Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh e la Verità perduta di Christopher Calder.

Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh e la Verità perduta di Christopher Calder. Dal momento che la traduzione
in italiano non sembra più essere disponibile, provvedo a metterne qui una con google; poi a tempo, cercherò di renderla un poco più scorrevole. Calder, Milne e altri, sono stati tutti dentro al cerchio magico di Sheela e compagnia, quello più vicino a Rajneesh e tutti hanno finito in modi e tempi differenti, per scoprire la disillusione di una comune retta da un maestro che ha stabilito un culto molto elevato di se stesso, spingendo loro stessi, allievi, a compiere azioni orribili

La meditazione non deve essere trasformato in un business. Acharya Rajneesh 1971

Acharya Rajneesh aveva 39 anni quando ho incontrato la prima volta nel suo appartamento di Bombay, nel dicembre del 1970. Con la barba lunga e gli occhi grandi e scuri, sembrava un dipinto di Lao-Tse prendono vita. Prima di incontrare Rajneesh, ho passato del tempo con una serie di guru orientali (vedi foto qui), senza essere soddisfatti della qualità dei loro insegnamenti. Volevo una guida illuminata che potrebbe colmare il divario tra Oriente e Occidente, e rivelare i veri segreti esoterici senza il bagaglio in eccesso di indiana, tibetana, o la cultura giapponese. Rajneesh era la risposta alla mia ricerca di quei significati più profondi. Ha descritto per me in vividi dettagli tutto quello che volevo sapere sui mondi interiori, e aveva il potere di apparrire un immenso essere a sostegno delle sue parole. A 21 anni, ero ingenuo sulla vita e la natura dell'uomo e pensai che tutto quello che mi diceva doveva essere vero. Rajneesh ha parlato su un alto livello di intelligenza, e la sua forte presenza emanava dal suo corpo come una luce morbida che guarisce tutte le ferite. Mentre ero  seduto vicino a lui, durante una piccola riunione di amici, Rajneesh mi ha portato in un viaggio rapido verticale interiore che sembrava quasi di spingermi fuori dal mio corpo fisico. La sua vasta presenza sollevò tutti noi intorno a lui, che percepivamo come superiore senza il minimo sforzo. I giorni che ho trascorso nel suo appartamento di Bombay erano come giorni trascorsi in cielo. Ha avuto tutto, e lo stava dando via gratuitamente! Rajneesh possedeva il potere della trasmissione di energia diretta, che è conosciuta in India come "shaktipat." Ha usato questo potere nobilmente per portare conforto e ispirazione per i suoi discepoli. Rajneesh ha affermato di avere il "terzo occhio" poteri di telepatia e la visione a distanza, come pure, e per molti anni ho creduto essere vero. Tuttavia, nel 1980 non è stato Rajneesh in grado di percepire gli eventi tragici che stavano per accadere lella sua comune in Oregon, verificati direttamente sotto il suo naso, in modo che i poteri dichiarati da lui stesso e da me riconosciuti, sono ora divenuti un punto interrogativo nella mia mente. Ho visto molti guru vantarsi di avere misteriose capacità psichiche, al fine di attrarre nuovi discepoli e denaro nuovo. L'abitudine di Rajneesh di ottenere dai suoi aiutanti notizie per indagare i nuovi visitatori, in modo che potrebbe impressionare con la sua conoscenza della loro vita personale, si aggiunge al mio attuale scetticismo circa la potenza e l'efficacia del suo "terzo occhio". E 'stato un fatto preciso, però, che chi è venuto vicino a lui ha vissuto la sua incredibile presenza cosmica. Uno o due incontri faccia a faccia con Rajneesh è stato sufficiente per convertire il dubitare e lo scetticismo occidentale in ammirazione timorosa e devozione.

Un anno prima avevo incontrato un altro maestro illuminato conosciuto al mondo come Jiddu Krishnamurti. J. Krishnamurti riusciva a malapena a tenere una lezione coerente, e ha costantemente rimproverato il suo pubblico facendo riferimento alle loro "èiccole menti scadenti." Ho apprezzato la sua franchezza, e le sue parole erano vere, ma la sua natura sottilmente irascibile non era molto disponibile nel trasferire le sue conoscenze agli altri. Ascoltare Krishnamurti parlare è stato come mangiare un panino a base di pane e sabbia. Ho trovato che il modo migliore per godersi i suoi discorsi è stato quello di ignorare completamente le sue parole e tranquillamente assorbire la sua presenza. Utilizzando questa tecnica, ero talmente  disteso che dopo una conferenza riuscivo a malapena a parlare per ore dopo. 
J. Krishnamurti, nel pieno illuminato ed unicamente amabile, passerà allla storia come un insegnante con assai scarsa capacità di comunicazione verbale. 
A differenza del Rajneesh altamente eloquente, tuttavia, J. Krishnamurti non ha mai  commesso alcun crimine, non ha mai preteso di essere più di quello che era, e non ha mai usato altri esseri umani egoisticamente.

La vita è complessa e multistratificata, e le mie ingenue illusioni circa i fenomeni di illuminazione perfetta sono sbiadite nel corso degli anni. E 'diventato chiaro che le personalità illuminate sono fallibile come chiunque; vengono collocati sopra gli altri esseri umani, gli  altri non perfetti esseri umani ma si scopre che essi vivono e respirano con molti degli stessi difetti degli altri e condividono le vulnerabilità che  noi esseri umani ordinari dobbiamo sopportare.

Gli scettici chiedono come posso affermare che Rajneesh era illuminato, dati i suoi scandali e disastrosa immagine pubblica. Posso solo dire che la presenza spirituale di Rajneesh era identica a quella di Jiddu Krishnamurti, che è stato riconosciuto come illuminato da ogni alto Lama tibetano e venerato saggio indù del suo tempo. Io simpatizzo con gli scettici, tuttavia; se non avessi conosciuto personalmente Rajneesh, non avrei mai creduto a tutto quanto è seguito.

Rajneesh ha spinto la forza della sua illuminazione in entrambe le direzioni positive e negative. E 'stato il meglio del meglio e il peggio del peggio. E 'stato un grande maestro nei suoi primi anni di vita, con una tecnica di meditazione innovativa che possedeva una forza drammatica, chiamata "meditazione dinamica". Rajneesh ha sollevato migliaia di persone in cerca di più alti livelli di coscienza, e ha dettagliato le religioni orientali e le antiche tecniche di meditazione con chiarezza luminosa.

Un passo falso. Un errore grande.

Acharya Rajneesh è nato il 11 dicembre 1931, nel villaggio di Kuchwada nell'India centrale. Il termine 'Acharya', un insegnante di religione, e 'Rajneesh' significa luna. Nome effettivo del diritto di Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain era; 'Rajneesh' essere solo un soprannome non ufficiale acquisita durante l'infanzia. Una notte nel 1971, l'uomo che conoscevo come Acharya Rajneesh improvvisamente cambiato il suo nome in "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh." Il famoso saggio illuminato, Ramana Maharshi, è stato chiamato 'Bhagwan' dai suoi discepoli come un termine spontaneo di affetto. Rajneesh semplicemente dichiarato al mondo che tutti dovrebbero iniziare a chiamarlo Bhagwan, un titolo che può significare qualsiasi cosa, da 'divina' a Dio. 'Shree' è un termine onorifico per il Maestro, così il suo nuovo nome potrebbe essere tradotto come Dio Maestro Luna. Rajneesh si irritava quando una volta ho educatamente corretto i suoi mispronunciations di parole inglesi, dopo una conferenza, quindi mi sentivo in condizione di dirgli che ho pensato che il suo nuovo titolo era inadeguato e disonesti. Questo cambiamento di nome ha segnato una svolta nel livello di Rajneesh di onestà e fu il primo di molti big si trova ancora venire.Rajneesh viveva in una torre d'avorio, raramente lasciando la sua camera a meno di dare una lezione, la sua esperienza di vita ammortizzato da folle di devoti adoranti. Il suo isolamento è diventato ancora più completo quando si trasferì dal suo piccolo appartamento a Bombay una vasta tenuta a Poona, in India, nel 1974. Come maggior parte degli esseri umani che sono trattati come re, Rajneesh perso il contatto con il mondo di un uomo comune. Nella sua esistenza artificiale e isolato, Rajneesh commise un errore fondamentale di giudizio che avrebbe distrutto il suo insegnamento.

Che cosa gli dici è vero, ma quello che io dico loro (le bugie utili) è buono per loro. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Poona, India, 1975

Rajneesh ha calcolato che la maggioranza della popolazione della terra è situata su un basso livello di coscienza che non riusciva a capire né tollerare le verità reali. Ha pertanto deciso su una politica di diffusione di menzogne ​​apparentemente utili per portare ispirazione per i suoi discepoli e, a volte, a sottolineare i suoi studenti in situazioni particolari per la propria crescita personale. Questa era la sua rovina e la ragione principale che sarà ricordato dalla maggior parte degli storici come un altro guru fasullo. Rajneesh insegnamenti erano pieni di bugie intenzionali e non intenzionali falsità, nati dalla sua ignoranza, credulità, e indiana condizionamento culturale. La sua presenza psichica, tuttavia, è stata del 100% reale ed estremamente potente.Acharya, Bhagwan Shree, Osho, ... tutti i nomi potenzianti adottati da Rajneesh non ha potuto nascondere il fatto che era ancora un essere umano. Aveva ambizioni e desideri, sessuali e materiale, come tutti gli altri. Tutti gli esseri umani illuminati hanno desideri. Tutti gli uomini illuminati hanno avuto vita pubblica che siamo a conoscenza, e tutti hanno avuto vite private che sono rimaste segrete. La stragrande maggioranza degli uomini illuminati non fanno altro che bene per il mondo. Solo Rajneesh, per quanto ne so, è diventato un criminale sia in senso giuridico ed etico della parola.Rajneesh non ha mai perso la verità ultima esistenziale dell'essere. Ha solo perso il concetto ordinario di verità che ogni adulto normale può capire. Ha razionalizzato la sua costante menzogne ​​come "Tantra mancino", ma anche questo è stato disonesto. Rajneesh ha mentito per salvare la faccia, per evitare di assumersi la responsabilità per i suoi errori, e per acquisire potere personale. Queste bugie non aveva nulla a che fare con il Tantra o qualsiasi atto disinteressato di gentilezza. Ciò che è reale in questo mondo è fatto, e Rajneesh travisato fatto su una base quotidiana. Rajneesh non era un uomo semplice, con come tanti altri. Rajneesh sapeva tutto ciò che Buddha conosceva, ed era tutto ciò che il Buddha era. E 'stata la sua perdita di rispetto per veridicità ordinaria che ha distrutto il suo insegnamento.Salute di Rajneesh crollò sulla trentina. Anche prima del raggiungimento dell'età di mezzo, Rajneesh ha subito attacchi ricorrenti di debolezza. 

Durante gli anni del college giovanili, quando avrebbe dovuto essere un picco di vigore, Rajneesh spesso dovuto dormire 12 a 14 ore al giorno a causa di una malattia inspiegabile. Rajneesh soffriva di ciò che gli europei chiamano encefalomielite mialgica (ME), o quello che gli americani chiamano Sindrome da Stanchezza Cronica (CFS). I suoi sintomi classici inclusa la fatica evidente, strane allergie, febbri ricorrenti di grado basso, fotofobia, intolleranza ortostatica (l'incapacità di stare in piedi per un congruo periodo di tempo), insonnia, dolore del corpo, e di estrema sensibilità agli odori e sostanze chimiche, una condizione che ora i medici  riferiscono come "sensibilità chimica multipla".Chimica di Rajneesh sensibilità marchio era così grave che ha incaricato le sue guardie ad annusare le persone per i cattivi odori, prima di essere autorizzati a fargli visita nel suo alloggio. Le persone con la sindrome della Guerra del Golfo, MS, e altre malattie neurologiche e del sistema immunitario sono spesso molto sensibili alle sostanze chimiche e odori. Cattive condizioni di salute di Rajneesh e strani sintomi erano un prodotto di vera e propria disfunzione del sistema nervoso e immunitario, non qualche supersensitivity esoterica causato dalla sua illuminazione. Rajneesh aveva anche diabete di tipo II, l'asma, e grave dolore alla schiena.Rajneesh era costantemente malato e fragile da quando ho incontrato la prima volta nel 1970 fino alla sua morte il 19 gennaio 1990. 

Credeva di ottenere un raffreddore o l'influenza diversa ogni settimana. In realtà soffriva di una malattia cronica del sistema nervoso e immunitario, sindrome da affaticamento cronico, con sintomi di tipo influenzale che può durare una vita. Rajneesh non poteva stare in piedi per lunghi periodi di tempo senza diventare vertigini, perché egli aveva subito danni al suo sistema nervoso autonomo che controlla la pressione sanguigna. Questo ipotensione neuro-mediata (bassa pressione del sangue in posizione eretta) provoca stanchezza cronica e può abbassare IQ a causa della mancanza di sangue e ossigeno sufficienti pompato al cervello (ipossia cerebrale). Nel 1970, Rajneesh spesso lamentato di diventare capogiri immediatamente in posizione eretta. Durante gli ultimi mesi anni della sua vita a Poona, Rajneesh spesso svenuto in completa incoscienza.Rajneesh utilizzato farmaci, principalmente Valium (diazepam), come analgesico per i suoi dolori e per contrastare i sintomi della disautonomia (disfunzione del sistema nervoso autonomo). Ha preso la dose massima raccomandata di 60 milligrammi al giorno. Rajneesh anche inalato protossido di azoto (N2O) miscelato con ossigeno puro, che secondo lui aumentò la sua creatività. Il protossido di azoto probabilmente ha fatto alleviare la sensazione di stanchezza grave e soffocamento pazienti con sindrome da affaticamento cronico spesso si sentono, ma non ha fatto nulla per la qualità del suo giudizio. Naive sul potere della droga, e troppo sicuro della sua capacità di combattere i loro effetti negativi, Rajneesh ceduto alla dipendenza.Un certo numero di discepoli hanno sostenuto che Rajneesh era così ubriaco nel suo ranch dell'Oregon nel 1980 che a volte urinato nelle sale della sua casa, proprio come tossicodipendenti e ubriachi comuni spesso. 

Credo che questo sia vero, come l'ultima volta che ho visto Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh era ubriaco al punto da diventare fisicamente brutto. Aveva lo stesso slavati aspetto e il comportamento sciocco avevo visto nei tossicodipendenti mentre lavorava in una clinica di metadone negli Stati Uniti. Rajneesh aveva miracoloso potere mentale, ma era un normale essere umano fisicamente e non poteva tollerare gli effetti devastanti di grandi dosi di tranquillanti.In cima a una malattia fisica di Rajneesh, la sua assunzione massiccia di Valium causato paranoia e le capacità di ragionamento molto ridotti. Tossicodipendenti Valium spesso che la CIA o qualche cattivi altri invisibili sta tramando contro di loro, quindi non è sorprendente che ha immaginato che fosse stato avvelenato dal governo degli Stati Uniti. Le sue capacità di ragionamento è diventato talmente danneggiato che Rajneesh effettivamente considerato trasferirsi in Russia per combinare la sua forma totalitaria di spiritualità con il comunismo russo, un'idea nessun uomo sano di mente potrebbe divertire. Rajneesh chiesto pubblicamente l'assassinio di Michael Gorbaciov, perché Gorbaciov si muoveva Russia al capitalismo in stile occidentale piuttosto che marchio di Rajneesh del "comunismo spirituale". Storicamente, Valium è il farmaco di scelta per i malati di CFS come maschera gli inquietanti sintomi di disautonomia e aiuta a portare il sonno. Rajneesh soffriva d'insonnia, un altro sintomo classico della sindrome da affaticamento cronico.Rajneesh era un uomo che si è fatto male fisicamente e mentalmente corrottio. La sua breve sperimentazione con l'LSD ha solo peggiorato le cose. L'uso di droghe e la tossicodipendenza di Rajneesh era un problema di sua creazione, non una cospirazione governativa. Rajneesh morì nel 1990 con insufficienza cardiaca indicata come causa ufficiale della morte. E 'probabile che il declino fisico Rajneesh sperimentato durante la sua detenzione nelle carceri americane è dovuto ad una combinazione di sintomi di astinenza dalla sua dipendenza Valium e un aggravamento della sua sindrome d'affaticamento cronico a causa di stress e l'esposizione agli allergeni.

Dopo l'umiliazione di Rajneesh e la caduta in America, ha dichiarato che è stato come  "Gesù crocifisso dall'America di Ronald Reagan." In verità, Rajneesh era un tossicodipendente guru che auto-distrutto con le proprie azioni sbagliate. Confrontando se stesso a Gesù era doppiamente disonesto, come egli stesso non aveva rispetto per Gesù. Una volta proclamato poco diplomaticamente ai media americani che tutto ciò che Gesù ha detto è stato "semplicemente folle".

Sono andato per la città abbandonata di Rajneeshpuram e ho visto cose che erano quasi incredibili. La sede di  Ma Anand Sheela, un gruppo di case mobili messo insieme, è stato un fiorire di porte segrete e cunicoli nascosti, la sua stanza privata di un posto di comando di gruppo di alimentazione elettronico ascolto sfruttato in ogni stanza per lo sviluppo. Il parquet di Bhagwan con pannelli quarti aveva perni di ossido di azoto al suo capezzale, ed era circondato da ampi bagni con docce multiple. Jim Weaver, ex membro del Congresso dell'Oregon.

Nella prefazione del 1998 a uno dei libri che ho amato, di Rajneesh (Osho) il suo dentista personale, Swami Devageet, afferma che Osho ha dettato tre libri sotto l'influenza di protossido di azoto. Erano libri che ho amato, scorci di un'infanzia dorata, e Note di un pazzo. Riferendosi al proprio uso protossido di azoto, Rajneesh stesso ha dichiarato che "In realtà l'ossigeno e l'azoto sono elementi fondamentali dell'esistenza. Essi possono essere di grande utilità, ma per motivi politici sono stati contro i prodotti chimici di tutti i tipi, tutti i farmaci." Ma Anand Sheela, segretario personale di Rajneesh, pubblicamente dichiarato al telegiornale della CBS 60 Minutes mostrano che Rajneesh ha preso 60 mg di valium ogni giorno. 

Hugh Milne, guardia del corpo la testa di Rajneesh, ha confermato l'uso pesante di Valium di Rajneesh, come confermato da Swami Devageet. L'FBI sapeva che Rajneesh era un tossicodipendente Valium e protossido di azoto dalle loro indagini, e questo fatto è stato pubblicato sui giornali in tutto gli Stati Uniti, inclusi gli articoli in "The Oregonian" e "The New York Times." Non vi è alcun dubbio che Rajneesh è diventato un tossicodipendente, anche se non nella mente di appassionati seguaci di Osho, che non vogliono ammettere la verità dolorosa.Alla sua morte improvvisa nel 1990, non vi era molta speculazione dei media che Rajneesh aveva commesso suicidio prendendo una dose eccessiva di farmaci. Dato che nessun discepolo ha confessato a dare Rajneesh un'iniezione letale, non ci sono prove concrete a sostegno della teoria del suicidio. 

