Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan
Jain; 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), also known as Acharya
Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho (/ˈoʊʃoʊ/),
was an Indian godman, philosopher, mystic, and founder of the
Rajneesh movement. He was viewed as a controversial new religious
movement leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions,
insisting that spiritual experience could not be organized into any
one system of religious dogma. As a guru, he advocated meditation and
taught a unique form called dynamic meditation. Rejecting traditional
ascetic practices, he advocated that his followers live fully in the
world but without attachment to it. In expressing a more progressive
attitude to sexuality he caused controversy in India during the late
1960s and became known as "the sex guru".
Rajneesh experienced a spiritual
awakening in 1953 at the age of 21. Following several years in
academia, in 1966 Rajneesh resigned his post at the University of
Jabalpur and began traveling throughout India, becoming known as a
vocal critic of the orthodoxy of mainstream religions, as well as of
mainstream political ideologies and of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1970,
Rajneesh spent time in Mumbai initiating followers known as
"neo-sannyasins". During this period, he expanded
his spiritual teachings and commented extensively in discourses on
the writings of religious traditions, mystics, bhakti poets, and
philosophers from around the world. In 1974, Rajneesh relocated to
Pune, where an ashram was established and a variety of therapies,
incorporating methods first developed by the Human Potential
Movement, were offered to a growing Western following. By the late
1970s, the tension between the ruling Janata Party government of
Morarji Desai and the movement led to a curbing of the ashram's
development and a back tax claim estimated at $5 million.
In 1981, the Rajneesh movement's
efforts refocused on activities in the United States and Rajneesh
relocated to a facility known as Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County,
Oregon. The movement ran into conflict with county residents and the
state government, and a succession of legal battles concerning the
ashram's construction and continued development curtailed its
success. In 1985, Rajneesh publicly asked local authorities to
investigate his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and her close
supporters for a number of crimes, including a 1984 mass
food-poisoning attack intended to influence county elections, an
aborted assassination plot on U.S. attorney Charles H. Turner, the
attempted murder of Rajneesh's personal physician, and the bugging of
his own living quarters; authorities later convicted several members
of the ashram, including Sheela. That year, Rajneesh was deported
from the United States on separate immigration-related charges in
accordance with an Alford plea bargain. After his deportation, 21
countries denied him entry.
Rajneesh ultimately returned to Mumbai,
India, in 1986. After staying in the house of a disciple where he
resumed his discourses for six months, he returned to Pune in January
1987 and revived his ashram, where he died in 1990. Rajneesh's
ashram, now known as OSHO International Meditation Resort, and all
associated intellectual property, is managed by the registered Osho
International Foundation (formerly Rajneesh International
Foundation). Rajneesh's teachings have had an impact on Western New
Age thought, and their popularity reportedly increased between the
time of his death and 2005.
Life
Childhood and
adolescence: 1931–1950
Rajneesh (a childhood nickname from the
Sanskrit रजनी, rajanee, "night",
and ईश, isha, "lord",
meaning the "God of Night" or "The Moon"
(चंद्रमा) was born Chandra
Mohan Jain, the eldest of 11 children of a cloth merchant, at his
maternal grandparents' house in Kuchwada; a small village in the
Raisen District 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 eight years old. By
Rajneesh'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.
Rajneesh was profoundly affected by his grandfather's death, and
again by the death of his childhood girlfriend 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 gifted and rebellious student, and gained a reputation as a
formidable debater. Rajneesh became critical of traditional religion,
took an interest in many methods to expand consciousness, including
breath control, yogic exercises, meditation, fasting, the occult, and
hypnosis. According to Vasant Joshi, Rajneesh read widely from an
early age, and although as a young boy, he played sports; reading was
his primary interest. After showing an interest in the writings of
Marx and Engels, he was branded a communist and was threatened with
expulsion from school. According to Joshi, with the help of friends,
he built a small library containing mostly communist literature.
Rajneesh, according to his uncle Amritlal, also formed a group of
young people that regularly discussed communist ideology and their
opposition to religion.
