|
by
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/rajneesh.html
I. Group Profile
Name: Osho (or Rajneeshism)
Founder: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (né Chandra Mohan Jain)
Date of Birth: December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990
Birth Place: Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh, India
Year Founded: 1964
Sacred or Revered
Texts:
Rajneesh lectured on many topics and extracted material from the
Upanishads and the Bible and many different philosophical and
psychological perspectives. He encouraged the exploration of all different
religions, and also other therapies such as Tantra and many forms of
meditation, and by the end of his "leadership" he didn't see himself as a
religious leader at all. He published many of his own volumes containing
lectures and collections of his writings and opinions.
Cult or Sect:
Negative sentiments are typically implied when the concepts "cult" and
"sect" are employed in popular discourse. Since the Religious Movements
Homepage seeks to promote religious tolerance and appreciation of the
positive benefits of pluralism and religious diversity in human cultures,
we encourage the use of alternative concepts that do not carry implicit
negative stereotypes. For a more detailed discussion of both scholarly and
popular usage of the concepts "cult" and "sect," please visit our
Conceptualizing "Cult" and "Sect" page, where you will find additional
links to related issues.
Size of Group:
At its peak, 600 centers around the world housed 200,000 members.
Currently the group runs about 20 meditation centers worldwide. (religioustolerance.org)
II. History
The history of Osho, or Rajneeshism as it was formerly known, is a
long and sordid one. The guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was a fascinating and
evidently rather mesmerizing and convincing man, whose beliefs changed
several times during his life. He started out founding an ashram, or
residential learning center or commune, in Poona, India, with a few Indian
sannyasins: disciples or renunciates. He eventually encountered opposition
and tension with the larger Indian society and fled to the U.S. After a
brief layover in New Jersey, he started up a new ashram on a ranch in
Oregon with many of his old followers. The Rajneeshee were met with
suspicion from the very beginning and the ensuing barage of controversy,
legal action, and confusion led to the deportation of Bhagwan in 1985.
Rajneesh was born and grew up in Kuchwada in central India; he was a
well-read youth but went through a period of rebellion upon the death of
his grandfather. Then the death of his childhood girlfriend in 1947
reportedly sent him into deep depression and malaise which culminated in
his "enlightenment" (Carter: 42). He graduated from high school in 1951
and went on to study philosophy at college in Jabalpur but was thrown out
halfway through (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 77). Attending another college, he
went through somewhat of a "nervous breakdown." He dealt with this by
running and meditating a great deal.
Twenty years later he reported that the end of this period was when he
became enlightened, after meditating one night in a Jabalpur garden under
a maulshree tree (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 77).
He graduated from college in 1955 with an M.A. in philosophy, and went to
teach at the Raipur Sanskrit College in 1957. Three years later he was
appointed assistant professor at the University of Jabalpur.
In 1960 Rajneesh began to give public lectures during which he would
defend controversial views on taboo and sensitive subjects such as Ghandi,
socialism, and orthodox Hinduism, just to have something to argue, not
necessarily because he believed the position he defended (Fitzgerald,
1986a: 77). He urged that India needed the advancements and technology of
modern society.
In 1968 he spoke about the primal divine energy of sex and that sexual
feelings should not be repressed (Carter: 44). Those impressed most by his
message, rich Bombay businessmen, were hosted at meditation camps along
with their families, hosted by Rajneesh starting in 1964 (Carter: 44). He
took his first real disciple, a woman who came to be known as Ma Yoga
Laxmi, from one of these families; she became his secretary in 1970 and
managed all of his practical matters (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 77).
Rajneesh's style began to change as he made the transition from a
lecturing philosopher to a religious man teaching spiritual disciples. The
spiritual marketplace in India is very competitive and Rajneesh began
setting up "camps" to test-market, in a way, new "devices" to deliver the
"product"; that is, the promise of "enlightenment." These devices would
serve a market not yet tapped by other systems; an appealing aspect of
Bhagwan's devices was that they were drawn from both the East and West
(Carter: 45).
What arose from this was a new method called "dynamic meditation,"
introduced in spring 1970. In this practice worshippers would begin by
jumping around and shouting whatever popped into their minds; then they
would dance around quietly for a few minutes and induce hyperventilation
and "watch their thoughts go" (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 78).
That fall he founded the Neo-Sannyas International Movement and initiated
a few disciples in the first steps to spiritually awaken the world. The
next year he changed his name to "Bhagwan," calling himself Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh, and soon told of his enlightenment twenty years earlier
(Fitzgerald, 1986a: 78). Rajneesh gained many young Western followers in
the following years and gave them special attention. He sent them home to
set up Rajneeshee centers.
