That’s why I do not send Easterners to groups – except Japanese. I have sent a few Japanese because Japan is the most Western part of the East. I have sent Indians only once or twice – and these were only name’s-sake Indians. They have been born in the East but their mind has not been developed by the Eastern concept, their mind is Western. They have been taught by Christian missionaries in Christian schools. Their whole education and up-bringing is Western.

This is the first thing to understand. The West will move through love easily and through love will come to itself. It is a longer way. Meditation is a short-cut. Love means: “I go into the other, see my face in the eyes of the other, encounter the other – and in encountering the other, I come to know about myself. And then I come back. It is via the other but I come back to myself.” Love also comes to the inner solitude but it is a long way. It goes through the other. It is a big circle.

Meditation is a short way, it reduces everything to the minimum. You don’t go to the other; you simply close your eyes and you drown yourself in yourself. You drop into your own being.

Both are perfectly right. It depends on the person – on what he needs. To a few Westerners also I don’t suggest groups. When I see some Westerner who has no need to relate then I don’t suggest groups, then I say there is no need.

But at least five thousand years of different psychological conditioning exists. That has to be taken note of. I cannot say the Easterner and the Westerner are just the same – they are not. At the innermost core they are, in their being they are, but in their minds they are not. Their approach is different. They need different methodology.

If a Westerner comes and I put him directly into vipassana-like methods he is simply at a loss, he cannot understand what is happening. It is a torture. He feels as if he is simply a masochist – why is he torturing himself? Why is he sitting in a siddhasana in a Buddha posture, with closed eyes? For what? The Western mind wants to move, relate, dance, sing, celebrate. The Western mind is dynamic. It wants some process – so that it can go step by step into things. One day the Western mind has to come to a silent, meditative state but it has first to go through growth groups. Then it becomes easier.

If he is sent to a growth group the Eastern person will simply be at a loss. Even Japanese are at a loss. There have been questions from Japanese like: “Osho, why do you send us to growth groups? You don’t send Indians, why do you send us?” They don’t feel good, they feel very worried. It is very difficult for them to relate the way a Western person can relate. They are not open that way. And they don’t see the point of it. They don’t see any point. Why go into it? When you know a short-cut then why go a long way? The East has known the short-cut always but in the West it has been different.