Rajneesh was later to say, "I
have been interested in communism from my very childhood...communist
literature-perhaps there is no book that is missing from my library.
I have signed and dated each book before 1950. Small details are so
vivid before me, because that was my first entry into the
intellectual world. First I was deeply interested in communism, but
finding that it is a corpse I became interested in anarchism – that
was also a Russian phenomenon – Prince Kropotkin, Bakunin, Leo
Tolstoy. All three were anarchists: no state, no government in the
world."
He became briefly associated with
socialism and two Indian nationalist organizations: the Indian
National Army and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. However, his
membership in the organizations was short-lived as he could not
submit to any external discipline, ideology, or system.
University years and public speaker:
1951–1970
In 1951, aged 19, Rajneesh 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 at 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 Sammelan (Meeting
of all faiths) held at Jabalpur, organized by the Taranpanthi Jain
community into which he was born, and participated there from 1951 to
1968. He resisted his parents' pressure to marry. Rajneesh 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 BA in philosophy
at D. N. Jain College in 1955, he joined the University of Sagar,
where in 1957, he earned his MA in philosophy (with distinction). He
immediately secured a teaching position 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
traveled 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, Gandhi, and
institutional religions. He traveled so much that he would find it
difficult to sleep on a normal bed, because he had grown used to
sleeping amid the rocking of railway coach berths.
According to a speech given by Rajneesh
in 1969, socialism is the ultimate result of capitalism, and
capitalism itself, of revolution that brings about socialism.
Rajneesh stated that he believed that in India, socialism was
inevitable, but fifty, sixty or seventy years hence, India should
apply its efforts to first creating wealth. He said that socialism
would socialize only 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 did not regard capitalism and socialism as opposite
systems, but considered it disastrous for any country to talk about
socialism without first building a capitalist economy. He criticised
orthodox Indian religions as dead, filled with empty rituals,
oppressing their followers with fears of damnation and promises of
blessings. Such statements made him controversial, but also gained
him a loyal following that included a number of wealthy merchants and
businessmen. These people sought individual consultations from him
about their spiritual development and transforming their daily lives,
in return for donations and his practice snowballed. 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 Super-consciousness, he
scandalized 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, his
statements raised controversy again when he said, "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 compared the treatment
of lower caste shudras and women with the treatment of animals. He
characterized brahmin as being motivated by self-interest, provoking
the Shankaracharya of Puri, who tried in vain to have his lecture
stopped.
Mumbai: 1971–1974
At a public meditation event in early
1970, Rajneesh presented his Dynamic Meditation method for the first
time. Dynamic Meditation involved breathing very fast and celebrating
with music and dance. He left Jabalpur for Mumbai at the end of June.
On 26 September 1970, he initiated his first group of disciples or
neo-sannyasins. Becoming a disciple apparently meant assuming a new
name and wearing the traditional saffron 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 Indian National
Congress during the struggle for Indian independence, with close ties
to Gandhi, Nehru, and Morarji Desai. She raised the money that
enabled Rajneesh to stop his travels and settle down. In December
1970, he moved to the Woodlands Apartments in Mumbai, where he gave
lectures and received visitors, among them his first Western
visitors. He now traveled rarely, no longer speaking at open public
meetings. In 1971, he adopted the title "Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh".
Speaking about the name change from
Acharya to Bhagwan, Rajneesh said in later years, "I loved
the term. I said, "At least for a few years that will do. Then
we can drop it."
I have chosen it for a specific purpose
and it has been serving well, because people who used to come to
gather knowledge, they stopped. The day I called myself Bhagwan, they
stopped. It was too much for them, it was too much for their egos,
someone calling himself Bhagwan...It hurts the ego. Now I`ve changed
my function absolutely. I started working on a different level, in a
different dimension. Now I give you being, not knowledge. I was an
acharya and they were students; they were learning. Now I am no more
a teacher and you are not here as students. I am here to impart
being. I am here to make you awaken. I am not here to give knowledge,
I am going to give you knowing- and that is a totally different
dimension.
