Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
Encyclopedia
Osho (11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), born Chandra Mohan Jain (चन्द्र मोहन जैन), and also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic
, guru
, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following
.
A professor of philosophy
, he travelled throughout India in the 1960s as a public speaker. His outspoken criticism of socialism
, Mahatma Gandhi
and institutionalised religion
s made him controversial. He also advocated a more open attitude towards sexuality
: a stance that earned him the sobriquet "sex guru" in the Indian and later international press. In 1970, Osho settled for a while in Bombay
. He began initiating disciples (known as neo-sannyasins) and took on the role of a spiritual teacher. In his discourses, he reinterpreted writings of religious traditions, mystics, and philosophers from around the world. Moving to Poona
in 1974, he established an ashram
that attracted increasing numbers of Westerners. The ashram offered therapies derived from the Human Potential Movement
to its Western audience and made news in India and abroad, chiefly because of its permissive climate and Osho's provocative lectures. By the end of the 1970s, there were mounting tensions with the Indian government and the surrounding society.
In 1981, Osho relocated to the United States and his followers established an intentional community
, later known as Rajneeshpuram
, in the state of Oregon
. Within a year, the leadership of the commune became embroiled in a conflict with local residents, primarily over land use, which was marked by hostility on both sides. The large collection of Rolls-Royce
automobiles purchased for his use by his followers also attracted notoriety. The Oregon commune collapsed in 1985 when Osho revealed that the commune leadership had committed a number of serious crimes, including a bioterror attack
(food contamination) on the citizens of The Dalles
. He was arrested shortly afterwards and charged with immigration violations. Osho was deported
from the United States in accordance with a plea bargain
. Twenty-one countries denied him entry, causing Osho to travel the world before returning to Poona, where he died in 1990. His ashram is today known as the Osho International Meditation Resort. His syncretic teachings emphasise the importance of meditation
, awareness, love
, celebration, courage, creativity
and humour
—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialisation. Osho's teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age
thought, and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.
of Madhya Pradesh
state in India
. His parents Babulal and Saraswati Jain, who were Taranpanthi Jains
, let him live with his maternal grandparents until he was seven years old. By Osho's own account, this was a major influence on his development because his grandmother gave him the utmost freedom, leaving him carefree without an imposed education or restrictions. When he was seven years old, his grandfather died, and he went to Gadarwara
to live with his parents. Osho was profoundly affected by his grandfather's death, and again by the death of his childhood girlfriend and cousin Shashi from typhoid when he was 15, leading to a preoccupation with death that lasted throughout much of his childhood and youth. In his school years he was a rebellious, but gifted student, and acquired a reputation as a formidable debater. Osho became an anti-theist
, took an interest in hypnosis
and briefly associated with socialism
and two Indian nationialist organisation
s: the Indian National Army
and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
. However, his membership in the organisations was short-lived as he could not subscribe to any external discipline, ideology or system.
(Meeting of all faiths) held at Jabalpur, organised by the Taranpanthi Jain community into which he was born, and participated there from 1951 to 1968. He resisted his parents' pressure to get married. Osho later said he became spiritually enlightened on 21 March 1953, when he was 21 years old, in a mystical experience while sitting under a tree in the Bhanvartal garden in Jabalpur.
Having completed his B.A.
in philosophy at D. N. Jain College in 1955, he joined the University of Sagar
, where in 1957 he earned his M.A.
in philosophy (with distinction). He immediately secured a teaching post at Raipur Sanskrit college, but the Vice Chancellor soon asked him to seek a transfer as he considered him a danger to his students' morality, character and religion. From 1958, he taught philosophy as a lecturer
at Jabalpur University, being promoted to professor in 1960. A popular lecturer, he was acknowledged by his peers as an exceptionally intelligent man who had been able to overcome the deficiencies of his early small-town education.
In parallel to his university job, he travelled throughout India
under the name Acharya Rajneesh (Acharya
means teacher or professor; Rajneesh was a nickname he had acquired in childhood), giving lectures critical of socialism
and Gandhi. He said socialism would only socialise poverty, and he described Gandhi as a masochist
reactionary who worshipped poverty. What India needed to escape its backwardness was capitalism
, science, modern technology and birth control
. He criticised orthodox Indian religions as dead, filled with empty ritual, oppressing their followers with fears of damnation and the promise of blessings. Such statements made him controversial, but also gained him a loyal following that included a number of wealthy merchants and businessmen. These sought individual consultations from him about their spiritual development and daily life, in return for donations—a commonplace arrangement in India—and his practice grew rapidly. From 1962, he began to lead 3- to 10-day meditation camps, and the first meditation centres (Jivan Jagruti Kendra) started to emerge around his teaching, then known as the Life Awakening Movement (Jivan Jagruti Andolan). After a controversial speaking tour in 1966, he resigned from his teaching post at the request of the university.
In a 1968 lecture series, later published under the title From Sex to Superconsciousness, he scandalised Hindu
leaders by calling for freer acceptance of sex and became known as the "sex guru" in the Indian press. When in 1969 he was invited to speak at the Second World Hindu Conference, despite the misgivings of some Hindu leaders, he used the occasion to raise controversy again, claiming that "any religion which considers life meaningless and full of misery, and teaches the hatred of life, is not a true religion. Religion is an art that shows how to enjoy life." He characterised priests as being motivated by self-interest, provoking the shankaracharya
of Puri
, who tried in vain to have his lecture stopped.
at the end of June. On 26 September 1970, he initiated his first group of disciples or neo-sannyasins. Becoming a disciple meant assuming a new name and wearing the traditional orange dress of ascetic Hindu holy men, including a mala (beaded necklace) carrying a locket with his picture. However, his sannyasins were encouraged to follow a celebratory rather than ascetic lifestyle. He himself was not to be worshipped but regarded as a catalytic agent, "a sun encouraging the flower to open".
He had by then acquired a secretary Laxmi Thakarsi Kuruwa, who as his first disciple had taken the name Ma Yoga Laxmi. Laxmi was the daughter of one of his early followers, a wealthy Jain who had been a key supporter of the National Congress Party
during the struggle for Indian independence, with close ties to Gandhi
, Nehru
and Morarji Desai
. She raised the money that enabled Osho to stop his travels and settle down. In December 1970, he moved to the Woodlands Apartments in Bombay, where he gave lectures and received visitors, among them his first Western visitors. He now travelled rarely, no longer speaking at open public meetings. In 1971, he adopted the title "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh". Shree
is a polite form of address roughly equivalent to the English "Sir"; Bhagwan means "blessed one", used in Indian traditions as a term of respect for a human being in whom the divine is no longer hidden but apparent.
and numerous allergies
. In 1974, on the 21st anniversary of his experience in Jabalpur, he moved to a property in Koregaon Park
, Poona
, purchased with the help of Ma Yoga Mukta (Catherine Venizelos), a Greek shipping heiress. Osho taught at the Poona ashram from 1974 to 1981. The two adjoining houses and 6 acres (24,281.2 m²) of land became the nucleus of an ashram
, and the property is still the heart of the present-day Osho International Meditation Resort. It allowed the regular audio recording and, later, video recording and printing of his discourses for worldwide distribution, enabling him to reach far larger audiences. The number of Western visitors increased sharply. The ashram soon featured an arts-and-crafts centre producing clothes, jewellery, ceramics and organic cosmetics and hosted performances of theatre, music and mime. From 1975, after the arrival of several therapists from the Human Potential Movement
, the ashram began to complement meditations with a growing number of therapy groups, which became a major source of income for the ashram.
The Poona ashram was by all accounts an exciting and intense place to be, with an emotionally charged, madhouse-carnival atmosphere. The day began at 6:00 a.m. with Dynamic Meditation. From 8:00 a.m., Osho gave a 60- to 90-minute spontaneous lecture in the ashram's "Buddha Hall" auditorium, commenting on religious writings or answering questions from visitors and disciples. Until 1981, lecture series held in Hindi
alternated with series held in English
. During the day, various meditations and therapies took place, whose intensity was ascribed to the spiritual energy of Osho's "buddhafield". In evening darshan
s, Osho conversed with individual disciples or visitors and initiated disciples ("gave sannyas"). Sannyasins came for darshan when departing or returning or when they had anything they wanted to discuss.
To decide which therapies to participate in, visitors either consulted Osho or made selections according to their own preferences. Some of the early therapy groups in the ashram, such as the Encounter group, were experimental, allowing a degree of physical aggression as well as sexual encounters between participants. Conflicting reports of injuries sustained in Encounter group sessions began to appear in the press. Richard Price
, at the time a prominent Human Potential Movement therapist and co-founder of the Esalen institute, found the groups encouraged participants to 'be violent' rather than 'play at being violent' (the norm in Encounter groups conducted in the United States), and criticised them for "the worst mistakes of some inexperienced Esalen group leaders". Price is alleged to have exited the Poona ashram with a broken arm following a period of eight hours locked in a room with participants armed with wooden weapons. Bernard Gunther, his Esalen colleague, fared better in Poona and wrote a book, Dying for Enlightenment, featuring photographs and lyrical descriptions of the meditations and therapy groups. Violence in the therapy groups eventually ended in January 1979, when the ashram issued a press release stating that violence "had fulfilled its function within the overall context of the ashram as an evolving spiritual commune."
Sannyasins who had "graduated" from months of meditation and therapy could apply to work in the ashram, in an environment that was consciously modelled on the community the Russian mystic Gurdjieff led in France
in the 1930s. Key features copied from Gurdjieff were hard, unpaid work, and supervisors chosen for their abrasive personality, both designed to provoke opportunities for self-observation and transcendence. Many disciples chose to stay for years. Besides the controversy around the therapies, allegations of drug use amongst sannyasin began to mar the ashram's image. Some Western sannyasins were financing extended stays in India through prostitution
and drug-running. A few later said that, while Osho was not directly involved, they discussed such plans and activities with him in darshan and he gave his blessing.
By the latter 1970s, the Poona ashram was too small to contain the rapid growth and Osho asked that somewhere larger be found. Sannyasins from around India started looking for properties: those found included one in the province of Kutch in Gujarat and two more in India's mountainous north. The plans were never implemented as mounting tensions between the ashram and the Janata Party
government of Morarji Desai
resulted in an impasse. Land-use approval was denied and, more importantly, the government stopped issuing visas to foreign visitors who indicated the ashram as their main destination. In addition, Desai's government cancelled the tax-exempt status of the ashram with retrospective effect, resulting in a claim estimated at $5 million. Conflicts with various Indian religious leaders aggravated the situation—by 1980 the ashram had become so controversial that Indira Gandhi
, despite a previous association between Osho and the Indian Congress Party
dating back to the sixties, was unwilling to intercede for it after her return to power. In May 1980, during one of Osho's discourses, an attempt on his life was made by Vilas Tupe, a young Hindu fundamentalist. Tupe claims that he undertook the attack, because he believed Osho to be an agent of the CIA
.
By 1981, Osho's ashram hosted 30,000 visitors per year. Daily discourse audiences were by then predominantly European and American. Many observers noted that Osho's lecture style changed in the late seventies, becoming less focused intellectually and featuring an increasing number of ethnic or dirty jokes
intended to shock or amuse his audience. On 10 April 1981, having discoursed daily for nearly 15 years, Osho entered a three-and-a-half-year period of self-imposed public silence, and satsang
s—silent sitting with music and readings from spiritual works such as Khalil Gibran's
The Prophet
or the Isha Upanishad
—replaced discourses. Around the same time, Ma Anand Sheela
(Sheela Silverman) replaced Ma Yoga Laxmi as Osho's secretary.
. Osho withdrew from public speaking during this time, and entered into a period of silence which was to last until November 1984. He spent this time mostly in seclusion and communicated only with a few key disciples, including Ma Anand Sheela and his caretaker girlfriend Ma Yoga Vivek (Christine Woolf). Osho did not give lectures during this time; videos of his discourses were played to audiences in the evenings instead. On 1 June, he travelled to the United States on a tourist visa, ostensibly for medical purposes, and spent several months at a Rajneeshee retreat center located at Kip's Castle
in Montclair, New Jersey
. He had been diagnosed with a prolapsed disc in spring 1981 and treated by several doctors, including James Cyriax, a St. Thomas' Hospital musculoskeletal physician and expert in epidural injections flown in from London. Sheela stated in public that Osho was in grave danger if he remained in India, but would receive appropriate medical treatment in America if he were to require surgery.
According to Susan J. Palmer
, the move to the United States "appears to have been a unilateral decision on the part of Sheela." Gordon (1987) notes that Sheela and Osho had discussed the idea of establishing a new commune in the U.S. in late 1980, although he did not agree to travel there until May 1981. Osho's previous secretary, Laxmi, reported to Frances FitzGerald that "she had failed to find a property in India adequate to [Osho's] needs, and thus, when the medical emergency came, the initiative had passed to Sheela". Osho never sought outside medical treatment during his time in the United States, leading the Immigration and Naturalization Service
to believe that he had a preconceived intent to remain there. Osho later pleaded guilty to immigration fraud, including making false statements on his initial visa application."His lawyers, however, were already negotiating with the United States Attorney's office and, on November 14th he returned to Portland and pleaded guilty to two felonies; making false statements to the immigration authorities in 1981 and concealing his intent to reside in the United States." "The Bhagwan may also soon need his voice to defend himself on charges he lied on his original temporary-visa application: if the immigration service proves he never intended to leave, the Bhagwan could be deported." (Newsweek, Bhagwan's Realm: The Oregon cult with the leader with 90 golden Rolls Royces, 3 December 1984, United States Edition, National Affairs Pg. 34, 1915 words, Neal Karlen with Pamela Abramson in Rajneeshpuram.)"Facing 35 counts of conspiring to violate immigration laws, the guru admitted two charges: lying about his reasons for settling in the U.S. and arranging sham marriages to help foreign disciples join him." (American Notes, Time Magazine, Monday, November 1985, available here)
On 13 June 1981, Sheela's husband Swami Prem Chinmaya (Marc Harris Silverman) bought, for US$
5.75 million, a 64229 acres (259.9 km²) ranch, previously known as "The Big Muddy Ranch" and located across two Oregon
counties (Wasco
and Jefferson
). It was renamed "Rancho Rajneesh" and Osho moved there on 29 August. Initial local reactions community ranged from hostility to tolerance, depending on distance from the ranch. Within a year a series of legal battles ensued, principally over land use. In May 1982 the residents of Rancho Rajneesh voted to incorporate it as the city of Rajneeshpuram. Conflict with local residents became increasingly bitter and, over the following years, the commune was subject to constant, coordinated pressure from various coalitions. The commune leaders' stance was uncompromising, confrontational and impatient: their behaviour was implicitly threatening, and repeated changes in the commune's stated plans looked like conscious deception, whether they were or not. At one point, the commune imported large numbers of homeless people from various US cities in a failed attempt to affect the outcome of an election, before releasing them into surrounding towns and leaving it to the State of Oregon to return them to their home cities at the state's expense.
