Sadananda, you are right. This question arising in you is of tremendous significance: whether you have been healed by therapy or by prayer? You have been healed by prayer. Therapy has not helped anybody. At the most, therapy can make you adjusted to the society. Prayer helps you to fall in tune with existence itself.
Society is man-made, its values are man-made, hence they are different everywhere. In India there are different values, in the West there are different values. Something that is perfectly okay in the West is absolutely wrong in the East, and vice versa. These values are man-created.
You live in a society; you have to adjust to the society. Psychotherapy is in the service of the society you live in. When you start going out of the society, you start becoming a little rebellious, the society pounces on you and declares you ill. This is an ancient trick, one of the most dangerous tricks that the society has played on you: whenever you are not falling in line with the society, the society starts condemning you. In the past it used to call you 'sinners', and then it prepared hells for you. Now, that language is out of date: it calls you 'sick', 'mentally sick', 'a mental case' That is a new condemnation.
In Soviet Russia, whenever somebody differs from communism, has his own ideas about life, existence, society, he is immediately declared a psychopath, a mental case. Once he is declared a mental case, now society is able to manipulate him. You can give him electric shocks, insulin shocks, drugs. You can force him to live in a mental asylum. And all that he has done is: he has done a little bit of thinking. His sin is that he was not obedient to the established order of the society; he was disobedient. Unless the society forces him back, gives him a mind-wash, forces him to fall in line, he will be kept in a hospital and will be treated as an ill man. This is very humiliating, degrading, dehumanizing, but that's what has been done all over the world, more or less.
Whenever a person is different from you, wants to live a different life, wants to be free from the bondage you have created in the name of the society, you declare him mad. Jesus was declared neurotic, Mansoor was declared mad, Socrates was declared dangerous to the youth of the society: "Kill them now!" Now the society can kill them without any prick of conscience. In fact, the society is doing the right thing: first condemn somebody, put a label on him; if you kill somebody without putting a label on him, you will feel guilty; to avoid guilt declare him mad, and then it is so easy to kill, so easy to destroy.
Now we have the technology too -- to destroy the mind, to give the mind a complete brainwash, and to force the man to say yes to the established order, whatsoever it is: communist, capitalist, fascist.
Therapy, the so-called therapy, is in the service of the established society. It is in the service of death, of the past.
Prayer serves nobody. Prayer is freedom. Prayer is a way to commune with the whole, and to commune with the whole is to be holy.
You say, "While in therapy myself, I spent much time praying. Over the years I felt better. I never knew whether it was the therapy or the prayer."
It was CERTAINLY prayer.
"As a therapist I want to urge others to pray but feel embarrassed."
I can understand, Sadananda.
Prayer has become a dirty word. To talk about prayer is embarrassing. To talk about God is embarrassing: people think that you are a little bit eccentric, crazy or something, but don't be afraid. Drop this embarrassment, gather courage. Talk about prayer -- not only talk about prayer, fall into prayer when the patient is with you. Let the patient feel the climate of prayer.
Once Jesus' disciples asked him, "What is prayer?" He simply knelt down, started praying, with tears coming from his eyes. His eyes raised towards heaven, and he started talking to his Father -- which is just a symbol. He started calling, 'Abba'. He created the climate: that is the only way to show what prayer is, there is no other way.
If somebody asks, "What is love?", be loving. Hug him, hold his hand, let your love flow towards him. That is the only way to say what love is. This is the only way to define the indefinable.
Fall in prayer while you are helping your patient. Just kneel down. The first time the patient may feel strange, a little weird -- "What is happening?" -- because he has come with a certain idea that he would have to lie down on the Freudian couch and he would talk all kinds of nonsense, and the psychoanalyst would listen very attentively, as if he is delivering a gospel or a revelation. He has come with certain expectations; he will not be able to believe what is happening.
But if prayer is there it is bound to have effects: it is such a potential force. Whenever there is one person praying, he creates a vibe of prayer around himself. And patients particularly are very sensitive people -- that's why they have become patients. Remember it! They are more intelligent than the common lot, hence they are ill!
The common lot is so insensitive, so dull, so thick-skinned.
It goes on carrying all kinds of nonsenses without being disturbed by them. It goes on living this so-called, meaningless life without ever becoming aware of its meaninglessness, its utter stupidity and absurdity. Remember always that the patient is a person who is more sensitive than the common lot, more alert, has more heart to feel. Hence he finds it difficult to adjust to the society.
The society exists for the lowest because it exists for the mass, the mob, the crowd. The society is a herd-phenomenon. Whenever there is somebody who is a little more intelligent, has a slightly higher I.Q., has some more potential for love and for poetry, he will feel a little maladjusted. He will not feel at home. Seeing the beggar on the street, he will suffer; seeing all kinds of exploitations going on, he will suffer; seeing the state of humanity and its degradation, he will suffer -- and all this will become too much. He will start cracking underneath this burden.
Remember that the patient is more intelligent, more sensitive, more vulnerable.
Hence he is a patient. If you create the climate of prayer around him, maybe the first time he will think you a little weird, but don't be worried. Everybody knows that psychoanalysts are a little weird.
I have heard....
"I got insomnia real bad," complained a psychotherapist to his physician.
"Insomnia," said the doctor, "is insomnia. How bad can it be? What do you mean, 'real bad insomnia'?"
"Well," said the psychotherapist. "I got it real bad. I can't even sleep when it is time to get up!"
Or this story:
A young doctor who was studying to be a psychoanalyst approached his professor and asked for a special appointment. When they were alone in the professor's office, the young man revealed that he had had a considerable amount of trouble with some of his patients. It seemed that in response to his questions. these patients offered replies which he could not quite understand.
"Well," said the older man, "suppose you ask me some of these questions."
"Why, certainly," agreed the young doctor. "The first one is, what is it that wears a skirt and from whose lips comes pleasure?"
"Why," said the professor, "that's easy. A Scotsman blowing a bagpipe."
"Right," said the young doctor. "Now the second question. What is it that has smooth curves and at unexpected moments becomes uncontrollable?"
The older doctor thought for a moment, and then said, "Aha! I don't think that's too difficult to answer. It's a major league baseball pitcher."
"Right," said the young man. "Now, Professor, would you mind telling me what you think about two arms slipped around your shoulders?"
"A football tackle," replied the professor.
"Right again," said the young doctor. "But you would be surprised at the silly answers I keep getting."
So, Sadananda, don't be worried. You can pray, you can go into prayer. The first time, maybe the patient will think you a little eccentric. And in orange, and with the mala -- you are eccentric! Don't be worried! You are allowed to do anything once you are a sannyasin. This is a certificate.
But if you can create a climate of prayer, soon you will find the patient participating with you. He may feel, for the first time, something of the unknown and the beyond. And if he can again feel something of the unknown, his life will start having meaning, significance. If he can have a little contact with the transcendental, just a little contact, his life will never be the same again. Just a little opening into the beyond, a little window, and the light coming in and the sky and the clouds and the stars -- just a little window and you have transformed his whole being.
Use your therapy too; but the real help will come from prayer. Use therapy as a stepping-stone to prayer.