Calling myself Bhagwan was
simply symbolic – that now I have taken a different dimension to
work. And it has been tremendously useful. All the wrong people
automatically disappeared and a totally different quality of people
started arriving. It worked well. It sorted out well, only those who
are ready to dissolve with me, remained. All others escaped. They
created space around me. Otherwise, they were crowding too much, and
it was very difficult for the real seekers to come closer to me. The
crowd disappeared. The word "Bhagwan" functioned like an
atomic explosion. It did well. I am happy that I chose it."
Shree is a polite form of address
roughly equivalent to the English "Sir"; Bhagwan
means "blessed one", used in Indian tradition as a term of
respect for a human being in whom the divine is no longer hidden but
apparent. In Hinduism it can also be used to signify a deity or
avatar. In many parts of India and South Asia, Bhagwan represents the
abstract concept of a universal God to Hindus who are spiritual and
religious but do not worship a specific deity.
Later, when he changed his name, he
redefined the meaning of Bhagwan.
Pune ashram: 1974–1981
The humid climate of Mumbai proved
detrimental to Rajneesh's health: he developed diabetes, asthma, and
numerous allergies. In 1974, on the 21st anniversary of his
experience in Jabalpur, he moved to a property in Koregaon Park,
Pune, purchased with the help of Ma Yoga Mukta (Catherine Venizelos),
a Greek shipping heiress. Rajneesh spoke at the Pune ashram from 1974
to 1981. The two adjoining houses and 6 acres (2.4 ha) 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,
jewelry, ceramics, and organic cosmetics and hosted performances of
thereat, 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 Pune 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 am, Rajneesh 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 Rajneesh's "buddhafield". In
evening darshans, Rajneesh 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 Rajneesh or selected
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 Pune 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 Pune
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 modeled on the
community the Russian mystic Gurdjieff led in France in the 1930s.
Key features incorporated from Gurdjieff were hard, unpaid labour,
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 alleged to be financing
extended stays in India through prostitution and drug-running. A few
people later alleged that while Rajneesh was not directly involved,
they discussed such plans and activities with him in darshan and he
gave his blessing.
By the latter 1970s, the Pune ashram
was too small to contain the rapid growth and Rajneesh 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. Besides, 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 Rajneesh 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 Rajneesh'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 Rajneesh to be an agent of the CIA.
By 1981, Rajneesh's ashram hosted
30,000 visitors per year. Daily discourse audiences were by then
predominantly European and American. Many observers noted that
Rajneesh's lecture style changed in the late '70s, 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, Rajneesh entered a
three-and-a-half-year period of self-imposed public silence, and
satsangs—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 Rajneesh's
secretary.
United States and the Oregon
commune: 1981–1985
Arrival in the United States
In 1981, the increased tensions around
the Pune ashram, along with criticism of its activities and
threatened punitive action by Indian authorities, provided an impetus
for the ashram to consider the establishment of a new commune in the
United States. According to Susan J. Palmer, the move to the United
States was a plan from Sheela. Sheela and Rajneesh had discussed the
idea of establishing a new commune in the US in late 1980, although
he did not agree to travel there until May 1981. On 1 June that year
he traveled to the United States on a tourist visa, ostensibly for
medical purposes, and spent several months at a Rajneeshee retreat
centre located at Kip's Castle in Montclair, New Jersey. He had been
diagnosed with a prolapsed disc in early 1981 and treated by several
doctors, including James Cyriax, a St. Thomas' Hospital
musculoskeletal physician and expert in epidural injections flown in
from London. Rajneesh's previous secretary, Laxmi, reported to
Frances FitzGerald that "she had failed to find a property in
India adequate to Rajneesh's needs, and thus, when the medical
emergency came, the initiative had passed to Sheela". A
public statement by Sheela indicated that Rajneesh was in grave
danger if he remained in India, but would receive appropriate medical
treatment in America if he needed surgery. Despite the stated serious
nature of the situation, Rajneesh never sought outside medical
treatment during his time in the United States, leading the
Immigration and Naturalization Service to contend that he had a
preconceived intent to remain there. Years later, Rajneesh pleaded
guilty to immigration fraud, while maintaining his innocence of the
charges that he made false statements on his initial visa application
about his alleged intention to remain in the US when he came from
India.
