Befriending Myself

Befriending Myself

I was asked to write about “What I do.” A good question really. And one that makes me think. Not like at a party when people ask me what I do and I roll out the ready-made answer: “Oh I’m a therapist” or “I’m a hypnotherapist,” or sometimes, “I’m an OSHO Therapist.”  As if that really defines all of who I am.

But after some deeper consideration, because I am not at a party, I decided that what I am really doing is something more important than that. What I have been doing for the last 35 years is making friends with myself. Whatever else was happening, this gentle, relentless befriending continued to unfold in the background. A continuous undercurrent moving below the surface.

Although it’s still “work in progress,” the rough parts inside that once grated and scraped and rasped their way through the daily business of life have quietened down, have lost their momentum, have mostly run out of steam.

And how did this happen?

By meditation and befriending myself.

Just take care of the body and the body will repay you tremendously. Take care of your mind and the mind will be helpful. Create friendship, and meditation comes easily.”

And yet the “OSHO Therapist” label has been of great value in that it’s been one of the best Zen koans that was ever given. What’s an OSHO Therapist? Am I an OSHO Therapist because I sit for an hour a day as well as doing therapy? Is there something that an OSHO Therapist does that other therapists don’t do? – Hmmm! Thanks for that one Osho, it has certainly blown a few fuses.

Nobody is really ill. In fact the society is ill, individuals are victims. Society needs therapy: individuals simply need love.”

Milton Erickson, a well-renowned hypnotherapist, said:

“Patients are patients because they are out of rapport with their own unconscious…. Patients are people who have had too much programming – so much outside programming that they have lost touch with their inner selves.”

Therapy is the need of the divided person. Therapy is the need of the person who has fallen into fragments. Therapy is complete when you have become a whole, when you are one piece.”3

People ask me, “What is self-hypnosis and how can it help me deal with my issues? And will it fix my back or my migraines.” To me these are just the parts or expressions of the fragments. The real healing is creating rapport with their greater consciousness. Once again Osho makes this very clear and simple in the instructions to the hypnotic technique: Reminding Yourself of the Forgotten Language of Talking to the BodyMind. As far as I am concerned it’s all held in the phrase: “I want to come closer and be a friend.” For me the rest is just padding.

I want to come closer and be a friend.”

With this phrase the fragments become whole.

In the instructions to Reminding Yourself of The Forgotten Language of Talking to Your BodyMind, Osho says to not talk directly to the part, but to instead refer to the whole. He says don’t refer to the body but refer to the body and mind: the whole. I want to come closer and be a friend.”

What I really enjoy about being a therapist is being in a room with a group or an individual where more and more space is created for the wisdom of the greater consciousness. Where the superficial surface gives way to the wonderful patterns, metaphors and multidimensional reality of the greater whole. It is in this energy field that true healing can happen; where the fragments can merge into the dance of the whole.

Osho also says:

Therapy has to do something very great, but if it succeeds it will mean the end of therapy too. And therapists should be proud of the phenomenon, that they are not replacing any parasites, they are simply deprogramming humanity. Their work is that of a cleaner who has cleaned a place and now his work is finished – there is no need.”

So for me an OSHO Therapist is not just sitting in meditation for an hour a day. It is becoming friends with oneself. It is allowing all those conflicting parts to be accepted into the whole. It’s becoming at ease with the splendor of the greater consciousness.

Love is therapy, and there is no other therapy in the world except love.”

I want to come closer and be a friend. I never thought about it, that you have been working for me all these years and I have never thanked you.

Thank you.

Anekant Quick

To continue reading and see all available formats of this talk: 
Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 10, Talk #4 – Understanding Is the Fragrance of Silence
Osho, Above All Don’t Wobble, Talk #13 – Health Is a Function of Love
Osho, The Secret of Secrets, Vol.2, Talk #24 – Sure I Dig You, Man
Osho, The Last Testament Vol.2(Includes Press Conferences), Talk #16 – Fear Is Always of the Unknown
Osho, The Secret of Secrets, Talk #18 – Love Is the Only Friend

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