I disagree. Just because ‘some’ sannyasin therapists got on their high horses we don’t have to throw out the baby with the water. I met some some incredible people in the sannyas therapy community, people who went on to work in the industry under excruciating conditions. Only in sannyas can the therapist be your friend, or a lover even.

Anand, in another post you mention the possibility that all the therapies and meditations might have been just games … Osho often called it a spiritual circus. What it wasn’t … it wasn’t boring. And that is the real therapy.

People find it difficult to be happy for long periods of time without self-sabotaging their own happiness. Therapy will show the meditator what areas to contemplate upon but on the final rung the meditative attitude will have to taken out of the meditation room and into the street.

There followed many years of meditation, plus individual and group therapy, and many other things, including something approximating a ‘normal’ existence…In a way (at the risk of sounding utterly pretentious) I see my whole life as one long psycho-spiritual ‘therapeutic process’, a recovery from a difficult first two decades.

Now, after over 45 years of a multi-faceted life, I feel fortunate to have ‘survived’ – so far – relatively intact, and significant credit goes to help I’ve received from therapeutic resources. I trust you understand that if you are bent on belittling such resources then you won’t find an ally in me. As I’ve said here before, they’re not the ‘be all and end all’, but as well as providing ‘opening-up’ experience, they can be life-changers and for some, even life-savers.

As such, they have a place in ‘spiritual growth’ efforts, especially for new people. Maybe not for everyone, maybe not for you, but nevertheless a place.

haha, yes, sounds like a romantic ideal to have them realize god before working because that’s asking therapists to be enlightened first… but i’m thinking only then they would be really therapists, healers…

also, therapeutic work was very useful when i began doing it, i was up to my head in emotions and couldn’t manage being something else than a tedious paranoid victim of life… therapy (emotional release) unburden me a lot… but again, dynamic also does that trick (active meditations for the hectic western mind)…

i’m with you satyadeva, a balanced view on therapy is a must… so after so many years of therapists and sannyasins inflating it… we should degrade it a bit to its proper place, take it off the list of “spiritual practices”… and realize that “sannyasin therapist” is an oxymoron…

what stayed after the groups was a certain quality of having been able to show myself openly… it would usually close quickly and last only for some days… i can say that’s therapeutic and deep… the exposure of your vulnerability… that being there showing “my self” to everyone and viceversa was only important in terms of opening the defenses and letting the other see me as “i was”… the content is not really important… though they never emphasize this… therapists are cheeky, they are happy when you come back, instead of hitting you in the head for not growing up in your meditation… but that’s ok, because they’re actually not teaching you about meditation… they are showing you “this is how you meditate, first, you buy the dynamic cd”… and they hope you’ll figure it out on your own, haha…

it’s amazing how things appear in such a variety of perspectives… yes, vartan, not all therapy is wrong… or no therapy is wrong… as is not wrong to play with legos… just don’t try to make a building with them…

“But its aim has to be to point towards meditation and not be and end in itself. And the aim of meditation should be to channel towards a spiritual attitude (or the bar, whichever is closer) otherwise it is all a waste of time.”

exactly… the bar is also good, haha… it has to change your life deeply to become a part of it, to develop an attitude of meditation… and one group, or training, some sessions, cannot change your life deeply… they change it, sure, but not deeply… how can i assure that the change is superficial?… well… people keep on going and going to groups… and sessions…

that’s why i go back to emphasize love, or silence, or freedom… the learning of those qualities is more similar to a transfer of energy than following a set of rules, guidelines and how-to’s… you “learn” them by feeling them, by being in contact with sources of energy that vibrate in that frequency… haha… what i mean is, therapists are usually not that loving, or silent, or content… and there we could start talking about the pricing of therapy, but… i should finish this subject of the usefulness of therapy…

exposing is good, and giving full attention (love) to that vulnerability… yes, it’s a good kickstart… then they should send their clients to a guru to continue on their paths… but again… they don’t, they want to keep them near and dear… and expect them to believe they need to keep doing therapy for years… they are cheeky i tell you…