Establishing Rajneeshpuram
On 13 June 1981, Sheela's husband, John
Shelfer, signed a purchase contract to buy property in Oregon for
US$5.75 million, and a few days later assigned the property to the US
foundation. The property was a 64,229-acre (260 km2) ranch,
previously known as "The Big Muddy Ranch" and
located across two counties (Wasco and Jefferson). It was renamed
"Rancho Rajneesh" and Rajneesh moved there on 29
August. Initial local community reactions ranged from hostility to
tolerance, depending on distance from the ranch. The press reported,
and another study found, that the development met almost immediately
with intense local, state, and federal opposition from the
government, press, and citizenry. Within months a series of legal
battles ensued, principally over land use. Within a year of arriving,
Rajneesh and his followers had become embroiled in a series of legal
battles with their neighbours, the principal conflict relating to
land use. The commune leadership was uncompromising and behaved
impatiently in dealing with the locals. They were also insistent upon
having demands met, and engaged in implicitly threatening and
directly confrontational behaviour. Whatever the true intention, the
repeated changes in their stated plans looked to many like conscious
deception.
In May 1982 the residents of Rancho
Rajneesh voted to incorporate it as the city of Rajneeshpuram. The
conflict with local residents escalated, with increasingly bitter
hostility on both sides, and over the following years, the commune
was subject to constant and coordinated pressures from various
coalitions of Oregon residents. 1000 Friends of Oregon immediately
commenced and then prosecuted over the next six years numerous court
and administrative actions to void the incorporation and cause
buildings and improvement to be removed. 1000 Friends publicly called
for the city to be "dismantled". A 1000 Friends
Attorney stated that if 1000 Friends won, the Foundation would be
"forced to remove their sewer system and tear down many of the
buildings. 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 some to the State of Oregon to return to their home
cities at the state's expense. In March 1982, local residents formed
a group called Citizens for Constitutional Cities to oppose the Ranch
development. An initiative petition was filed that would order the
governor "'to contain, control and remove' the threat
of invasion by an 'alien cult'".
The Oregon legislature passed several
bills that sought to slow or stop the development and the City of
Rajneeshpuram—including HB 3080, which stopped distribution of
revenue sharing funds for any city whose legal status had been
challenged. Rajneeshpuram was the only city impacted. The Governor of
Oregon, Vic Atiyeh, stated in 1982 that since their neighbors did not
like them, they should leave Oregon. In May 1982, United States
Senator Mark Hatfield called the INS in Portland. An INS memo stated
that the Senator was "very concerned" about how this
"religious cult" is "endangering the way of
life for a small agricultural town ... and is a threat to public
safety". Such actions "often do have influence on
immigration decisions". In 1983 the Oregon Attorney General
filed a lawsuit seeking to declare the City void because of an
alleged violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment
to the Constitution. The Court found that the City property was owned
and controlled by the Foundation, and entered judgment for the State.
The court disregarded the controlling US constitutional cases
requiring that a violation be redressed by the "least
intrusive means" necessary to correct the violation, which
it had earlier cited. The city was forced to "acquiesce"
in the decision, as part of a settlement of Rajneesh's immigration
case.
While the various legal battles ensued
Rajneesh remained behind the scenes, having withdrawn from a public
facing role in what commune leadership referred to as a period of
"silence." During this time, which lasted until
November 1984, in lieu of Rajneesh speaking publicly, videos of his
discourses were played to commune audiences. His time was allegedly
spent mostly in seclusion and he communicated only with a few key
disciples, including Ma Anand Sheela and his caretaker girlfriend Ma
Yoga Vivek (Christine Woolf). He lived in a trailer next to a covered
swimming pool and other amenities. At this time he did not lecture
and interacted with followers via a Rolls-Royce 'drive-by' ceremony.