Osho lived in a trailer
next to a covered swimming pool and other amenities. He did not lecture and only saw most of the residents when, daily, he would slowly drive past them as they stood by the road. He gained notoriety for the many Rolls-Royce
s bought for his use, eventually numbering 93 vehicles. This made him the largest single owner of the cars in the world. His followers aimed to eventually expand that collection to include 365 Rolls-Royces—for every day of the year.
In 1981, Osho gave Sheela limited power of attorney
and removed the limits the following year. In 1983, Sheela announced that he would henceforth speak only with her. He would later state that she kept him in ignorance. Many sannyasins expressed doubts about whether Sheela properly represented Osho and many dissidents left Rajneeshpuram in protest at its autocratic leadership. Resident sannyasins without U.S. citizenship experienced visa difficulties that some tried to overcome by marriages of convenience. Commune administrators tried to resolve Osho's own difficulty in this respect by declaring him the head of a religion, "Rajneeshism": in November 1981 Osho applied for residence as a religious worker, which was refused on the grounds that he could not lead a religion while unwell and in silence. This decision was later overturned due to procedural violations and leave to stay as a religious leader was granted three years later, in 1984.
The Oregon years saw an increased emphasis on Osho's prediction that the world might be destroyed by nuclear war or other disasters sometime in the 1990s. Osho had said as early as 1964 that "the third and last war is now on the way" and frequently spoke of the need to create a "new humanity" to avoid global suicide. This now became the basis for a new exclusivism, and a 1983 article in the Rajneesh Foundation Newsletter announcing that "Rajneeshism is creating a Noah's Ark of consciousness ... I say to you that except this there is no other way", increased the sense of urgency in building the Oregon commune. In March 1984, Sheela announced that Osho had predicted the death of two-thirds of humanity from AIDS
. Sannyasins were required to wear rubber gloves and condom
s if they had sex, and to refrain from kissing, measures widely represented in the press as an extreme overreaction since condoms were not usually recommended for AIDS prevention at that stage.
Osho initially backed Sheela up unconditionally when she had disputes with other leaders who questioned her conduct, but eventually called a private meeting in spring 1984, with Sheela and his personal house staff present, telling Sheela in front of the others that his house, not hers, was the centre of the commune. He warned—prophetically, as it turned out—that anyone close to him would inevitably become a target for Sheela. Several months later, on 30 October 1984, he ended his period of public silence, announcing that it was time to "speak his own truths." In July 1985, he resumed daily public discourses in the commune's 2 acres (8,093.7 m²) meditation hall, against Sheela's wishes according to statements he made to the press. On 16 September 1985, a few days after Sheela and her entire management team had suddenly left the commune for Europe, Osho held a press conference in which he labelled Sheela and her associates a "gang of fascists." He accused them of having committed a number of serious crimes, most of these dating back to 1984, and invited the authorities to investigate. The alleged crimes, which he stated had been committed without his knowledge or consent, included the attempted murder of his personal physician, poisonings of public officials, wiretapping and bugging within the commune and within his own home, and a bioterror attack
on the citizens of The Dalles, Oregon
, using salmonella
. While his allegations were initially greeted with skepticism by outside observers, the subsequent investigation by the U.S. authorities confirmed these accusations and resulted in the conviction of Sheela and several of her lieutenants.
The salmonella attack was noted as the first confirmed instance of chemical or biological terrorism to have occurred in the United States. Osho stated that because he was in silence and isolation, meeting only with Sheela, he was unaware of the crimes committed by the Rajneeshpuram leadership until Sheela and her "gang" left and sannyasins came forward to inform him. A number of commentators have stated that in their view Sheela was being used as a convenient scapegoat. Others have pointed to the fact that although Sheela had bugged Osho's living quarters and made her tapes available to the U.S. authorities as part of her own plea bargain, no evidence has ever come to light that Osho had any part in her crimes. Nevertheless Gordon (1987) reports that Charles Turner, David Frohnmayer and other law enforcement officials, who had surveyed affidavits never released publicly and who listened to hundreds of hours of tape recordings, insinuated to him that Osho was guilty of more crimes than those for which he was eventually prosecuted. Frohnmayer asserted that Osho's philosophy was not "disapproving of poisoning" and that he felt he and Sheela had been "genuinely evil".
According to court testimony by Ma Ava (Ava Avalos), a prominent disciple, Sheela played associates a tape recording of a meeting she had had with Osho about the "need to kill people" in order to strengthen wavering sannyasins resolve in participating in her murderous plots: "She came back to the meeting and [...] began to play the tape. It was a little hard to hear what he was saying. [...] And the gist of Bhagwan's response, yes, it was going to be necessary to kill people to stay in Oregon. And that actually killing people wasn't such a bad thing. And actually Hitler was a great man, although he could not say that publicly because nobody would understand that. Hitler had great vision." Sheela initiated attempts to murder Osho's caretaker and girlfriend, Ma Yoga Vivek, and his personal physician, Swami Devaraj (Dr. George Meredith), because she felt they were a threat to Osho; she had secretly recorded a conversation between Devaraj and Osho "in which the doctor agreed to obtain drugs the guru wanted to ensure a peaceful death if he decided to take his own life."
During his residence in Rajneeshpuram, Osho dictated three books under the influence of nitrous oxide
administered to him by his private dentist: Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, Notes of a Madman and Books I Have Loved. Sheela later stated that Osho took sixty milligrams of Valium each day and was addicted to nitrous oxide. Osho denied these charges when questioned about them by journalists. On 30 September 1985, Osho denied that he was a religious teacher. His disciples burned 5,000 copies of Book of Rajneeshism, a 78-page compilation of his teachings that defined "Rajneeshism" as "a religionless religion". He said he ordered the book-burning to rid the sect of the last traces of the influence of Sheela, whose robes were also "added to the bonfire".
On 23 October 1985, a federal grand jury issued a thirty-five-count indictment charging Osho and several other disciples with conspiracy to evade immigration laws. The indictment was returned in camera
, but word was leaked to Osho's lawyer. Negotiations to allow Osho to surrender to authorities in Portland if a warrant were issued failed. Rumours of a National Guard takeover and a planned violent arrest of Osho led to tension and fears of shooting. On the strength of Sheela's tape recordings, authorities later stated the belief that there had been a plan that sannyasin women and children would have been asked to create a human shield had authorities attempted to arrest Osho at the commune. On 28 October 1985, Osho and a small number of sannyasins accompanying him were arrested aboard a rented Learjet at a North Carolina
airstrip; according to federal authorities the group was en route to Bermuda
to avoid prosecution. $58,000 in cash, 35 watches and bracelets worth $1 million were found on the aircraft. Osho had by all accounts been informed neither of the impending arrest nor the reason for the journey.
Osho's imprisonment and transfer across the country became a public spectacle—he was displayed in chains, held first in North Carolina
, then Oklahoma
and finally in Portland
. Officials took the full ten days legally available to transfer him from North Carolina to Portland for arraignment
. After initially pleading "not guilty" to all charges and being released on bail Osho, on the advice of his lawyers, entered an "Alford plea
"—a type of guilty plea through which a suspect does not admit guilt, but does concede there is enough evidence to convict him—to one count of having a concealed intent to remain permanently in the U.S. at the time of his original visa application in 1981 and one count of having conspired to have sannyasins enter into sham marriage
s to acquire U.S. residency. Under the deal his lawyers made with the U.S. Attorney's office he was given a 10-year suspended sentence, five years' probation and a $400,000 penalty in fines and prosecution costs and agreed to leave the United States, not returning for at least five years without the permission of the United States Attorney General
.
on 17 November. He was given a hero's welcome by his Indian disciples and denounced the United States, saying the world must "put the monster America in its place" and that "Either America must be hushed up or America will be the end of the world." He then stayed for six weeks in Himachal Pradesh
. When non-Indians in his party had their visas revoked, he moved on to Kathmandu, Nepal, and then, a few weeks later, to Crete
. Arrested after a few days by the KYP, he flew to Geneva
, then to Stockholm
and to Heathrow, but was in each case refused entry. Next Canada
refused landing permission, so his plane returned to Shannon
airport, Ireland
, to refuel. There he was allowed to stay for two weeks, at a hotel in Limerick
, on condition that he did not go out or give talks. He had been granted a Uruguayan identity card, one-year provisional residency and a possibility of permanent residency, so the party set out, stopping at Madrid
, where the plane was surrounded by the Guardia Civil. He was allowed to spend one night at Dakar
, then continued to Recife
and Montevideo
. In Uruguay
, the group moved to a house at Punta del Este
where Osho began speaking publicly until 19 June, after which he was "invited to leave" for no official reason. A two-week visa was arranged for Jamaica but on arrival in Kingston
police gave the group 12 hours to leave. Refuelling in Gander
and in Madrid, Osho returned to Bombay, India, on 30 July 1986.
In January 1987, Osho returned to the ashram in Poona, where he held evening discourses each day, except when interrupted by intermittent ill health. Publishing and therapy resumed and the ashram underwent expansion, now as a "Multiversity" where therapy was to function as a bridge to meditation. Osho devised new "meditation therapy" methods such as the "Mystic Rose" and began to lead meditations in his discourses after a gap of more than ten years. His western disciples formed no large communes, mostly preferring ordinary independent living. Red/orange dress and the mala were largely abandoned, having been optional since 1985. The wearing of red robes—only while on ashram premises—was reintroduced in summer 1989, along with white robes worn for evening meditation and black robes for group-leaders.
In November 1987, Osho expressed his belief that his deteriorating health (nausea, fatigue, pain in extremities and lack of resistance to infection) was due to poisoning by the U.S. authorities while in prison. His doctors and former attorney, Philip J. Toelkes (Swami Prem Niren), hypothesised radiation
and thallium
in a deliberately irradiated mattress, since his symptoms were concentrated on the right side of his body, but presented no hard evidence. U.S. attorney Charles H. Hunter described this as "complete fiction", while others suggested exposure to HIV
or chronic diabetes and stress.
From early 1988, Osho's discourses focused exclusively on Zen
. In late December, he said he no longer wished to be referred to as "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh", and in February 1989 took the name "Osho
Rajneesh", shortened to "Osho" in September. He also requested that all trademarks previously branded with RAJNEESH be rebranded internationally to OSHO. His health continued to weaken. He delivered his last public discourse in April 1989, from then on simply sitting in silence with his followers. Shortly before his death, Osho suggested that one or more audience members at evening meetings (now referred to as the White Robe Brotherhood) were subjecting him to some form of evil magic. A search for the perpetrators was undertaken, but none could be found.
Osho died on 19 January 1990, aged 58, reportedly of heart failure. His ashes were placed in his newly built bedroom in Lao Tzu House at the Poona ashram. The epitaph
reads, "OSHO. Never Born, Never Died. Only Visited this Planet Earth between Dec 11 1931 – Jan 19 1990."
He spoke on major spiritual traditions including Jainism
, Hinduism
, Hassidism, Tantrism, Taoism
, Christianity
, Buddhism
, on a variety of Eastern and Western mystics and on sacred scriptures such as the Upanishads and the Guru Granth Sahib
. The sociologist Lewis F. Carter saw his ideas as rooted in Hindu advaita, in which the human experiences of separateness, duality and temporality are held to be a kind of dance or play of cosmic consciousness in which everything is sacred, has absolute worth and is an end in itself. While his contemporary Jiddu Krishnamurti
did not approve of Osho, there are clear similarities between their respective teachings.
Osho also drew on a wide range of Western ideas. His view of the unity of opposites
recalls Heraclitus
, while his description of man as a machine, condemned to the helpless acting out of unconscious, neurotic patterns, has much in common with Freud and Gurdjieff. His vision of the "new man" transcending constraints of convention is reminiscent of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil; his views on sexual liberation bear comparison to D. H. Lawrence
; and his "dynamic" meditations owe a debt to Wilhelm Reich
.
with the capacity for enlightenment
, capable of unconditional love
and of responding rather than reacting to life, although the ego usually prevents this, identifying with social conditioning and creating false needs and conflicts and an illusory sense of identity that is nothing but a barrier of dreams. Otherwise man's innate being can flower in a move from the periphery to the centre.
Osho views the mind first and foremost as a mechanism for survival, replicating behavioural strategies that have proven successful in the past. But the mind's appeal to the past, he said, deprives human beings of the ability to live authentically in the present, causing them to repress genuine emotions and to shut themselves off from joyful experiences that arise naturally when embracing the present moment: "The mind has no inherent capacity for joy. ... It only thinks about joy." The result is that people poison themselves with all manner of neuroses
, jealousies
and insecurities. He argued that psychological repression
, often advocated by religious leaders, makes suppressed feelings re-emerge in another guise, and that sexual repression resulted in societies obsessed with sex. Instead of suppressing, people should trust and accept themselves unconditionally. This should not merely be understood intellectually, as the mind could only assimilate it as one more piece of information: instead meditation
was needed.
in the preparatory stages of meditation to create awareness of mental and emotional patterns.