Un caso interessante indiziaria potrebbe essere fatto per un tale scenario, però, con il suicidio provocato dalla cattiva salute costante di Rajneesh e scoramento per la perdita di Vivek, il suo più grande amore.Vivek aveva preso una overdose fatale di sonniferi in un albergo di Bombay un mese prima della morte di Rajneesh. Acutamente, Vivek ha deciso di uccidersi immediatamente prima festa di compleanno di Rajneesh. Rajneesh aveva minacciato il suicidio al Comune Oregon volte, appeso alla sua morte sopra le teste dei suoi discepoli come una minaccia se non avessero obbedito ai suoi ordini. Nel suo ultimo giorno sulla terra, Rajneesh è segnalato per aver detto: "Lasciami andare. Mio corpo è diventato un inferno per me."La voce che Rajneesh è stato avvelenato con il tallio da agenti del governo degli Stati Uniti è del tutto fittizio e contraddetta dal fatto innegabile. Uno dei sintomi evidenti di avvelenamento da tallio è perdita di capelli drammatica entro sette giorni di esposizione. Rajneesh è morto con la barba piena e non calvizie eccezionale diversa dalla comune calvizie maschile in cima alla sua testa. Avvelenamento da radiazioni, un'altra causa fittizia della sua malattia, causa anche la drammatica perdita di capelli.I sintomi che possono avere portato Rajneesh medici a sospettare avvelenamento sono sintomi comuni di disautonomia causati da sindrome da affaticamento cronico. 

Tali sintomi possono includere atassia (movimenti scoordinati), intorpidimento, tachicardia in piedi (battito cardiaco accelerato in posizione eretta), parestesia (sensazioni di formicolio e prurito), nausea, e la sindrome dell'intestino irritabile, che provoca uno a alternare stipsi e diarrea. Tutti i suoi sintomi negativi fisici e mentali sono state fortemente aggravata dalla propria auto-indotta avvelenamento da ossido di azoto e l'uso Valium pesante.Gli unici casi comprovati di avvelenamento illecita relativa alla Rajneesh sono stati eseguiti da sannyasin proprio Rajneesh. Un sannyasin è un discepolo iniziato, uno che prende il sannyas. Nel 1984 ci sono stati 751 vittime veleno, tra cui donne e bambini, a dieci ristoranti nella zona di The Dalles, Oregon. Sannyasin Rajneesh ha tentato di prendere in consegna la contea di Wasco Commissione mettendo a così tante persone ammalato il giorno delle elezioni che avrebbero potuto eleggere i propri candidati sannyasin propri.

Discepoli di Rajneesh avvelenato i clienti dei ristoranti di contaminare insalate e creamers caffè con batteri della salmonella. Quarantacinque delle vittime è diventato così male hanno dovuto essere ricoverato in ospedale, rendendo il caso il più grande attacco guerra batteriologica nella storia degli Stati Uniti. Sannyasin furono poi sospettati di cercare di uccidere un dirigente Wasco County da chiodare la sua acqua con un veleno sconosciuto. Un procuratore distrettuale della contea di Jefferson, Michael Sullivan, anche si è ammalata dopo aver lasciato una tazza di caffè automatica come sannyasin Rajneesh riempito il palazzo di giustizia. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh mai chiesto scusa a nessuna delle persone che sono state avvelenate dai suoi discepoli di fiducia.I membri del personale di Rajneesh sono stati avvelenati da Ma Anand Sheela, segretario personale di Rajneesh. Sheela aveva l'abitudine di avvelenare la gente che o sapevano troppo o che era semplicemente caduto in suo favore. Sheela trascorso due anni e mezzo in una prigione federale di media sicurezza per i suoi crimini, mentre Rajneesh dichiarato colpevole di frode migratoria ed è stato condannato a una pena dieci anni sospesa, multa di $ 400.000.,

 E deportato dagli Stati Uniti d'America. Come parte del suo patteggiamento affare, accuse più gravi del racket sono state ritirate.Rajneesh ha ritenuto che l'insegnamento dell'etica non era necessario perché la meditazione porterebbe automaticamente alla buona condotta. Le azioni di Rajneesh e dei suoi discepoli dimostra che la teoria di essere completamente falsa. Rajneesh ha insegnato che si dovrebbe fare come ti pare perché la vita è allo stesso tempo un sogno e una barzelletta. Questo atteggiamento ha portato alla convinzione classicamente fascista che si può diventare così alto e possente che si è al di là della necessità di vecchi valori di stile e un comportamento etico.Chi non ha familiarità con la storia Rajneesh in grado di leggere il libro, Bhagwan: Il Dio che si spense, pubblicato dalla stampa di San Martino e scritto da Hugh Milne (Shivamurti), un discepolo di Rajneesh durante la sua Poona e anni Oregon. Libro del sig Milne è in gran parte confermata dal libro di Satya Bharti Franklin, promessa del Paradiso: la vita intima di una donna Con 'Bhagwan' Osho Rajneesh, pubblicato da Barrytown / Station Hill Press. Entrambi i libri sono fuori catalogo, ma copie di seconda mano può essere ottenuta attraverso Amazon.Com. 

Ci sono stati molti altri dicono-tutti i libri pubblicati sulla stessa materia, ma non li ho letti e non so gli autori, quindi non li menziono qui.Per quanto riguarda Bhagwan: Il Dio che si spense, posso verificare molti dei fatti afferma il signor Milne sulla vita di Rajneesh a Bombay e Poona, anche se non ho conoscenza di prima mano dei tragici eventi del comune Oregon. I miei contatti con le persone che erano lì mi inducono a credere che la maggior parte dei fatti Sig. Milne presenta dell'era dell'Oregon sono anche ad alta precisione. Hugh Milne è dovuto grande merito per un libro ben scritto e divertente, che è un sincero sforzo di onestà. In alcune occasioni, però, differiscono dalle interpretazioni signor Milne di quello che i fatti che presenta in realtà significa.Rajneesh non soffriva di "ipocondria", come ha suggerito il signor Milne. Rajneesh aveva una malattia molto vero e proprio sistema nervoso e immunitario, che aveva scambiato per frequenti infezioni virali. Rajneesh è diventato insolitamente paura di germi solo a causa della sua ignoranza comprensibile medica. Sono pienamente d'accordo con il signor Milne che Rajneesh soffriva di "megalomania", tuttavia, e aggiungere che il breve Rajneesh aveva una statura napoleonica, ossessivo-compulsivo, e stravagante personalità narcisistica.

Dottor Hugh Milne aka Shivamurti, suggerisce che Rajneesh ha praticato "ipnosi" per manipolare i suoi discepoli. Rajneesh aveva una voce melodica e naturalmente ipnotica che sarebbe una grande risorsa per ogni oratore. A mio parere, tuttavia, il potere di Rajneesh è venuto dal campo intensa energia della coscienza cosmica universale che ha canalizzato come una lente. Indù chiamano questo fenomeno energia universale l'Atman. Come un occidentale, preferisco termini più scientifici e descrivere l'Atman come una manifestazione altamente evoluto di tempo-energia-spazio, i TES.

Il libro di Hugh Milne registra un giorno in cui Rajneesh ha ammesso, sotto l'effetto del protossido di azoto, che non esiste una cosa come 'illuminazione'. Non posso confermare questo evento attraverso altri contatti, ma suppongo Rajneesh era semplicemente l'indicazione di quanto UG Krishnamurti ha sempre detto, che la finzione libro di fiabe accettiamo di una perfetta illuminazione, pieno di saggezza infallibile, è una grande bugia. Uno stato forte ed espansivo della coscienza cosmica esiste negli esseri umani che lo raggiungono, ma il modo in cui viene descritto questa condizione con l'istituzione religiosa è una finzione egocentrico, escogitato dai leader spirituali per controllare le masse per il loro tornaconto personale.

L'illuminazione non è qualcosa che si possiede, ma è qualcosa che canale.

Qualunque termine si usa per i fenomeni di illuminazione, è scientificamente corretto affermare che nessun essere umano ha alcun potere di loro. Anche l'energia chimica del nostro metabolismo è preso in prestito dal sole, che fasci di luce alla terra, che viene poi convertita dalle piante attraverso la fotosintesi nel cibo che mangiamo. Si può ottenere il vostro pane al supermercato, ma l'energia calorica contiene origine da reazioni termonucleari in profondità al centro di una stella vicina. I nostri corpi fisici eseguiti su star power. L'energia "spirituale" che il canale viene anche da là, da tutte le parti dell'universo, dai TES completo, al di là degli oceani di galassie, e sull'infinito. Nessun essere umano possiede l'Atman, e nessuno può parlare per i TES.

Il Vuoto non ha alcuna ambizione o personalità di sorta, in modo da Rajneesh può parlare solo per la sua mente animale. La mente animale potrebbe essere suoi discepoli a "conquistare il mondo intero", ma il vuoto non si cura, perché è al di là di qualsiasi motivazione. 

I fenomeni che abbiamo chiamato Rajneesh, Bhagwan, e Osho, era solo una lente temporanea di energia cosmica e non il cosmo intero stesso.Rajneesh, e il famoso anfiteatro greco-armeno mistico George Gurdjieff, spesso usato il potere del Atman per guadagno personale chiaramente. Sia gli uomini che hanno usato la loro coscienza cosmica di sopraffare e sedurre le donne. Gurdjieff si vergognava del suo comportamento e ha promesso molte volte durante la sua vita per porre fine a questa pratica, che era una combinazione di lussuria, di sesso maschile sostenuta dal vantaggio potente del potere oceanica supermentale. Rajneesh è andato anche oltre e ha usato la sua energia cosmica incanalata per manipolare masse di persone per ottenere una sorta di quasi-politico dello stato, e di ingrandire se stesso ben oltre ciò che è stato onesto o utile ai suoi discepoli. In Oregon, Rajneesh ha dichiarato ai media che "La mia religione è la sola religione!" La diplomazia e la modestia non erano i suoi punti di forza.

A mia conoscenza, non è mai George Gurdjieff ha raggiunto gli estremi di auto-indulgenza di Rajneesh, e ha anche messo in guardia i suoi discepoli a non avere fede cieca in lui. Gurdjieff voleva che i suoi studenti di essere liberi e indipendenti, con le abilità combinate di chiara ragionamento mentale e la coscienza cosmica. Rajneesh, al contrario, sembrava credere che solo i suoi pensieri e le idee erano di valore, perché solo lui è stato "illuminato". Questo è stato un grande errore di giudizio e ha rivelato un difetto fondamentale nel suo carattere. Purtroppo, quando Rajneesh raggiunto la capacità di incanalare tutta la potenza dell' Atman, non è riuscito ad applicare la saggezza necessaria di autocontrollo. La sua mente umana in modo ribellò ascetismo asiatica che non è riuscito a garantire che il suo potere in prestito è stato utilizzato solo per il bene degli altri. Rajneesh è stata trainata da forti ambizioni personali, non solo compassione.

Il potere è l'afrodisiaco supremo. Henry Kissinger

Rajneesh lasciato l'India nel 1981, in parte per evitare di pagare quattro milioni di dollari indiano disegno di legge sul reddito. Come è sbarcato da un aereo di linea 747 a prendere i suoi primi passi negli Stati Uniti, ha dichiarato che Rajneesh "Io sono il Messia l'America stava aspettando." - [Milne, Bhagwan: Il Dio che si spense] Dopo un breve soggiorno in una casa di nuova acquisizione castello in stile a Montclair, New Jersey, Rajneesh ha acquistato 64.000 ettari Big Muddy bestiame ranch nei pressi della cittadina di Antelope nell'Oregon orientale per sei milioni di dollari .Rajneesh ha creato il suo comune nel deserto dell'Oregon dalla sua mente potente e la chiamò "Rajneeshpuram." Egli si è fatto il dittatore ultimo, la sua immagine posta ovunque come in un sogno orwelliano male. J. Krishnamurti Rajneesh chiamato un "criminale" e Rajneeshpuram "un campo di concentramento durante la dittatura di illuminazione". 

Poonjaji, studente famoso Ramana Maharshi, riferiti alla Rajneesh come "un maiale" per la costruzione di se stesso agli occhi dei suoi discepoli a proporzioni disonesti. Posizione Poonjaji era che anche gli illuminati rimangono esseri umani, non santi o supereroi, e che noi tutti condividiamo la stessa identità cosmica non importa quale sia la nostra classe e la posizione sociale.U.G. Krishnamurti, un cane sciolto famoso anti-guru, era ancora più critica di Rajneesh. Durante la metà degli anni 1970 Rajneesh deemphasized suoi metodi di meditazione proprie e ha iniziato a vendere occidentali terapie di gruppo in stile come un modo per guadagnare qualcosa. E 'stato difficile fare soldi da autentiche tecniche di meditazione, perché sono tutti facili da imparare e può essere fatto da soli, senza l'aiuto di un insegnante. Uno dei gruppi Rajneesh ha venduto agli studenti è stato il gruppo "Tantra", che è stato fondamentalmente solo discepoli maschi e femmine a fare sesso con loro. U.G. Krishnamurti pubblicamente Rajneesh chiamato il "pappone più grande mondi", perché "ha fatto i soldi da parte dei ragazzi e le ragazze e lo ha tenuto per sé." Nel 1971 Rajneesh mi ha detto direttamente in un incontro faccia a faccia che UG Krishnamurti è stato "realizzato". Dopo molte critiche pubbliche da UG, Rajneesh contrattaccato chiamando UG un "guru fasullo".Guerre a parte, l'atmosfera totalitaria Rajneeshpuram è stato il motivo principale per cui non soggiornare in questo comune oltre i due brevi visite. Ero interessato alla meditazione, non in un campo di prigionia grande dove sono stati trattati gli esseri umani come insetti senza intelligenza propria. 

Rajneesh messo una grande importanza è data i suoi discepoli lo seguirono ordini senza discutere che hanno fatto solo che quando Ma Anand Sheela, segretario personale di Rajneesh, diede ordini assurdi per commettere reati che si Rajneesh (si spera) non avrebbe mai approvato.Quando si decapitare l'intelligenza degli esseri umani, si crea una situazione che è altamente pericolosa e distruttiva per lo spirito umano. Non è possibile salvare le persone dai loro ego, chiedendo "resa totale". La tecnica di forzatura antidemocratica obbedienza cieca non ha funzionato bene per Hitler, Stalin, o per Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Germania, Russia, e la Rajneesh Oregon comune sono stati tutti distrutti da autoritario dominio imperiale. Una diversità di opinioni è sempre salutare perché agisce come un contrappeso efficace per l'arroganza miope di chi sarebbe stato re. Rajneesh non ha mai capito questa verità della storia e di cui la democrazia con disprezzo come "Mobocracy." Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh era un aristocratico imperiale mai, un generoso e aperto democratico mentalità, e ha messo il suo disprezzo per il processo democratico in atto ben visibile in Oregon.In un tentativo di sovvertire le locali elezioni di Wasco County, Rajneesh aveva il suo bus sannyasin in quasi 2.000 persone senza tetto dalle principali città americane, nel tentativo di ingiustamente rig il processo di voto a suo favore. 

Alcuni dei nuovi elettori erano malati di mente e ci hanno dato la birra cucita con farmaci per tenerli gestibile. Accuse credibili sono state fatte che una o più delle persone di strada importati sono morte a causa di un'overdose di miscela di birra e droga, i loro corpi sepolti nel deserto. A mia conoscenza che la carica non è stato definitivamente dimostrato. Frode di Rajneesh schema elettorale fallito, e le derelitti e dei pazienti mentali sono stati restituiti per le strade dopo le elezioni era finita, usati e poi abbandonati.

Rajneesh ha usato gente, ha parlato di entrambi i lati della bocca, e tradito la fiducia dei suoi discepoli. Questo tradimento ha causato Vivek, la sua fidanzata di lunga data e compagno, il suicidio prendendo una dose eccessiva di sonniferi. Rajneesh ha mentito anche sulla sua morte, calunniare il suo più grande amore nella sua tomba sostenendo falsamente che era cronicamente depressa a causa di una certa instabilità emotiva intrinseca. Vivek non è mai stato depresso nel corso degli anni ho la conoscevano, e lei era la donna più radiosa che abbia mai conosciuto.Vivek era uno studente brillante di meditazione, ma il suo metodo di meditazione solo era stare con Rajneesh e assorbendo la sua tremenda energia. Quando il suo unico vero amore crollato nella follia, si tolse la vita di dolore travolgente. Rajneesh la portò al suicidio perché non riusciva a capire né tollerare il suo declino mentale e collasso. Rajneesh ha mentito sulla sua morte per evitare di assumersi la responsabilità per il suo comportamento bizzarro, che è stata la causa di fondo della disperazione Vivek.Il giovane Acharya Rajneesh ha iniziato la sua vita come un insegnante che ha condannato falsi guru, e ha concluso la sua vita come uno dei guru più ingannevoli che il mondo abbia mai conosciuto.

Il fatto difficile da comprendere è che è stato illuminato quando era un anti-guru puritano, e lui era ancora illuminato quando era il massimo corrotto, auto-indulgente stesso guru. Rajneesh ha distrutto il suo insegnamento, perché scartato veridicità a favore di ciò che egli pensava fossero utili menzogne. Una volta effettuata tale svolta sbagliata, lontano da ordinaria verità semplice, hai perso la tua strada. Nessun essere umano può prescindere fatto in maniera regolare, senza trovarsi in un mare di confusione, perché, fatto scartando di smaltire la terra sotto i piedi. Piccole bugie crescere in grandi menzogne, e la verità nascosta ora diventa il tuo nemico, non è il tuo amico e alleato.

Rajneesh si è sopravvalutato e sottovalutato i suoi discepoli. Le persone in cerca di vere intorno a lui avrebbe potuto facilmente gestito la verità e sono stati già motivati ​​senza bisogno di propaganda. Rajneesh era stato un famoso guru per così tanto tempo che è venuto a vedere se stesso in termini grandiosi. Era davvero una figura storica, ma non era il sovrumano perfetto fingeva di essere. Nessuno è! I suoi discepoli meritato onestà, ma lui li nutrivano favole "per dare loro fede".

Jiddu Krishnamurti era stato più onesto di Rajneesh a ripetere senza sosta che "non c'è alcuna autorità", a causa della natura intrinseca dell'universo. Ardent discepoli Rajneesh non hanno ascoltato J. Krishnamurti avvertimenti e mettere la fede cieca in un uomo che sosteneva di essere che tutto vede, di avere tutte le risposte, e che una volta nel 1975 sfacciatamente dichiarato di non aver mai fatto un solo errore in tutta la sua vita. Chiaramente, Rajneesh fatto come molti errori, come qualsiasi essere umano. Così come, ovviamente, la sua illuminazione di base esistenziale non era garanzia di saggezza pragmatica funzionale.

Rajneesh era un filosofo brillante, ma era un bambino perso nel bosco, quando è venuto al mondo della scienza. Preoccupato per sovrappopolazione mondiale, Rajneesh pressioni ai suoi discepoli di sottoporsi a procedure di sterilizzazione di riproduzione sessuale. 

Purtroppo, non prendere in considerazione i dati demografici della crescita della popolazione. L'espansione della popolazione attuale è in gran parte un fenomeno di nazioni povere del Terzo Mondo, non un problema originario degli Stati Uniti, in Canada e in Europa, dove i tassi di natalità sono in realtà in declino. Nord America ed Europa sono solo vivendo la popolazione aumenta a causa di immigrazione legale e illegale da parte dei paesi del Terzo Mondo. Avendo i suoi discepoli occidentali medicalmente recidere le loro capacità riproduttive solo aggiunto a questo squilibrio, e molti ex discepoli ora rimpiangere loro conformità senza dubbio ai suoi editti spensierati.

Scoraggiare i seguaci di avere famiglie è un dispositivo comune di guru per mantenere discepoli di spendere soldi per i bambini, piuttosto che consegnare loro denaro verso lo stesso guru. Discepoli senza figli rendere i lavoratori più e di solito sono più sottomessi. Così, in forma di sterilizzazione sessuale in business plan di Rajneesh e il suo desiderio di creare un esercito di seguaci che hanno ritenuto che "solo il rapporto con la guru è importante." Rajneesh era il figlio di un uomo d'affari Jain ambizioso, e lui era più simile a suo padre di quanto avesse mai realizzato. L'illuminazione di Rajneesh è stato sovrapposto sulla cima di una mente in sintonia con business e fare soldi.