He also gained public notoriety for amassing a large collection of
Rolls-Royce cars, eventually numbering 93 vehicles. In 1981 he had
given Sheela limited power of attorney, removing any remaining limits
the following year. In 1983, Sheela announced that he would
henceforth speak only with her. He later said that she kept him in
ignorance. Many sannyasins expressed doubts about whether Sheela
properly represented Rajneesh and many dissidents left Rajneeshpuram
in protest of its autocratic leadership. Resident sannyasins without
US citizenship experienced visa difficulties that some tried to
overcome by marriages of convenience. Commune administrators tried to
resolve Rajneesh's own difficulty in this respect by declaring him
the head of a religion, "Rajneeshism".
During the Oregon years there was an
increased emphasis on Rajneesh's prediction that the world might be
destroyed by nuclear war or other disasters in the 1990s. Rajneesh
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 exclusivity, 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 Rajneesh had predicted the death of two-thirds of
humanity from AIDS. Sannyasins were required to wear rubber gloves
and condoms if they had sex, and to refrain from kissing, measures
widely represented in the press as an extreme over-reaction since
condoms were not usually recommended for AIDS prevention because AIDS
was considered a homosexual disease at that stage. During his
residence in Rajneeshpuram, Rajneesh also 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 Rajneesh took sixty milligrams
of Valium each day and was addicted to nitrous oxide. Rajneesh denied
these charges when questioned about them by journalists.
At the peak of the Rajneeshpuram era,
Rajneesh, assisted by a sophisticated legal and business
infrastructure, had created a corporate machine consisting of various
front companies and subsidiaries. At this time, the three main
identifiable entities within his organisation were: the Ranch Church,
or Rajneesh International Foundation (RIF); the Rajneesh Investment
Corporation (RIC), through which the RIF was managed; and the
Rajneesh Neo-Sannyasin International Commune (RNSIC). The umbrella
organisation that oversaw all investment activities was Rajneesh
Services International Ltd., a company incorporated in the UK but
based in Zürich. There were also smaller organizations, such as
Rajneesh Travel Corp, Rajneesh Community Holdings, and the Rajneesh
Modern Car Collection Trust, whose sole purpose was to deal with the
acquisition and rental of Rolls-Royces.
1984 bioterror attack
Rajneesh had coached Sheela in using
media coverage to her advantage and during his period of public
silence he privately stated that when Sheela spoke, she was speaking
on his behalf. He had also supported her when disputes about her
behavior arose within the commune leadership, but in early 1984, as
tension amongst the inner circle peaked, a private meeting was
convened with Sheela and his personal house staff. According to the
testimony of Rajneesh's dentist, Swami Devageet (Charles Harvey
Newman), she was admonished during a meeting, with Rajneesh declaring
that his house, and not hers, was the centre of the commune. Devageet
claimed Rajneesh warned that Sheela's jealousy of anyone close to him
would inevitably make them a target.
Several months later, on 30 October
1984, he ended his period of public silence, announcing that it was
time to "speak his own truths". On 19 December,
Rajneesh was asked if organisation was necessary for a religion to
survive. Disciples present during the talk remember Rajneesh stating
that "I will not leave you under a fascist regime".
According to the testimony of Rajneesh's dentist, Swami Devageet,
this statement seemed directly aimed at Sheela - or to be directly
against the present organizational structure. The next day,
sannyasins usually responsible for the editing and transcribing of
the talks into book form were told by the management that the tapes
of the discourse had been irreparably damaged by technical trouble
and were unavailable. After rumours that Sheela had suppressed the
discourse grew, Sheela created a transcription of the talk, which was
reproduced in The Rajneesh Times. All suggestions that Rajneeshpuram
itself had become a fascist state and Sheela was, in the words of Ma
Prem Sangeet, "Hitler in a red dress", had been
deleted.