He suggested more than a hundred meditation techniques in total. His own "Active Meditation" techniques are characterised by stages of physical activity leading to silence. The most famous of these remains Dynamic Meditation, which has been described as a kind of microcosm of his outlook. Performed with closed or blindfolded eyes, it comprises five stages, four of which are accompanied by music. First the meditator engages in ten minutes of rapid breathing through the nose. The second ten minutes are for catharsis
: "Let whatever is happening happen. ... Laugh, shout, scream, jump, shake—whatever you feel to do, do it!" Next, for ten minutes one jumps up and down with arms raised, shouting Hoo! each time one lands on the flat of the feet. At the fourth, silent stage, the meditator stops moving suddenly and totally, remaining completely motionless for fifteen minutes, witnessing everything that is happening. The last stage of the meditation consists of fifteen minutes of dancing and celebration.
Osho developed other active meditation techniques, such as the Kundalini "shaking" meditation and the Nadabrahma "humming" meditation, which are less animated, although they also include physical activity of one sort or another. His later "meditative therapies" require sessions for several days, OSHO Mystic Rose comprising three hours of laughing every day for a week, three hours of weeping each day for a second, and a third week with three hours of silent meditation. These processes of "witnessing" enable a "jump into awareness". Osho believed such cathartic methods were necessary, since it was difficult for modern people to just sit and enter meditation. Once the methods had provided a glimpse of meditation people would be able to use other methods without difficulty.
; "A Master shares his being with you, not his philosophy. ... He never does anything to the disciple." The initiation he offered was another such device: "... if your being can communicate with me, it becomes a communion. ... It is the highest form of communication possible: a transmission without words. Our beings merge. This is possible only if you become a disciple." Ultimately though, as an explicitly "self-parodying" guru, Osho even deconstructed his own authority, declaring his teaching to be nothing more than a "game" or a joke. He emphasised that anything and everything could become an opportunity for meditation.
Osho said that he was "the rich man's guru" and that material poverty was not a genuine spiritual value. He had himself photographed wearing sumptuous clothing and hand-made watches and, while in Oregon, drove a different Rolls-Royce
each day – his followers reportedly wanted to buy him 365 of them, one for each day of the year. Publicity shots of the Rolls-Royces were sent to the press. They may have reflected both his advocacy of wealth and his desire to provoke American sensibilities, much as he had enjoyed offending Indian sensibilities earlier.
Osho aimed to create a "new man" combining the spirituality of Gautama Buddha
with the zest for life embodied by Nikos Kazantzakis
' Zorba the Greek
: "He should be as accurate and objective as a scientist ... as sensitive, as full of heart, as a poet ... [and as] rooted deep down in his being as the mystic." His term the "new man" applied to men and women equally, whose roles he saw as complementary; indeed, most of his movement's leadership positions were held by women. This new man, "Zorba the Buddha", should reject neither science
nor spirituality but embrace both. Osho believed humanity was threatened with extinction due to over-population, impending nuclear holocaust and diseases such as AIDS
, and thought many of society's ills could be remedied by scientific means. The new man would no longer be trapped in institutions such as family, marriage
, political ideologies and religions. In this respect Osho is similar to other counter-culture gurus, and perhaps even certain postmodern
and deconstructional thinkers.
". In reply Osho noted that it was a difficult matter because he was against any kind of commandment but, "just for fun", set out the following;
He underlined numbers 3, 7, 9 and 10. The ideas expressed in these Commandments have remained constant leitmotif
s in his movement.
and Mahatma Gandhi
, among the ten people who had most changed India's destiny; in Osho's case, by "liberating the minds of future generations from the shackles of religiosity and conformism." Osho has found more acclaim in his homeland since his death than he ever did while alive. At a celebration in 2006, marking the 75th anniversary of Osho's birth, Indian singer Wasifuddin Dagar
said that Osho's teachings are "more pertinent in the current milieu than they were ever before." In Nepal
, there are 60 Osho centres with almost 45,000 initiated disciples (reported in 2008). Osho's entire works have been placed in the Library of India's National Parliament
in New Delhi
. Prominent figures such as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and the Indian Sikh
writer Khushwant Singh
have expressed their admiration for Osho. The Bollywood
actor and Osho disciple Vinod Khanna
, who had worked as Osho's gardener in Rajneeshpuram
, served as India's Minister of State for External Affairs
from 2003 to 2004. Over 650 books are credited to Osho, expressing his views on all facets of human existence. Virtually all of them are renderings of his taped discourses. His books are available in 55 different languages and have entered best-seller lists in countries such as Italy
and South Korea
.
Internationally, after almost two decades of controversy and a decade of accommodation, Osho's movement has established itself in the market of new religions. His followers have redefined his contributions, reframing central elements of his teaching so as to make them appear less controversial to outsiders. Societies in North America and Western Europe have met them half-way, becoming more accommodating to spiritual topics such as yoga
and meditation. The Osho International Foundation (OIF) runs stress management
seminars for corporate clients such as IBM
and BMW
, with a reported (2000) revenue between $15 and $45 million annually in the U.S.
Osho's ashram in Pune
has become the Osho International Meditation Resort, one of India's main tourist attractions. Describing itself as the Esalen of the East, it teaches a variety of spiritual techniques from a broad range of traditions and promotes itself as a spiritual oasis, a "sacred space" for discovering one's self and uniting the desires of body and mind in a beautiful resort environment. According to press reports, it attracts some 200,000 people from all over the world each year; prominent visitors have included politicians, media personalities and the Dalai Lama. Before anyone is allowed to enter the resort, an AIDS
test is required, and those who are discovered to have the disease are not allowed in. In 2011, a national seminar on Osho's teachings was inaugurated at the Department of Philosophy of the Mankunwarbai College for Women in Jabalpur. Funded by the Bhopal office of the University Grants Commission
, the seminar focused on Osho's "Zorba the Buddha" teaching, seeking to reconcile spirituality with the materialist and objective approach.
, in much the same way as Scientology
or the Unification Church
. Osho was seen to live "in ostentation and offensive opulence", while his followers, most of whom had severed ties with outside friends and family and donated all or most of their money and possessions to the commune, might be at a mere "subsistence level".
, stated in 1983: "It certainly is eclectic, a borrowing of truths, half-truths and occasional misrepresentations from the great traditions. It is also often bland, inaccurate, spurious and extremely contradictory." He also acknowledged that Osho's range and imagination were second to none, and that many of his statements were quite insightful and moving, perhaps even profound at times, but what remained was essentially "a potpourri of counter-culturalist and post-counter-culturalist ideas" focusing on love and freedom, the need to live for the moment, the importance of self, the feeling of "being okay", the mysteriousness of life, the fun ethic, the individual's responsibility for their own destiny, and the need to drop the ego, along with fear and guilt.
Uday Mehta, in summing up an appraisal of Osho's teachings, particularly errors regarding his interpretation of Zen, Mahayana Buddhism and how they relate to the proto-materialist nature of Tantric philosophy, suggests that: "It is not surprising to find that Rajneesh could get away with several gross contradictions and inconsistencies in his teachings. This was possible for the simple reason that an average Indian (or for that matter even western) listener knows so little about religious scriptures or various schools of thought that it hardly requires much effort to exploit his ignorance and gullibility." According to Mehta, Osho's appeal to his Western disciples was based on his social experiments, which established a philosophical connection between the Eastern guru tradition
and the Western growth movement.
Writing in 1996, Hugh B. Urban (Assistant Professor of Religion and Comparative Studies at Ohio State University
), like Mullan, found Osho's teaching neither original nor especially profound, noting that most of its content had been borrowed from various Eastern and Western philosophies. What he found most original about Osho was his keen commercial instinct or marketing strategy
, by which he was able to adapt his teachings to meet the changing desires of his audience, a theme also picked up on by Gita Mehta
in her book Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East. In 2005, Urban observed that Osho had undergone a "remarkable apotheosis
" after his return to India, and especially in the years since his death, going on to describe him as a powerful illustration of what F. Max Müller, over a century ago, called "that world-wide circle through which, like an electric current, Oriental thought could run to the West and Western thought return to the East." By negating the dichotomy between spiritual and material desires, and reflecting the preoccupation with the body and sexuality characteristic of late capitalist
consumer culture, Osho had apparently been able to create a spiritual path that was remarkably in tune with the socio-economic conditions of his time.
George Chryssides, in Exploring New Religions (1999), described Osho as primarily a Buddhist teacher, promoting an independent form of "Beat Zen". He stated that descriptions of Osho's teachings as a "potpourri" of various religious teachings were unfortunate, because Osho was "no amateur philosopher"; drawing attention to Osho's academic background, he stated that, "Whether or not one accepts his teachings, he was no charlatan when it came to expounding the ideas of others." Chryssides viewed the unsystematic, contradictory and outrageous aspects of Osho's teachings as part of the nature of Zen
, reflecting the fact that spiritual teaching seeks to induce a different kind of change in an audience than philosophy lectures aimed at improving intellectual understanding.
Peter B. Clarke
, in the Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements (2006), noted that Osho has come to be "seen as an important teacher within India itself" and is "increasingly recognized as a major spiritual teacher of the twentieth century, at the forefront of the current 'world-accepting' trend of spirituality based on self-development". He stated that the style of therapy he devised, with its liberal attitude towards sexuality as a sacred part of life, had proved influential among other therapy practitioners and new age groups. In his view, the main motivation of seekers joining the movement was "neither therapy nor sex, but the prospect of becoming enlightened, in the classical Buddhist sense." While few had achieved their aim, most current and former members felt they had made progress in self-actualisation as defined by American psychologist Abraham Maslow
and the human potential movement
.
wrote that Osho was "personally extremely impressive", noting that "many of those who visited him for the first time felt that their most intimate feelings were instantly understood, that they were accepted and unequivocally welcomed rather than judged. [Osho] seemed to radiate energy and to awaken hidden possibilities in those who came into contact with him." Many sannyasins have stated that hearing Osho speak, they "fell in love with him." Susan J. Palmer noted that even critics attested to the power of his presence. James S. Gordon, a psychiatrist and researcher, recalls inexplicably finding himself laughing like a child, hugging strangers and having tears of gratitude in his eyes after a glance by Osho from within his passing Rolls-Royce. Frances FitzGerald concluded upon listening to Osho in person that he was a brilliant lecturer, and expressed surprise at his talent as a comedian, which had not been apparent from reading his books, as well as the hypnotic quality of his talks, which had a profound effect on his audience. Hugh Milne (Swami Shivamurti), an ex-devotee who between 1973 and 1982 worked closely with Osho as leader of the Poona Ashram Guard and as his personal bodyguard, noted that their first meeting left him with a sense that far more than words had passed between them: "There is no invasion of privacy, no alarm, but it is as if his soul is slowly slipping inside mine, and in a split second transferring vital information." Milne also observed another facet of Osho's charismatic ability in stating that he was "a brilliant manipulator of the unquestioning disciple."
Hugh B. Urban noted that Osho appeared to fit with Max Weber
’s classical image of the charismatic figure
, being held to possess "an extraordinary supernatural power or 'grace', which was essentially irrational and affective". Osho corresponded to Weber's pure charismatic type in rejecting all rational laws and institutions and claiming to subvert all hierarchical authority, though Urban notes that the promise of absolute freedom inherent in this resulted in bureaucratic organisation and institutional control within larger communes.
Some scholars have suggested that Osho, like other charismatic leaders, may have had a narcissistic
personality. In his paper The Narcissistic Guru: A Profile of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Ronald O. Clarke, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Oregon State University
, argued that Osho exhibited all the typical features of narcissistic personality disorder
, such as a grandiose sense of self-importance and uniqueness; a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success; a need for constant attention and admiration; a set of characteristic responses to threats to self-esteem; disturbances in interpersonal relationships; a preoccupation with personal grooming
combined with frequent resorting to prevarication or outright lying; and a lack of empathy. Drawing on Osho's reminiscences of his childhood in his book Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, he suggested that Osho suffered from a fundamental lack of parental discipline, due to his growing up in the care of overindulgent grandparents. Osho's self-avowed Buddha status, he concluded, was part of a delusion
al system associated with his narcissistic personality disorder; a condition of ego-inflation rather than egolessness.
, eminent author, historian and former editor of the Hindustan Times
, has described him as "the most original thinker that India has produced: the most erudite, the most clearheaded and the most innovative". In his view, Osho was a "free-thinking agnostic" who had the ability to explain the most abstract concepts in simple language, illustrated with witty anecdotes, who mocked gods, prophet
s, scriptures and religious practices and gave a totally new dimension to religion. The German
philosopher Peter Sloterdijk
has called Osho a "Wittgenstein of religions", ranking him as one of the greatest figures of the 20th century; in his view, Osho had performed a radical deconstruction of the word games played by the world's religions.
During the early 1980s, a number of commentators in the popular press were dismissive of Osho. The Australian critic Clive James
scornfully referred to him as "Bagwash", likening the experience of listening to one of his discourses to sitting in a laundrette and watching "your tattered underwear revolve soggily for hours while exuding grey suds. The Bagwash talks the way that looks." James finished by saying that Osho was a "fairly benign example of his type," just a "talkative dingbat who manipulates the manipulable into manipulating one another." Responding to an enthusiastic review of Osho's talks by Bernard Levin
in The Times
, Dominik Wujastyk, also writing in The Times, similarly expressed his opinion that the talk he heard while visiting the Poona ashram was of a very low standard, wearyingly repetitive and often factually wrong, and stated that he felt disturbed by the personality cult surrounding Osho.
Writing in the Seattle Post Intelligencer in January 1990, American author Tom Robbins
stated that based on his readings of Osho's books, he was convinced Osho was the 20th century's "greatest spiritual teacher." Robbins, while stressing that he was not a disciple, further stated that he had "read enough vicious propaganda and slanted reports to suspect that he was one of the most maligned figures in history." Osho's commentary on the Sikh
scripture known as Japuji was hailed as the best available by Giani Zail Singh, the former President of India
. In 2011, author Farrukh Dhondy
reported that film star Kabir Bedi
was a fan of Osho, and viewed Osho's works as "the most sublime interpretations of Indian philosophy that he had come across". Dhondy himself viewed Osho as "the cleverest intellectual confidence trickster that India has produced. His output of the 'interpretation' of Indian texts is specifically slanted towards a generation of disillusioned westerners who wanted (and perhaps still want) to 'have their cake, eat it' [and] claim at the same time that cake-eating is the highest virtue according to ancient-fused-with-scientific wisdom."
broadcast a documentary titled The God that Fled, made by British American
journalist Christopher Hitchens
. Another documentary, named Rajneesh: Spiritual Terrorist, was made by Australian film maker Cynthia Connop in the late 1980s for ABC TV/Learning Channel. A Swiss documentary, titled Guru – Bhagwan, His Secretary & His Bodyguard, was released in 2010.