Rajneesh liked the different way Westerners thought as opposed to Indians.
Indians were searching for material wealth to supplement their lives
whereas Westerners had already experienced worldly prosperity and had
realized it was not enough to sustain their quest for spiritual
fulfillment (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 78). The contribution of his Western
follower extended to integrating many different elements to the
"therapies" of Bhagwan, including primal-scream and encounter-group
therapies, Gestalt, bioenergetics, and rolfing" (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 78).
In 1973 Bhagwan sent out a team of sannyasin to an isolated, primitive
site at Kailash and told them to build a commune, experimenting with
control techniques and giving different "disciplines" to several
disciples. The leader of the group was directed to "test" the group by
decreasing privileges and increasing workloads, and then all of a sudden,
without reason, the tests were reversed. From the group who stayed,
Bhagwan picked those who would serve as trusted staff -- at Poona and
later in Oregon (Carter 53).
In 1974 Laxmi established the Rajneesh Foundation and moved Rajneesh and
his disciples to the affluent hillside city of Poona with it's healthier
climate. Rajneesh no longer saw his disciples on an individual basis, but
only twice a day in a group, lecturing or answering questions (Fitzgerald,
1986a: 78).
Rajneesh soon became known for his lectures and by 1976 he had become one
of the main stopping points on the guru circuit travelled by many curious
Westerners. They came in great numbers to visit the ashram, and many
stayed; by the end of their stay in Poona the ashram housed 600 followers
(Fitzgerald, 1986a: 80).
The therapies become more diverse and experimental as time went on, and in
some cases came to involve physical violence and sexual aggression. By
1979, the ashram was decidedly and dominantly peopled by Westerners, and
it was encountering problems with the surrounding society in Poona. The
public displays of affection, smuggling of drugs by disciples,
prostitution by some of the female disciples in Bombay, Rajneesh himself,
and rumors of the therapies were all issues facing the ashram (Fitzgerald,
1986a: 85).
The "market of seekers" at this time was starting to dry up, and attempts
to diversify by the Rajneeshee met resistance of differing kinds as each
attempt impinged on other systems (Carter: 61). In correlation with the
changing face of the ashram, Rajneesh's lectures were changing as well,
becoming less and less structured and focused. Because the disciples fed
his lack of focus and facilitated his random collections of anecdotes and
crude jokes as lectures, the ashram become more extreme under the
influence of disorder. Public disapproval with the ashram was widespread,
and in 1980 an attempted assault on Rajneesh was committed by a young
Hindu (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 85).
Laxmi attempted several times to move the ashram to a more spacious
location, but all her efforts were thwarted by an unsympathetic and
suspicious government. With hardly any advanced warning or word to anyone,
Rajneesh up and left the country for the U.S. at the end of May 1981 with
eighteen disciples.
Suspicion surrounded Rajneesh's entry into the U.S., especially when he
applied for permanent residency six months later. His original claim of
needing medical treatment became moot as his condition improved
drastically upon arrival in the States. The I.N.S. in fact contended that
Rajneesh had a preconceived intent to stay in the country and that false
information had been offered in Rajneesh's application (Fitzgerald, 1986a:
86).
Laxmi's secretary position was taken over by another disciple named Sheela,
who first suggested that Bhagwan move to the U.S. Rajneesh's first
residence in the U.S. was a castle chosen by Sheela and her Chidvilas
Center in Montclair, NJ. (Carter 70). Soon after they arrived in the U.S.,
the search continued for a site for the new commune. After a complicated
set of transactions, the 65,000 acre Big Muddy Ranch in eastern Oregon was
obtained (Carter 133).
Rajneesh had in mind for the new commune a more truly communal atmosphere
where men and women would only stay together as long as they loved each
other and the institution of marriage was de-emphasized. Children would
not know who their fathers were and would belong to everyone. Women would
run the commune, and there would be no churches, rituals, or orthodoxies
(Fitzgerald, 1986a: 88).
According to Frances Fitzgerald writing in The New Yorker, when she
visited the commune in May of 1983, the Westerners in the commune were
having trouble eliminating the dogmatic and ritualistic aspects of their
lives, and in an effort to do so, were making the spontaneity and
playfulness they desired an institution itself. The number of rules kept
growing (concerning everything from a mandatory joke at the beginning of
every meeting to the color of clothes one must wear), as was the
population of sannyasins in the commune (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 88-89).