Rajneesh spoke almost daily, except for
a three-month gap between April and July 1985. In July, he resumed
daily public discourses; on 16 September, a few days after Sheela and
her entire management team had suddenly left the commune for Europe,
Rajneesh held a press conference in which he labeled Sheela and her
associates a "gang of fascists". He accused them of
having committed serious crimes, most 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 in Oregon, wiretapping and bugging within the commune and
within his own home, and a potentially lethal bioterror attack
sickening 751 citizens of The Dalles, using Salmonella to impact
county elections. While his allegations were initially greeted with
skepticism by outside observers, the subsequent investigation by U.S.
authorities confirmed these accusations and resulted in the
conviction of Sheela and several of her lieutenants. On 30 September
1985, Rajneesh denied that he was a religious teacher. His disciples
burned 5,000 copies the book Rajneeshism: An Introduction to Bhagwan
Shree Rajneesh and His Religion a 78-page compilation of his
teachings that defined "Rajneeshism" as "a
religion-less 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".
The salmonella attack is considered the
first confirmed instance of chemical or biological terrorism to have
occurred in the United States. Rajneesh 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 they believe
that Sheela was being used as a convenient scapegoat. Others have
pointed to the fact that although Sheela had bugged Rajneesh'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
Rajneesh had any part in her crimes. It was, however, reported 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 Rajneesh was guilty of more crimes than those for which he
was eventually prosecuted. Frohnmayer asserted that Rajneesh's
philosophy was not "disapproving of poisoning" and
that he felt he and Sheela had been "genuinely evil".
Nonetheless, U.S. Attorney Turner and
Oregon Attorney General Frohnmeyer acknowledged that "they
had little evidence of (Rajneesh) being involved in any of the
criminal activities that unfolded at the ranch". According
to court testimony by Ma Ava (Ava Avalos), a prominent disciple,
Sheela played associates a tape recording of a meeting she had with
Rajneesh about the "need to kill people" to
strengthen wavering sannyasins' resolve in participating in her
murderous plots, but it was difficult to hear, so Sheela produced a
transcript of the tape. "She came back to the meeting and ...
began to play the tape. It was a little hard to hear what he was
saying. ... But Param Bodhi, assisted her, and went and transcribed
it. 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.” Rajneesh's personal
attorney Philip Niren Toelkes, wrote in 2021 that, "As
is fully supported in the testimony of Ava Avalos, an admitted
co-conspirator, Sheela presented Osho with a general question about
whether people would have to die if the Community was attacked and
used his general response that it would perhaps be necessary. Sheela
then took an edited recording and 'transcript' of the recording,
prepared under her control, back to a meeting to justify her planned
criminal actions and overcome the reservations of her
co-conspirators." Ava Avalos also said in her
testimony to the FBI investigators that "Sheela informed them
that Bhagwan was not to know what was going on, and that if Bhagwan
were to ask them about anything that would occur, 'they would have to
lie to Bhagwan'."
Sheela initiated attempts to murder
Rajneesh's caretaker and girlfriend, Ma Yoga Vivek, and his personal
physician, Swami Devaraj (George Meredith), because she thought that
they were a threat to Rajneesh. She had secretly recorded a
conversation between Devaraj and Rajneesh "in which the
doctor agreed to obtain drugs the guru wanted to ensure a peaceful
death if he decided to take his own life". When asked if he
was targeted because of a plan to give the guru euthanasia in an 2018
interview with ‘The Cut’, Rajneesh's doctor denied this
and claimed that “She attacked his household and everybody in it
and found any excuse she could to do that. She constantly hated the
fact that we had access to Osho. We were a constant threat to her
total monopoly on power. “
On 23 October 1985, a federal grand
jury indicted Rajneesh and several other disciples with conspiracy to
evade immigration laws. The indictment was returned in camera, but
word was leaked to Rajneesh's lawyer. Negotiations to allow Rajneesh
to surrender to authorities in Portland if a warrant were issued
failed. Rumors of a national guard takeover and a planned violent
arrest of Rajneesh led to tension and fears of shooting. On the
strength of Sheela's tape recordings, authorities later said they
believed that there had been a plan that sannyasin women and children
would have been asked to create a human shield if authorities tried
to arrest Rajneesh at the commune. On 28 October, Rajneesh and a
small number of sannyasins accompanying him were arrested aboard two
rented Learjets in North Carolina at Charlotte Douglas International
Airport; according to federal authorities the group was en route to
Bermuda to avoid prosecution. Cash amounting to $58,000, as well as
35 watches and bracelets worth a combined $1 million, were found on
the aircraft. Rajneesh had by all accounts been informed neither of
the impending arrest nor the reason for the journey. Officials took
the full ten days legally available to transfer him from North
Carolina to Portland for arraignment, which included three nights
near Oklahoma City.