:
On Tao
:
On Gautama Buddha
:
On Zen
:
On the Baul
mystics:
On Sufis:
On Hassidism
:
On the Upanishad
s:
On Heraclitus
:
On Kabir
:
On Buddhist Tantra
:
On Patanjali
and Yoga
:
(reprinted as Yoga, the Science of the Soul)
On Meditation
methods:
Talks based on questions:
Darshan
interviews:
previously published in two parts in The New Yorker
magazine, September 22, and September 29, 1986 editions.)........
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, guru
Guru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following
Rajneesh movement
The Rajneesh movement is a term used by Hugh B. Urban and other commentators to refer collectively to persons inspired by the Indian mystic Osho , particularly initiated disciples who are referred to as "neo-sannyasins" or simply "sannyasins", also formerly known as Rajneeshees or "Orange People",...
.
A professor of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, he travelled throughout India in the 1960s as a public speaker. His outspoken criticism of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
and institutionalised religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
s made him controversial. He also advocated a more open attitude towards sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
: a stance that earned him the sobriquet "sex guru" in the Indian and later international press. In 1970, Osho settled for a while in Bombay
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
. He began initiating disciples (known as neo-sannyasins) and took on the role of a spiritual teacher. In his discourses, he reinterpreted writings of religious traditions, mystics, and philosophers from around the world. Moving to Poona
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
in 1974, he established an ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....
that attracted increasing numbers of Westerners. The ashram offered therapies derived from the Human Potential Movement
Human Potential Movement
The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...
to its Western audience and made news in India and abroad, chiefly because of its permissive climate and Osho's provocative lectures. By the end of the 1970s, there were mounting tensions with the Indian government and the surrounding society.
In 1981, Osho relocated to the United States and his followers established an intentional community
Intentional community
An intentional community is a planned residential community designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle. They...
, later known as Rajneeshpuram
Rajneeshpuram
Rajneeshpuram, Oregon was an intentional community in Wasco County, Oregon, briefly incorporated as a city in the 1980s, which was populated with followers of the spiritual teacher Osho, then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.- History :...
, in the state of Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. Within a year, the leadership of the commune became embroiled in a conflict with local residents, primarily over land use, which was marked by hostility on both sides. The large collection of Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (car)
This a list of Rolls-Royce motor cars and includes vehicles produced by:*Rolls-Royce Limited *Rolls-Royce Motors , which was owned by Vickers between 1980 and 1998, and after that by Volkswagen...
automobiles purchased for his use by his followers also attracted notoriety. The Oregon commune collapsed in 1985 when Osho revealed that the commune leadership had committed a number of serious crimes, including a bioterror attack
1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack
The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the food poisoning of 751 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon, United States, through the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with salmonella...
(food contamination) on the citizens of The Dalles
The Dalles, Oregon
The Dalles is the largest city and county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The name of the city comes from the French word dalle The Dalles is the largest city and county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The name of the city comes from the French word dalle The Dalles is...
. He was arrested shortly afterwards and charged with immigration violations. Osho was deported
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
from the United States in accordance with a plea bargain
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
. Twenty-one countries denied him entry, causing Osho to travel the world before returning to Poona, where he died in 1990. His ashram is today known as the Osho International Meditation Resort. His syncretic teachings emphasise the importance of meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
, awareness, love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
, celebration, courage, creativity
Creativity
Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs...
and humour
Humour
Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...
—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialisation. Osho's teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
thought, and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.
Childhood and adolescence: 1931–1950
Osho was born Chandra Mohan Jain, the eldest of eleven children of a cloth merchant, at his maternal grandparents' house in Kuchwada; a small village in the Raisen districtRaisen District
Raisen District is a district of Madhya Pradesh state of India. The town of Raisen is the district headquarters. The district is part of Bhopal Division.-Etymology:...
of Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh , often called the Heart of India, is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and Indore is the largest city....
state in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. His parents Babulal and Saraswati Jain, who were Taranpanthi Jains
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
, let him live with his maternal grandparents until he was seven years old. By Osho's own account, this was a major influence on his development because his grandmother gave him the utmost freedom, leaving him carefree without an imposed education or restrictions. When he was seven years old, his grandfather died, and he went to Gadarwara
Gadarwara
Gadarwara is a city and a municipality since 1867 in Narsinghpur district in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. The city's major temple, Damru Ghaanti, with its large statue of Shiva and Shivalinga, receives thousands of devotees each year for the festival of Mahashivaratri.Gadarwara is the...
to live with his parents. Osho was profoundly affected by his grandfather's death, and again by the death of his childhood girlfriend and cousin Shashi from typhoid when he was 15, leading to a preoccupation with death that lasted throughout much of his childhood and youth. In his school years he was a rebellious, but gifted student, and acquired a reputation as a formidable debater. Osho became an anti-theist
Antitheism
Antitheism is active opposition to theism. The etymological roots of the word are the Greek 'anti-' and 'theismos'...
, took an interest in hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
and briefly associated with socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and two Indian nationialist organisation
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
s: the Indian National Army
Indian National Army
The Indian National Army or Azad Hind Fauj was an armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. The aim of the army was to overthrow the British Raj in colonial India, with Japanese assistance...
and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or National Patriotic Organization), also known the Sangh, is a right-wing Hindu nationalist, paramilitary, volunteer, and allegedly militant organization for Hindu males in India...
. However, his membership in the organisations was short-lived as he could not subscribe to any external discipline, ideology or system.
University years and public speaker: 1951–1970
In 1951, aged nineteen, Osho began his studies at Hitkarini College in Jabalpur. Asked to leave after conflicts with an instructor, he transferred to D. N. Jain College, also in Jabalpur. Having proved himself to be disruptively argumentative, he was not required to attend college classes in D. N. Jain College except for examinations and used his free time to work for a few months as an assistant editor at a local newspaper. He began speaking in public at the annual Sarva Dharma SammelanSarva Dharma Sammelan
Sarva Dharma Sammelan is an assembly organized in several places in India. It is generally organized by the Jain community, since it confirms with the anekanta principle of Jainism....
(Meeting of all faiths) held at Jabalpur, organised by the Taranpanthi Jain community into which he was born, and participated there from 1951 to 1968. He resisted his parents' pressure to get married. Osho later said he became spiritually enlightened on 21 March 1953, when he was 21 years old, in a mystical experience while sitting under a tree in the Bhanvartal garden in Jabalpur.
Having completed his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in philosophy at D. N. Jain College in 1955, he joined the University of Sagar
University of Sagar
Dr. Hari Singh Gour University |Central University]] in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, India. It was founded Sir Hari Singh Gour on 18 July 1946, during the British Raj and is the oldest university in the state.-Campus:...
, where in 1957 he earned his M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in philosophy (with distinction). He immediately secured a teaching post at Raipur Sanskrit college, but the Vice Chancellor soon asked him to seek a transfer as he considered him a danger to his students' morality, character and religion. From 1958, he taught philosophy as a lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
at Jabalpur University, being promoted to professor in 1960. A popular lecturer, he was acknowledged by his peers as an exceptionally intelligent man who had been able to overcome the deficiencies of his early small-town education.
In parallel to his university job, he travelled throughout India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
under the name Acharya Rajneesh (Acharya
Acharya
In Indian religions and society, an acharya is a guide or instructor in religious matters; founder, or leader of a sect; or a highly learned man or a title affixed to the names of learned men...
means teacher or professor; Rajneesh was a nickname he had acquired in childhood), giving lectures critical of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and Gandhi. He said socialism would only socialise poverty, and he described Gandhi as a masochist
Self-defeating personality disorder
Self-defeating personality disorder is a personality disorder that was never formally admitted into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . It was discussed in an appendix of the manual's revised third edition...
reactionary who worshipped poverty. What India needed to escape its backwardness was capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, science, modern technology and birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
. He criticised orthodox Indian religions as dead, filled with empty ritual, oppressing their followers with fears of damnation and the promise of blessings. Such statements made him controversial, but also gained him a loyal following that included a number of wealthy merchants and businessmen. These sought individual consultations from him about their spiritual development and daily life, in return for donations—a commonplace arrangement in India—and his practice grew rapidly. From 1962, he began to lead 3- to 10-day meditation camps, and the first meditation centres (Jivan Jagruti Kendra) started to emerge around his teaching, then known as the Life Awakening Movement (Jivan Jagruti Andolan). After a controversial speaking tour in 1966, he resigned from his teaching post at the request of the university.
In a 1968 lecture series, later published under the title From Sex to Superconsciousness, he scandalised Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
leaders by calling for freer acceptance of sex and became known as the "sex guru" in the Indian press. When in 1969 he was invited to speak at the Second World Hindu Conference, despite the misgivings of some Hindu leaders, he used the occasion to raise controversy again, claiming that "any religion which considers life meaningless and full of misery, and teaches the hatred of life, is not a true religion. Religion is an art that shows how to enjoy life." He characterised priests as being motivated by self-interest, provoking the shankaracharya
Shankaracharya
Shankaracharya, is a commonly used title of heads of mathas in the Advaita Vedanta tradition. The title derives from Adi Shankara, a 9th century CE reformer of Hinduism. He is honored as Jagadguru, a title that was used earlier only to Lord Krishna...
of Puri
Puri
Puri is district headquarter, a city situated about south of state capital Bhubaneswar, on the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal in the Indian state of Orissa. It is also known as Jagannath Puri after the Jagannath Temple . It is a holy city of the Hindus as a part of the Char Dham pilgrimages...
, who tried in vain to have his lecture stopped.
Bombay: 1970–1974
At a public meditation event in spring 1970, Osho presented his Dynamic Meditation method for the first time. He left Jabalpur for BombayMumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
at the end of June. On 26 September 1970, he initiated his first group of disciples or neo-sannyasins. Becoming a disciple meant assuming a new name and wearing the traditional orange dress of ascetic Hindu holy men, including a mala (beaded necklace) carrying a locket with his picture. However, his sannyasins were encouraged to follow a celebratory rather than ascetic lifestyle. He himself was not to be worshipped but regarded as a catalytic agent, "a sun encouraging the flower to open".
He had by then acquired a secretary Laxmi Thakarsi Kuruwa, who as his first disciple had taken the name Ma Yoga Laxmi. Laxmi was the daughter of one of his early followers, a wealthy Jain who had been a key supporter of the National Congress Party
Nationalist Congress Party
The Nationalist Congress Party is a centre to centre left political party primarily based in the state of Maharashtra, India.-Background:...
during the struggle for Indian independence, with close ties to Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
and Morarji Desai
Morarji Desai
Morarji Ranchhodji Desai was an Indian independence activist and the fourth Prime Minister of India from 1977–79. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who did not belong to the Indian National Congress...
. She raised the money that enabled Osho to stop his travels and settle down. In December 1970, he moved to the Woodlands Apartments in Bombay, where he gave lectures and received visitors, among them his first Western visitors. He now travelled rarely, no longer speaking at open public meetings. In 1971, he adopted the title "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh". Shree
Sri
Sri , also transliterated as Shri or Shree or shre is a word of Sanskrit origin, used in the Indian subcontinent as polite form of address equivalent to the English "Mr." in written and spoken language, or as a title of veneration for deities .-Etymology:Sri has the root meaning of radiance, or...
is a polite form of address roughly equivalent to the English "Sir"; Bhagwan means "blessed one", used in Indian traditions as a term of respect for a human being in whom the divine is no longer hidden but apparent.
Poona ashram: 1974–1981
The humid climate of Bombay proved detrimental to Osho's health: he developed diabetes, asthmaAsthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
and numerous allergies
Allergy
An Allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system. Allergic reactions occur when a person's immune system reacts to normally harmless substances in the environment. A substance that causes a reaction is called an allergen. These reactions are acquired, predictable, and rapid...
. In 1974, on the 21st anniversary of his experience in Jabalpur, he moved to a property in Koregaon Park
Koregaon Park
Koregaon Park is an area in Pune south to Mula-Mutha River. The area is often viewed as the most posh place in the city of Pune. This area was primarily a residential area with lush green scenery but of late has been growing into a commercial market place in Pune city...
, Poona
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
, purchased with the help of Ma Yoga Mukta (Catherine Venizelos), a Greek shipping heiress. Osho taught at the Poona ashram from 1974 to 1981. The two adjoining houses and 6 acres (24,281.2 m²) of land became the nucleus of an ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....
, and the property is still the heart of the present-day Osho International Meditation Resort. It allowed the regular audio recording and, later, video recording and printing of his discourses for worldwide distribution, enabling him to reach far larger audiences. The number of Western visitors increased sharply. The ashram soon featured an arts-and-crafts centre producing clothes, jewellery, ceramics and organic cosmetics and hosted performances of theatre, music and mime. From 1975, after the arrival of several therapists from the Human Potential Movement
Human Potential Movement
The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...
, the ashram began to complement meditations with a growing number of therapy groups, which became a major source of income for the ashram.
The Poona ashram was by all accounts an exciting and intense place to be, with an emotionally charged, madhouse-carnival atmosphere. The day began at 6:00 a.m. with Dynamic Meditation. From 8:00 a.m., Osho gave a 60- to 90-minute spontaneous lecture in the ashram's "Buddha Hall" auditorium, commenting on religious writings or answering questions from visitors and disciples. Until 1981, lecture series held in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
alternated with series held in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. During the day, various meditations and therapies took place, whose intensity was ascribed to the spiritual energy of Osho's "buddhafield". In evening darshan
Darshan
or Darshan is a Sanskrit term meaning "sight" , vision, apparition, or glimpse. It is most commonly used for "visions of the divine" in Hindu worship, e.g. of a deity , or a very holy person or artifact...
s, Osho conversed with individual disciples or visitors and initiated disciples ("gave sannyas"). Sannyasins came for darshan when departing or returning or when they had anything they wanted to discuss.