Lewis Carter visited the commune in 1984 with a team of sociologists and
remarked that the everyday life of the sannyasin was in fact quite
"'authoritarian' and that it displayed a preoccupation with total
control... regimented and regulated even in minutiae" (Carter 31). Carter
also notes that "the relationships were more similar in many respects to
those in a migrant labor camp or remote construction site than to what the
American team members viewed as a 'residential community'" (Carter 31).
Carter thinks that "the authoritarian structure is unavoidable for
sannyasin organizations. Without shared norms or a written code, an
ideology of right or wrong, or a body of law however imperfectly honored
in practice, [he] suspects that the only remaining way to coordinate large
groups is through the authoritarian principle of charismatic leadership"
(Carter 265).
By this time the focus of the community was making money, and the
therapies had changed, veering away from experimentation with sex and
consciousness. Traditionally church-like institutions were being initiated
in the commune, such as group chanting to start off and end the day, an
indexing of the talks and lectures of Rajneesh, and the naming of acharyas,
or teachers (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 90).
In July of 1983 the commune published a booklet defining "Rajneeshism." It
defined Rajneesh worship as "meditation and the meditative attitude in
work and play; the message of Rajneeshism was contained in the lectures of
the guru; and Rajneeshee education was a lifelong process of learning
self-awareness" (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 90). It contained the text of chants,
named religious holidays, and outlined religious rituals to be used in
circumstances of birth, marriage, death, and caring for the sick. It
clarified the organization of the church, and stated that "the formation
of a doctrine and an organization around Rajneesh was inevitable, and that
since this was the case, it was far better that it should be done while
the Master was alive and could give spiritual direction to his followers"
(Fitzgerald, 1986a: 91).
Life in the commune was dominated by a pressure to work and an even
greater pressure to give money. Most residents had little contact with
outsiders and this contributed to great tension between the Rajneshee and
their neighbors by the fall of 1983 (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 96).
By that fall there were 800 disciples living in the Oregon commune. The
hostilities between the commune and the surrounding community was due in
part to the overtaking of a small neighboring town called Antelope by the
Rajneeshee. Starting in 1981 just after the Rajneeshee had moved onto the
ranch, the Rajneeshee had slowly but surely taken over the town, first by
erecting several housing units to supplement their own and asking for
permission to build a large office facility there, and then by blatantly
trying to build all of their structures there, in an attempt to appeal to
1000 Friends of Oregon, an environmental group looking out for land-use
laws (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 83). 1000 Friends wanted the Rajneeshee to build
all their structures not for use with agriculture in Antelope; in
retaliation, the Antelope city council refused to give them building
permits on the grounds that there was not enough water to support them.
Eventually the council held a vote to disincorporate the city so that they
could save the town from the development of the Rajneeshee (Fitzgerald,
1986b: 83).
The Rajneeshee won, but many outstanding lawsuits kept everyone's plans in
limbo. Mediators were brought in to settle all the remaining issues; the
Rajneeshee were permitted to develop their current properties but were not
allowed to conduct any future development. However, the agreement did not
last long and eventually the Rajneeshee were able to take over the city
council and run out most of the remaining older residents of the town
(Fitzgerald, 1986b: 84). They slowly took over the school board and the
school itself in Antelope and were becoming more and more infamous in
Oregon politics.
In December 1982, the INS denied Rajneesh permanent-resident status and
also denied him classification as a religious worker. These orders were
suspected, although not officially to have been issued in response to
concerns of Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield who was concerned that the
Rajneesh were a threat to the way of life for Antelope and to public
safety (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 89).
These two separate orders were flawed in several ways, however, and were
withdrawn to give the Rajneeshee time to rebut them. After a year, the INS
gave Rajneesh his priority classification card but not his green card
(Fitzgerald, 1986b: 89). The political dimension of the land-use issue
emerged because of the vagueness of the laws concerning the incorporation
of a city on agricultural land, which is what the Rajneeshee wanted to do.
By spring 1983, representatives from Rajneeshpuram went to the state
legislature and proposed that they would withdraw from Antelope if the
legislature would incorporate Rajneeshpuram. The offer was denied
(Fitzgerald, 1986b: 89).
In July the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission made a set
of temporary rules, to be effective retroactively to August of 1981 (Rajneeshpuram
was incorporated by the Wasco County legislature in November 1981), that
stated that a county had to come to the Commission before incorporating a
city.