Nel 1980, Rajneesh ha dichiarato che l'epidemia di AIDS si sarebbe presto uccidere tre quarti della popolazione mondiale e che una grande guerra nucleare era proprio dietro l'angolo. Pensava di poter sfuggire olocausto nucleare con la costruzione di rifugi sotterranei e rallentare la diffusione dell'Aids avendo i suoi discepoli lavarsi le mani con l'alcol prima di mangiare pasti. Il suo ammonimento più motivato era per i suoi seguaci di utilizzare sempre il preservativo. Per applicare le sue regole sessuali, che ha coinvolto anche le istruzioni elaborate per l'uso di guanti di gomma durante gli incontri sessuali, Rajneesh incoraggiato i suoi sannyasin di spiare l'altro, riportando i nomi di coloro che non sono riusciti a conformarsi ai suoi ordini.

Il disastro di Rajneesh nomina se stesso il cervello singolare grande dell'universo è stato aggravato dalla mancanza di reali capacità di ragionamento del mondo, e questo era evidente anche prima di iniziare a prendere grandi quantità di Valium e l'inalazione di protossido di azoto. Rajneesh non aveva comprensione del metodo scientifico. Se ha pensato che c'era qualcosa di vero, nella sua mente, che lo ha reso vero. Rajneesh potrebbe tessere sogni magnifici filosofici e dedita ai suoi discepoli di mondi immaginati di avventura spirituale, ma i sogni non hanno dovuto sopportare qualsiasi prova empirica della verità. Nel mondo della scienza, devi dimostrare quello che dici è vero attraverso test. Nel mondo della filosofia e della religione, si può dire tutto ciò che desiderate e gettare al vento la prudenza. Se le parole suonano bene alle masse, si vendono se sono realtà o finzione.

Rajneesh ha stabilito il suo impero deserto come un signore della guerra con il suo esercito privato e del governo fantoccio. Le sue visioni e idee, difettosi o non, sono state prese senza dubbio come la parola di Dio. I suoi discepoli sono stati giudicati per la loro capacità di abbandonarsi alla sua volontà, e tutti i punti di vista opposti sono stati bollati come una mancanza di fede non spirituale. Come condizioni al ranch è diventato progressivamente più sgradevole, un certo numero di sannyasin fuggito nascondendosi nel retro del camion in uscita. La loro ricerca di libertà sconvolto Rajneesh, che ha chiesto che il disilluso ora deve chiedere il permesso di andarsene. Rajneesh poi drammaticamente minacciato di suicidarsi se altri sono scappati per via stealthful.

Ragionamento povero Rajneesh divenne ancora più evidente durante e dopo lo scandalo comune Oregon. Dopo essere stato incarcerato e poi deportato dagli Stati Uniti, ha dichiarato con rabbia Rajneesh America "un paese miserabile" e gli americani di marca come "subumani", ignorando il fatto che è stato lui, un indiano, che si è dichiarato colpevole di frode reato l'immigrazione, e che era Sheela, un indiano, che ha ordinato i crimini più gravi che hanno portato il suo impero alla rovina. Anche sulla cinquantina, Rajneesh giaceva ancora per ottenere la sua strada e continuano a chiedere di essere al centro dell'attenzione. Nel 1988, affetti da demenza di droga e la malattia indotta, Rajneesh pubblicamente il broncio che la sua scatola dei giocattoli, la sua collezione di auto costose e incrostate gioiello orologi, era stato portato via.

Rajneesh i discepoli pensavano a seguito di un autorevole "Maestro illuminato." In realtà erano stati fuorviare da un animale particolarmente soggetta a errore umano, che era ancora un bambino a cuore. Rajneesh non era solo per se stesso travisato personalmente, ma ha travisato i fenomeni di illuminazione stessa. La fantasia idealizzata di illuminazione perfetta non esiste da nessuna parte nel mondo reale, e che non è mai esistito. L'universo è troppo grande e complesso per chiunque di essere il suo "Maestro". Ci sono tutti i soggetti, non Maestri, e coloro che pretendono di essere infallibile e onnisciente finiscono per apparire ancora di più il pazzo come la storia dimostra inevitabilmente il contrario.

La natura non usare niente come modello. E 'interessato solo al perfezionamento della specie. Si sta cercando di creare specie perfette e non esseri perfetti. - U.G. Krishnamurti

I saggi famosi del passato sembra perfetto per ora perché sono diventati più grandi miti della vita. Il passaggio di tempo ha permesso loro seguaci per coprire i difetti del loro guru, così come i discepoli Rajneesh sono attualmente storia censura per coprire Rajneesh grandi deficit. Rajneesh non è mai stato più infallibile di qualsiasi altro essere umano. Purtroppo, la coscienza cosmica non effettua automaticamente il rendering maggiore intelligenza, saggezza e onestà.

Rajneesh morì dipendenti da Valium, e ha vissuto tutti i sintomi negativi della tossicodipendenza, che comprendeva cattiva articolazione della parola, paranoia, scarsa capacità di giudizio, e l'intelligenza notevolmente abbassata. A un certo punto la sua paranoia e la confusione era così grande che ha pensato un gruppo di cultisti tedesca aveva lanciato un malefico incantesimo su di lui. Le sue disabilità fisiche e abuso di droga erano semplicemente più che il suo cervello mortale potrebbe assumere. Il suo più grande difetto, il suo disprezzo per il concetto comune di verità, fu la sua caduta definitiva e per questo crimine che deve essere ritenuta pienamente responsabile.

Mai dare a una ventosa una pausa.  W.C. Campi

Rajneesh ha mentito quando ha detto che aveva illuminato i discepoli. Ha mentito quando ha detto di non aver mai fatto un errore. Verso la fine della sua vita egli fu costretto ad ammettere che era fallibile, come la sua lista di pasticci aveva raggiunto proporzioni mostruose. Ha mentito, fingendo che i suoi gruppi di terapia non sono stati principalmente solo un dispositivo per fare soldi. Rajneesh ha mentito circa la violazione delle leggi sull'immigrazione degli Stati Uniti, e ha solo ammesso la verità dopo essere stato presentato con prove schiaccianti contro di lui. Ha mentito dicendo che è stato adottato in un regime fasullo di ottenere lo status di residente permanente. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh non era rapinatore di banche, ma era letteralmente un bugiardo patologico. La cosa ridicola è che tutte le sue bugie erano totalmente inutili e controproducenti. 

Come convenzionale e quadrato come può sembrare, l'onestà è davvero la politica migliore!

Rajneesh ha mentito quando ha affermato che non era responsabile per gli orrori del comune Oregon. Rajneesh era responsabile in quanto raccolte a mano Ma Anand Sheela e le persone che hanno commesso i crimini maggiori di cospirazione per commettere assassinio, avvelenamento, di primo grado aggressione, furto, incendio doloso, e intercettazioni. Rajneesh ha dato se stesso diretta approvazione verbale per intercettazioni illegali di Sheela e intercettazioni dei suoi discepoli. Il fatto che Rajneesh non ha ordinato o hanno preknowledge (si spera) dei più gravi crimini violenti non vuol dire che non era eticamente responsabile. Rajneesh mai rivoltato contro Ma Anand Sheela fino a quando non ha iniziato a sospettare che Sheela era rubare i soldi da lui.

Appena un mese prima Sheela lasciato il comune, Rajneesh ha parlato del suo pubblico, affermando che: "Ho preparato la sua come una spada. Ho detto di uscire e tagliare come molte teste possibile". Più tardi, Rajneesh finta innocenza e ha sostenuto che Sheela lo stava controllando nonostante il fatto evidente che Rajneesh è stato il motivo singolare del comune esistito. Rajneesh era circondato da migliaia di discepoli adoranti che avrebbe volentieri espulsi o incarcerati Sheela ogni volta che ha dato l'ordine.

Sheela ha fatto il lavoro sporco di Rajneesh, e il fatto che è andata più in là nei suoi crimini che Rajneesh aveva previsto non lo esonera da ogni colpa. Dopo aver lasciato il comune, Sheela ha dichiarato che era stanca di "essere il suo schiavo per ore 16, 17 o 20 al giorno", e stanco di "prendere il cibo dalla bocca di gente a comprare gli orologi e Rolls Royce." Rajneesh poi pubblicamente sostenuto che Sheela aveva estorto milioni di dollari dal comune. Sheela risposta alla sua accusa era che Rajneesh aveva speso tutti i soldi per se stesso i suoi giocattoli costosi, e che Rajneesh era male in matematica e "non può contare." Chiaramente, Rajneesh gli acquisti folli di decine di orologi da donna 'ingioiellate e oltre 90 Rolls-Royce automobili costano comune molti milioni di dollari. Dopo il suo rilascio dalla prigione, Ma Anand Sheela ha continuato a lavorare per vivere, senza segni evidenti di enormi ricchezze. Sheela commesso molti crimini, ma non è mai stato lo stesso Rajneesh "innocente".

Se un insegnante mette un marinaio ubriaco incaricato di guidare un autobus della scuola, i bambini finiscono per morire, allora l'insegnante è responsabile della loro morte. Rajneesh sapeva che tipo di persona fosse Sheela, e lui la scelse per la sua corruzione e arroganza, non a dispetto di essa. Rajneesh personalmente istruito Sheela nel modo di controllare e manipolare i suoi discepoli, e fu Rajneesh stesso che ha incoraggiato Sheela scoppi infami nello show televisivo ABC, Nightline. In un tentativo vile di eludere i suoi fallimenti, Rajneesh cambiato il suo nome in Osho, come se un cambio di nome potrebbe lavare via i suoi peccati.

Non ci sono prove rilasciato pubblicamente per suggerire che Rajneesh ha ordinato l'attacco guerra batteriologica sui dieci ristoranti di Oregon. Non ci sono nemmeno prove rilasciato pubblicamente che implica Rajneesh nel complotto per avere un pilota sannyasin volare un aereo carico di esplosivo in un tribunale dell'Oregon, al fine di intimidire l'opposizione politica. Per fortuna, il pilota sannyasin che è stato chiesto di svolgere tale compito folle non era così stupido come i congiurati, ed egli fuggì comune senza commettere alcun reato.

Rajneesh era direttamente responsabile per il mix contorta della schiavitù totalitaria e indulgenza libertina che il comune rappresentato. Secondo i rapporti pubblicati altamente credibili, Rajneesh permesso uomini di mezza età di avere rapporti sessuali con le ragazze in età prepuberale presso il comune in nome della libertà sessuale, ma i suoi discepoli non era permesso di avere una mente propria e dovette arrendersi totalmente alla grande volontà di Bhagwan. I discepoli erano spesso costretti a lavorare 12 ore al giorno in condizioni di freddo e difficile, mentre Rajneesh stesso ha sperimentato "spazi groove" nella sua piscina privata riscaldata coperta e visto innumerevoli film sul suo televisore grande schermo di proiezione, il tutto mentre godendo il suo apporto quotidiano di farmaci . Rajneesh ha mostrato il suo amore divino per i suoi discepoli di sperperare milioni di persone in attività principali comunali guadagnati sulla sua collezione di auto e gioielli costosi, e tutto in nome di assenza di ego e di resa spirituale.

Perché Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh possedere oltre il 90 Rolls-Royce? Perché decine di Saddam Hussein propri di lussuosi palazzi? Questi desideri sono prodotti della mente animale di base di due uomini che è cresciuto circondato dalla povertà. L'illuminazione non si preoccupa di simboli di potere e potenza. Alla ricerca di spiegazioni esoteriche nascoste per il comportamento ossessivo è inutile. C'è una ragione occulta che Elton John spende più di $ 400.000. al mese in fiori? C'è un motivo segreto spirituale che Rajneesh aveva una collezione di decine di orologi da donna 'costosi? La coscienza cosmica universale è completamente neutro e senza bisogno di possedere, impressionare, o dominare. Inoltre, non può guidare o leggere l'ora.

Una delle menzogne ​​più palesi Rajneesh era che "l'illuminato non guadagna nulla dai suoi discepoli." Rajneesh ha voluto la gente a credere che tutto ciò che ha fatto è stato un dono gratuito nato da pura compassione, e che ha guadagnato nulla personalmente dalla relazione guru-discepolo. In evidente fatto dimostrabile, Rajneesh guadagnato molto dai suoi discepoli: il denaro, il potere, il sesso, e l'eccitazione di costante adorazione. Proprio come le rock star diventano eccitato da fan urlanti ai concerti, Rajneesh ha guadagnato energia emotiva e sostegno da parte il suo esercito di sannyasin. Il trasferimento di energia è una strada a doppio senso, non è totalmente gratuito di sola andata regalo. Essere un guru era la sua attività, la sua attività solo. Senza che il reddito, almeno sul piano materiale, era solo un breve, calvo, uomo fisicamente disabile indiano che non poteva mantenere un lavoro. Illuminazione molto reale di Rajneesh non pagare le bollette o dargli i lussi materiali che desiderava.

La coscienza ha bisogno di intrattenimento per sopravvivere, e Rajneesh usato i suoi discepoli come giocattoli per il suo divertimento. Rajneesh non aveva alcun potere bancabili propria, in modo da poter ottenere il potere soltanto materiale per manipolare gli altri a fare la sua volontà. L'equazione era semplice. I discepoli più ha attirato, più potenza e ricchezza ottenne.

Durante l'incarcerazione di Rajneesh in America, una rete televisiva ha trasmesso un video di Rajneesh presi alla sprovvista da una telecamera di sicurezza mentre era detenuto in una sala d'attesa. Rajneesh sembrava annoiato e disgustato, così come ogni uomo comune potrebbe essere. Non aveva l'aria beata o illuminato a tutti. A mio parere quel video ha rivelato la cruda verità sui fenomeni che chiamiamo 'illuminazione.' La realizzazione del Vuoto non è sufficiente per chiunque. Tutti gli animali umani, illuminati o no, hanno bisogno di interazione sociale e le comodità del mondo materiale da contenuti.

Rajneesh, a così tanti livelli, era solo un uomo comune. Sessuale era ancora meno del solito. Fingendo di essere un grande tantrico nei suoi primi anni, Rajneesh distribuito ridicolmente cattivo consiglio sessuale in un momento in cui egli aveva ben poca esperienza di prima mano con il sesso stesso. Durante i suoi anni di Bombay, Rajneesh spesso afferrato i seni di giovani discepoli di sesso femminile. In almeno un'occasione, ha chiesto un paio di fare sesso davanti a lui in modo che potesse guardare. La coppia saggiamente respinto la sua richiesta.

Rajneesh spesso chiesto alle donne metà dei suoi anni a spogliarsi di fronte a lui in modo da poter "sentire i loro chakra." Per facilitare questa pratica, ha installato una serratura elettrica alla sua porta della camera che può essere attivato da un pulsante sulla sua scrivania. Rajneesh tentare il seno di due dei miei amici e delle donne "sentito i chakra" di un terzo. Cominciai presto a capire che come tanti ragazza afferrare guru indiani che avevano fatto i titoli dei giornali, Rajneesh a livello umano è stato solo un normale maschio sessualmente immaturi indiana. La mia amica che ha subito l'incidente sensazione chakra era così messo fuori che non è tornata di rivederlo. Lui le aveva detto: "Non preoccuparti. Sei mia ora". Tale dichiarazione afferrando era raffreddato lei quanto l'anticipo sessuale. La giovane donna era uno studente di musica indiana e precedentemente sfruttati sessualmente da un famoso musicista indiano. Sapeva di prima mano ciò che molti uomini indiani erano come. Rajneesh ha dimostrato di essere prevedibile e purtroppo la stessa cosa.

Dopo Rajneesh cominciato ad avere rapporti sessuali in maniera regolare, lo spirituale necessità per lui di "sentire" i chakra dei suoi discepoli donne misteriosamente scomparse. Rajneesh razionalizzato avere rapporti sessuali con i suoi discepoli femminili, sostenendo che l'atto li avrebbe benedetti così tanto che sarebbero diventati illuminati in qualche vita futura. I suoi anni di ammissione dopo che non esiste una cosa come la reincarnazione fatto le sue razionalizzazioni sessuali apparire ancora più ridicolo e self-serving.

Rajneesh aveva molto dentro di lui che volevo: la luce, l'energia, e uno stato notevolmente ampliato di essere. Purtroppo, ha anche avuto molto dentro di lui che non volevo o rispettare. Io non trovare un difetto con Rajneesh per avere gli stessi desideri sessuali che tutti gli uomini hanno. Ho fatto trovare un difetto quando era disonesto e crudele per ragioni puramente egoistiche.

Mentre viveva a Bombay, Rajneesh fatto una giovane donna incinta attraverso un aggressivo e non richiesta per la seduzione. La donna era molto turbato e costretto dalle circostanze ad abortire. Al fine di proteggere la sua immagine di un grande guru, Rajneesh ha mentito sul suo coinvolgimento e ha sostenuto che la ragazza aveva immaginato tutta la faccenda. La giovane donna ha detto l'ambasciata americana la sua storia, e questo incidente ha segnato l'inizio dei problemi Rajneesh con il governo degli Stati Uniti.

La natura ha fornito animali umani con un forte desiderio sessuale praticamente inarrestabile per garantire la riproduzione della specie. A causa della enorme importanza e il potere del sesso, la maggior parte dei guru, illuminati o no, hanno mantenuto una vita sessuale attiva, che sono spesso tenuti segreti per motivi puramente politici. Nei suoi primi anni, Rajneesh ha mentito sulla sua sessualità forte affermando di essere celibe. Per essere onesti, questo deve essere compreso nel contesto di un rigidamente antisessuale e altamente ipocrita struttura sociale indiano. Più tardi, dopo la sua posizione come un guru era diventato sicuro, Rajneesh pubblicamente vantato ai media americani che ha fatto sesso "con centinaia di donne." Tutti i partner Rajneesh sessuali sono stati suoi studenti di meditazione femminili che sono stati usati come il suo harem personale.

Tutti gli esseri umani sono animali, in particolare i mammiferi. Gli scienziati ora capire che il DNA umano è approssimativamente del 96% lo stesso DNA dello scimpanzé. La storia del mondo, mitologia asiatica, la politica e il comportamento del guru maschio alfa ha senso assegnare più se si mantiene questo fatto inevitabile in mente. Il nostro subconscio più primordiale forze motivanti provengono dal mondo animale, che siamo ancora parte.

L'ultima volta che ho visitato l'ashram Rajneesh a Poona, in India, è stato nel 1988. L'ashram era letteralmente come un convegno ad alto volume di camicie brune tedesche (truppe d'assalto), a quel punto. Rajneesh, alias "Osho," era ancora molto popolare in Germania, dovuto in parte ai suoi commenti nella rivista tedesca Stern che sono stati ampiamente interpretati come pro-Hitler. Molti giovani tedeschi, che erano alla ricerca di un leader forte e carismatico rimasti entusiasti dalle sue parole. Coloro che hanno perso i propri cari durante la seconda guerra mondiale sono stati giustamente scioccato.

Anche nei primi anni 1970 a Bombay, Rajneesh fatto dichiarazioni imprudenti che potrebbe facilmente essere interpretati come pro-Hitler e pro-fascista. In una conferenza su "gruppi esoterici" ha affermato che Adolf Hitler era stato telepaticamente appoggiato da un gruppo occulto buddista che Rajneesh stesso era in contatto. Durante la seconda guerra mondiale è ben noto che un certo numero di bramino indiano yogi e giapponesi "maestri Zen" aveva sostenuto la causa dell'Asse e lo sterminio delle "razze inferiori", così pretesa di Rajneesh non era del tutto sorprendente, se non del tutto credibile.