To decide which therapies to participate in, visitors either consulted Osho or made selections according to their own preferences. Some of the early therapy groups in the ashram, such as the Encounter group, were experimental, allowing a degree of physical aggression as well as sexual encounters between participants. Conflicting reports of injuries sustained in Encounter group sessions began to appear in the press. Richard Price
Dick Price
Richard “Dick” Price -- co-founded Esalen Institute in 1962.Dick Price was a veteran of the Beat Generation. He ran Esalen in Big Sur for many years, sometimes virtually single-handed. He was an explorer of the Santa Lucia Mountains that define the Big Sur coast...
, at the time a prominent Human Potential Movement therapist and co-founder of the Esalen institute, found the groups encouraged participants to 'be violent' rather than 'play at being violent' (the norm in Encounter groups conducted in the United States), and criticised them for "the worst mistakes of some inexperienced Esalen group leaders". Price is alleged to have exited the Poona ashram with a broken arm following a period of eight hours locked in a room with participants armed with wooden weapons. Bernard Gunther, his Esalen colleague, fared better in Poona and wrote a book, Dying for Enlightenment, featuring photographs and lyrical descriptions of the meditations and therapy groups. Violence in the therapy groups eventually ended in January 1979, when the ashram issued a press release stating that violence "had fulfilled its function within the overall context of the ashram as an evolving spiritual commune."
Sannyasins who had "graduated" from months of meditation and therapy could apply to work in the ashram, in an environment that was consciously modelled on the community the Russian mystic Gurdjieff led in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in the 1930s. Key features copied from Gurdjieff were hard, unpaid work, and supervisors chosen for their abrasive personality, both designed to provoke opportunities for self-observation and transcendence. Many disciples chose to stay for years. Besides the controversy around the therapies, allegations of drug use amongst sannyasin began to mar the ashram's image. Some Western sannyasins were financing extended stays in India through prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
and drug-running. A few later said that, while Osho was not directly involved, they discussed such plans and activities with him in darshan and he gave his blessing.
By the latter 1970s, the Poona ashram was too small to contain the rapid growth and Osho asked that somewhere larger be found. Sannyasins from around India started looking for properties: those found included one in the province of Kutch in Gujarat and two more in India's mountainous north. The plans were never implemented as mounting tensions between the ashram and the Janata Party
Janata Party
The Janata Party was an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the state of emergency imposed by the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her Indian National Congress...
government of Morarji Desai
Morarji Desai
Morarji Ranchhodji Desai was an Indian independence activist and the fourth Prime Minister of India from 1977–79. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who did not belong to the Indian National Congress...
resulted in an impasse. Land-use approval was denied and, more importantly, the government stopped issuing visas to foreign visitors who indicated the ashram as their main destination. In addition, Desai's government cancelled the tax-exempt status of the ashram with retrospective effect, resulting in a claim estimated at $5 million. Conflicts with various Indian religious leaders aggravated the situation—by 1980 the ashram had become so controversial that Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
, despite a previous association between Osho and the Indian Congress Party
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
dating back to the sixties, was unwilling to intercede for it after her return to power. In May 1980, during one of Osho's discourses, an attempt on his life was made by Vilas Tupe, a young Hindu fundamentalist. Tupe claims that he undertook the attack, because he believed Osho to be an agent of the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
.
By 1981, Osho's ashram hosted 30,000 visitors per year. Daily discourse audiences were by then predominantly European and American. Many observers noted that Osho's lecture style changed in the late seventies, becoming less focused intellectually and featuring an increasing number of ethnic or dirty jokes
Off-color humor
The term off-color humor is an Americanism used to describe jokes, prose, poems, black comedy, blue comedy, insult comedy, cringe comedy and skits that deal with topics that are considered to be in poor taste or overly vulgar by the prevailing morality of a culture...
intended to shock or amuse his audience. On 10 April 1981, having discoursed daily for nearly 15 years, Osho entered a three-and-a-half-year period of self-imposed public silence, and satsang
Satsang
Satsang in Indian philosophy means the company of the "highest truth," the company of a guru, or company with an assembly of persons who listen to, talk about, and assimilate the truth...
s—silent sitting with music and readings from spiritual works such as Khalil Gibran's
Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān,Jibrān Khalīl Jibrān, or Jibrān Xalīl Jibrān; Arabic , January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) also known as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer...
The Prophet
The Prophet (book)
The Prophet is a book of 26 poetic essays written in English by the Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work...
or the Isha Upanishad
Isha Upanishad
The Isha Upanishad is one of the shortest of the Upanishads, consisting of 17 or 18 verses in total; like other core texts of the vedanta, it is considered revealed scripture by diverse traditions within Hinduism...
—replaced discourses. Around the same time, Ma Anand Sheela
Ma Anand Sheela
Ma Anand Sheela is a former follower, secretary and spokeswoman for the Indian mystic and spiritual teacher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, now commonly known as Osho...
(Sheela Silverman) replaced Ma Yoga Laxmi as Osho's secretary.
USA and the Oregon commune: 1981–1985
In 1981, the increased tensions around the Poona ashram, along with criticism of its activities and threatened punitive action by the Indian authorities, provided an impetus for the ashram to relocate to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Osho withdrew from public speaking during this time, and entered into a period of silence which was to last until November 1984. He spent this time mostly in seclusion and communicated only with a few key disciples, including Ma Anand Sheela and his caretaker girlfriend Ma Yoga Vivek (Christine Woolf). Osho did not give lectures during this time; videos of his discourses were played to audiences in the evenings instead. On 1 June, he travelled to the United States on a tourist visa, ostensibly for medical purposes, and spent several months at a Rajneeshee retreat center located at Kip's Castle
Kip's Castle Park, New Jersey
Kip's Castle, is a estate on the ridge of First Mountain, on the border of Montclair and Verona townships. It contains a mansion that replicates a medieval Norman castle, and a two-story carriage house....
in Montclair, New Jersey
Montclair, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 38,977 people, 15,020 households, and 9,687 families residing in the township. The population density was 6,183.6 people per square mile . There were 15,531 housing units at an average density of 2,464.0 per square mile...
. He had been diagnosed with a prolapsed disc in spring 1981 and treated by several doctors, including James Cyriax, a St. Thomas' Hospital musculoskeletal physician and expert in epidural injections flown in from London. Sheela stated in public that Osho was in grave danger if he remained in India, but would receive appropriate medical treatment in America if he were to require surgery.
According to Susan J. Palmer
Susan J. Palmer
Susan Jean Palmer is a Canadian sociologist and author with a primary research interest new religious movements. She is a professor of Religious Studies at Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at Concordia University, teaching sociology of religion courses.-Biography:Palmer...
, the move to the United States "appears to have been a unilateral decision on the part of Sheela." Gordon (1987) notes that Sheela and Osho had discussed the idea of establishing a new commune in the U.S. in late 1980, although he did not agree to travel there until May 1981. Osho's previous secretary, Laxmi, reported to Frances FitzGerald that "she had failed to find a property in India adequate to [Osho's] needs, and thus, when the medical emergency came, the initiative had passed to Sheela". Osho never sought outside medical treatment during his time in the United States, leading the Immigration and Naturalization Service
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service , now referred to as Legacy INS, ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred from the Department of Justice to three new components within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, as...
to believe that he had a preconceived intent to remain there. Osho later pleaded guilty to immigration fraud, including making false statements on his initial visa application."His lawyers, however, were already negotiating with the United States Attorney's office and, on November 14th he returned to Portland and pleaded guilty to two felonies; making false statements to the immigration authorities in 1981 and concealing his intent to reside in the United States." "The Bhagwan may also soon need his voice to defend himself on charges he lied on his original temporary-visa application: if the immigration service proves he never intended to leave, the Bhagwan could be deported." (Newsweek, Bhagwan's Realm: The Oregon cult with the leader with 90 golden Rolls Royces, 3 December 1984, United States Edition, National Affairs Pg. 34, 1915 words, Neal Karlen with Pamela Abramson in Rajneeshpuram.)"Facing 35 counts of conspiring to violate immigration laws, the guru admitted two charges: lying about his reasons for settling in the U.S. and arranging sham marriages to help foreign disciples join him." (American Notes, Time Magazine, Monday, November 1985, available here)
On 13 June 1981, Sheela's husband Swami Prem Chinmaya (Marc Harris Silverman) bought, for US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
5.75 million, a 64229 acres (259.9 km²) ranch, previously known as "The Big Muddy Ranch" and located across two Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
counties (Wasco
Wasco County, Oregon
Wasco County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. The county is named for a local tribe of Native Americans, the Wasco, a Chinook tribe who lived on the south side of the Columbia River. In 2010, its population was 25,213...
and Jefferson
Jefferson County, Oregon
Jefferson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. In 2010, its population was 21,720. It is named after Mount Jefferson. The seat of the county is Madras.-History:...
). It was renamed "Rancho Rajneesh" and Osho moved there on 29 August. Initial local reactions community ranged from hostility to tolerance, depending on distance from the ranch. Within a year a series of legal battles ensued, principally over land use. In May 1982 the residents of Rancho Rajneesh voted to incorporate it as the city of Rajneeshpuram. Conflict with local residents became increasingly bitter and, over the following years, the commune was subject to constant, coordinated pressure from various coalitions. The commune leaders' stance was uncompromising, confrontational and impatient: their behaviour was implicitly threatening, and repeated changes in the commune's stated plans looked like conscious deception, whether they were or not. At one point, the commune imported large numbers of homeless people from various US cities in a failed attempt to affect the outcome of an election, before releasing them into surrounding towns and leaving it to the State of Oregon to return them to their home cities at the state's expense.
Mobile home
Mobile homes or static caravans are prefabricated homes built in factories, rather than on site, and then taken to the place where they will be occupied...
next to a covered swimming pool and other amenities. He did not lecture and only saw most of the residents when, daily, he would slowly drive past them as they stood by the road. He gained notoriety for the many Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (car)
This a list of Rolls-Royce motor cars and includes vehicles produced by:*Rolls-Royce Limited *Rolls-Royce Motors , which was owned by Vickers between 1980 and 1998, and after that by Volkswagen...
s bought for his use, eventually numbering 93 vehicles. This made him the largest single owner of the cars in the world. His followers aimed to eventually expand that collection to include 365 Rolls-Royces—for every day of the year.
In 1981, Osho gave Sheela limited power of attorney
Power of attorney
A power of attorney or letter of attorney is a written authorization to represent or act on another's behalf in private affairs, business, or some other legal matter...
and removed the limits the following year. In 1983, Sheela announced that he would henceforth speak only with her. He would later state that she kept him in ignorance. Many sannyasins expressed doubts about whether Sheela properly represented Osho and many dissidents left Rajneeshpuram in protest at its autocratic leadership. Resident sannyasins without U.S. citizenship experienced visa difficulties that some tried to overcome by marriages of convenience. Commune administrators tried to resolve Osho's own difficulty in this respect by declaring him the head of a religion, "Rajneeshism": in November 1981 Osho applied for residence as a religious worker, which was refused on the grounds that he could not lead a religion while unwell and in silence. This decision was later overturned due to procedural violations and leave to stay as a religious leader was granted three years later, in 1984.
The Oregon years saw an increased emphasis on Osho's prediction that the world might be destroyed by nuclear war or other disasters sometime in the 1990s. Osho had said as early as 1964 that "the third and last war is now on the way" and frequently spoke of the need to create a "new humanity" to avoid global suicide. This now became the basis for a new exclusivism, and a 1983 article in the Rajneesh Foundation Newsletter announcing that "Rajneeshism is creating a Noah's Ark of consciousness ... I say to you that except this there is no other way", increased the sense of urgency in building the Oregon commune. In March 1984, Sheela announced that Osho had predicted the death of two-thirds of humanity from AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. Sannyasins were required to wear rubber gloves and condom
Condom
A condom is a barrier device most commonly used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy and spreading sexually transmitted diseases . It is put on a man's erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner...
s if they had sex, and to refrain from kissing, measures widely represented in the press as an extreme overreaction since condoms were not usually recommended for AIDS prevention at that stage.
Osho initially backed Sheela up unconditionally when she had disputes with other leaders who questioned her conduct, but eventually called a private meeting in spring 1984, with Sheela and his personal house staff present, telling Sheela in front of the others that his house, not hers, was the centre of the commune. He warned—prophetically, as it turned out—that anyone close to him would inevitably become a target for Sheela. Several months later, on 30 October 1984, he ended his period of public silence, announcing that it was time to "speak his own truths." In July 1985, he resumed daily public discourses in the commune's 2 acres (8,093.7 m²) meditation hall, against Sheela's wishes according to statements he made to the press. On 16 September 1985, a few days after Sheela and her entire management team had suddenly left the commune for Europe, Osho held a press conference in which he labelled Sheela and her associates a "gang of fascists." He accused them of having committed a number of serious crimes, most of these dating back to 1984, and invited the authorities to investigate. The alleged crimes, which he stated had been committed without his knowledge or consent, included the attempted murder of his personal physician, poisonings of public officials, wiretapping and bugging within the commune and within his own home, and a bioterror attack
1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack
The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the food poisoning of 751 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon, United States, through the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with salmonella...
on the citizens of The Dalles, Oregon
The Dalles, Oregon
The Dalles is the largest city and county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The name of the city comes from the French word dalle The Dalles is the largest city and county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The name of the city comes from the French word dalle The Dalles is...
, using salmonella
Salmonella
Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which grade in all directions . They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction...
. While his allegations were initially greeted with skepticism by outside observers, the subsequent investigation by the U.S. authorities confirmed these accusations and resulted in the conviction of Sheela and several of her lieutenants.
