Hugging is a therapeutic tool

It is heartening to see how people hug each other freely and warmly at the Osho International Meditation Resort. Whenever friends come back from a long break they are welcomed with big warm hugs. And they say, "Oh, we miss these hugs so much out there!" There is something magical about them.
A imple gesture like a sincere hug goes a long way in relaxing and welcoming people. It rejuvenates and heals.
I came across an interesting article by Emma Brady, a Birmingham Cloumnist, in which she prescribes "at least eight hugs a day to ensure the release of the feel-good hormone Oxytocin."
Osho has prescribed hugs because he is all for love. Osho says: " Hugging is only a gesture of oneness -- even the gesture helps. If it is true -- not only a gesture but your heart is also in it -- it can be a magical tool, it can be a miracle. It can transform the whole situation instantly.
Few things have to be understood about it. One is: the idea that the child dies and the man becomes adolescent, then the adolescent dies and the man becomes young, then the young man dies and he becomes middle-aged, and so on, so forth, is wrong. The child never dies -- nothing ever dies. The child is there, always is there, wrapped by other experiences -- wrapped by adolescence, then by youth, then by middle age, then by old age -- but the child is always there.You are just like an onion, layers upon layers, but if you peel the onion soon you will find fresher layers inside. Go on deeper and you find more and more, fresher layers. The same is true about man: if you go deep into him you will always find the innocent child -- and to contact that innocent child is therapeutic.Hugging gives you an immediate contact with the child. If you hug somebody with warmth, love, if it is not just an impotent gesture, if it is meaningful, significant, true, if your heart is flowing through it, immediately you come in contact with the child, with the innocent child. And the innocent child even for a single moment surfacing makes a tremendous difference because the innocence of the child is always healthy and whole; it is uncorrupted. You have reached to the innermost core of the person where no corruption has ever entered, you have reached to the virgin core, and just making the virgin core throb again with life is enough. You have started, triggered a process of healing."

The Wild Geese And The Water