In Poona, Rajneesh diede una lezione infame in cui affermava che gli ebrei avevano dato Hitler "non scelta", ma per sterminarli. Nei suoi ultimi anni Rajneesh ha dichiarato che "io sono innamorato di questo uomo (Adolf Hitler). Era pazzo, ma sono ancora più pazzo." Rajneesh ha detto che voleva che i suoi sannyasin "per conquistare il mondo" e che aveva studiato Hitler al fine di conoscere il modo per realizzare il compito. Per un uomo che si è ritratto come più intelligente del mondo, l'anima più alta, e più grande, tali osservazioni erano la prova per me che il suo uso di droga aveva distrutto la qualità della sua mente.

Rajneesh i commenti su Hitler potrebbe essere scontati come fastidiosi, ma in gran parte innocui aria calda se non fosse per il fatto che ha messo molte delle tecniche di Hitler in pratica. Rajneesh utilizzato Hitler "grande menzogna" metodo di controllo mentale in modo molto efficace, e chiese la resa totale dalle sue truppe (discepoli). Rajneesh condonato illegali informatori spiare i propri seguaci e utilizzata per eliminare la sleale. Ma Anand Sheela, la sua segretaria personale, girato le tabelle su Rajneesh Rajneesh da intercettazioni di marchio scranno, un tradimento il suo "terzo occhio", mai rilevata. La polizia ha poi trovato Oregon Rajneesh illegalmente conversazioni registrate, ma a causa delle regole di prova che non potevano essere utilizzate contro di lui in un tribunale di diritto. I nastri sono stati segnalati per essere altamente schiacciante da colpevolezza di Rajneesh in gran parte del giorno del comune per giorno le attività illegali.

Rajneesh girato molti dei suoi discepoli nel equivalente di camicie brune armate. Ho ricevuto lettere da alcune delle guardie di Rajneesh di sicurezza ex che hanno ammesso di aver ceduto al fascino del fascismo e ora pentito propri comportamenti ed abitudini. Uno ha scritto che lui non sapeva nemmeno come meditare, e che l'emozione di potere era quello che lo teneva fedele al suo grande leader. In Poona, guardie Rajneesh picchiato un residente fastidioso locale, le mani dietro la schiena ha le guardie lo preso a pugni. In Oregon, guardie Rajneesh erano armati fino ai denti con pistole e fucili d'assalto in stile militare semiautomatico. Rajneesh non è mai stato un ammiratore del Mahatma Gandhi, il grande pacifista indiano, ma ha avuto un fascino malsano con Adolf Hitler, così come l'esercito degli Stati Uniti Generale, George Patton. Secondo Hugh Milne (Shivamurti), Rajneesh visto il film Patton più e più volte il suo televisore grande schermo di proiezione nella sua casa ranch in Oregon.

Forse la cosa peggiore tratto personale di Rajneesh era che poteva servire fuori ma lui non ce la faceva. Ha sempre messo i suoi discepoli attraverso grandi sofferenze fisiche, che portano a malattie gravi e persino la morte per alcuni, tuttavia egli stesso ha vissuto nel lusso e non poteva sopportare il disagio fisico senza lamentarsi a voce alta come un bambino. Dopo il suo arresto il 28 ottobre 1985, presso il Charlotte / Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, Rajneesh è stato intervistato dal telegiornale ABC. Ha iniziato la sua intervista prigione piangendo con voce stridula della sua meno di strutture reali in gattabuia. Il suo acuto lamento era così strano e fastidioso che Sabato Night Live, NBC tarda commedia night show televisivo, ha utilizzato il filmato sarcasticamente come uno scherzo di "Dio" lamentarsi.

Durante l'aspetto prigione di Rajneesh in televisione ABC Nightline spettacolo, Rajneesh diede risposte evasive e disonesti a tutte le domande di Ted Koppel, e si comportava come un politico particolarmente pomposo e inetto colti in flagrante in attività illegali. Rajneesh ha sostenuto che non era responsabile di uno dei delitti commessi al comune perché era "in silenzio". In fatto provato, anche se Rajneesh aveva smesso di dare lezioni pubbliche per un certo tempo, non aveva mai smesso di parlare di Ma Anand Sheela e di altri discepoli più vicini. Rajneesh era sempre la massima autorità in comune, anche se Sheela commesso alcuni dei crimini più gravi dietro la schiena.

Rajneesh preferito di Rolls-Royce rivenditore ha dichiarato che "il Bhagwan" aveva passato ore al telefono a parlare con lui dei suoi spesso acquisti settimanali di nuove automobili. Tutti i suoi oltre 90 Rolls-Royce sono stati pagati con fondi comunali generali ai suoi ordini diretti, non "regali" da estranei come avrebbe successivamente si tenta di affermare. Rajneesh era l'unica persona che voleva le auto e lui era l'unica persona il permesso di guidare loro. Dopo la bancarotta del Comune, ha affermato che le automobili erano di proprietà del comune, non da lui.

Nella sua intervista a Nightline, Rajneesh fa finta di non sapere che stava lasciando gli Stati Uniti durante il suo tentativo di sfuggire a un mandato d'arresto imminente federale con l'accusa di racket e l'immigrazione. Difesa di Rajneesh era che stava innocentemente dormendo quando la polizia saliti a bordo del jet privato che aveva assunto per volare a Bermuda. Rajneesh ha detto che pensava Bermuda era solo un altro Stato americano, e che stava andando in vacanza per riposare e per sfuggire "minacce di morte". Le autorità poi appreso che un discepolo Rajneesh con legami con gli Stati Uniti Dipartimento di Giustizia aveva soffiata Rajneesh del suo imminente arresto. I suoi sannyasin proprie non aveva neppure saputo che aveva lasciato il comune fino a quando hanno appreso dai media dell'arresto dei seguaci di Rajneesh e diversi presso l'aeroporto di North Carolina. Il fatto triste è stata la loro grande guru "illuminato" aveva segretamente abbandonato i suoi discepoli, lasciando loro di affrontare la musica tutto da soli. Il bagaglio di Rajneesh e dei suoi compagni è stato cercato e trovato a contenere un sacco di soldi, una scatola di costosi orologi gioiello incrostati, e una pistola.

Il culto Rajneesh avuto poca fortuna conquistare telespettatori americani. Ma Anand Sheela disonorata a settimane Nightline prima scoppiando in oscenità forti, costringendo Ted Koppel di portarla fuori l'aria. Sabato Night Live in onda dopo una scenetta su un asta con l'attore Randy Quaid svendere "il Bhagwan" più di 90 Rolls-Royce. Anni dopo, il I Simpson, la rete televisiva FOX e 'cartone animato molto popolare, ha prodotto una parodia di Rajneesh che raffigurava un guru bianco guantata alla guida della sua Rolls-Royce su una strada fangosa comune come suoi discepoli provato gioia a mangiare la sua strada sterrata. Nel cartone animato, il grande guru ha cercato di sfuggire alla comunione con sacchi di denaro in una casa spacciare macchina volante azionata.

Quando si tratta di guru, prendere il meglio e lasciare il resto. Ramamurti Mishra

Durante la mia ultima visita all'ashram Poona nel 1988, Rajneesh era in silenzio, perché era arrabbiato con i suoi discepoli. Voleva che i suoi sannyasin dimostrare per le strade contro alcuni funzionari indiani che avevano parlato contro di lui. Saggiamente, nessuno era interessato a creare un nuovo scontro. Questo incantesimo della sanità mentale tra il gregge irritato Rajneesh, che ha annullato i colloqui pubblici come punizione. Sono stato così solo in grado di vederlo su nastro video.

Nella conferenza registrata, Rajneesh era ranting emotivamente, e di fatto in modo non corretto, di come la polizia negli Stati Uniti aveva rubato la sua collezione di orologi da donna gioiello incrostati. Ha detto che non sarebbe mai in grado di indossare in pubblico perché i suoi sannyasin vedrebbe gli orologi ai polsi negli aeroporti, stazioni ferroviarie, eccetera, e iniziare a urlare a gran voce che "hai rubato orologio di Bhagwan!" Le sue parole e modi erano così puerilmente irrazionale che mi ha ricordato il leader del culto suicida, Jim Jones. Questo vecchio pazzo, ora chiamato "Osho," era ben lontana dal sereno, dignitoso, e molto eloquente Acharya Rajneesh avevo conosciuto anni prima.

Ovviamente, Rajneesh non era "senza ego", come aveva spesso affermato. Il cervello umano è una macchina pensante biologicamente creato che si è evoluto sia per il personale di auto-conservazione e la sopravvivenza della specie. L'ego, che è una forza motivante egoista, è necessario per proteggere la nostra colonia di cellule viventi (il corpo fisico) di pericolo e per mantenere le nostre cellule rifornite di cibo e acqua. Se non si dispone di un ego, non sarebbe in grado di pensare, parlare, o trovare cibo, riparo e vestiario.

Funzionali risonanza magnetica (fMRI) di monaci tibetani e yogi indù hanno dimostrato che durante la meditazione profonda le parti del cervello che ci dà un senso di posizione nel tempo e nello spazio sono meno attivi. Se si rallenta il processo di pensiero, e al tempo stesso ridurre il senso del cervello della posizione, la coscienza perde sia il suo contenuto e dei suoi confini. Ti senti infinita, senza tempo, e vuoto. 

Questa sensazione di un vuoto infinito dà la falsa impressione che l'ego non esiste più. L'assenza di ego è un'illusione perché la funzione ego è una parte fondamentale della struttura di base fisica del cervello stesso. Ego non può essere persa a meno che il cervello muore, che farà sì che il vostro intero corpo a morire.

Molti esseri umani sono diventati illuminati ingannare dalla riduzione della funzione di localizzazione spaziale del cervello e credevano di non avere più l'egoismo personale che potrebbe causare problemi. Meher Baba ha trascorso gran parte della sua vita, vantandosi di quanto grande fosse, ma nella sua coscienza senza confini non provava ego personale. Meher Baba anche proclamato al mondo che "Nessuno mi ama tanto quanto io meriti di essere amato." In verità, Meher Baba era molto egocentrico e lui avrebbe dovuto rendersi conto che anche i fenomeni del cervello che chiamiamo "illuminazione" non è una scusa per vantarsi. L'errore di valutazione stesso fondamentale afflitto Rajneesh. Divenne ingannare pensando che lui era al di sopra arroganza e avidità, ma che non era semplicemente il caso. L'ego è cablato nei nostri percorsi neurali e non possono essere distrutti a meno che il corpo fisico muore.

Anche gli esseri umani illuminati hanno in mente i loro modi e rendersi conto che l'Atman è il fenomeno meravigliose che non dovrebbero promuovere, la propria personalità temporanee. Ramana Maharshi ha avuto il giusto approccio a questo proposito, e questa è una ragione per cui è ancora amato da tutti. Ramana Maharshi promosso l'Atman, la coscienza cosmica universale, ma non il proprio corpo mortale e la mente.

Energia spettacolare Rajneesh era la prova che è stato illuminato in Oriente, senso esoterico della parola. L', orientale definizione esoterica di 'illuminazione' è un fenomeno energetico, ottenuto solo da coloro che sono totalmente aperti al potere infinito dell'universo. La definizione occidentale è semplicemente quello di essere un uomo molto saggio, che Rajneesh, a mio parere, non lo era.

Anche dopo il ritorno a Poona, Rajneesh ha continuato la sua Valium e l'uso di protossido di azoto e sembrava incapace di imparare dai propri errori. Rajneesh aveva spesso bollato i suoi critici come "idioti", ma nei suoi ultimi anni Rajneesh non aveva voce sano dentro di sé per dire No! È troppo è troppo! Come un alcolizzato squilibrato, Rajneesh non riusciva a smettere il proprio comportamento auto-distruttivo, e la qualità del suo giudizio è sceso al di sotto di quella della anche il più comune essere umano non illuminata. Rajneesh aveva usato il mito del Tantra di razionalizzare la sua disonestà e l'egoismo, e adesso non riusciva a smettere. All'inizio della vita, Rajneesh aveva saltato di non pagare il conto dell'albergo, truffato un agente immobiliare di una commissione, e ha ottenuto milioni di dollari dai suoi discepoli attraverso menzogne ​​e frodi. Alla fine, Rajneesh era diventato un tossicodipendente senza speranza, come bene, e nessuna quantità di razionalizzazioni spirituali potrebbe alterare questo fatto.

Insegnamento per tutta la vita di Rajneesh era che l'illuminazione è uno stato di assenza di ego perfetto che ha portato la saggezza, la compassione, e nel suo caso unico, infallibilità totale. Negli ultimi mesi della sua vita, Rajneesh, ora ribattezzato "Osho," finalmente ammesso che l'ego non poteva essere distrutta, solo ", ha osservato." La base della sua richiesta di resa totale dei suoi discepoli era che i seguaci ego contaminati dovevano presentare le loro volontà al Maestro perfetto, perché solo il perfetto Maestro non ha ego, e quindi non poteva sbagliare. Se questo non fosse vero allora perché qualcuno dovrebbe cedere a un altro io fallibile e corruttibile dell'uomo?

Rajneesh anche finalmente ammesso che non ci sia la reincarnazione, e che il concetto stesso di reincarnazione era solo una "errata interpretazione" di altri fenomeni. Questa ammissione scioccante ha fatto sì che le sue affermazioni precedenti frequenti di essere un guru famoso in vite passate erano pura finzione, progettato per impressionare, manipolare e controllare i suoi discepoli. Insegnamento principale di Rajneesh era basata su anime, la reincarnazione, e ottenendo la libertà dalla rinascita (moksha) attraverso la pratica spirituale. La sua assunzione del farmaco di massa sembrava di agire come un siero della verità, a volte, permettendo ammissioni di verità che in precedenza aveva tenuto segrete al fine di mantenere il controllo del suo impero culto. Il corso della vita di Rajneesh e dei suoi farmaci ricoveri indotti mi ha dimostrato che i suoi insegnamenti fondamentali erano sbagliate e una bugia.

Nei suoi ultimi giorni, Osho ha sostenuto con i suoi medici di ignorare i loro etica medica e di dargli ancora di più l'ossido di azoto. Osho razionalizzato la sua tossicodipendenza come un adolescente potrebbe se catturati fumare marijuana da sua madre. Il Dio "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh" era caduto al passo falso-ubriaco Osho, e un numero considerevole di discepoli sono stati così assuefatti alle sue parole seducenti arte e l'immagine falsa che non potevano vedere cosa stava accadendo proprio davanti ai loro occhi . Alla fine del 1989, in un atto finale bizzarro, 

Osho ordinò ai suoi dentisti per rimuovere la maggior parte dei suoi denti per nessun motivo medico legittimo. Se Osho aveva sospettato che le otturazioni di mercurio nei denti lo stavano causando problemi di salute, avrebbe potuto facilmente avuto le vecchie otturazioni sostituiti con moderni bianchi otturazioni dentali di plastica. Perché Osho voleva avere denti così tanti rimosso è un mistero fino ad oggi. Inutile dire che la loro rimozione non ha fatto nulla per migliorare la sua salute.

Negli anni dopo la morte di Osho (vedi Osho celebrazioni morte qui), l'ashram Poona è stato trasformato in un "cashram" ed è gestito a scopo di lucro. Puncture colori, tantrico Tarocchi, gruppi di incontro, e ogni truffa crackpot nel libro viene spacciata dai discepoli di Osho per grosse somme di denaro. Ripenso al giorno in cui l'ha appena compiuto 40 anni Acharya Rajneesh ha incaricato una donna giapponese che "La meditazione non deve essere trasformato in un business." I mezzi corrotti hanno ottenuto così fuori mano che l'intento originale delle estremità è stato a lungo dimenticato. 

Sarebbe bello credere che gli uomini illuminati sono stati perfetti in ogni modo. Ciò renderebbe la vita più semplice e più dolce, ma sarebbe finzione, non realtà.

© 1998 Christopher Calder      

http://kinkazzosho.blogspot.it/2006/09/one-biographical-view.html



Dal momento che spesso gli articoli spariscono o i siti nascono e muoiono, riporto il testo di Calder.





Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth

by Christopher Calder

---

Meditation must not be made into a business. ~ Acharya Rajneesh 1971


Acharya Rajneesh was 39 years old when I first met him at his Bombay apartment in December of 1970. With long beard and large dark eyes, he looked like a painting of Lao-Tse come to life. Before meeting Rajneesh, I had spent time with a number of Eastern gurus  without being satisfied with the quality of their teachings. I wanted an enlightened guide who could bridge the gap between East and West, and reveal the true esoteric secrets without the excess baggage of Indian, Tibetan, or Japanese culture. Rajneesh was the answer to my quest for those deeper meanings. He described for me in vivid detail everything I wanted to know about the inner worlds, and he had the power of immense being to back up his words. At 21 years old, I was naive about life and the nature of man and I assumed that everything he told me must be true.

Rajneesh spoke on a high level of intelligence, and his powerful presence emanated from his body like a soft light that healed all wounds. While sitting close during a small gathering of friends, Rajneesh took me on a rapidly vertical inner journey that almost seemed to push me out of my physical body. His vast presence lifted everyone around him higher without the slightest effort on their part. The days I spent at his Bombay apartment were like days spent in heaven. He had it all, and he was giving it away for free!Rajneesh possessed the power of direct energy transmission, which is known in India as "shaktipat." He used this power nobly to bring comfort and inspiration to his disciples. Rajneesh claimed to have the "third eye" powers of telepathy and remote viewing as well, and for many years I believed that claim to be true. However, in the 1980s Rajneesh was unable to perceive the tragic events at his Oregon commune which occurred directly under his nose, so those claimed powers are now a question mark in my mind. Many gurus boast of having mysterious psychic abilities in order to attract new disciples and new money. Rajneesh's habit of getting his helpers to investigate visitors, so he could impress them with his knowledge of their personal lives, adds to my current skepticism about the potency and effectiveness of his "third eye." It was a definite fact, however, that those who came near him did experience his incredible cosmic presence. One or two face to face meetings with Rajneesh was all it took to turn doubting Western skepticism into awed admiration and devotion.

One year earlier I had meet another enlightened teacher known to the world as Jiddu Krishnamurti. J. Krishnamurti could barely give a coherent lecture, and he constantly scolded his audience by referring to their "shoddy little minds." I loved his frankness, and his words were true, but his subtly cantankerous nature was not very helpful in transferring his knowledge to others. 

Listening to J. Krishnamurti speak was like eating a sandwich made of bread and sand. I found the best way to enjoy his talks was to completely ignore his words and quietly absorb his presence. Using that technique, I would become so expanded after a lecture that I could barely talk for hours afterwards. J. Krishnamurti, while fully enlightened and uniquely lovable, will be recorded in history as a teacher with very poor verbal communication skills. Unlike the highly eloquent Rajneesh, however, J. Krishnamurti never committed any crime, never pretended to be more than he was, and he never used other human beings selfishly.

Life is complex and multilayered, and my naive illusions about the phenomena of perfect enlightenment faded over the years. It became clear that enlightened people are as fallible as anyone. They are expanded human beings, not perfect human beings, and they live and breathe with many of the same faults and vulnerabilities we ordinary humans must endure.

Skeptics ask how I can claim that Rajneesh was enlightened, given his scandals and disastrous public image. I can only say that Rajneesh's spiritual presence was identical to that of Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was recognized as enlightened by every high Tibetan Lama and revered Hindu sage of the day. I do sympathize with the skeptics, however. If I had not known Rajneesh personally, I would never believe it myself.

Rajneesh pushed the envelope of enlightenment in both positive and negative directions. He was the best of the best and the worst of the worst. He was a great teacher in his early years, with an innovative meditation technique that worked with dramatic power called "Dynamic Meditation." Rajneesh lifted thousands of seekers to higher levels of consciousness, and he detailed Eastern religions and ancient meditation techniques with luminous clarity.

One false move. One grand error.