The salmonella attack was noted as the first confirmed instance of chemical or biological terrorism to have occurred in the United States. Osho stated that because he was in silence and isolation, meeting only with Sheela, he was unaware of the crimes committed by the Rajneeshpuram leadership until Sheela and her "gang" left and sannyasins came forward to inform him. A number of commentators have stated that in their view Sheela was being used as a convenient scapegoat. Others have pointed to the fact that although Sheela had bugged Osho's living quarters and made her tapes available to the U.S. authorities as part of her own plea bargain, no evidence has ever come to light that Osho had any part in her crimes. Nevertheless Gordon (1987) reports that Charles Turner, David Frohnmayer and other law enforcement officials, who had surveyed affidavits never released publicly and who listened to hundreds of hours of tape recordings, insinuated to him that Osho was guilty of more crimes than those for which he was eventually prosecuted. Frohnmayer asserted that Osho's philosophy was not "disapproving of poisoning" and that he felt he and Sheela had been "genuinely evil".
According to court testimony by Ma Ava (Ava Avalos), a prominent disciple, Sheela played associates a tape recording of a meeting she had had with Osho about the "need to kill people" in order to strengthen wavering sannyasins resolve in participating in her murderous plots: "She came back to the meeting and [...] began to play the tape. It was a little hard to hear what he was saying. [...] And the gist of Bhagwan's response, yes, it was going to be necessary to kill people to stay in Oregon. And that actually killing people wasn't such a bad thing. And actually Hitler was a great man, although he could not say that publicly because nobody would understand that. Hitler had great vision." Sheela initiated attempts to murder Osho's caretaker and girlfriend, Ma Yoga Vivek, and his personal physician, Swami Devaraj (Dr. George Meredith), because she felt they were a threat to Osho; she had secretly recorded a conversation between Devaraj and Osho "in which the doctor agreed to obtain drugs the guru wanted to ensure a peaceful death if he decided to take his own life."
During his residence in Rajneeshpuram, Osho dictated three books under the influence of nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or sweet air, is a chemical compound with the formula . It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colorless non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odor and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anesthetic and analgesic...
administered to him by his private dentist: Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, Notes of a Madman and Books I Have Loved. Sheela later stated that Osho took sixty milligrams of Valium each day and was addicted to nitrous oxide. Osho denied these charges when questioned about them by journalists. On 30 September 1985, Osho denied that he was a religious teacher. His disciples burned 5,000 copies of Book of Rajneeshism, a 78-page compilation of his teachings that defined "Rajneeshism" as "a religionless religion". He said he ordered the book-burning to rid the sect of the last traces of the influence of Sheela, whose robes were also "added to the bonfire".
On 23 October 1985, a federal grand jury issued a thirty-five-count indictment charging Osho and several other disciples with conspiracy to evade immigration laws. The indictment was returned in camera
In camera
In camera is a legal term meaning "in private". It is also sometimes termed in chambers or in curia.In camera describes court cases that the public and press are not admitted to...
, but word was leaked to Osho's lawyer. Negotiations to allow Osho to surrender to authorities in Portland if a warrant were issued failed. Rumours of a National Guard takeover and a planned violent arrest of Osho led to tension and fears of shooting. On the strength of Sheela's tape recordings, authorities later stated the belief that there had been a plan that sannyasin women and children would have been asked to create a human shield had authorities attempted to arrest Osho at the commune. On 28 October 1985, Osho and a small number of sannyasins accompanying him were arrested aboard a rented Learjet at a North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
airstrip; according to federal authorities the group was en route to Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
to avoid prosecution. $58,000 in cash, 35 watches and bracelets worth $1 million were found on the aircraft. Osho had by all accounts been informed neither of the impending arrest nor the reason for the journey.
Osho's imprisonment and transfer across the country became a public spectacle—he was displayed in chains, held first in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, then Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
and finally in Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
. Officials took the full ten days legally available to transfer him from North Carolina to Portland for arraignment
Arraignment
Arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal complaint in the presence of the defendant to inform the defendant of the charges against him or her. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea...
. After initially pleading "not guilty" to all charges and being released on bail Osho, on the advice of his lawyers, entered an "Alford plea
Alford plea
An Alford plea in United States law is a guilty plea in criminal court, where the defendant does not admit the act and asserts innocence...
"—a type of guilty plea through which a suspect does not admit guilt, but does concede there is enough evidence to convict him—to one count of having a concealed intent to remain permanently in the U.S. at the time of his original visa application in 1981 and one count of having conspired to have sannyasins enter into sham marriage
Sham marriage
A sham marriage or fake marriage is a marriage of convenience entered into with the intent of deceiving public officials or society about its purpose. Arranging or entering into such a marriage to deceive public officials is itself a separate violation of the law of some countries...
s to acquire U.S. residency. Under the deal his lawyers made with the U.S. Attorney's office he was given a 10-year suspended sentence, five years' probation and a $400,000 penalty in fines and prosecution costs and agreed to leave the United States, not returning for at least five years without the permission of the United States Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
.
Travels and return to Poona: 1985–1990
Following his exit from the U.S., Osho returned to India, landing in DelhiDelhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
on 17 November. He was given a hero's welcome by his Indian disciples and denounced the United States, saying the world must "put the monster America in its place" and that "Either America must be hushed up or America will be the end of the world." He then stayed for six weeks in Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...
. When non-Indians in his party had their visas revoked, he moved on to Kathmandu, Nepal, and then, a few weeks later, to Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. Arrested after a few days by the KYP, he flew to Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, then to Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
and to Heathrow, but was in each case refused entry. Next Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
refused landing permission, so his plane returned to Shannon
Shannon, County Clare
Shannon or Shannon Town , named after the river near which it stands, is a town located in County Clare. It was given town status on 1 January 1982. The town is located just off the N19 road, a spur of the N18/M18 road between Limerick city and Ennis....
airport, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, to refuel. There he was allowed to stay for two weeks, at a hotel in Limerick
Limerick
Limerick is the third largest city in the Republic of Ireland, and the principal city of County Limerick and Ireland's Mid-West Region. It is the fifth most populous city in all of Ireland. When taking the extra-municipal suburbs into account, Limerick is the third largest conurbation in the...
, on condition that he did not go out or give talks. He had been granted a Uruguayan identity card, one-year provisional residency and a possibility of permanent residency, so the party set out, stopping at Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, where the plane was surrounded by the Guardia Civil. He was allowed to spend one night at Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...
, then continued to Recife
Recife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...
and Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
. In Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, the group moved to a house at Punta del Este
Punta del Este
Punta del Este is a resort town on the Atlantic Coast in the Maldonado Department of southeastern Uruguay. It is located on the intersection of Route 10 with Route 39, directly southeast of the department capital Maldonado and about east of Montevideo...
where Osho began speaking publicly until 19 June, after which he was "invited to leave" for no official reason. A two-week visa was arranged for Jamaica but on arrival in Kingston
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...
police gave the group 12 hours to leave. Refuelling in Gander
Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador
Gander is a Canadian town located in the northeastern part of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, approximately south of Gander Bay, south of Twillingate and east of Grand Falls-Windsor...
and in Madrid, Osho returned to Bombay, India, on 30 July 1986.
In January 1987, Osho returned to the ashram in Poona, where he held evening discourses each day, except when interrupted by intermittent ill health. Publishing and therapy resumed and the ashram underwent expansion, now as a "Multiversity" where therapy was to function as a bridge to meditation. Osho devised new "meditation therapy" methods such as the "Mystic Rose" and began to lead meditations in his discourses after a gap of more than ten years. His western disciples formed no large communes, mostly preferring ordinary independent living. Red/orange dress and the mala were largely abandoned, having been optional since 1985. The wearing of red robes—only while on ashram premises—was reintroduced in summer 1989, along with white robes worn for evening meditation and black robes for group-leaders.
In November 1987, Osho expressed his belief that his deteriorating health (nausea, fatigue, pain in extremities and lack of resistance to infection) was due to poisoning by the U.S. authorities while in prison. His doctors and former attorney, Philip J. Toelkes (Swami Prem Niren), hypothesised radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
and thallium
Thallium
Thallium is a chemical element with the symbol Tl and atomic number 81. This soft gray poor metal resembles tin but discolors when exposed to air. The two chemists William Crookes and Claude-Auguste Lamy discovered thallium independently in 1861 by the newly developed method of flame spectroscopy...
in a deliberately irradiated mattress, since his symptoms were concentrated on the right side of his body, but presented no hard evidence. U.S. attorney Charles H. Hunter described this as "complete fiction", while others suggested exposure to HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
or chronic diabetes and stress.
From early 1988, Osho's discourses focused exclusively on Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
. In late December, he said he no longer wished to be referred to as "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh", and in February 1989 took the name "Osho
Osho
Oshō is the Japanese reading of the Chinese he shang , meaning a high-ranking Buddhist monk or highly virtuous Buddhist monk. It is also a respectful designation for Buddhist monks in general and may be used with the suffix -san...
Rajneesh", shortened to "Osho" in September. He also requested that all trademarks previously branded with RAJNEESH be rebranded internationally to OSHO. His health continued to weaken. He delivered his last public discourse in April 1989, from then on simply sitting in silence with his followers. Shortly before his death, Osho suggested that one or more audience members at evening meetings (now referred to as the White Robe Brotherhood) were subjecting him to some form of evil magic. A search for the perpetrators was undertaken, but none could be found.
Osho died on 19 January 1990, aged 58, reportedly of heart failure. His ashes were placed in his newly built bedroom in Lao Tzu House at the Poona ashram. The epitaph
Epitaph
An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
reads, "OSHO. Never Born, Never Died. Only Visited this Planet Earth between Dec 11 1931 – Jan 19 1990."
Teachings
Osho's teachings, delivered through his discourses, were not presented in an academic setting, but interspersed with jokes and delivered with a rhetoric that many found spellbinding. The emphasis was not static but changed over time: Osho revelled in paradox and contradiction, making his work difficult to summarise. He delighted in engaging in behaviour that seemed entirely at odds with traditional images of enlightened individuals; his early lectures in particular were famous for their humour and their refusal to take anything seriously. All such behaviour, however capricious and difficult to accept, was explained as "a technique for transformation" to push people "beyond the mind."He spoke on major spiritual traditions including Jainism
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
, Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, Hassidism, Tantrism, Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, on a variety of Eastern and Western mystics and on sacred scriptures such as the Upanishads and the Guru Granth Sahib
Guru Granth Sahib
Sri Guru Granth Sahib , or Adi Granth, is the religious text of Sikhism. It is the final and eternal guru of the Sikhs. It is a voluminous text of 1430 angs, compiled and composed during the period of Sikh gurus, from 1469 to 1708...
. The sociologist Lewis F. Carter saw his ideas as rooted in Hindu advaita, in which the human experiences of separateness, duality and temporality are held to be a kind of dance or play of cosmic consciousness in which everything is sacred, has absolute worth and is an end in itself. While his contemporary Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti or J. Krishnamurti or , was a renowned writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive change in society...
did not approve of Osho, there are clear similarities between their respective teachings.
Osho also drew on a wide range of Western ideas. His view of the unity of opposites
Unity of opposites
The unity of opposites was first suggested by Heraclitus a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher.Philosophers had for some time been contemplating the notion of opposites. Anaximander posited that every element was an opposite, or connected to an opposite...
recalls Heraclitus
Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
, while his description of man as a machine, condemned to the helpless acting out of unconscious, neurotic patterns, has much in common with Freud and Gurdjieff. His vision of the "new man" transcending constraints of convention is reminiscent of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil; his views on sexual liberation bear comparison to D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
; and his "dynamic" meditations owe a debt to Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
.
Ego and the mind
According to Osho every human being is a BuddhaBuddha
In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...
with the capacity for enlightenment
Enlightenment (spiritual)
Enlightenment in a secular context often means the "full comprehension of a situation", but in spiritual terms the word alludes to a spiritual revelation or deep insight into the meaning and purpose of all things, communication with or understanding of the mind of God, profound spiritual...
, capable of unconditional love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
and of responding rather than reacting to life, although the ego usually prevents this, identifying with social conditioning and creating false needs and conflicts and an illusory sense of identity that is nothing but a barrier of dreams. Otherwise man's innate being can flower in a move from the periphery to the centre.
Osho views the mind first and foremost as a mechanism for survival, replicating behavioural strategies that have proven successful in the past. But the mind's appeal to the past, he said, deprives human beings of the ability to live authentically in the present, causing them to repress genuine emotions and to shut themselves off from joyful experiences that arise naturally when embracing the present moment: "The mind has no inherent capacity for joy. ... It only thinks about joy." The result is that people poison themselves with all manner of neuroses
Neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic...
, jealousies
Jealousy
Jealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...
and insecurities. He argued that psychological repression
Psychological repression
Psychological repression, also psychic repression or simply repression, is the psychological attempt by an individual to repel one's own desires and impulses towards pleasurable instincts by excluding the desire from one's consciousness and holding or subduing it in the unconscious...
, often advocated by religious leaders, makes suppressed feelings re-emerge in another guise, and that sexual repression resulted in societies obsessed with sex. Instead of suppressing, people should trust and accept themselves unconditionally. This should not merely be understood intellectually, as the mind could only assimilate it as one more piece of information: instead meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
was needed.
Meditation
Osho presented meditation not just as a practice but as a state of awareness to be maintained in every moment, a total awareness that awakens the individual from the sleep of mechanical responses conditioned by beliefs and expectations. He employed Western psychotherapyPsychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
in the preparatory stages of meditation to create awareness of mental and emotional patterns.
He suggested more than a hundred meditation techniques in total. His own "Active Meditation" techniques are characterised by stages of physical activity leading to silence. The most famous of these remains Dynamic Meditation, which has been described as a kind of microcosm of his outlook. Performed with closed or blindfolded eyes, it comprises five stages, four of which are accompanied by music. First the meditator engages in ten minutes of rapid breathing through the nose. The second ten minutes are for catharsis
Catharsis
Catharsis or katharsis is a Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging". It is derived from the verb καθαίρειν, kathairein, "to purify, purge," and it is related to the adjective καθαρός, katharos, "pure or clean."-Dramatic uses:...
: "Let whatever is happening happen. ... Laugh, shout, scream, jump, shake—whatever you feel to do, do it!" Next, for ten minutes one jumps up and down with arms raised, shouting Hoo! each time one lands on the flat of the feet. At the fourth, silent stage, the meditator stops moving suddenly and totally, remaining completely motionless for fifteen minutes, witnessing everything that is happening. The last stage of the meditation consists of fifteen minutes of dancing and celebration.
