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This is my observation, that there are many things that you learn only when you start teaching them. The best way to learn a thing is to teach it.
And you grow more when you are less concerned about your own growth and more concerned with others' growth, their problems. Deep down no problem is such that it is not yours. Every human being carries on the same type of problem; degrees differ, but they're almost the same problems. So when you are helping somebody to resolve something, to decide something, to come out of a vague, confused state, to settle, to centre, to be rooted, grounded; whenever you are helping somebody, you become aware of many things about yourself, because they are your problems also. When you help somebody to really solve a problem, you have attained a key.
It will be difficult when you are really involved in your own problem because you are too close to it; you cannot be an observer, you cannot be aloof and neutral. You cannot be a witness when he problem is yours. But when the problem is somebody else's you are wise, and you learn much. When the problem comes in your own life, you will be able to cope with it more easily, because you know that the problems are just problems; they don't belong to you or to me, or to anybody else. And keys are just keys. Solving many prob~ems of others, you are solving your own life, and by helping others, you are helped.
That's why I go on insisting that people go back and start helping others. In the beginning you feel a little apprehensive, because you know that you cannot even help yourself. I also know it. Knowing it I give you some work to get you out of your self-concern. Sometimes the self-concern is the only hindrance. When you help others you have moved out of your own ego, you are more relaxed. This happens every day in life.
If the surgeon is going to operate on his own wife, it will be difficult, almost impossible. His hands will tremble. He may be a great surgeon, but when it comes to his own wife or his own child, he will have to seek somebody else's help; he will have to ask some other surgeon -- because now the problem is so close. It is as if he is operating on himself.
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