Acharya Rajneesh was born on December 11th, 1931, in the village of Kuchwada in central India. The term 'Acharya' means a religious teacher, and 'Rajneesh' means moon. Rajneesh's actual legal name was Chandra Mohan Jain; 'Rajneesh' being only an unofficial nickname acquired in childhood. Late one night in 1971, the man I knew as Acharya Rajneesh suddenly changed his name to "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh." The famous enlightened sage, Ramana Maharshi, was called 'Bhagwan' by his disciples as a spontaneous term of endearment. Rajneesh simply declared to the world that everyone should start calling him Bhagwan, a title that can mean anything from 'divine one' to God. 'Shree' is an honorific term for Master, so his new name could be translated as God Master Moon. Rajneesh became irritated when I once politely corrected his mispronunciations of English words after a lecture, so I felt in no position to tell him that I thought his new title was inappropriate and dishonest. That change in name marked a turning point in Rajneesh's level of honesty and was the first of many big lies yet to come.

Rajneesh lived in an ivory tower, rarely leaving his room unless to give a lecture, his life experience cushioned by throngs of adoring devotees. His isolation became even more complete when he moved from his small Bombay apartment to a large estate in Poona, India, in 1974. As most human beings who are treated as kings, Rajneesh lost touch with the world of the common man. In his artificial and insulated existence, Rajneesh made one fundamental error in judgment which would destroy his teaching.

What you tell them is true, but what I tell them (the useful lies) is good for them. ~ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Poona, India, 1975Rajneesh calculated that the majority of the earth's population was on such a low level of consciousness that they could not understand nor tolerate the real truths. He thus decided on a policy of spreading seemingly useful lies to bring inspiration to his disciples and, on occasion, to stress his students in unique situations for their own personal growth. This was his downfall and the prime reason he will be remembered by most historians as just another phony guru. Rajneesh's teachings were full of intentional lies and unintentional falsehoods, which were born out of his own ignorance, gullibility, and Indian cultural conditioning. His psychic presence, however, was 100% real and extremely powerful. 

Acharya, Bhagwan Shree, Osho,...all the empowering names taken by Rajneesh could not cover up the fact that he was still a human being. He had ambitions and desires, sexual and material, just like everyone else. All enlightened humans have desires. All enlightened men have had public lives that we know about, and all have had private lives that remained secret. The vast majority of enlightened men do nothing but good for the world. Only Rajneesh, to my knowledge, became a criminal in both the legal and ethical sense of the word.

Rajneesh never lost the ultimate existential truth of being. He only lost the ordinary concept of truth that any normal adult can understand. He rationalized his constant lying as "lefthanded Tantra," but that too was dishonest. Rajneesh lied to save face, to avoid taking responsibility for his own mistakes, and to gain personal power. Those lies had nothing to do with Tantra or any selfless acts of kindness. What is real in this world is fact, and Rajneesh misrepresented fact on a daily basis. Rajneesh was no simple con man like so many others. Rajneesh knew everything that Buddha knew, and he was everything that Buddha was. It was his loss of respect for ordinary truthfulness that destroyed his teaching.Rajneesh's health collapsed in his early thirties. Even before reaching middle age, Rajneesh suffered reoccurring bouts of weakness. During his youthful college years, when he should have been at a peak of vigor, Rajneesh often had to sleep 12 to 14 hours a day due to an unexplained illness. Rajneesh suffered from what Europeans call Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), or what Americans call Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). His classic symptoms included the obvious fatigue, strange allergies, recurrent low grade fevers, photophobia, orthostatic intolerance (the inability to stand for a normal period of time), insomnia, body pain, and extreme sensitivity to smells and chemicals, a condition doctors now refer to as "multiple chemical sensitivity."

Rajneesh's trademark chemical sensitivity was so severe that he instructed his guards to sniff people for unpleasant odors before they were allowed to visit him in his quarters. People with Gulf War Syndrome, MS, and other neurological and immune system illnesses are also often highly sensitive to chemicals and smells. Rajneesh's poor health and strange symptoms were a product of real neurological and immune system dysfunction, not some esoteric supersensitivity caused by his enlightenment. Rajneesh also had Type II diabetes, asthma, and severe back pain.

Rajneesh was constantly sick and frail from the time I first met him in 1970 until his death on January 19th, 1990. He thought he was getting a different cold or flu every week. In reality he suffered from a chronic neurological and immune system illness, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, with flu like symptoms that can last a lifetime. Rajneesh could not stand on his feet for long periods of time without becoming lightheaded because he suffered damage to his autonomic nervous system which controls blood pressure. This neurally mediated hypotension (low blood pressure while standing) causes chronic fatigue and can lower IQ due to a lack of sufficient blood and oxygen being pumped to the brain (brain hypoxia). In the 1970s, Rajneesh often complained of becoming lightheaded immediately upon standing. During the final few months of his life in Poona, Rajneesh frequently passed out into complete unconsciousness.

Rajneesh used prescription drugs, mainly Valium (diazepam), as an analgesic for his aches and pains and to counter the symptoms of dysautonomia (dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system). He took the maximum recommended dose of 60 milligrams per day. Rajneesh also inhaled nitrous oxide (N2O) mixed with pure oxygen, which he claimed increased his creativity. The nitrous oxide probably did relieve the sensation of severe exhaustion and suffocation patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome often feel, but it did nothing for the quality of his judgment. Naive about the power of drugs, and overconfident of his ability to fight off their negative effects, Rajneesh succumbed to addiction. 

A number of disciples have claimed that Rajneesh was so intoxicated at his Oregon ranch in the 1980s that he sometimes urinated in the halls of his own home, just as heroin addicts and common drunks often do. I believe this to be true, as the last time I saw Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh he was inebriated to the point of becoming physically ugly. He had the same washed-out look and foolish behavior I had witnessed in drug addicts while working at a methadone clinic in the United States. Rajneesh had miraculous mental power, but he was an ordinary human being physically and he could not tolerate the devastating effects of large doses of tranquilizers.

On top of Rajneesh's physical illness, his massive intake of Valium caused paranoia and greatly reduced reasoning skills. Valium addicts often think the CIA or some other unseen villains are plotting against them, so it is not surprising that he imagined that he was poisoned by the United States Government. His reasoning powers became so damaged that Rajneesh actually considered moving to Russia to combine his totalitarian form of spirituality with Russian communism, an idea no sane man could possibly entertain. Rajneesh publicly called for the assassination of Michael Gorbachev, because Gorbachev was moving Russia to Western style capitalism rather than Rajneesh's own brand of "spiritual communism." Historically, Valium has been the drug of choice for CFS sufferers as it masks the unnerving symptoms of dysautonomia and helps bring sleep. Rajneesh suffered from insomnia, another classic symptom of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Rajneesh was a physically ill man who became mentally corrupt. His brief experimentation with LSD only made matters worse. Rajneesh's drug use and addiction was a problem of his own making, not a government conspiracy. Rajneesh died in 1990 with heart failure listed as the official cause of death. It is probable that the physical decline Rajneesh experienced during his incarceration in American jails was due to a combination of withdrawal symptoms from his Valium addiction and an aggravation of his Chronic Fatigue Syndrome due to stress and exposure to allergens.


After Rajneesh's humiliation and downfall in America, he declared that he was "Jesus crucified by Ronald Reagan's America." In truth, Rajneesh was a drug addicted guru who self-destructed through his own wrong actions. Comparing himself to Jesus was doubly dishonest, as he himself had no respect for Jesus. He once undiplomatically proclaimed to the American media that everything Jesus said was "just crazy."

I went through the abandoned city of Rajneeshpuram and saw things that were almost unbelievable. Ma Anand Sheela's headquarters, a group of mobile homes pieced together, was a hive of secret doors and hidden tunnels, her private room a command post with electronic listening gear tapped into every room in the development. The Bhagwan's parquet-paneled quarters had nitrogen oxide spigots by his bedside, and was surrounded by huge bathrooms with multiple showers. ~ Jim Weaver, former Oregon Congressman.

In the 1998 preface to Books I Have Loved, Rajneesh's (Osho's) personal dentist, Swami Devageet, states that Osho dictated three books under the influence of nitrous oxide. They were Books I Have Loved, Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, and Notes of a Madman. Referring to his own nitrous oxide use, Rajneesh himself stated that "Actually oxygen and nitrogen are basic elements of existence. They can be of much use, but for reasons the politicians have been against chemicals of all kinds, all drugs." Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh's personal secretary, publicly stated on the CBS news show 60 Minutes that Rajneesh took 60 milligrams of Valium every day. Hugh Milne, Rajneesh's head bodyguard, confirmed Rajneesh's heavy Valium use, as did Swami Devageet. The FBI knew that Rajneesh was a Valium and nitrous oxide addict from their own investigations, and that fact was published in newspapers around the USA, including articles in "THE OREGONIAN" and "THE NEW YORK TIMES." There is no doubt that Rajneesh became a drug addict except in the minds of passionate Osho followers who don't want to admit the painful truth.

Upon his sudden death in 1990, there was much media speculation that Rajneesh had committed suicide by taking an overdose of drugs. As no disciple has confessed to giving Rajneesh a lethal injection, there is no hard evidence to support the suicide theory. A compelling circumstantial case could be made for such a scenario, however, with suicide provoked by Rajneesh's constant ill health and disheartenment over the loss of Vivek, his greatest love.

Vivek had taken a fatal overdose of sleeping pills in a Bombay hotel one month before Rajneesh's passing. Pointedly, Vivek decided to kill herself immediately before Rajneesh's birthday celebration. Rajneesh had threatened suicide at the Oregon commune several times, hanging his death over the heads of his disciples as a threat unless they obeyed his orders. On his last day on earth, Rajneesh is reported to have said "Let me go. My body has become a hell for me."

The rumor that Rajneesh was poisoned with thallium by operatives of the United States Government is entirely fictional and contradicted by undeniable fact. One of the obvious symptoms of thallium poisoning is dramatic hair loss within seven days of exposure. Rajneesh died with a full beard and no exceptional baldness other than ordinary male pattern baldness at the top of his head. Radiation poisoning, another fictional cause of his illness, also causes dramatic hair loss.

The symptoms which may have led Rajneesh's doctors to suspect poisoning are common symptoms of dysautonomia caused by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Those symptoms can include ataxia (uncoordinated movements), numbness, standing tachycardia (rapid heart rate upon standing), paresthesia (sensations of prickling and itching), nausea, and irritable bowel syndrome, which causes one to alternate between constipation and diarrhea. All of his negative physical and mental symptoms were severely compounded by his own self-induced nitrous oxide poisoning and heavy Valium use.

The only proven cases of illegal poisoning related to Rajneesh were carried out by Rajneesh's own sannyasins. A sannyasin is an initiated disciple, one who takes sannyas. In the year 1984 there were 751 poison victims, including women and small children, at ten restaurants in the The Dalles, Oregon. Rajneesh sannyasins attempted to take over the Wasco County Commission by making so many people ill on election day that they could elect their own sannyasin candidates. 

Rajneesh disciples poisoned the restaurants' customers by contaminating salad bars and coffee creamers with salmonella bacteria. Forty-five of the victims became so ill they had to be hospitalized, making the case the largest germ warfare attack in United States history. Sannyasins were later suspected of trying to kill a Wasco County executive by spiking his water with an unknown poison. A Jefferson County District Attorney, Michael Sullivan, also became ill after leaving a cup of coffee unattended as Rajneesh sannyasins filled the courthouse. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh never apologized to any of the people who were poisoned by his own trusted disciples.Members of Rajneesh's staff were poisoned by Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh's personal secretary. Sheela had the habit of poisoning people who either knew too much or who had simply fallen out of her favor. Sheela spent two and a half years in a Federal medium security prison for her crimes, while Rajneesh pled guilty to immigration fraud and was given a ten year suspended sentence, fined $400,000., and deported from the United States of America. As part of his plea bargain agreement, more serious charges of racketeering were dropped. 

Rajneesh felt that teaching ethics was unnecessary because meditation would automatically lead to good behavior. The actions of Rajneesh and his disciples proves that theory to be completely false. Rajneesh taught that you should do as you please because life is both a dream and a joke. This attitude led to the classically fascist belief that one can become so high and mighty that one is beyond the need for old fashioned values and ethical behavior.

Those unfamiliar with the Rajneesh story can read the book, Bhagwan: The God That Failed, published by Saint Martin's Press and written by Hugh Milne (Shivamurti), a close disciple of Rajneesh during his Poona and Oregon years. Mr. Milne's book is largely corroborated by Satya Bharti Franklin's book, Promise of Paradise: A Woman's Intimate Life With 'Bhagwan' Osho Rajneesh, published by Barrytown/Station Hill Press. Both books are out of print but secondhand copies can be obtained through Amazon.Com. There have been many other tell-all books published on the same subject matter, but I have not read them and I do not know the authors, so I do not mention them here.

Regarding Bhagwan: The God That Failed, I can verify many of the facts Mr. Milne states about the life of Rajneesh in Bombay and Poona, though I have no first hand knowledge of the tragic events at the Oregon commune. My contacts with people who were there lead me to believe that most of the facts Mr. Milne presents of the Oregon era are also highly accurate. Hugh Milne is due great credit for a well written and entertaining book, which is a sincere effort at complete honesty. On a few occasions, however, I differ from Mr. Milne's interpretations of what the facts he presents actually mean.

Rajneesh did not suffer from "hypochondria," as Mr. Milne suggested. Rajneesh had a very real neurological and immune system disease which he mistook for frequent viral infections. Rajneesh became unusually afraid of germs only due to his understandable medical ignorance. I fully agree with Mr. Milne that Rajneesh suffered from "megalomania," however, and will add that the short statured Rajneesh had a Napoleonic, obsessive-compulsive, and extravagantly narcissistic personality.

Mr. Milne suggests that Rajneesh used "hypnosis" to manipulate his disciples. Rajneesh had a melodic and naturally hypnotic voice which would be a great asset to any public speaker. In my opinion, however, Rajneesh's power came from the intense energy field of the universal cosmic consciousness which he channeled like a lens. Hindus call this universal energy phenomena the Atman. As a Westerner, I prefer more scientific terms and describe the Atman as a highly evolved manifestation of time-energy-space, the TES. 

Hugh Milne's book records a day when Rajneesh admitted, while under the influence of nitrous oxide, that there is no such thing as 'enlightenment.' I cannot confirm this event through other contacts, but I assume Rajneesh was simply stating what U.G. Krishnamurti has said all along; that the storybook fiction we accept of a perfect enlightenment, full of infallible wisdom, is a big lie. A powerful and expansive state of cosmic consciousness does exist in humans who achieve it, but the way this condition is described by the religious establishment is an egocentric fiction, contrived by spiritual leaders to control the masses for their own personal gain.

Enlightenment is not something you own; it is something you channel.


Whatever term you use for the phenomena of enlightenment, it is scientifically accurate to say that no human being has any power of their own. Even the chemical energy of our metabolism is borrowed from the sun, which beams light to the earth, which is then converted by plants through photosynthesis into the food we eat. You may get your bread from the supermarket, but the caloric energy it contains originated from thermonuclear reactions deep in the center of a nearby star. Our physical bodies run on star power. Any "spiritual" energy we channel also comes from far beyond, from all sides of the universe, from the complete TES, from beyond the oceans of galaxies, and onto infinity. No human being owns the Atman, and no one can speak for the TES.

The Void has no ambition or personality whatsoever, so Rajneesh could only speak for his own animal mind. The animal mind may want its disciples to "take over the whole world," but the Void does not care because it is beyond any motivation. The phenomena we called Rajneesh, Bhagwan, and Osho, was only a temporary lens of cosmic energy, not the full cosmos itself.

Rajneesh, and the famous Greek-Armenian mystic George Gurdjieff, often used the power of the Atman for clearly personal gain. Both men used their cosmic consciousness to overwhelm and seduce women. Gurdjieff was ashamed of his behavior and vowed many times during his life to end this practice, which was a combination of ordinary male lust backed up by the potent advantage of oceanic supermental power. Rajneesh went even further and used his channeled cosmic energy to manipulate masses of people to gain a kind of quasi-political status, and to aggrandize himself far beyond what was honest or helpful to his disciples. In Oregon, Rajneesh declared to the media that "My religion is the only religion!" Diplomacy and modesty were not his strong points.

To my knowledge, George Gurdjieff never reached the extremes of self-indulgence of Rajneesh, and he even warned his disciples not to have blind faith in him. Gurdjieff wanted his students to be free and independent, with the combined abilities of clear mental reasoning and cosmic consciousness. Rajneesh, by contrast, seemed to believe that only his thoughts and ideas were of value because only he was "enlightened." This was a grand error in judgment and revealed a basic flaw in his character. Unfortunately, when Rajneesh achieved the ability to fully channel the power of the Atman, he failed to apply the needed wisdom of self-restraint. His human mind so rebelled against Asian asceticism that he failed to ensure that his borrowed power was only used for the good of others. Rajneesh was driven by strong personal ambitions, not just compassion.

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. ~ Henry Kissinger

Rajneesh left India in 1981, in part to escape paying a four million dollar Indian income tax bill. As he disembarked from a 747 jetliner to take his first footsteps in the USA, Rajneesh declared that "I am the Messiah America has been waiting for." - [Milne, Bhagwan: The God That Failed] After a brief stay in a newly acquired castle styled home in Montclair, New Jersey, Rajneesh bought the 64,000 acre Big Muddy cattle ranch near the small town of Antelope in eastern Oregon for six million dollars. 

Rajneesh created his Oregon desert commune from his own powerful mind and named it "Rajneeshpuram." He made himself the ultimate dictator, his picture placed everywhere as in an Orwellian bad dream. J. Krishnamurti called Rajneesh a "criminal" and Rajneeshpuram "a concentration camp under the dictatorship of enlightenment." Poonjaji, Ramana Maharshi's famous student, refered to Rajneesh as "a pig" for building himself up in the eyes of his disciples to dishonest proportions. Poonjaji's position was that even the enlightened remain human beings, not saints or superheroes, and that we all share the same cosmic identity no matter what our class and social standing. 

U.G. Krishnamurti, a famous maverick anti-guru, was even more critical of Rajneesh. During the mid 1970s Rajneesh deemphasized his own meditation methods and started selling Western style group therapies as a way to gain income. It was difficult to make money from authentic meditation techniques because they are all easy to learn and can be done alone, without the aid of a teacher. One of the groups Rajneesh sold to students was the "Tantra" group, which was basically just male and female disciples having sex with each other. U.G. Krishnamurti publicly called Rajneesh the "worlds biggest pimp" because "He made money from the boys and the girls and he kept it for himself." In 1971 Rajneesh told me directly in a face to face meeting that U.G. Krishnamurti was "realized." After much public criticism from U.G., Rajneesh counterattacked by calling U.G. a "phony guru." 

Guru wars aside, the totalitarian atmosphere of Rajneeshpuram was the main reason I did not stay at the commune beyond two brief visits. I was interested in meditation, not in a big prison camp where human beings were treated like insects with no intelligence of their own. Rajneesh put such a high emphasis on his disciples following orders without question that they did just that when Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh's personal secretary, gave absurd orders to commit crimes which Rajneesh himself (hopefully) would never have approved of.

When you decapitate the intelligence of human beings you create a situation that is highly dangerous and destructive to the human spirit. You cannot save people from their egos by demanding "total surrender." The antidemocratic technique of forcing blind obedience did not work well for Hitler, Stalin, or for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Germany, Russia, and the Rajneesh Oregon commune were all destroyed by authoritarian imperial rule. A diversity of opinion is always healthy because it acts as an effective counterbalance to the myopic arrogance of those who would be king. Rajneesh never understood this truth of history and referred to democracy scornfully as "mobocracy." Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was an imperial aristocrat, never a generous and open minded democrat, and he put his contempt for the democratic process into highly visible action in Oregon.