In Portland on 8 November before U.S.
District Court Judge Edward Leavy, Rajneesh pleaded "not
guilty" to all 34 charges, was released on $500,000 bail,
and returned to the commune at Rajneeshpuram. On the advice of his
lawyers, he later 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 a sham marriage to acquire
U.S. residency. Under the deal his lawyers made with the U.S.
Attorney's office he was given a ten-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 U.S. Attorney General.
As to "preconceived intent",
at the time of the investigation and prosecution, federal court
appellate cases and the INS regulations permitted "dual
intent", a desire to stay, but a willingness to comply with
the law if denied permanent residence. Further, the relevant intent
is that of the employer, not the employee. Given the public nature of
Rajneesh's arrival and stay, and the aggressive scrutiny by the INS,
Rajneesh would appear to have had to be willing to leave the U.S. if
denied benefits. The government nonetheless prosecuted him based on
preconceived intent. As to arranging a marriage, the government only
claimed that Rajneesh told someone who lived in his house that they
should marry to stay. Such encouragement appears to constitute
incitement, a crime in the United States, but not a conspiracy, which
requires the formation of a plan and acts in furtherance.
Travels and return to Pune:
1985–1990
Following his exit from the US,
Rajneesh returned to India, landing in Delhi on 17 November 1985. 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 Manali, Himachal Pradesh. In Manali, Rajneesh
said that he was interested in buying, for use as a possible new
commune site, an atoll in the South Pacific that Marlon Brando was
trying to sell. According to Rajneesh, the island could be made much
bigger by the addition of houseboats and Japanese style floating
gardens. Sannyasins visited the island, but it was deemed unsuitable
after they realized the area was prone to hurricanes. 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 Greek National Intelligence Service (KYP), he
flew to Geneva, then to Stockholm and London, 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 Rajneesh
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. Refueling in Gander and in Madrid, Rajneesh
returned to Bombay, India, on 30 July 1986.
In January 1987, Rajneesh returned to
the ashram in Pune 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. Rajneesh
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 maroon robes—only while on
ashram premises—was reintroduced in the summer of 1989, along with
white robes worn for evening meditation and black robes for group
leaders.
In November 1987, Rajneesh expressed
his belief that his deteriorating health (nausea, fatigue, pain in
extremities, and lack of resistance to infection) was due to
poisoning by the US authorities while in prison. His doctors and
former attorney, Philip Toelkes (Swami Prem Niren), hypothesized
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. US attorney Charles H. Hunter described
this as "complete fiction", while others suggested
exposure to HIV or chronic diabetes and stress.
From early 1988, Rajneesh's discourses
focused exclusively on Zen.[199] In early 1989, Rajneesh gave a
series of some of the longest lectures he had given, titled
"Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind", in which he
criticized capitalism and spoke of the possibilities of sannyas in
Russia. In these talks he stated that communism could evolve into
spiritualism, and spiritualism into anarchism. “I have always
been very scientific in my approach, either outside or inside.
Communism can be the base. Then spirituality has to be its growth, to
provide what is missing." 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 "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, Rajneesh 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.
Death
At age 58, Rajneesh died on 19 January
1990 at the ashram in Pune, India. The official cause of death was
heart failure, but a statement released by his commune said that he
died because "living in the body had become a hell" after
an alleged poisoning in U.S. jails. His ashes were placed in his
newly built bedroom in Lao Tzu House at the ashram in Pune. The
epitaph reads, "Never Born – Never Died Only visited this
planet Earth between December 11, 1931 and January 19, 1990".
An article in The Quint from January
2019 claims that Rajneesh's death still remains a mystery and asks
some questions such as "Was Osho murdered for money? Is his
will fake? Are foreigners looting India's treasures?".
