; if he does not know, you can help him to know."

 

But he would not go there, and in his diary he wrote: "I was afraid to go there, to face the eyes of a man who knows himself, because I don't know myself." He returned without going to Maharishi Raman. And when he was back he must have been feeling guilty, that this is not right. Going to see the ruins of palaces was worthless for a psychologist. He was not a historian. Going to see big cities, what was the point for him? He must have started feeling guilty, that everywhere he went, every friend he knew, all the professors in all the universities, in all the psychological departments, were pointing towards one man -- and he did not go there.

 

Out of that guilt he started writing against Indian mysticism. He started saying that Westerners should remain aloof to the Eastern tradition of mysticism, because it is dangerous for the Western man. Western man's development is different, Eastern man's development is different, their psychologies are different. This he said for the first time after coming back from India.

 

Psychologies are not different. There may be minute details which are different, but the basic psychology is not different, cannot be different. He projected his own fear over all history.

 

So I don't think these psychologists are helping anybody in any way. They can't help themselves. Do you know, the suicide rate of psychologists is double that of average human beings.

 

 

Q: I THINK IT'S EVEN WORSE....

 

A: Yes. It may have grown higher, because for five years I have not been reading a single word, of any book, of any newspaper. For five years I have simply stopped... so perhaps it may have gone higher. But five years ago, it was double.

 

And the same was the situation with madness -- it was double any other profession. And the same was the proportion of all kinds of perverted acts.

 

These people -- suicidal, insane, committing perverted acts, finding excuses to do them through psychology -- do you think they can help anybody to know himself?

 

- Osho, "The Last Testament Volume 1, #18"