Osho Rajneesh — Sex Guru or the true Master of our times?
As the sun sets down at Osho Ashram in Pune, Signora Vivano dons her white robe and prepares for the evening meditation. It is only the second day at the Ashram but she can sense that she is on to something good, if not the life-changing experience that she had hoped for. After a session of dancing, naughty joke, and audio/video discourse, she goes for dinner makes friends with people from different countries and then retires for the day at her room in the campus. After a few days of meditation, she would feel light and positive and will be ready to go back to the real world.
The experience of Vivano is no different from hundreds of other visitors to Osho Ashrams in Europe, America of India who thronged these resort-style meditation or the ‘new age’ enlightenment centers to break the monotony of life and to learn and live life a better way. The hundreds of books/CD/videos of Osho Rajneesh that are downloaded or bought every day also a testament to his power and hold on people nearly 27 years after he breathed last.
Why was Osho Controversial?
Though there have been many cult-leaders and philosophers before and after Osho Rajneesh; there is hardly anyone that matches him in wit, intellect or tremendous hold on disciples. Perhaps it was the fusion of two different persons — of a philosopher and a cult leader that make his stand out in the crowded gallery of spiritual leaders. A successful cult leader has rarely been rated as a first-rank philosopher and vice-versa and this is what makes Osho unique in annals of spiritual teachers. His near violent attack on all religions or philosophies is not unique; most Masters tell their followers that theirs is the only true way to reach God or divinity. But Osho openly advocates burying all religions, without offering his followers a new religion. His advocacy on over-indulgence in the supposed vices like sex or wealth instead of abstinence also sets him apart from his competitors.
Teaching on Sex
There is a famous story of one FBI agent who visited Rajneshpuram — the city named after Osho — in Oregon country, who reported seeing a couple making out in the open. It was incidents like this, plus the cloak of secrecy surrounding the Ashrams that fuelled speculation of wild sex orgies in the ‘new-age’ commune created by Osho. The man with the eternal mischievous grin did little to stop this kind of negative publicity; if anything he added fuel to fire with his discourse and books that exhorted his followers to see sex as a game and over-indulge in it before they tire of it and then look towards divinity or enlightenment.
Osho’s many lovers
Osho is said to have taken various lovers among his sannyasin; another act that sets him apart from other Gurus or teachers. He had at last one long-term intimate relationship with a British woman Christine Wolf Smith a.k.a Ma Yoga Vivek, who is reported to have become pregnant with him. When questioned about his personal sexual escapades or some women’s remark that he is a good lover, he chose not to deny but accept the fact and the inference that could be drawn from it.
Hold on flower children
It is without debate that like all successful cult leaders, Rajneesh had an immense hold on his followers. It can be seen int the way they were ready to shower all their wealth, personal belongings on him — the master — and were ready to follow him to the ends of the earth. During his imprisonment in the United States of America, one of his interrogators remarked that “Bhagwan Rajneesh is a very intelligent man, he is also a very dangerous man because he can alter people’s minds.” Another fact that is universally acknowledged is that he had a magnetic personality and people could stay and listen to him for hours. This near hypnotic effect that he had on his followers could be seen in innumerous videos available online.
Ma Anand’s Allegations
Perhaps nothing is as damaging for the famed ‘Master of our time’ whom critics claim to be a false messiah then the revelations of his one-time personal secretary Sheela Silverman better known as Ma Anand Sheela. In her unflattering portrayal of her Guru and one-time boss, she portrays him as a child with a fixation on expensive ‘toys’ like 93 Rolls Royce, millions of dollars worth of diamond-studded pens and watches. Bhagwan Rajneesh also gives credence to this ‘fixation over money’; in one of his books, he mentions the incident when his father a Jain community trader asked him what was he doing? Rajneesh replied he was setting out to make the biggest empire in the world. Coming back to Anand Sheila; there were allegations and counter-allegations after she was ‘forced’ to flee Rajneshpuram, the ranch city in Oregon County that he had helped establish on a ranch. There are also many ‘stories’ of sexual escapes of Rajneesh with his sannyasin. Even more damaging are the allegations that many of his female devotees prostituted themselves to pay for the expensive meditations! His critics question as to how could a man who claimed to show the path of freedom and happiness to mankind could be part of a commercial enterprise with multi-million dollar turnovers and charge for giving gyaan or knowledge?
Examining Osho’s philosophy
Osho philosophy is as simple as it is profound. As per the philosophy gold medalist from India, all the religions of the past should be debunked. There is no personal God; we need God in the same way we need a father figure. We have CREATED God because we wanted one. The path to freedom is bury all religions, meditate, experience Universe of Godliness and then become like God. He claims to have experience enlightenment and through meditation methods taught by him, every person can achieve the same enlightenment and inner peace. The critics accuse him of promoting narcissism, free-sex, drugs, and that his social experiment had all the hallmarks of a typical ‘cult-culture’, which was if anything made worse due to murders supposedly planned by one section of his sannyasin.
Osho taught his followers to focus on ‘Here and Now’ and that there is no personal God. They can all experience the divine and become God themselves with his meditation techniques. But the challenging part was that he, Osho was entitled to change his mind or his statement and his philosophy any time he wanted to. This made him a dynamic philosopher but it also made logic dance on its head and confused his serious students during his time, and even now. People who want to critically examine his teachings sometime get confused; when they come across two contradictory things said and taught by Osho. May be he did this on purpose, enjoying its shock value and using it as a trick to force people to think for themselves, experience themselves and not blindly follow anyone, including Osho.
Pawn of new age/one world government conspiracy?
Another little known but interesting school of thought is that Osho was an agent of Illuminati and One World Government. There is an extensive summary available online here that promotes this theory. The logic is that he never said anything against Illuminati or a secret society supposedly controlling the world affairs. And big corporations send their employees to his Ashram for meditation courses, thereby funneling millions of dollars in his enterprise. His attack on Christianity and establish religions are considered psycho-ops controlled and managed by the supposed secret-society like Illuminati to confuse and weaken society.
To understand Rajneesh the man and Osho the philosopher, we have to split him in two distinct, if slightly overlapping personas, which are that of a cult leader and a philosopher. While Rajneesh the cult leader and his various acts during his lifetime portray him in an unflattering light; he also does not comes out as a selfless and do-gooder, caring persona that you would expect from a Spiritual leader.
However, history will remember him best as Osho — the philosopher. And there is no denying that his philosophy hits your consciousness like a sledge hammer; what he says makes perfect sense and his books are immensely readable, and his discourses interesting and worth listening. Like drugs give you a high, alcohol gives you a kick sooner or later; in a similar way you may start as a casual reader or listener but somewhere his words kicks or jolts your consciousness and that is his unrivaled success as a philosopher.
Osho once remarked that ‘dead man rule’ as is obvious from the fact all our religious, scriptures, laws, morals, ethos and the way of life is dictated by what was written or said by people long dead or gone. It is a strange dichotomy that he too has not escaped the fate — of ruling from beyond the grave. It is perhaps then only apt to end with Osho own words on this:
“… I always want to say the last word myself. Even in my grave I will sit up and say, “Okay, close it.” If it is a funeral… but if it is done as it is in India, I will say, “Okay, start the fire!” “But I want to have the last word. If you bug me I can be terrible. “It is I who is going to have the last laugh.”