More problems arose for the Rajneeshee as Oregon Attorney General David
Frohnmayer issued a statement in October of 1983 that "the municipal
status of Rajneeshpuram violated the religious-establishment clause in
both the state and federal Constitutions" (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 90). From
his point of view, it mattered not that religious people were running the
government, but that the city was owned and controlled by a church. Two
new rulings also came down by a Wasco County Circuit Court that held up
money that county and state authorities had already approved for the
Rajneeshee school, and also prohibited construction at Rajneeshpuram until
the incorporation issue was settled. While the school issue was being
worked out, Rajneeshee lawyers were building a case against the county for
bigotry (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 90).
Tensions were building very high in response to all the legal actions and
several highly-publicized incidents including inflammatory television
appearances by Sheela and the leaking of minutes from two coordinators'
meetings. By winter 1983-84, many felt that a resolution would have to
take place, seeing as how there were many forces aligning against them and
they seemed set on an antagonistic path (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 96).
In March of 1984, Bhagwan announced that AIDS would terrorize the earth,
and that only those living in the Rajneeshee commune would be saved
because preventative measures would be enacted; sannyasins would stop sex
or maintain strictly monogamous relationships.
By the fall of 1984, sannyasins had acquired a great arsenal of
semi-automatic weapons, rifles, and handguns. The commune in Oregon began
alienating their European counterparts by requiring contributions and
moving their facilities to larger communes in big cities. The number of
new people in these communes dropped off quite a bit as did gifts to the
Rajneesh Foundation International and the commune (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 96).
The Master's Day Festival that year was disappointing in bringing large
numbers of people to the commune and every individual in the U.S. who had
ever been a sannyasin or stayed at the commune was invited to come back
and stay for greatly reduced rates. When not many people took them up on
the offer, the Rajneeshee opened up the commune to almost 2000 homeless
people from many major cities (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 98). Many Oregonians
guessed that this was done in an effort to throw the upcoming Wasco County
elections in the way of the Rajneeshee and indeed it appeared that this
might be the case. The Rajneeshee however ended up being outnumbered, and
for the most part the homeless people ended up leaving on their own;
outsiders estimated that there were 200 or fewer left on the ranch after
the elections (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 100).
In November U.S. Representative James Weaver and a few of his colleagues
held hearings on the use of federal land in and around the commune by the
Rajneeshee; local representatives introduced bills aimed at the Rajneeshee
and started a petition to repeal the charter of Rajneesh City; and in
March of 1985, Verne Duncan, state superintendent of schools, threatened
to cut off state aid to the Rajneeshee school because it "put
public-school children to work in religious organizations" (Fitzgerald,
1986b: 103). Law suits were rampant, concerning supposedly discriminatory
investigations of the Rajneeshee, and in October Bhagwan began his public
lectures again.
An announcement was made in September that Sheela and a few other leaders
had left the commune for Europe. Bhagwan blamed the consort for almost all
of the alleged incidents that people had suspected the Rajneeshee had been
involved in -- the poisoning of his doctor and dentist and the Jefferson
County district attorney, the mismanagement of commune funds, the theft
and arson of the Wasco County planning office, the bugging of rooms and
telephones within the commune, and many other offenses (Fitzgerald, 1986b:
108).
Bhagwan pledged that things would be much different at the ranch now than
they had been under Sheela's regime. For example, people could talk to
their families and other outsiders again, and they would give Antelope
back to its owners. This announcement brought much attention to the
commune once more as journalists came in droves and many investigations
were started to get to the bottom of Bhagwan's claims about Sheela.
It turned out that the claims he made were not all true. In fact, Bhagwan
had replaced all the officers who fled before they even left the country.
So things were not quite as dire as they might have seemed. Getting
Rajneesh to truly cooperate with the investigations and speak in any kind
of detail proved to be a difficult task.
At the end of September, Rajneesh announced that Rajneeshism had been
nothing more than an invention of Sheela's, and that he had never condoned
the notion of himself as religious leader. He encouraged them to burn the
Rajneeshism booklets and "sunset-colored clothes" the sannyasins were
constantly required to wear. The clothes quickly went back on after he
displayed disappointment at the sannyasins so easily abandoning symbols of
association with him.
He declared the dropping of a law suit against state and county officials
and the changing of the name of Rajneesh to Antelope (to which it had been
changed in 1983) in hopes that his opponents might return the favor and
drop some of their suits against the commune (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 110). The
investigations continued. Even though Sheela had destroyed a lot of
information, evidence was building up and on October 23rd a federal grand
jury issued on behalf of the INS a "thirty-five count indictment charging
the guru, Sheela, and six other disciples with a conspiracy to evade the
immigration laws" (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 110).
