The word 'patient' is ugly. The word in itself is not ugly; it comes from a very beautiful root. It comes from the same root as 'patience', but it has become ugly by association.
A disciple is totally different: you have come to learn something, not to be treated, and the treatment happens by itself.
All therapy is learning. In fact, why have you become mentally ill ? — because you have learned something wrong. You have learned something so totally wrong that you are caught in it. You need somebody who can uncondition you, who can help you to unlearn it and channelize your energy in a different path, that's all.
For example: one woman came to me. I have been watching her for many years; she has been coming to me for many years. The first time she came she told me that she was not interested in sex at all, but her husband was continuously after sex. She felt very bad about it; she was almost vomiting.'How to stop it? What should I do?' she asked. I talked to the husband and told the husband, 'Just for one month, don't be interested sexually.
After one month, things will be better and different.' For one month he followed me. The woman came again. She said,'I am feeling very hurt, because my husband is not at all interested in me sexually.' Then I told her,'Now, you have to understand what is happening. When the husband is sexually interested, you have a certain power over the husband. You enjoy that power, but at the same time you also feel that you are being used. Because the husband looks at you sexually, that means that he looks at you as a means towards a certain satisfaction.
You feel that you are being used.' Almost all women feel that they are being used, and that is their problem. But if the husband stops taking interest they forget all about being used, and they become afraid. Then they start thinking that the husband is going far away. Now they have no more power over him, they don't possess him. So I told the woman,'Just look at the fact: if you want to possess the husband you will have to be possessed by him. If you want to possess the husband, then you will have to be used by him.'
A mind which is possessive will be possessed. To possess anything is to be possessed by it. The more you possess, the more slavery you create around yourself. The freedom comes when you unlearn possessiveness. When you unlearn possessiveness, then you are not in search of any power over anybody. Then jealousy does not arise. And when you are not trying to possess the other, you create such beauty around yourself that the other cannot look at you as a thing. You become a person — glorified, vibrant, illuminated — you become a light unto yourself; nobody can possess you. Whosoever comes near you will feel the tremendous beauty, and will not be able to think in terms of your being a thing.
Now every woman suffers, because in the first place she wants to possess; when she wants to possess, she is possessed; when she is possessed she feels,'I am being used.' If she is not being used, then she feels that power is disappearing. So a woman always remains in a suffering, and it is the same with men.
To look deeply into a problem is to be healed, because the very look shows you that you have learned some wrong trick. Unlearn… there is healing. People are mentally ill because they have been conditioned wrongly. Everybody has been conditioned to be competitive and everybody has been taught to be silent and peaceful. This is stupid; you cannot do both. Either you are competitive, then you remain tense; or you be silent and peace-loving, then you cannot be competitive.
You have been taught dichotomies. You have been told to move in two directions together, and you have learned it. You have been taught to be humble, and you have been continuously taught to be egoistic.
If your son is first in the class at university, you feel very happy. You give a party for his friends, and you go on showing your son that he is a great man; he is first in the class, he is being awarded a gold medal. Now this is an ego-trip, all medals are. And at the same time, you go on teaching him to be humble. Now you are creating a difficulty: if he becomes humble he will not be competitive; if he becomes competitive, he cannot be humble. If he wants to attain the gold medals that this life can give, then he cannot be humble. Then all his humbleness will be hypocrisy.
One has to see. Now this man will be in trouble: continuously he will try to be humble, and continuously he will try to succeed in life. If he succeeds, he will never enjoy the success, because he will have become arrogant and egoistic, and he had an ideal of being humble and egoless. If he becomes humble and egoless he will not feel happy, because he has that ideal to succeed in the world, to show to the world the mettle that he is made of.
The society goes on being contradictory, inconsistent, and the society goes on teaching you things which are absolutely wrong. Then illness happens. Then there is psychic turmoil within you, conflict within you. Then you come to a point where everything is in disorder, topsy-turvy. You can either go to a Master, or you can go to a psychotherapist. If you go to a Master you go as a disciple, to learn. You have learned something wrong; it has to be unlearned and something new has to be learned. When you go as a disciple you don't feel humiliated, you feel happy about it. But if you go as a mental case, if you go as a patient, you feel embarrassed. Going to a psychotherapist, you want to hide the facts — 'People should not know because that means that my mind is not functioning well.' Going to the psychotherapist, you would like to hide it. A psychotherapist is an expert: he himself has problems, almost the same as you have; he may be of some help to you, but he has not been of much use to himself.
But a Master has no problems. He can help you tremendously because he can see you through and through. You become transparent before him. A psychotherapist is a professional: even if he takes care of you, shows a certain love towards you, affection, it is a professional gesture. A Master is not professionally related to you. The relationship is totally different; it is heart to heart.
In the West, now there are so many psychotherapies, but nothing is proving to be helpful. Patients go from one psychoanalyst to another, from one therapy to another. Their whole lives they are moving from one door to another. Masters are needed, realized ones are needed who have attained to love. But even in ordinary psychotherapy, if for some moments it happens that the patient is no longer a patient and the therapist is no longer a therapist — a certain love, a certain humanity; they have forgotten their profession, their professional relationship, and love flows — healing immediately happens.
Healing is a function of love. Love is the greatest therapy, and the world needs therapists because the world lacks love. If people were loving: if parents were loving, if teachers and professors were loving, if the society had a loving climate around it, there would be no need.
Everybody is born to remain healthy and happy. Everybody is seeking health and happiness, but somewhere something is missing and everybody becomes miserable. Misery should be an exception; it has become the rule. Happiness should be the rule; it has become an exception. I would like a world where buddhas are born.
OSHO