In an attempt to subvert a local Wasco County election, Rajneesh had his sannyasins bus in almost 2,000 homeless people from major American cities in an effort to unfairly rig the voting process in his favor. Some of the new voters were mentally ill and were given beer laced with drugs to keep them manageable. Credible allegations have been made that one or more of the imported street people died due to overdosing on the beer and drug mixture, their bodies buried in the desert. To my knowledge that charge has not been conclusively proven. Rajneesh's voting fraud scheme failed, and the derelicts and mental patients were returned to the streets after the election was over, used and then abandoned.

Rajneesh used people, spoke out of both sides of his mouth, and betrayed the trust of his own disciples. This betrayal caused Vivek, his longtime girlfriend and companion, to commit suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Rajneesh even lied about her death, slandering his greatest love in her grave by falsely claiming that she was chronically depressed due to some intrinsic emotional instability. Vivek was never depressed during the years I knew her, and she was the most radiant women I have ever known. Vivek was a glowing student of meditation, but her only meditation method was being with Rajneesh and absorbing his tremendous energy. When her one true love collapsed into insanity, she took her own life out of overwhelming grief. Rajneesh drove her to suicide because she could not understand nor tolerate his mental decline and collapse. Rajneesh lied about her death to avoid taking responsibility for his own bizarre behavior, which was the underlying cause of Vivek's despair.

The young Acharya Rajneesh started his life as a teacher who condemned false gurus, and he ended his life as one of the most deceitful gurus the world has ever known. The difficult fact to comprehend is that he was enlightened when he was an anti-guru puritan, and he was still enlightened when he was the ultimate corrupt, self-indulgent guru himself. Rajneesh destroyed his own teaching because he discarded truthfulness in favor of what he thought were useful lies. Once you make that wrong turn, away from ordinary straightforward truth, you have lost your way. No human being can disregard fact on a regular basis without finding himself in a sea of turmoil, because by discarding fact you discard the ground beneath your feet. Little lies grow into big lies, and the now hidden truth becomes your enemy, not your friend and ally.

Rajneesh overestimated himself and underestimated his own disciples. The real seekers around him could have easily handled the truth and were already motivated without the need for propaganda. Rajneesh had been a famous guru for such a long time that he came to see himself in grandiose terms. He was indeed an historic figure, but he was not the perfect superhuman he pretended to be. No one is! His disciples deserved honesty, but he fed them fairytales "to give them faith."

Jiddu Krishnamurti had been more honest than Rajneesh in repeating relentlessly that "there is no authority" due to the intrinsic nature of the universe. Ardent Rajneesh disciples didn't heed J. Krishnamurti's warnings and put blind faith in a man who claimed to be all-seeing, to have all the answers, and who once in 1975 brashly stated that he had never made a single mistake in his entire life. Clearly, Rajneesh made as many mistakes as any human being. Just as obviously, his basic existential enlightenment was no guarantee of functional pragmatic wisdom.

Rajneesh was a brilliant philosopher, but he was a lost babe in the woods when it came to the world of science. Worried about worldwide overpopulation, Rajneesh pressured his disciples to undergo sexual reproduction sterilization procedures. Unfortunately, he did not consider the demographics of population growth. The current population expansion is largely a phenomena of poor Third World nations, not a problem originating in the USA, Canada, and Europe, where birth rates are actually declining. North America and Europe are only experiencing population increases due to legal and illegal immigration from Third World nations. Having his Western disciples medically sever their reproductive capabilities only added to this imbalance, and many former disciples now regret they complied without question to his thoughtless edicts.

Discouraging followers from having families is a common device of gurus to keep disciples from spending money on children rather than handing their cash over to the guru himself. Childless disciples make better workers and are usually more subservient. Thus, sexual sterilization fit into Rajneesh's business plan and his desire to create an army of followers who felt that "only the relationship to guru is important." Rajneesh was the son of an ambitious Jain businessman, and he was more like his father than he ever realized. Rajneesh's enlightenment was overlaid on top of a mind attuned to business and making money.

In the 1980s, Rajneesh declared that the AIDS epidemic would soon kill three quarters of the world's population and that a major nuclear war was just around the corner. He thought he could escape nuclear holocaust by building underground shelters and slow the spread of AIDS by having his disciples wash their hands with alcohol before eating meals. His more reasoned admonition was for his followers to always use condoms. To enforce his sexual rules, which also involved elaborate instructions on the use of rubber gloves during sexual encounters, Rajneesh encouraged his sannyasins to spy on each other, reporting the names of those who failed to conform to his orders.

The disaster of Rajneesh appointing himself the singular great brain of the universe was compounded by his lack of real world reasoning skills, and this was apparent even before he started taking large amounts of Valium and inhaling nitrous oxide. Rajneesh had no understanding of the scientific method. If he thought something was true, in his own mind, that made it true. Rajneesh could weave magnificent philosophical dreams and addict his disciples to imagined worlds of spiritual adventure, but those dreams did not have to stand any empirical test of truth. In the world of science, you have to prove what you say is true through testing. In the world of philosophy and religion, you can say anything you desire and throw caution to the wind. If your words sound good to the masses, they will sell whether they are fact or fiction. 


Rajneesh ruled his desert empire as a warlord with his own private army and puppet government. His visions and ideas, faulty or not, were taken without question as the word of God. His disciples were judged by their ability to surrender to his will, and any opposing views were branded as an unspiritual lack of faith. As conditions at the ranch became progressively more unpleasant, a number of sannyasins escaped by hiding in the back of outgoing trucks. Their quest for freedom upset Rajneesh, who demanded that the disillusioned must now ask his permission to leave. Rajneesh then dramatically threatened suicide if others escaped by stealthful means.

Rajneesh's poor reasoning became even more apparent during and after the Oregon commune scandal. After being jailed and then deported from the USA, Rajneesh angrily declared America "a wretched country" and branded Americans as "subhuman," ignoring the fact that it was he, an Indian, who pled guilty to felony immigration fraud, and that it was Sheela, an Indian, who ordered the most serious crimes which brought his empire to ruin. Even in his fifties, Rajneesh was still lying to get his own way and still demanding to be the center of attention. In 1988, suffering from drug and illness induced dementia, Rajneesh publicly pouted that his box of toys, his expensive car collection and jewel encrusted watches, had been taken away.

Rajneesh's disciples thought they were following an authoritative "enlightened Master." In reality they had been mislead by a highly fallible human animal who was still a little boy at heart. Rajneesh had not only misrepresented himself personally, but he misrepresented the phenomena of enlightenment itself. The idealized fantasy of perfect enlightenment does not exist anywhere in the real world, and it has never existed. The universe is far too big and complex for anyone to be its "Master." We are all subjects, not Masters, and those who pretend to be infallible and all-knowing end up looking even more the fool as history inevitably proves them wrong.

Nature does not use anything as a model. It is only interested in perfecting the species. It is trying to create perfect species and not perfect beings. - U.G. Krishnamurti

The famous sages of old seem perfect to us now because they have become larger than life myths. The long passage of time has allowed their followers to cover up their guru's flaws, just as Rajneesh disciples are currently censoring history to cover up Rajneesh's great failings. Rajneesh was never more infallible than any other human being. Unfortunately, cosmic consciousness does not automatically render greater intelligence, wisdom, and honesty.

Rajneesh died addicted to Valium, and he experienced all of the negative symptoms of drug addiction, which included slurred speech, paranoia, poor judgment, and dramatically lowered intelligence. At one point his paranoia and confusion were so great that he thought a group of German cultists had cast an evil spell on him. His physical disabilities and drug abuse were simply more than his mortal brain could take. His biggest flaw, his disregard for the ordinary concept of truth, was his ultimate downfall and for that crime he must be held fully responsible.

Never give a sucker an even break. ~ W.C. Fields

Rajneesh lied when he said he had enlightened disciples. He lied when he said he never made a mistake. Near the end of his life he was forced to admit that he was fallible, as his list of bungles had grown to monstrous proportions. He lied by pretending that his therapy groups were not mainly just a money making device. Rajneesh lied about breaking United States immigration laws, and he only admitted the truth after he was presented with overwhelming evidence against him. He lied by saying that he was adopted in a phony scheme to get permanent residence status. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was no bank robber, but he was quite literally a pathological liar. The ridiculous thing is that all of his lies were totally unnecessary and counterproductive. As conventional and square as it may sound, honesty really is the best policy!

Rajneesh lied when he claimed that he was not responsible for the horrors of the Oregon commune. Rajneesh was responsible because he hand picked Ma Anand Sheela and the people who committed the major crimes of conspiracy to commit murder, poisoning, first-degree assault, burglary, arson, and wiretapping. Rajneesh himself gave direct verbal approval for Sheela's illegal bugging and wiretapping of his own disciples. The fact that Rajneesh did not order or have preknowledge (hopefully) of the most serious violent crimes does not mean that he was not ethically responsible for them. Rajneesh never turned against Ma Anand Sheela until he started to suspect that Sheela was stealing money from him.

Just one month before Sheela fled the commune, Rajneesh spoke of her publicly, stating that "I have been preparing her like a sword. I told her to go out and cut as many heads as possible." Later, Rajneesh feigned innocence and claimed that Sheela was controlling him in spite of the obvious fact that Rajneesh was the singular reason the commune existed. Rajneesh was surrounded by thousands of adoring disciples who would have gladly expelled or even jailed Sheela any time he gave the order.

Sheela did Rajneesh's dirty work, and the fact that she went farther in her crimes than Rajneesh had planned does not exonerate him of all guilt. Upon leaving the commune, Sheela stated that she was tired of "being his slave for 16, 17 or 20 hours a day," and tired of "taking food out of the mouths of people to buy him watches and Rolls Royces." Rajneesh then publicly claimed that Sheela had extorted millions of dollars from the commune. Sheela's response to his charge was that Rajneesh had spent all of the money himself on his own expensive toys, and that Rajneesh was bad at mathematics and "can't count." Clearly, Rajneesh's insane purchases of dozens of bejeweled ladies' watches and over 90 Rolls-Royce automobiles cost the commune many millions of dollars. After her release from prison, Ma Anand Sheela continued to work for a living, without obvious signs of enormous wealth. Sheela committed many crimes, but Rajneesh himself was never "innocent."

If a teacher puts a drunken sailor in charge of driving a school bus, and the children end up dead, then the teacher is responsible for their deaths. Rajneesh knew what kind of a person Sheela was, and he chose her because of her corruption and arrogance, not in spite of it. Rajneesh personally tutored Sheela in how to control and manipulate his own disciples, and it was Rajneesh himself who encouraged Sheela's infamous outbursts on the ABC television show, Nightline. In a cowardly attempt to evade his own failings, Rajneesh changed his name to Osho, as if a change in name could wash away his sins.

There is no publicly released evidence to suggest that Rajneesh ordered the germ warfare attack on the ten Oregon restaurants. There is also no publicly released evidence that implicates Rajneesh in the plot to have a sannyasin pilot fly an airplane full of explosives into an Oregon courthouse in order to intimidate the political opposition. Luckily, the sannyasin pilot who was asked to perform that insane task was not as dumb as the plotters, and he fled the commune without committing any crime.

Rajneesh was directly responsible for the twisted mix of totalitarian slavery and libertine indulgence that the commune represented. According to highly credible published reports, Rajneesh allowed middle aged men to have sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls at the commune in the name of sexual freedom, yet his disciples were not allowed to have a mind of their own and had to totally surrender to the great Bhagwan's will. Disciples were often forced to work 12 hours a day in cold and difficult conditions, while Rajneesh himself experienced "groovy spaces" in his private heated indoor pool and watched countless movies on his big screen projection television, all the while enjoying his daily supply of drugs. Rajneesh showed his divine love for his disciples by squandering millions in hard earned commune assets on his car collection and expensive jewelry, and all in the name of egolessness and spiritual surrender.

Why did Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh own over 90 Rolls-Royces? Why did Saddam Hussein own dozens of luxurious palaces? Those desires were products of the base animal mind of two men who grew up surrounded by poverty. Enlightenment does not care about symbols of power and potency. Looking for hidden esoteric explanations for obsessive behavior is pointless. Is there an occult reason that Elton John spends over $400,000. per month on flowers? Is there a secret spiritual reason that Rajneesh had a collection of dozens of expensive ladies' watches? The universal cosmic consciousness is completely neutral and without any need to possess, impress, or dominate. It also cannot drive or tell time.

One of Rajneesh's most blatant lies was that "the enlightened one gains nothing from his disciples." Rajneesh wanted people to believe that everything he did was a free gift born of pure compassion, and that he gained nothing personally from the guru-disciple relationship. In obvious provable fact, Rajneesh gained much from his disciples: money, power, sex, and the titillation of constant adoration. Just as rock stars become energized by screaming fans at concerts, Rajneesh gained emotional energy and support from his army of sannyasins. The energy transfer was a two-way street, not a totally free one-way gift. Being a guru was his business, his only business. Without that income, at least on the material level, he was just a short, balding, physically disabled Indian man who could not hold a job. Rajneesh's very real enlightenment would not pay his bills or give him the material luxuries he craved.

Consciousness needs entertainment to survive, and Rajneesh used his disciples as playthings for his own amusement. Rajneesh had no bankable power of his own, so he could only gain material power by manipulating others to do his will. The equation was simple. The more disciples he attracted, the more power and wealth he obtained.

During Rajneesh's incarceration in America, a television network broadcast a video of Rajneesh caught off-guard by a security camera while he was being held in a waiting room. Rajneesh looked bored and disgusted, just as any ordinary man might be. He didn't look blissful or enlightened at all. In my own opinion that video clip revealed the stark truth about the phenomena we call 'enlightenment.' The realization of the Void is not enough for anyone. All human animals, enlightened or not, need social interaction and the comforts of the material world to be content.

Rajneesh, on so many levels, was just an ordinary man. Sexually he was even less than ordinary. Pretending to be a great Tantric in his early years, Rajneesh handed out ridiculously bad sexual advice at a time when he had very little first hand experience with sex himself. During his Bombay years, Rajneesh often grabbed the breasts of young female disciples. On at least one occasion, he asked a couple to have sex in front of him so that he could watch. The couple wisely rejected his request.

Rajneesh often asked women half his age to strip in front of him so that he could "feel their chakras." To facilitate this practice, he installed an electric lock on his bedroom door that could be activated from a button on his desk. Rajneesh groped the breasts of two of my women friends and "felt the chakras" of a third. I soon began to realize that like so many other girl grabbing Indian gurus who had made the headlines, Rajneesh on the human level was just an ordinary sexually immature Indian male. My lady friend who suffered the chakra feeling incident was so put off that she never came back to see him again. He had told her "Don't worry. You are mine now." That grasping statement had chilled her as much as the sexual advance. The young woman was a student of Indian music and had previously been sexually exploited by a famous Indian musician. She knew first hand what many Indian men were like. Rajneesh proved himself to be predictably and disappointingly the same.

After Rajneesh started having sexual intercourse on a regular basis, the spiritual need for him to "feel the chakras" of his female disciples mysteriously vanished. Rajneesh rationalized having sex with his female disciples by claiming that the act would bless them so much that they would become enlightened in some future lifetime. His admission years later that there is no such thing as reincarnation made his sexual rationalizations appear even more ridiculous and self-serving.

Rajneesh had much inside him that I wanted: light, energy, and a vastly expanded state of being. Regrettably, he also had much inside him that I did not want or respect. I do not find fault with Rajneesh for having the same sexual desires that all men have. I did find fault when he was dishonest and cruel for purely selfish reasons.

While living in Bombay, Rajneesh made one young woman pregnant through an aggressive and unasked for seduction. The woman was highly upset and forced by circumstance to have an abortion. In order to protect his image as a great guru, Rajneesh lied about his involvement and claimed that the girl had imagined the whole affair. The young woman told the American Embassy her story, and that incident marked the beginning of Rajneesh's troubles with the United States Government.Nature has provided human animals with a strong, virtually unstoppable sex drive to ensure reproduction of the species. Because of the overwhelming importance and power of sex, most gurus, enlightened or not, have maintained active sex lives which are often kept secret for purely political reasons. In his early years, Rajneesh lied about his strong sexuality by claiming to be celibate. To be fair, this has to be understood in the context of a rigidly antisexual and highly hypocritical Indian social structure. Later on, after his position as a guru had become secure, Rajneesh publicly bragged to the American media that he had sex "with hundreds of women." All of Rajneesh's sex partners were his own female meditation students who were used as his personal harem.

All human beings are animals, specifically mammals. Scientists now understand that human DNA is approximately 96% the same as chimpanzee DNA. World history, Asian mythology, politics, and the behavior of alpha male gurus makes allot more sense if you keep that unavoidable fact in mind. Our most primal subconscious motivating forces come from the animal world, which we are still a part of. 

The last time I visited the Rajneesh ashram in Poona, India, was in 1988. The ashram was literally like a loud convention of German Brownshirts (storm troopers) by that point. Rajneesh, alias "Osho," was still very popular in Germany, due in part to his comments in the German magazine Stern which were widely interpreted as being pro-Hitler. Many young Germans who were looking for a strong and charismatic leader were thrilled by his words. Those who lost loved ones during World War II were justifiably shocked.

Even in the early 1970s in Bombay, Rajneesh made careless statements which could easily be interpreted as being pro-Hitler and pro-fascist. In one lecture on "esoteric groups" he claimed that Adolf Hitler had been telepathically propped up by an occult Buddhist group that Rajneesh himself was in contact with. During World War II it is well known that a number of Brahmin Indian yogis and Japanese "Zen masters" had supported the Axis cause and the extermination of the "inferior races," so Rajneesh's claim was not entirely surprising, if not totally believable.

In Poona, Rajneesh gave an infamous lecture in which he stated that Jews had given Hitler "no choice" but to exterminate them. In his last years Rajneesh declared that "I have fallen in love with this man (Adolf Hitler). He was crazy, but I am crazier still." Rajneesh said that he wanted his sannyasins "to take over the world" and that he had studied Hitler to gain insight into how to accomplish the task. For a man who portrayed himself as the world's smartest, highest, and greatest soul, such remarks were proof to me that his drug use had destroyed the quality of his mind.

Rajneesh's comments about Hitler could be discounted as obnoxious but largely harmless hot air if it were not for the fact that he put many of Hitler's techniques into practice. Rajneesh used Hitler's "big lie" method of mind control very effectively, and he demanded total surrender from his troops (disciples). Rajneesh condoned illegal spying on his own followers and used informants to weed out the disloyal. Ma Anand Sheela, his personal secretary, turned the tables on Rajneesh by bugging Rajneesh's trademark high-backed chair, a betrayal his "third eye" never detected. The Oregon police later found Rajneesh's illegally taped conversations, but due to rules of evidence they could not be used against him in a court of law. The tapes were reported to be highly damning as to Rajneesh's culpability in much of the commune's day to day illegal activities.

Rajneesh turned many of his disciples into the equivalent of armed Brownshirts. I have received letters from several of Rajneesh's former security guards who admitted they had fallen under the spell of fascism and now regretted their behavior and attitudes. One wrote that he did not even know how to meditate, and that the thrill of power was what kept him loyal to his great leader. In Poona, Rajneesh guards beat up an annoying local resident, his hands held behind his back as the guards pummeled him. In Oregon, Rajneesh guards were armed to the teeth with handguns and military style semiautomatic assault rifles. Rajneesh was never an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, the great Indian pacifist, but he did have a unhealthy fascination with Adolf Hitler, as well as the United States Army General, George Patton. According to Hugh Milne (Shivamurti), Rajneesh watched the movie Patton over and over again on his big screen projection television at his ranch house in Oregon.

Perhaps Rajneesh's worst personal trait was that he could dish it out but he could not take it. He constantly put his disciples through great physical hardships, which resulted in serious illness and even death for some, yet he himself lived in luxury and could not endure physical discomfort without complaining loudly like a baby. After his arrest on October 28th, 1985, at the Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, Rajneesh was interviewed by ABC television news. He began his jailhouse interview by crying in a shrill voice about his less than royal accommodations in the slammer. His high pitched whining was so weird and annoying that Saturday Night Live, NBC's late night comedy television show, used the footage sarcastically as a joke about "God" complaining.