Word was leaked to Rajneesh however and he attempted to flee from
authorities, but his jet was intercepted in Charlotte, NC where he was
apprehended and sent to jail. His lawyers contended that he couldn't stay
in jail because of his health, but he seemed to be doing just fine and was
eventually returned to Portland (Fitzgerald, 1986b: 111). He ended up
pleading guilty to making false statements to immigration in 1981 and
concealing his intent to remain in the U.S. He was given a ten-year
suspended prison term, agreed to pay $400,000 in fines and prosecution
costs, to leave the country in five days, and to not come back without
written consent from the U.S. Attorney General within five years (Carter:
237).
Sheela was subsequently arrested in Germany and eventually indicted on
attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, first-degree assault, the
poisoning of two county commissioners, the burglary and arson at the Wasco
County Planning Department, and wiretapping charges (Fitzgerald, 1986b:
112). She was fined $469,353 (including restitution charges for an
incident of arson), ordered to give up her permanent resident status in
the U.S., and given multiple concurrent prison terms. She served 2.5 years
of her sentences in a federal medium security prison and was released on
good behavior (Carter: 237).
Sheela, as it turned out, had been instrumental in implementing any number
of subversive activities including drugging and poisoning those who she
thought knew too much about illegal activities or who wanted to leave the
commune, tapping phone lines including Bhagwan's own. Bhagwan was not,
however, an innocent bystander, as he was well aware of many of her
activities and even advised and instructed her in several of her efforts
(Fitzgerald, 1986b: 113).
There is not much published information concerning Bhagwan's exodus from
the U.S. and eventual death in 1990. After having been expelled from the
U.S., Bhagwan left for Manali, India in the Himalayas, 250 miles north of
New Delhi. He was received coolly by the Indian public and officials
(Oregonian 2M). The commune continued operations in Oregon, but Rajneesh
businesses and disciples found it difficult to deal with local banks.
After the former mayor of Rajneeshpuram, Krishna Deva, aka David Berry
Knapp, plead guilty to racketeering and conspiracy to commit immigration
fraud, the Rajneeshees gave up the commune, and efforts were quickly made
to sell off all the property and evacuate most of the residents as soon as
possible (Oregonian 2M).
Bhagwan returned to the original ashram in Poona in January of 1987
(Carter). He subsequently engaged in a search to try and re-establish some
sort of community but was met with hostility and opposition almost
everywhere he went. He ended up in Uruguay where he was allowed to stay,
but only if he did not "indulge in public criticism" and the sannyasin
could not join him (Carter). "He abandoned the name of Rajneesh and
adopted "Osho." Osho was derived from the expression "oceanic experience"
by William James. He died in Poona in 1990. Various rumors spread that he
died of AIDS, was poisoned, or had heart failure" (religioustolerance.org).
The followers of Rajneesh are currently known as Osho, and their leader is
Swami Prem Jayesh, aka Michael William O'Byrne. There are about 20 active
meditation centers around the world, and Rajneesh is still influential
through his writings. (religioustolerance.org)
III. Beliefs of the Group
Bhagwan's basic beliefs were the central ones of the Hindu-Buddhist
tradition: that God is in all things, "a living current of the energy
flowing through the temporary and illusory world of forms, and that the
Buddhas were those who saw through the illusion of self and of time to the
great One-ness and Suchness of existence" (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 78). Christ,
Lao-Tzu, and others were all considered by Bhagwan to be Enlightened
Beings, and he would lecture on everything from the Upanishads to the New
Testament to the Tantra. In Bhagwan's view, "sexual energy was seen as the
fundamental source of all human energy and repression of this energy as
the source of most individual problems" (Carter: 3).
Bhagwan felt that all religions were one and that "the differences among
them were basically accidents of time and place and culture. All of them,
in Rajneesh's reading, had the same basic message: Go inside; the kingdom
of heaven is within; celebrate the divinity of your own ordinary lives"
(Gordon).
The main emphasis of Rajneesh's approach is the discovery of the true
self, rather than the worship of a higher power, and this was attained
through self-knowledge. He preached the shaping of a "new man" in order to
ensure the survival of humanity (religioustolerance.org). Rajneesh claimed
that asceticism is a form of masochism and wealth is a precondition for
spirituality (Gordon).
According to the booklet published by the commune at Rajneeshpuram,
Rajneeshee worship is "meditation and the meditative attitude in work and
play; the message of Rajneeshism was contained in the lectures of the
guru; and Rajneeshee education was a lifelong process of learning
self-awareness" (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 91). The booklet also gave the text of
chants and the protocol for rituals concerning marriage and death.
Return to Table of Contents
|