Osho developed other active meditation techniques, such as the Kundalini "shaking" meditation and the Nadabrahma "humming" meditation, which are less animated, although they also include physical activity of one sort or another. His later "meditative therapies" require sessions for several days, OSHO Mystic Rose comprising three hours of laughing every day for a week, three hours of weeping each day for a second, and a third week with three hours of silent meditation. These processes of "witnessing" enable a "jump into awareness". Osho believed such cathartic methods were necessary, since it was difficult for modern people to just sit and enter meditation. Once the methods had provided a glimpse of meditation people would be able to use other methods without difficulty.
Sannyas
Another key ingredient was his own presence as a masterGuru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
; "A Master shares his being with you, not his philosophy. ... He never does anything to the disciple." The initiation he offered was another such device: "... if your being can communicate with me, it becomes a communion. ... It is the highest form of communication possible: a transmission without words. Our beings merge. This is possible only if you become a disciple." Ultimately though, as an explicitly "self-parodying" guru, Osho even deconstructed his own authority, declaring his teaching to be nothing more than a "game" or a joke. He emphasised that anything and everything could become an opportunity for meditation.
Renunciation and the "New Man"
Osho saw his "neo-sannyas" as a totally new form of spiritual discipline, or one that had once existed but since been forgotten. He felt that the traditional Hindu sannyas had turned into a mere system of social renunciation and imitation. He emphasised complete inner freedom and the responsibility to oneself, not demanding superficial behavioral changes, but a deeper, inner transformation. Desires were to be accepted and surpassed rather than denied. Once this inner flowering had taken place, desires such as that for sex would be left behind.Osho said that he was "the rich man's guru" and that material poverty was not a genuine spiritual value. He had himself photographed wearing sumptuous clothing and hand-made watches and, while in Oregon, drove a different Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (car)
This a list of Rolls-Royce motor cars and includes vehicles produced by:*Rolls-Royce Limited *Rolls-Royce Motors , which was owned by Vickers between 1980 and 1998, and after that by Volkswagen...
each day – his followers reportedly wanted to buy him 365 of them, one for each day of the year. Publicity shots of the Rolls-Royces were sent to the press. They may have reflected both his advocacy of wealth and his desire to provoke American sensibilities, much as he had enjoyed offending Indian sensibilities earlier.
Osho aimed to create a "new man" combining the spirituality of Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
with the zest for life embodied by Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis was a Greek writer and philosopher, celebrated for his novel Zorba the Greek, considered his magnum opus...
' Zorba the Greek
Zorba the Greek
Zorba the Greek is a 1964 film based on the novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. The film was directed by Cypriot Michael Cacoyannis and the title character was played by Anthony Quinn...
: "He should be as accurate and objective as a scientist ... as sensitive, as full of heart, as a poet ... [and as] rooted deep down in his being as the mystic." His term the "new man" applied to men and women equally, whose roles he saw as complementary; indeed, most of his movement's leadership positions were held by women. This new man, "Zorba the Buddha", should reject neither science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
nor spirituality but embrace both. Osho believed humanity was threatened with extinction due to over-population, impending nuclear holocaust and diseases such as AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, and thought many of society's ills could be remedied by scientific means. The new man would no longer be trapped in institutions such as family, marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
, political ideologies and religions. In this respect Osho is similar to other counter-culture gurus, and perhaps even certain postmodern
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
and deconstructional thinkers.
Osho's "Ten Commandments"
In his early days as Acharya Rajneesh, a correspondent once asked Osho for his "Ten CommandmentsTen Commandments
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...
". In reply Osho noted that it was a difficult matter because he was against any kind of commandment but, "just for fun", set out the following;
He underlined numbers 3, 7, 9 and 10. The ideas expressed in these Commandments have remained constant leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
s in his movement.
Legacy
While Osho's teachings met with strong rejection in his home country during his lifetime, there has been a change in Indian public opinion since Osho's death. In 1991, an influential Indian newspaper counted Osho, along with figures such as Gautama BuddhaGautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
and Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, among the ten people who had most changed India's destiny; in Osho's case, by "liberating the minds of future generations from the shackles of religiosity and conformism." Osho has found more acclaim in his homeland since his death than he ever did while alive. At a celebration in 2006, marking the 75th anniversary of Osho's birth, Indian singer Wasifuddin Dagar
Wasifuddin Dagar
Faiyaz Wasifuddin Dagar is an Indian classical singer of the dhrupad genre and the son of dhrupad singer Nasir Faiyazuddin Dagar. Since the death of his father and later, his uncle, Wasifuddin has been singing solo. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2010....
said that Osho's teachings are "more pertinent in the current milieu than they were ever before." In Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, there are 60 Osho centres with almost 45,000 initiated disciples (reported in 2008). Osho's entire works have been placed in the Library of India's National Parliament
Parliament of India
The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body in India. Founded in 1919, the Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all political bodies in India. The Parliament of India comprises the President and the two Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha...
in New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
. Prominent figures such as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh is the 13th and current Prime Minister of India. He is the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term. A Sikh, he is the first non-Hindu to occupy the office. Singh is also the 7th Prime Minister belonging to the Indian...
and the Indian Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
writer Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh is a prominent Indian novelist and journalist. Singh's weekly column, "With Malice towards One and All", carried by several Indian newspapers, is among the most widely-read columns in the country....
have expressed their admiration for Osho. The Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
actor and Osho disciple Vinod Khanna
Vinod Khanna
-Early life:Khanna was born to Kamla and Kishanchand Khanna, a textiles, dyes and chemicals businessman of Hindu Punjabi Khatri origin, on 6 October 1946, in Peshawar, British India . He has three sisters and one brother...
, who had worked as Osho's gardener in Rajneeshpuram
Rajneeshpuram
Rajneeshpuram, Oregon was an intentional community in Wasco County, Oregon, briefly incorporated as a city in the 1980s, which was populated with followers of the spiritual teacher Osho, then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.- History :...
, served as India's Minister of State for External Affairs
Indian Foreign Minister
The External Affairs Minister or the Indian Foreign Minister is a position of office at cabinet level within the Government of India. The chief responsibility of the External Affairs Minister is to represent India and its government in the international community...
from 2003 to 2004. Over 650 books are credited to Osho, expressing his views on all facets of human existence. Virtually all of them are renderings of his taped discourses. His books are available in 55 different languages and have entered best-seller lists in countries such as Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
.
Internationally, after almost two decades of controversy and a decade of accommodation, Osho's movement has established itself in the market of new religions. His followers have redefined his contributions, reframing central elements of his teaching so as to make them appear less controversial to outsiders. Societies in North America and Western Europe have met them half-way, becoming more accommodating to spiritual topics such as yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
and meditation. The Osho International Foundation (OIF) runs stress management
Stress management
Stress management is the alteration of stress and especially chronic stress often for the purpose of improving everyday functioning.Stress produces numerous symptoms which vary according to persons, situations, and severity. These can include physical health decline as well as depression. According...
seminars for corporate clients such as IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
and BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
, with a reported (2000) revenue between $15 and $45 million annually in the U.S.
Osho's ashram in Pune
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
has become the Osho International Meditation Resort, one of India's main tourist attractions. Describing itself as the Esalen of the East, it teaches a variety of spiritual techniques from a broad range of traditions and promotes itself as a spiritual oasis, a "sacred space" for discovering one's self and uniting the desires of body and mind in a beautiful resort environment. According to press reports, it attracts some 200,000 people from all over the world each year; prominent visitors have included politicians, media personalities and the Dalai Lama. Before anyone is allowed to enter the resort, an AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
test is required, and those who are discovered to have the disease are not allowed in. In 2011, a national seminar on Osho's teachings was inaugurated at the Department of Philosophy of the Mankunwarbai College for Women in Jabalpur. Funded by the Bhopal office of the University Grants Commission
University Grants Commission (India)
The University Grants Commission of India is a statutory organisation set up by Union government in 1956, for the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of university education. It provides recognition for universities in India, and provides funds for government-recognised...
, the seminar focused on Osho's "Zorba the Buddha" teaching, seeking to reconcile spirituality with the materialist and objective approach.
Reception
Osho is generally considered one of the most controversial spiritual leaders to have emerged from India in the twentieth century. His message of sexual, emotional, spiritual, and institutional liberation, as well as the pleasure he took in causing offence, ensured that his life was surrounded by controversy. Osho became known as the "sex guru" in India, and as the "Rolls-Royce guru" in the United States. He attacked traditional concepts of nationalism, openly expressed contempt for politicians, and poked fun at the leading figures of various religions, who in turn found his arrogance unbearable. His ideas on sex, marriage, family and relationships contradicted traditional views and aroused a great deal of anger and opposition around the world. His movement was widely feared and loathed as a cultCult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
, in much the same way as Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
or the Unification Church
Unification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
. Osho was seen to live "in ostentation and offensive opulence", while his followers, most of whom had severed ties with outside friends and family and donated all or most of their money and possessions to the commune, might be at a mere "subsistence level".
Appraisal by scholars of religion
In questioning how the total corpus of Osho's work might be summarised, Bob Mullan, a sociologist from the University of East AngliaUniversity of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.-History:...
, stated in 1983: "It certainly is eclectic, a borrowing of truths, half-truths and occasional misrepresentations from the great traditions. It is also often bland, inaccurate, spurious and extremely contradictory." He also acknowledged that Osho's range and imagination were second to none, and that many of his statements were quite insightful and moving, perhaps even profound at times, but what remained was essentially "a potpourri of counter-culturalist and post-counter-culturalist ideas" focusing on love and freedom, the need to live for the moment, the importance of self, the feeling of "being okay", the mysteriousness of life, the fun ethic, the individual's responsibility for their own destiny, and the need to drop the ego, along with fear and guilt.
Uday Mehta, in summing up an appraisal of Osho's teachings, particularly errors regarding his interpretation of Zen, Mahayana Buddhism and how they relate to the proto-materialist nature of Tantric philosophy, suggests that: "It is not surprising to find that Rajneesh could get away with several gross contradictions and inconsistencies in his teachings. This was possible for the simple reason that an average Indian (or for that matter even western) listener knows so little about religious scriptures or various schools of thought that it hardly requires much effort to exploit his ignorance and gullibility." According to Mehta, Osho's appeal to his Western disciples was based on his social experiments, which established a philosophical connection between the Eastern guru tradition
Guru-shishya tradition
The guru-shishya tradition, lineage, or parampara, denotes a succession of teachers and disciples in traditional Indian culture and religions such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. It is the tradition of spiritual relationship and mentoring where teachings are transmitted from a guru...
and the Western growth movement.
Writing in 1996, Hugh B. Urban (Assistant Professor of Religion and Comparative Studies at Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
), like Mullan, found Osho's teaching neither original nor especially profound, noting that most of its content had been borrowed from various Eastern and Western philosophies. What he found most original about Osho was his keen commercial instinct or marketing strategy
Marketing strategy
Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.-Developing a marketing strategy:...
, by which he was able to adapt his teachings to meet the changing desires of his audience, a theme also picked up on by Gita Mehta
Gita Mehta
Gita Mehta is an Indian writer and was born in Delhi in a renowned Oriya family of freedom fighters. She is the daughter of Biju Patnaik, an Indian independence activist and a Chief Minister in post-independence Orissa. Her younger brother Naveen Patnaik is presently the Chief Minister of Orissa...
in her book Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East. In 2005, Urban observed that Osho had undergone a "remarkable apotheosis
Apotheosis
Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature...
" after his return to India, and especially in the years since his death, going on to describe him as a powerful illustration of what F. Max Müller, over a century ago, called "that world-wide circle through which, like an electric current, Oriental thought could run to the West and Western thought return to the East." By negating the dichotomy between spiritual and material desires, and reflecting the preoccupation with the body and sexuality characteristic of late capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
consumer culture, Osho had apparently been able to create a spiritual path that was remarkably in tune with the socio-economic conditions of his time.
George Chryssides, in Exploring New Religions (1999), described Osho as primarily a Buddhist teacher, promoting an independent form of "Beat Zen". He stated that descriptions of Osho's teachings as a "potpourri" of various religious teachings were unfortunate, because Osho was "no amateur philosopher"; drawing attention to Osho's academic background, he stated that, "Whether or not one accepts his teachings, he was no charlatan when it came to expounding the ideas of others." Chryssides viewed the unsystematic, contradictory and outrageous aspects of Osho's teachings as part of the nature of Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
, reflecting the fact that spiritual teaching seeks to induce a different kind of change in an audience than philosophy lectures aimed at improving intellectual understanding.
Peter B. Clarke
Peter B. Clarke
Peter Bernard Clarke was a British scholar of religion and founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary Religion.-Academic career:...
, in the Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements (2006), noted that Osho has come to be "seen as an important teacher within India itself" and is "increasingly recognized as a major spiritual teacher of the twentieth century, at the forefront of the current 'world-accepting' trend of spirituality based on self-development". He stated that the style of therapy he devised, with its liberal attitude towards sexuality as a sacred part of life, had proved influential among other therapy practitioners and new age groups. In his view, the main motivation of seekers joining the movement was "neither therapy nor sex, but the prospect of becoming enlightened, in the classical Buddhist sense." While few had achieved their aim, most current and former members felt they had made progress in self-actualisation as defined by American psychologist Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
and the human potential movement
Human Potential Movement
The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...
.