During Rajneesh's jailhouse appearance on the ABC television showNightline, Rajneesh gave evasive and dishonest answers to all of Ted Koppel's questions, and he behaved as an unusually pompous and inept politician caught red handed at illegal activity. Rajneesh claimed that he was not responsible for any of the crimes committed at the commune because he was "in silence." In proven fact, although Rajneesh had stopped giving public lectures for a time, he had never stopped talking to Ma Anand Sheela and other close disciples. Rajneesh was always the ultimate authority at the commune, even though Sheela committed some of the most serious crimes behind his back.Rajneesh's favorite Rolls-Royce dealer stated that "the Bhagwan" had spent hours on the telephone talking to him about his often weekly purchases of new automobiles. All of his over 90 Rolls-Royces were paid for from general commune funds on his direct orders, not "gifts" from outsiders as he would later try to claim. Rajneesh was the only person who wanted the cars and he was the only person allowed to drive them. After bankrupting the commune, he claimed that the automobiles were owned by the commune, not by him.

In his Nightline interview, Rajneesh pretended not to know that he was leaving the United States during his attempt to escape an impending Federal arrest warrant on racketeering and immigration charges. Rajneesh's defense was that he was innocently sleeping when police boarded the private jet he had hired to fly to Bermuda. Rajneesh said that he thought Bermuda was just another American state, and that he was going on vacation to rest and to escape "death threats." The authorities later learned that a Rajneesh disciple with ties to the United States Justice Department had tipped off Rajneesh about his impending arrest. His own sannyasins had not even known that he had left the commune until they learned from the media of the arrest of Rajneesh and several followers at the North Carolina airport. The sad fact was their great "enlightened" guru had secretly abandoned his own disciples, leaving them to face the music all on their own. The luggage of Rajneesh and his companions was searched and found to contain a bag of cash, a box of expensive jewel encrusted watches, and a handgun. 

The Rajneesh cult had little luck winning over American television viewers. Ma Anand Sheela disgraced herself on Nightline weeks earlier by bursting into loud obscenities, forcing Ted Koppel to take her off the air. Saturday Night Live later broadcast a skit about an auction with actor Randy Quaid selling off "the Bhagwan's" over 90 Rolls-Royce automobiles. Years later, the The Simpsons, the FOX television network's wildly popular cartoon show, produced a spoof of Rajneesh that depicted a white gloved guru driving his Rolls-Royce down a muddy commune road as his disciples felt joy at eating his road dirt. In the cartoon, the great guru tried to escape the commune with bags of cash in a homemade peddle driven flying machine.

When it comes to gurus, take the best and leave the rest. ~ Ramamurti Mishra

During my last visit to the Poona ashram in 1988, Rajneesh was in silence because he was angry at his own disciples. He wanted his sannyasins to demonstrate in the streets against some Indian officials who had spoken out against him. Wisely, no one was interested in creating a new confrontation. This spell of sanity among the flock irritated Rajneesh, who canceled public talks as punishment. I was thus only able to see him on video tape.

On the taped lecture, Rajneesh was ranting emotionally, and factually incorrectly, about how the police in the United States had stolen his collection of jewel encrusted ladies' watches. He said they would never be able to wear them in public because his sannyasins would see the watches on their wrists at airports, train stations, etcetera, and start screaming out loudly that "you stole Bhagwan's watch!" His words and manner were so childishly irrational that he reminded me of the suicidal cult leader, Jim Jones. This crazy old man, now called "Osho," was a far cry from the serene, dignified, and highly eloquent Acharya Rajneesh I had met years earlier.

Obviously, Rajneesh was not "egoless" as he had often claimed. The human brain is a biologically created thinking machine that has evolved for both personal self-preservation and survival of the species. The ego, which is a selfish motivating force, is needed to protect our colony of living cells (the physical body) from danger and to keep our cells replenished with food and water. If you did not have an ego, you would not be able to think, speak, or find food, shelter, and clothing.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans (fMRI scans) of Tibetan monks and Hindu yogis have shown that during deep meditation the parts of the brain that gives us a sense of location in time and space are less active. If you slow down the thought process, and at the same time reduce the brain's sense of location, consciousness loses both its content and its boundaries. You feel infinite, timeless, and empty. This feeling of an infinite Void gives the false impression that ego no longer exists. Egolessness is an illusion because the ego function is a fundamental part of the basic physical structure of the brain itself. Ego cannot be lost unless your brain dies, which will cause your entire body to die.

Many enlightened humans have become fooled by the reduction of the space localization function of the brain and believed they no longer had personal selfishness that could cause trouble. Meher Baba spent much of his life bragging about how great he was, yet in his boundaryless consciousness he felt no personal ego. Meher Baba even proclaimed to the world that "No one loves me as much as I deserve to be loved." In truth, Meher Baba was very egocentric and he should have realized that even the brain phenomena we call "enlightenment" is no excuse for bragging. The same fundamental misjudgment plagued Rajneesh. He became fooled into thinking that he was above arrogance and greed, but that was simply not the case. The ego is hard wired into our neural pathways and cannot be destroyed unless the physical body dies. 

Even enlightened humans have to mind their manners and realize that the Atman is the wondrous phenomena they should promote, not their own temporary personalities. Ramana Maharshi had the right approach in this regard, and that is one reason he is still beloved by all. Ramana Maharshi promoted the Atman, the universal cosmic consciousness, but never his own mortal body and mind. 

Rajneesh's spectacular energy was proof that he was enlightened in the Eastern, esoteric sense of the word. The Eastern, esoteric definition of 'enlightenment' is an energy phenomena, gained only by those who are totally open to the infinite power of the universe. The Western definition is simply to be a very wise man, which Rajneesh, in my opinion, was not.

Even after returning to Poona, Rajneesh continued his Valium and nitrous oxide use and seemed unable to learn from his own mistakes. Rajneesh had often branded his critics as "idiots," yet in his final years Rajneesh had no sane voice inside himself to say No! Enough is enough! Like a deranged alcoholic, Rajneesh could not stop his own self-destructive behavior, and the quality of his judgment dropped to below that of even the most ordinary unenlightened human being. Rajneesh had used the myth of Tantra to rationalize his dishonesty and selfishness, and now he could not stop. Earlier in life, Rajneesh had skipped out of paying a hotel bill, cheated a real estate agent out of a commission, and obtained millions of dollars from his own disciples through lies and fraud. In the end, Rajneesh had become a hopeless drug addict as well, and no amount of spiritual rationalizations could alter that fact.

Rajneesh's lifelong teaching had been that enlightenment is a state of perfect egolessness which brought about wisdom, compassion, and in his unique case, total infallibility. In the last months of his life, Rajneesh, now renamed "Osho," finally admitted that the ego could not be destroyed, only "observed." The very basis of his demand for total surrender of his disciples was that the ego contaminated followers had to submit their will to the perfect Master, because only the perfect Master had no ego and thus could do no wrong. If this were not true then why should anyone surrender to another fallible and corruptible human ego?

Rajneesh even finally admitted that there is no reincarnation, and that the very concept of reincarnation was just a "misinterpretation" of other phenomena. This shocking admission meant that his previous frequent claims of being a famous guru in past lives were pure fiction, designed to impress, manipulate, and control his disciples. Rajneesh's main teaching was based on souls, reincarnation, and achieving freedom from rebirth (moksha) through spiritual practice. His massive drug intake seemed to act as a truth serum at times, allowing admissions of truths that he had previously kept secret in order to remain in control of his cult empire. The course of Rajneesh's life and his drug induced admissions proved to me that his most basic teachings were wrong and a lie. 

In his last days, Osho argued with his doctors to ignore their medical ethics and give him even more nitrous oxide. Osho rationalized his drug addiction just as a teenage boy might if caught smoking marijuana by his mother. The God "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh" had fallen down to the stumble-drunk Osho, and a substantial number of his disciples were so addicted to his artfully seductive words and false image that they could not see what was happening right in front of their own eyes. In late 1989, in a final bizarre act, Osho ordered his dentists to remove most of his teeth for no legitimate medical reason. If Osho had suspected that the mercury fillings in his teeth were causing him health problems, he could have easily had the old fillings replaced with modern white plastic dental fillings. Why Osho wanted to have so many teeth removed is a mystery to this day. Needless to say, their removal did nothing to improve his health.

In the years after Osho's death (see Osho's death celebrations here), the Poona ashram has been turned into a "cashram" and is run for profit. Color Puncture, Tantric Tarot, encounter groups, and every crackpot scam in the book is being peddled by Osho disciples for large sums of money. I think back to the day when the just turned 40 year old Acharya Rajneesh instructed a Japanese woman that "Meditation must not be made into a business." The corrupt means have gotten so far out of hand that the original intent of the ends has long been forgotten. It would be wonderful to believe that enlightened men were perfect in every way. That would make life simpler and sweeter, but it would be fiction, not fact. 

© 1998 Christopher Calder

~Italian version/versione italiana here/qui, translated/tradotta by/daAlessia Guidi.

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Other biographical perspectives (with images):

1. About Osho (from Osho.com)


2. Osho's Life - An Anthology (from Oshoworld.com)


3. Religious Movements: Osho (or Rajneeshism)


4. The Rise & Fall of Rajneeshpuram


5. The Story of Osho - Master, Mystic, Madman


6. Wikipedia's Osho (s.v., Rajneesh)
7. Sam's Life of Osho ~ A not-so-official biography [a book in pdfformat: you can download it free, or read online - just click the link and wait for it to load]
8. Osho, Formerly Known As Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh


9. Chi è Osho [in Italian], from the trilingual (Italian/English/Japanese) website Conscious Living

Some interesting links:

1. The Saffron Swami, by Rachel Graham


2. Osho Rebellious Spirit - All Colors Of Osho Sannyas


3. Vacationing With Friends - 'Countries in which you can look out for a home away from home' (Osho points around the World)


4. New Enlightened World - Meditate & Celebrate (Osho Vision: A Lifestyle Of Meditation & Celebration)


5. Friends of Osho ("Sannyas World")

Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth by Christopher Calder

"Meditation must not be made into a business." - Acharya Rajneesh 1971

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     Acharya Rajneesh was 39 years old when I first met him at his Bombay apartment in December of 1970.  With long beard and large dark eyes, he looked like a painting of Lao-Tse come to life.  Before meeting Rajneesh, I had spent time with a number of Eastern gurus without being satisfied with the quality of their teachings.  I wanted an enlightened guide who could bridge the gap between East and West, and reveal the true esoteric secrets without the excess baggage of Indian, Tibetan, or Japanese culture.  Rajneesh was the answer to my quest for those deeper meanings.  He described for me in vivid detail everything I wanted to know about the inner worlds, and he had the power of immense being to back up his words.  At 21 years old, I was naive about life and the nature of man, and I assumed that everything he told me must be true. 

     Rajneesh spoke on a high level of intelligence, and his powerful presence emanated from his body like a soft light that healed all wounds.  While sitting close during a small gathering of friends, Rajneesh took me on a rapidly vertical inner journey that almost seemed to push me out of my physical body.  His vast presence lifted everyone around him higher without the slightest effort on their part.  The days I spent at his Bombay apartment were like days spent in heaven.  He had it all, and he was giving it away for free. 

Acharya Rajneesh at his best - Picture probably taken in the late 1960s

     Rajneesh possessed the power of direct energy transmission, which is known in India as "shaktipat."  He used this power nobly to bring comfort and inspiration to his disciples.  Rajneesh claimed to have the "third eye" powers of telepathy and remote viewing, and for many years I believed that claim to be true.  However, in the 1980s Rajneesh was unable to perceive the tragic events at his Oregon commune which occurred directly under his nose, so those claimed psychic powers are now in question.  Many gurus boast of having mysterious psychic abilities in order to attract new disciples and new money.  Rajneesh's habit of getting his helpers to investigate visitors so he could impress them with his knowledge of their personal lives adds to my skepticism about the effectiveness of his "third eye."  It was a fact, however, that those who came near him experienced his incredible cosmic presence.  One or two face to face meetings with Rajneesh was all it took to turn doubting Western skepticism into awed admiration and devotion.

     One year earlier I had meet another enlightened teacher known to the world as Jiddu Krishnamurti (see picture of J. Krishnamurti).  J. Krishnamurti could barely give a coherent lecture, and he constantly scolded his audience by referring to their "shoddy little minds."  I loved his frankness, and his words were true, but his subtly cantankerous nature was not very helpful in transferring his knowledge to others.  Listening to J. Krishnamurti speak was like eating a sandwich made of bread and sand.  I found the best way to enjoy his talks was to completely ignore his words and quietly absorb his presence.  Using that technique I would become so expanded after a lecture that I could barely talk for hours afterwards.  J. Krishnamurti, while fully enlightened and uniquely lovable, will be recorded in history as a teacher with very poor verbal communication skills.  Unlike the highly eloquent Rajneesh, however, J. Krishnamurti never committed any crime, never pretended to be more than he was, and he never used other human beings selfishly.

     Life is complex and multi-layered, and my naive illusions about the phenomena of perfect enlightenment faded over the years.  It became clear that enlightened people are as fallible as anyone.  They are expanded human beings, not perfect human beings, and they live and breathe with many of the same faults and vulnerabilities we ordinary humans must endure.

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     Skeptics ask how I can claim that Rajneesh was enlightened, given his scandals and disastrous public image.  I can only say that Rajneesh's magnetic presence was identical to that of Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was recognized as enlightened by every high Tibetan Lama and revered Hindu sage of the day.  I do sympathize with the skeptics, however.  If I had not known Rajneesh personally, I would never believe it myself.

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     Rajneesh pushed the envelope of enlightenment in both positive and negative directions.  He was the best of the best and the worst of the worst.  He was a great teacher in his early years, with an innovative meditation technique that worked with dramatic power called "Dynamic Meditation."  Rajneesh lifted thousands of seekers to higher levels of consciousness, and he detailed Eastern religions and ancient meditation techniques with luminous clarity.

One false move, one grand error

     Acharya Rajneesh was born to a Jain family on December 11th, 1931, in the village of Kuchwada in central India.  The term 'Acharya' means a religious teacher, and 'Rajneesh' means moon.  Rajneesh's actual legal name was Chandra Mohan Jain; 'Rajneesh' being only an unofficial nickname acquired in childhood.  Late one night in 1971, the man I knew as Acharya Rajneesh suddenly changed his name to "Bhagwan Rajneesh."  The famous enlightened sage, Ramana Maharshi, was called Bhagwan by his disciples as a spontaneous term of endearment.  Rajneesh simply declared to the world that everyone should start calling him Bhagwan, a title that can mean anything from 'divine one' to God.  'Shree' is an honorific term for master, so his most notorious full name, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, can be translated as God Master Moon.  Rajneesh became irritated when I once politely corrected his mispronunciations of English words after a lecture, so I felt in no position to tell him that I thought his new title was inappropriate and dishonest.  That change in name marked a turning point in Rajneesh's level of honesty, and was the first of many big lies yet to come.

     Rajneesh lived in an ivory tower, rarely leaving his room unless to give a lecture, his life experience cushioned by throngs of adoring devotees.  His isolation became even more complete when he moved from his small Bombay apartment to a large estate in Poona, India, in 1974.  As most human beings who are treated as kings, Rajneesh lost touch with the world of the common man.  In his artificial and insulated existence, Rajneesh made one fundamental error in judgment which would destroy his teaching.   

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"What you tell them is true, but what I tell them (useful lies) is good for them." - Bhagwan Rajneesh, Poona, India, 1975

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     Rajneesh calculated that the majority of the earth's population was on such a low level of consciousness that they could not understand nor tolerate the real truths.  He thus decided on a policy of spreading seemingly useful lies to bring inspiration to his disciples and, on occasion, to stress his students in unique situations for their own personal growth.  This was his downfall and the prime reason he will be remembered by most historians as just another phony guru.  Rajneesh's teachings were full of intentional lies and unintentional falsehoods, which were born out of his own ignorance, gullibility, and Indian cultural conditioning.  His psychic presence, however, was 100% real and extremely powerful. 

     Acharya, Bhagwan Shree, Osho,...all the empowering names taken by Rajneesh could not cover up the fact that he was still a human being.  He had ambitions and desires, sexual and material, just like everyone else.  All enlightened humans have desires.  All enlightened men have had public lives that we know about, and all have had private lives that remained secret.  The vast majority of enlightened men do nothing but good for the world.  Only Rajneesh, to my knowledge, became a criminal in both the legal and ethical sense of the word. 

     Rajneesh never lost the ultimate existential truth of being.  He only lost the ordinary concept of truth that any normal adult can understand.  He rationalized his constant lying as "lefthanded Tantra," but that too was dishonest.  Rajneesh lied to save face, to avoid taking responsibility for his own mistakes, and to gain personal power.  Those lies had nothing to do with Tantra or any selfless acts of kindness.  What is real in this world is fact, and Rajneesh misrepresented fact on a daily basis.  Rajneesh was no simple con man like so many others.  Rajneesh knew everything that Buddha knew, and he was everything that Buddha was.  It was his loss of respect for ordinary truthfulness that destroyed his life's work.

     Rajneesh's health collapsed in his early thirties.  Even before reaching middle age, Rajneesh suffered reoccurring bouts of weakness.  During his youthful college years, when he should have been at a peak of vigor, Rajneesh often had to sleep 12 to 14 hours a day due to an unexplained illness.  Rajneesh suffered from what Europeans call Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), or what Americans call Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).  His classic symptoms included the obvious fatigue, strange allergies, recurrent low grade fevers, photophobia, orthostatic intolerance (the inability to stand for a normal period of time), insomnia, body pain, and extreme sensitivity to smells and chemicals, a condition doctors now refer to as "multiple chemical sensitivity."

     Rajneesh's trademark chemical sensitivity was so severe that he instructed his guards to sniff people for unpleasant odors before they were allowed to visit him in his quarters.  People with Gulf War Syndrome, MS, and other neurological and immune system illnesses are also often highly sensitive to chemicals and smells.  Rajneesh's poor health and strange symptoms were a product of real neurological and immune system dysfunction, not some esoteric supersensitivity caused by his enlightenment.  Rajneesh also had Type II diabetes, asthma, and severe back pain.  

     Rajneesh was constantly sick and frail from the time I first met him in 1970 until his death on January 19th, 1990.  He thought he was getting a different cold or flu every week.  In reality he suffered from a chronic neurological and immune system illness, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, with flu like symptoms that can last a lifetime.  Rajneesh could not stand on his feet for long periods of time without becoming lightheaded because he suffered damage to his autonomic nervous system which controls blood pressure.  This neurally mediated hypotension (low blood pressure while standing) causes fatigue, stress, and can lower IQ due to a lack of sufficient blood and oxygen being pumped to the brain (brain hypoxia).  In the 1970s, Rajneesh often complained of becoming lightheaded immediately upon standing.  During the final few months of his life in Poona, Rajneesh frequently passed out into complete unconsciousness.  

     Rajneesh used prescription drugs, mainly Valium (diazepam), as an analgesic for his aches and pains and to counter the symptoms of dysautonomia (dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system).  At his peak usage, Rajneesh took the maximum recommended dose of 60 milligrams per day, a dose so high that it is usually only prescribed for the short term treatment of the seriously mentally ill.  Patients who take Valium regularly build up a resistance to the drug over time, and higher and higher doses are needed to maintain its stress relieving, hypnotic effects.  Rajneesh also inhaled nitrous oxide (N₂O) mixed with pure oxygen, which he claimed increased his creativity.  [See Parmartha's essays on Osho's nitrous oxide use 1 2 ]  The nitrous oxide probably did relieve the sensation of severe exhaustion and suffocation patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome often feel, but it did nothing for the quality of his judgment.  Naive about the power of drugs, and overconfident of his ability to fight off their negative effects, Rajneesh succumbed to addiction. 