Appraisal as charismatic leader
A number of commentators have remarked upon Osho's charisma. Comparing Osho with Gurdjieff, Anthony StorrAnthony Storr
Anthony Storr was an English psychiatrist and author. Born in London, he was a child who was to endure the typical trauma of early 20th century boarding schools. He was educated at Winchester College, Christ's College , and Westminster Hospital. He qualified as a doctor in 1944, and subsequently...
wrote that Osho was "personally extremely impressive", noting that "many of those who visited him for the first time felt that their most intimate feelings were instantly understood, that they were accepted and unequivocally welcomed rather than judged. [Osho] seemed to radiate energy and to awaken hidden possibilities in those who came into contact with him." Many sannyasins have stated that hearing Osho speak, they "fell in love with him." Susan J. Palmer noted that even critics attested to the power of his presence. James S. Gordon, a psychiatrist and researcher, recalls inexplicably finding himself laughing like a child, hugging strangers and having tears of gratitude in his eyes after a glance by Osho from within his passing Rolls-Royce. Frances FitzGerald concluded upon listening to Osho in person that he was a brilliant lecturer, and expressed surprise at his talent as a comedian, which had not been apparent from reading his books, as well as the hypnotic quality of his talks, which had a profound effect on his audience. Hugh Milne (Swami Shivamurti), an ex-devotee who between 1973 and 1982 worked closely with Osho as leader of the Poona Ashram Guard and as his personal bodyguard, noted that their first meeting left him with a sense that far more than words had passed between them: "There is no invasion of privacy, no alarm, but it is as if his soul is slowly slipping inside mine, and in a split second transferring vital information." Milne also observed another facet of Osho's charismatic ability in stating that he was "a brilliant manipulator of the unquestioning disciple."
Hugh B. Urban noted that Osho appeared to fit with Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
’s classical image of the charismatic figure
Charismatic authority
The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him." Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out...
, being held to possess "an extraordinary supernatural power or 'grace', which was essentially irrational and affective". Osho corresponded to Weber's pure charismatic type in rejecting all rational laws and institutions and claiming to subvert all hierarchical authority, though Urban notes that the promise of absolute freedom inherent in this resulted in bureaucratic organisation and institutional control within larger communes.
Some scholars have suggested that Osho, like other charismatic leaders, may have had a narcissistic
Narcissism
Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...
personality. In his paper The Narcissistic Guru: A Profile of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Ronald O. Clarke, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Oregon State University
Oregon State University
Oregon State University is a coeducational, public research university located in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees and a multitude of research opportunities. There are more than 200 academic degree programs offered through the...
, argued that Osho exhibited all the typical features of narcissistic personality disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder in which the individual is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity...
, such as a grandiose sense of self-importance and uniqueness; a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success; a need for constant attention and admiration; a set of characteristic responses to threats to self-esteem; disturbances in interpersonal relationships; a preoccupation with personal grooming
Personal grooming
Personal grooming is the art of cleaning, grooming, and maintaining parts of the body. It is a species-typical behavior that is controlled by neural circuits in the brain.- In humans :...
combined with frequent resorting to prevarication or outright lying; and a lack of empathy. Drawing on Osho's reminiscences of his childhood in his book Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, he suggested that Osho suffered from a fundamental lack of parental discipline, due to his growing up in the care of overindulgent grandparents. Osho's self-avowed Buddha status, he concluded, was part of a delusion
Delusion
A delusion is a false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence. Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological...
al system associated with his narcissistic personality disorder; a condition of ego-inflation rather than egolessness.
Wider appraisal as a thinker and speaker
There are widely divergent views on Osho's qualities as a thinker and speaker. Khushwant SinghKhushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh is a prominent Indian novelist and journalist. Singh's weekly column, "With Malice towards One and All", carried by several Indian newspapers, is among the most widely-read columns in the country....
, eminent author, historian and former editor of the Hindustan Times
Hindustan Times
Hindustan Times is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded in 1924 with roots in the Indian independence movement of the period ....
, has described him as "the most original thinker that India has produced: the most erudite, the most clearheaded and the most innovative". In his view, Osho was a "free-thinking agnostic" who had the ability to explain the most abstract concepts in simple language, illustrated with witty anecdotes, who mocked gods, prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
s, scriptures and religious practices and gave a totally new dimension to religion. The German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
philosopher Peter Sloterdijk
Peter Sloterdijk
Peter Sloterdijk is a German philosopher, television host, cultural scientist and essayist. He is a professor of philosophy and media theory at the University of Art and Design Karlsruhe. He currently co-hosts the German show Im Glashaus: Das Philosophische Quartett.-Biography:Sloterdijk's father...
has called Osho a "Wittgenstein of religions", ranking him as one of the greatest figures of the 20th century; in his view, Osho had performed a radical deconstruction of the word games played by the world's religions.
During the early 1980s, a number of commentators in the popular press were dismissive of Osho. The Australian critic Clive James
Clive James
Clive James, AM is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism...
scornfully referred to him as "Bagwash", likening the experience of listening to one of his discourses to sitting in a laundrette and watching "your tattered underwear revolve soggily for hours while exuding grey suds. The Bagwash talks the way that looks." James finished by saying that Osho was a "fairly benign example of his type," just a "talkative dingbat who manipulates the manipulable into manipulating one another." Responding to an enthusiastic review of Osho's talks by Bernard Levin
Bernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, Dominik Wujastyk, also writing in The Times, similarly expressed his opinion that the talk he heard while visiting the Poona ashram was of a very low standard, wearyingly repetitive and often factually wrong, and stated that he felt disturbed by the personality cult surrounding Osho.
Writing in the Seattle Post Intelligencer in January 1990, American author Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins
Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins (born July 22, 1936 is an American author. His best-selling novels are serio-comic, often wildly poetic stories with a strong social and philosophical undercurrent, an irreverent bent, and scenes extrapolated from...
stated that based on his readings of Osho's books, he was convinced Osho was the 20th century's "greatest spiritual teacher." Robbins, while stressing that he was not a disciple, further stated that he had "read enough vicious propaganda and slanted reports to suspect that he was one of the most maligned figures in history." Osho's commentary on the Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
scripture known as Japuji was hailed as the best available by Giani Zail Singh, the former President of India
President of India
The President of India is the head of state and first citizen of India, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. President of India is also the formal head of all the three branches of Indian Democracy - Legislature, Executive and Judiciary...
. In 2011, author Farrukh Dhondy
Farrukh Dhondy
Farrukh Dhondy is a British writer, playwright and activist of Indian Parsi descent.-Education:Dhondy obtained a BSc degree from University of Poona in India before winning a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1964 where he read Natural Sciences before switching to English...
reported that film star Kabir Bedi
Kabir Bedi
Kabir Bedi is an Indian television and film actor. His career has spanned three continents including India, the United States and many European countries in three mediums: film, television and theatre. He is noted for his role as Emperor Shah Jahan in Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story...
was a fan of Osho, and viewed Osho's works as "the most sublime interpretations of Indian philosophy that he had come across". Dhondy himself viewed Osho as "the cleverest intellectual confidence trickster that India has produced. His output of the 'interpretation' of Indian texts is specifically slanted towards a generation of disillusioned westerners who wanted (and perhaps still want) to 'have their cake, eat it' [and] claim at the same time that cake-eating is the highest virtue according to ancient-fused-with-scientific wisdom."
Films about Osho
The first documentary on Osho called Bhagwan, The Movie was made in 1978 by American filmmaker Robert Hillmann. In 1981, the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
broadcast a documentary titled The God that Fled, made by British American
British American
British Americans are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in the United Kingdom . The term is seldom used by people to refer to themselves and is used primarily as a demographic or historical research term...
journalist Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
. Another documentary, named Rajneesh: Spiritual Terrorist, was made by Australian film maker Cynthia Connop in the late 1980s for ABC TV/Learning Channel. A Swiss documentary, titled Guru – Bhagwan, His Secretary & His Bodyguard, was released in 2010.
Selected works
On the sayings of JesusJesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
:
- The Mustard Seed (the Gospel of ThomasGospel of ThomasThe Gospel According to Thomas, commonly shortened to the Gospel of Thomas, is a well preserved early Christian, non-canonical sayings-gospel discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945, in one of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library...
) - Come Follow to You Vols. I – IV
On Tao
Tao
Dao or Tao is a Chinese word meaning 'way', 'path', 'route', or sometimes more loosely, 'doctrine' or 'principle'...
:
- Tao: The Three Treasures (The Tao Teh Ching of Lao Tzu), Vol I – IV
- The Empty Boat (Stories of Chuang Tzu)
- When the Shoe Fits (Stories of Chuang Tzu)
On Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
:
- The DhammapadaDhammapadaThe Dhammapada is a versified Buddhist scripture traditionally ascribed to the Buddha himself. It is one of the best-known texts from the Theravada canon....
(Vols. I – X) - The Discipline of Transcendence (Vols. I – IV)
- The Heart SutraHeart SutraThe Heart Sūtra is a Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtra. Its Sanskrit name literally translates to "Heart of the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom." The Heart Sūtra is often cited as the best known and most popular of all Buddhist scriptures.-Introduction:The Heart Sūtra is a member of the Perfection of...
- The Diamond SutraDiamond SutraThe Diamond Sūtra , is a short and well-known Mahāyāna sūtra from the Prajñāpāramitā, or "Perfection of Wisdom" genre, and emphasizes the practice of non-abiding and non-attachment...
On Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
:
- Neither This nor That (On the Xin Xin Ming of Sosan)
- No Water, No Moon
- Returning to the Source
- And the Flowers Showered
- The Grass Grows by Itself
- Nirvana: The Last Nightmare
- The Search (on the Ten BullsTen BullsTen Bulls or Ten Ox Herding Pictures is, in the tradition of Zen Buddhism, a series of short poems and accompanying pictures that are intended to illustrate the stages of a Mahāyāna Buddhist practitioner's progression towards enlightenment, as well as his or her subsequent perfection of wisdom...
) - Dang dang doko dang
- Ancient Music in the Pines
- A Sudden Clash of Thunder
- Zen: The Path of Paradox
- This Very Body the Buddha (on Hakuin's Song of Meditation)
On the Baul
Baul
Baul .Though Bauls comprise only a small fraction of the Bengali population, their influence on the culture of Bengal is considerable. In 2005, the Baul tradition was included in the list of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO.-Etymology:The origin of the word...
mystics:
- The Beloved
On Sufis:
- Until You Die
- Just Like That
- Unio Mystica Vols. I and II (on the poetry of SanaiSanaiHakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā'ī Ghaznavi was a Afghan Sufi poet who lived in Ghazna, in what is now Afghanistan between the 11th century and the 12th century. Some people spell his name as Sanayee. He died around 1131.-Life:...
)
On Hassidism
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
:
- The True Sage
- The Art of Dying
On the Upanishad
Upanishad
The Upanishads are philosophical texts considered to be an early source of Hindu religion. More than 200 are known, of which the first dozen or so, the oldest and most important, are variously referred to as the principal, main or old Upanishads...
s:
- I am That – Talks on Isa Upanishad
- The Supreme Doctrine
- The Ultimate Alchemy Vols. I and II
- Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi
On Heraclitus
Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
:
- The Hidden Harmony
On Kabir
Kabir
Kabīr was a mystic poet and saint of India, whose writings have greatly influenced the Bhakti movement...
:
- Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language
- The Divine Melody
- The Path of Love
On Buddhist Tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
:
- Tantra: The Supreme Understanding
- The Tantra Vision
On Patanjali
Patañjali
Patañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a commentary on Kātyāyana's vārttikas on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as an unspecified work of medicine .In...
and Yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
:
- Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Vols. I – X
(reprinted as Yoga, the Science of the Soul)
On Meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
methods:
- The Book of Secrets, Vols. I – V
- Meditation: the Art of Inner Ecstasy
- The Orange Book
- Meditation: The First and Last Freedom
Talks based on questions:
- I Am the Gate
- The Way of the White Clouds
- The Silent Explosion
- Dimensions Beyond the Known
- Roots and Wings
- The Rebel
Darshan
Darshan
or Darshan is a Sanskrit term meaning "sight" , vision, apparition, or glimpse. It is most commonly used for "visions of the divine" in Hindu worship, e.g. of a deity , or a very holy person or artifact...
interviews:
- Hammer on the Rock
- Above All, Don't Wobble
- Nothing to Lose but your Head
- Be Realistic: Plan for a Miracle
- The Cypress in the Courtyard
- Get Out of Your Own Way
- Beloved of my Heart
- A Rose is a Rose is a Rose
- Dance your way to God
- The Passion for the Impossible
- The Great Nothing
- God is not for Sale
- The Shadow of the Whip
- Blessed are the Ignorant
- The Buddha Disease
- Being in Love
See also
- Vigyan Bhairav TantraVigyan Bhairav TantraThe Vigyan Bhairav Tantra is a key text of the Trika school of Kashmir Shaivism. Cast as a discourse between the god Siva and his consort, it briefly presents 112 methods of meditation...
- 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attackThe 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the food poisoning of 751 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon, United States, through the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with salmonella...
- 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot1985 Rajneeshee assassination plotThe 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot was a conspiracy by a group of high-ranking followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to assassinate Charles Turner, the then-United States Attorney for the District of Oregon...
- 2010 Pune bombing2010 Pune bombingThe 2010 Pune bombing occurred on 13 February 2010 at approximately 7:15 pm ISTwhen a bomb exploded at the German Bakery in the city of Pune, Maharashtra, India. The blast killed seventeen people, and injured at least 60 more...
- Byron v. Rajneesh Foundation InternationalByron v. Rajneesh Foundation InternationalByron v. Rajneesh Foundation International was a 1985 lawsuit filed by Helen Byron in Portland, Oregon against Rajneesh Foundation International, the organization of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh . Byron had been recruited to join the Rajneesh movement by her daughter, Barbara. She traveled to...
- Rajneesh movementRajneesh movementThe Rajneesh movement is a term used by Hugh B. Urban and other commentators to refer collectively to persons inspired by the Indian mystic Osho , particularly initiated disciples who are referred to as "neo-sannyasins" or simply "sannyasins", also formerly known as Rajneeshees or "Orange People",...
Further reading
...... (Includes a 135-page section on RajneeshpuramRajneeshpuram
Rajneeshpuram, Oregon was an intentional community in Wasco County, Oregon, briefly incorporated as a city in the 1980s, which was populated with followers of the spiritual teacher Osho, then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.- History :...
previously published in two parts in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine, September 22, and September 29, 1986 editions.)........
External links
- Osho International Foundation website
- Osho World Foundation website – A website with a vast collection of Osho's audio and video recordings taken over 35 years; available in Hindi (4,000 hours+) and English (4,800 hours+)
- Rajneeshees in Oregon – The Untold Story. Select government documents, along with a 25-year retrospective by Les Zaitz. The OregonianThe OregonianThe Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
, April 2011.