     A number of disciples have claimed that Rajneesh was so intoxicated at his Oregon ranch in the 1980s that he sometimes urinated in the halls of his own home, just as heroin addicts and common drunks often do.  I believe this to be true, as the last time I saw Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh he was inebriated to the point of becoming physically ugly.  He had the same washed-out look and foolish behavior I had witnessed in drug addicts while working at a methadone clinic in the United States.  Rajneesh had miraculous mental power, but he was an ordinary human being physically, and he could not tolerate the devastating effects of large doses of tranquilizers.

     On top of Rajneesh's physical illness, his massive intake of Valium caused paranoia and greatly reduced reasoning skills.  Valium addicts often think the CIA or some other unseen villains are plotting against them, so it is not surprising that he imagined that he was poisoned by the United States Government.  His reasoning powers became so damaged that Rajneesh actually considered moving to Russia to combine his totalitarian form of spirituality with Russian communism, an idea no sane man could possibly entertain.  Rajneesh publicly called for the assassination of Michael Gorbachev, because Gorbachev was moving Russia to Western style capitalism instead of Rajneesh's own brand of "spiritual communism."  Historically, Valium has been the drug of choice for CFS sufferers as it masks the unnerving symptoms of dysautonomia and helps bring sleep.  Rajneesh suffered from insomnia, another classic symptom of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

     Rajneesh was a physically ill man who became mentally corrupt.  His brief experimentation with LSD only made matters worse.  Rajneesh's drug use and addiction was a problem of his own making, not a government conspiracy.  Rajneesh died in 1990, with heart failure listed as the official cause of death.  It is probable that the physical decline Rajneesh experienced during his incarceration in American jails was due to a combination of withdrawal symptoms from his Valium addiction and an aggravation of his Chronic Fatigue Syndrome due to stress and exposure to allergens.

     After Rajneesh's humiliation and downfall in America, he declared that he was "Jesus crucified by Ronald Reagan's America."  In truth, Rajneesh was a drug addicted guru who self-destructed because of his own wrong actions.  Comparing himself to Jesus was doubly dishonest, as he himself had no respect for Jesus.  He once undiplomatically proclaimed to the American media that everything Jesus said was "just crazy."

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     "I went through the abandoned city of Rajneeshpuram and saw things that were almost unbelievable.  Ma Anand Sheela's headquarters, a group of mobile homes pieced together, was a hive of secret doors and hidden tunnels, her private room a command post with electronic listening gear tapped into every room in the development.  The Bhagwan's parquet-paneled quarters had nitrogen oxide spigots by his bedside, and was surrounded by huge bathrooms with multiple showers." - Jim Weaver, former Oregon Congressman

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     In the 1998 preface to Books I Have Loved, Rajneesh's (Osho's) personal dentist, Swami Devageet, states that Osho dictated three books under the influence of nitrous oxide.  They were Books I Have Loved, Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, and Notes of a Madman.  Referring to his own nitrous oxide use, Rajneesh himself stated that "Actually oxygen and nitrogen are basic elements of existence.  They can be of much use, but for reasons the politicians have been against chemicals of all kinds, all drugs."  Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh's personal secretary, publicly stated on the CBS news show 60 Minutes that Rajneesh took 60 milligrams of Valium every day.  Hugh Milne, Rajneesh's head bodyguard, confirmed Rajneesh's heavy Valium use, as did Swami Devageet.  The FBI knew that Rajneesh was a Valium and nitrous oxide addict from their own investigations, and that fact was published in newspapers around the USA, including articles in "THE OREGONIAN" and "THE NEW YORK TIMES."  There is no doubt that Rajneesh became a drug addict except in the minds of passionate Osho followers who don't want to admit the painful truth.

     Rajneesh once jokingly referred to himself as "the rubber hose Buddha," because he was always inhaling nitrous oxide through a rubber hose.  Rajneesh did not seem to realize that becoming a drug addict not only devalued himself as a teacher, but to some extend discredited the very concept of anyone becoming a "Buddha."  If even an enlightened Buddha needs drugs to get high, then what value is there in becoming "enlightened" at all?

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     "People call me an ‘enlightened man’ -- I detest that term -- they can’t find any other word to describe the way I am functioning.  At the same time, I point out that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all.  I say that because all my life I’eve searched and wanted to be an enlightened man, and I discovered that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all, and so the question whether a particular person is enlightened or not does not arise.  I don’t give a hoot for a sixth-century-BC Buddha, let alone all the other claimants we have in our midst.  They are a bunch of exploiters, thriving on the gullibility of the people.  There is no power outside of man.  Man has created God out of fear.  So the problem is fear and not God."  - U.G. Krishnamurti

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     Upon his sudden death in 1990, there was much media speculation that Rajneesh had committed suicide by taking an overdose of drugs.  As no disciple has confessed to giving Rajneesh a lethal injection, there is no hard evidence to support the suicide theory.  A compelling circumstantial case could be made for such a scenario, however, with suicide provoked by Rajneesh's constant ill health and disheartenment over the loss of Vivek, his greatest love.

     The beautiful Vivek
     Vivek had taken a fatal overdose of sleeping pills in a Bombay hotel one month before Rajneesh's passing.  Pointedly, Vivek decided to kill herself immediately before Rajneesh's birthday celebration.  Rajneesh had threatened suicide at the Oregon commune several times, hanging his death over the heads of his disciples as a threat unless they obeyed his orders.  On his last day on earth, Rajneesh is reported to have said "Let me go.  My body has become a hell for me."     

     The rumor that Rajneesh was poisoned with thallium by operatives of the United States Government is entirely fictional and contradicted by undeniable fact.  One of the obvious symptoms of thallium poisoning is dramatic hair loss within seven days of exposure.  Rajneesh died with a full beard and no exceptional baldness other than ordinary male pattern baldness at the top of his head.  Radiation poisoning, another fictional cause of his illness, also causes dramatic hair loss.  

     The symptoms which may have led Rajneesh's doctors to suspect poisoning are common symptoms of dysautonomia caused by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  Those symptoms can include numbness, standing tachycardia (rapid heart rate upon standing), paresthesia (sensations of prickling and itching), nausea, and irritable bowel syndrome, which causes one to alternate between constipation and diarrhea.  All of his negative physical and mental symptoms were severely compounded by his own self-induced nitrous oxide poisoning and heavy Valium use.

     The only proven cases of illegal poisoning related to Rajneesh were carried out by Rajneesh's own sannyasins.  A sannyasin is an initiated disciple, one who takes sannyas.  In the year 1984 there were 751 poison victims, including women and small children, at ten restaurants in the The Dalles, Oregon.  Rajneesh sannyasins attempted to take over the Wasco County Commission by making so many people ill on election day that they could elect their own sannyasin candidates.

     Rajneesh disciples poisoned the restaurants' customers by contaminating salad bars and coffee creamers with salmonella bacteria.  Forty-five of the victims became so ill they had to be hospitalized, making the case the largest germ warfare attack in United States history.  Sannyasins were later suspected of trying to kill a Wasco County executive by spiking his water with an unknown poison.  A Jefferson County District Attorney, Michael Sullivan, also became ill after leaving a cup of coffee unattended as Rajneesh sannyasins filled the courthouse.  Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh never apologized to any of the people who were poisoned by his own trusted disciples.

     Members of Rajneesh's staff were poisoned by Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh's personal secretary.  Sheela had the habit of poisoning people who either knew too much or who had simply fallen out of her favor.  Sheela spent two and a half years in a Federal medium security prison for her crimes, while Rajneesh pled guilty to immigration fraud and was given a ten year suspended sentence, fined $400,000., and deported from the United States of America.  As part of his plea bargain agreement, more serious charges of racketeering were dropped.

Rajneesh and Sheela mugshots, and Rajneesh escorted to jail 

     Rajneesh felt that teaching ethics was unnecessary because meditation would automatically lead to good behavior.  The actions of Rajneesh and his disciples proves that theory to be completely false.  Rajneesh taught that you should do as you please because life is both a dream and a joke.  This attitude led to the classically fascist belief that one can become so high and mighty that one is beyond the need for old fashioned values and ethical behavior. 

     Those unfamiliar with the Rajneesh story can read the book, Bhagwan: The God That Failed, published by Saint Martin's Press and written by Hugh Milne (Shivamurti), a close disciple of Rajneesh during his Poona and Oregon years.  Except for Ma Yoga Laxmi, Rajneesh's first secretary, and Vivek, Rajneesh's main girlfriend, Shivamurti probably spent more time in close physical proximity to Rajneesh than anyone in Rajneesh's adult life.  Mr. Milne's book is largely corroborated by Satya Bharti Franklin's book, Promise of Paradise: A Woman's Intimate Life With 'Bhagwan' Osho Rajneesh, published by Barrytown/Station Hill Press.  Both books are out of print, but secondhand copies can be obtained through Amazon.Com.  There have been many other tell-all books published on the same subject matter, but I have not read them and I do not know the authors, so I do not mention them here.

     Regarding Bhagwan: The God That Failed, I can verify many of the facts Mr. Milne states about the life of Rajneesh in Bombay and Poona, though I have no first hand knowledge of the tragic events at the Oregon commune.  My contacts with people who were there lead me to believe that most of the facts Mr. Milne presents of the Oregon era are also highly accurate.  Hugh Milne is due great credit for a well written and entertaining book, which is a sincere effort at complete honesty.  On a few occasions, however, I differ from Mr. Milne's interpretations of what the facts he presents actually mean.

     Rajneesh did not suffer from "hypochondria," as Mr. Milne suggested.  Rajneesh had a very real neurological and immune system disease which he mistook for frequent viral infections.  He became unusually afraid of germs only due to his understandable medical ignorance.  I fully agree with Mr. Milne that Rajneesh suffered from "megalomania," and will add that the short statured Rajneesh had a Napoleonic, obsessive-compulsive, and extravagantly narcissistic personality.  Rajneesh even once publicly stated that he wanted to become a "benevolent dictator" of India.  All dictators think they are benevolent, but history proves the opposite.  Despite his claims of complete self-knowledge, Rajneesh did not understand that expanded states of cosmic consciousness do not automatically increase intelligence and wisdom.  His delusions of infallibility made him recklessly overconfident in his abilities to make sound judgments.

     Mr. Milne suggests that Rajneesh used "hypnosis" to manipulate his disciples.  Rajneesh had a melodic and naturally hypnotic voice which would be a great asset to any public speaker.  In my opinion, however, Rajneesh's power came from the intense energy field of the universal cosmic consciousness which he channeled like a lens.  Hindus call this universal energy phenomena the Atman.  As a Westerner, I prefer more scientific terms and describe the Atman as a highly evolved manifestation of Time-Energy-Space, the TES.  [see The TES Hypothesis]  

     Hugh Milne's book records a day when Rajneesh admitted, while under the influence of nitrous oxide, that there is no such thing as enlightenment.  I cannot confirm this event through other contacts, but I assume Rajneesh was simply stating what U.G. Krishnamurti has said all along; that the storybook fiction we accept of a perfect enlightenment, full of infallible wisdom, is a big lie.  A powerful and expansive state of cosmic consciousness does exist in humans who achieve it, but the way this condition is described by the religious establishment is an egocentric fiction, contrived by spiritual leaders to control the masses for their own personal gain.  

Enlightenment is not something you own; it is something you channel.

     Whatever term you use for the phenomena of enlightenment, it is scientifically accurate to say that no human being has any power of their own.  Even the chemical energy of our metabolism is borrowed from the sun, which beams light to the earth, which is then converted by plants through photosynthesis into the food we eat.  You may get your bread from the supermarket, but the caloric energy it contains originated from thermonuclear reactions deep in the center of a nearby star.  Our physical bodies run on star power.  Any "spiritual" energy we channel also comes from far beyond, from all sides of the universe, from the complete TES (Time-Energy-Space), from beyond the oceans of galaxies, and onto infinity.  No human being owns the Atman, and no one can speak for the TES.

     The Void has no ambition or personality whatsoever, so Rajneesh could only speak for his own animal mind.  The animal mind may want its disciples to "take over the whole world," but the Void does not care because it is beyond any motivation.  The phenomena we called Rajneesh, Bhagwan, and Osho, was only a temporary lens of cosmic energy, not the full cosmos itself.

     Rajneesh, and the famous Greek-Armenian mystic George Gurdjieff, often used the power of the Atman for clearly personal gain.  Both men used their cosmic consciousness to overwhelm and seduce women.  Gurdjieff was ashamed of his behavior and vowed many times during his life to end this practice, which was a combination of ordinary male lust backed up by the potent advantage of oceanic super-mental power.  Rajneesh went even further and used his channeled cosmic energy to manipulate masses of people to gain a kind of quasi-political status, and to aggrandize himself far beyond what was honest or helpful to his disciples.  In Oregon, Rajneesh declared to the media that "My religion is the only religion!"  Diplomacy and modesty were not his strong points.

     To my knowledge, George Gurdjieff never reached the extremes of self-indulgence of Rajneesh, and he even warned his disciples not to have blind faith in him.  Gurdjieff wanted his students to be free and independent, with the combined abilities of clear mental reasoning and cosmic consciousness.  Rajneesh, by contrast, seemed to believe that only his thoughts and ideas were of value because only he was "enlightened."  This was a grand error in judgment and revealed a basic flaw in his character.  Unfortunately, when Rajneesh achieved the ability to fully channel the power of the Atman, he failed to apply the needed wisdom of self-restraint.  His human mind so rebelled against Asian asceticism that he failed to ensure that his borrowed power was only used for the good of others.  Rajneesh was driven by strong personal ambitions, not just compassion.

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"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." - Henry Kissinger

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     Rajneesh left India in 1981, in part to escape paying a four million dollar Indian income tax bill.  As he disembarked from a 747 jetliner to take his first footsteps in the USA, Rajneesh declared that "I am the Messiah America has been waiting for."  [Milne, Bhagwan: The God That Failed]  After a brief stay in a newly acquired castle styled home in Montclair, New Jersey, Rajneesh bought the 64,000 acre Big Muddy cattle ranch near the small town of Antelope in eastern Oregon for six million dollars.

     Rajneesh created his Oregon desert commune from his own powerful mind and named it "Rajneeshpuram."  He made himself the ultimate dictator, his picture placed everywhere as in an Orwellian bad dream.  J. Krishnamurti called Rajneesh a "criminal" and Rajneeshpuram "a concentration camp under the dictatorship of enlightenment."  Poonjaji, Ramana Maharshi's famous student, referred to Rajneesh as "a pig" for building himself up in the eyes of his disciples to dishonest proportions.  Poonjaji's position was that even the enlightened remain human beings, not saints or superheroes, and that we all share the same cosmic identity no matter what our class and social standing. 

     U.G. Krishnamurti, a famous maverick anti-guru, was even more critical of Rajneesh (see picture of U.G.).  During the mid 1970s Rajneesh deemphasized his own meditation methods and started selling Western style group therapies as a way to gain income.  It was difficult to make money from authentic meditation techniques because they are all easy to learn and can be done alone, without the aid of a teacher.  One of the groups Rajneesh sold to students was the "Tantra" group, which was basically just male and female disciples having sex with each other.  U.G. Krishnamurti publicly called Rajneesh the "worlds biggest pimp" because "He made money from the boys and the girls and he kept it for himself."  In 1971 Rajneesh told me directly in a face to face meeting that U.G. Krishnamurti was "realized."  After much public criticism from U.G., Rajneesh counterattacked by calling U.G. a "phony guru." 

     Guru wars aside, the totalitarian atmosphere of Rajneeshpuram was the main reason I did not stay at the commune beyond two brief visits.  I was interested in meditation, not in a big prison camp where human beings were treated like insects with no intelligence of their own.  Rajneesh put such a high emphasis on his disciples following orders without question that they did just that when Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh's personal secretary, gave absurd orders to commit crimes which Rajneesh himself (hopefully) would never have approved of.

     When you decapitate the intelligence of human beings you create a situation that is highly dangerous and destructive to the human spirit.  You cannot save people from their egos by demanding "total surrender."  The antidemocratic technique of forcing blind obedience did not work well for Hitler, Stalin, or for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.  Germany, Russia, and the Rajneesh Oregon commune were all destroyed by authoritarian imperial rule.  A diversity of opinion is always healthy because it acts as an effective counterbalance to the myopic arrogance of those who would be king.  Rajneesh never understood this truth of history and referred to democracy scornfully as "mobocracy."  Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was an imperial aristocrat, never a generous and open minded democrat, and he put his contempt for the democratic process into highly visible action in Oregon.

     In an attempt to subvert a local Wasco County election, Rajneesh had his sannyasins bus in almost 2,000 homeless people from major American cities in an effort to unfairly rig the voting process in his favor.  Some of the new voters were mentally ill and were given beer laced with drugs to keep them manageable.  Credible allegations have been made that one or more of the imported street people died due to overdosing on the beer and drug mixture, their bodies buried in the desert.  To my knowledge that charge has not been conclusively proven.  Rajneesh's voting fraud scheme failed, and the derelicts and mental patients were returned to the streets after the election was over, used and then abandoned.

     Rajneesh used people, spoke out of both sides of his mouth, and betrayed the trust of his own disciples.  This betrayal caused Vivek, his longtime girlfriend and companion, to commit suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.  Rajneesh even lied about her death, slandering his greatest love in her grave by falsely claiming that she was chronically depressed due to some intrinsic emotional instability.  Vivek was never depressed during the years I knew her, and she was the most radiant women I have ever known. 

     Vivek was a glowing student of meditation, but her only meditation method was being with Rajneesh and absorbing his tremendous energy.  When her one true love collapsed into insanity, she took her own life out of overwhelming grief.  Rajneesh drove her to suicide because she could not understand nor tolerate his mental decline and collapse.  Rajneesh lied about her death to avoid taking responsibility for his own bizarre behavior, which was the underlying cause of Vivek's despair. 

     The young Acharya Rajneesh started his life as a teacher who condemned false gurus, and he ended his life as one of the most deceitful gurus the world has ever known.  The difficult fact to comprehend is that he was enlightened when he was an anti-guru puritan, and he was still enlightened when he was the ultimate corrupt, self-indulgent guru himself.  Rajneesh destroyed his own teaching because he discarded truthfulness in favor of what he thought were useful lies.  Once you make that wrong turn, away from ordinary straightforward truth, you have lost your way.  No human being can disregard fact on a regular basis without finding himself in a sea of turmoil, because by discarding fact you discard the ground beneath your feet.  Little lies grow into big lies, and the now hidden truth becomes your enemy, not your ally and friend.  

     Rajneesh overestimated himself and underestimated his own disciples.  The real seekers around him could have easily handled the truth and were already motivated without the need for propaganda.  Rajneesh had been a famous guru for such a long time that he came to see himself in grandiose terms.  He was indeed an historic figure, but he was not the perfect superhuman he pretended to be.  No one is!  His disciples deserved honesty, but he fed them fairy tales "to give them faith."  

     Jiddu Krishnamurti had been more honest than Rajneesh in repeating relentlessly that due to the intrinsic nature of the universe, "there is no authority."  Ardent Rajneesh disciples didn't heed J. Krishnamurti's warnings and put blind faith in a man who claimed to be all-seeing, to have all the answers, and who once in 1975 brashly stated that he had never made a single mistake in his entire life.  Clearly, Rajneesh made as many mistakes as any human being.  Just as obviously, his basic existential enlightenment was no guarantee of functional pragmatic wisdom.

     Rajneesh was a brilliant philosopher, but he was a lost babe in the woods when it came to the world of science.  Worried about worldwide overpopulation, Rajneesh pressured his disciples to undergo sexual reproduction sterilization procedures.  Unfortunately, he did not consider the demographics of population growth.  The current population expansion is largely a phenomena of poor Third World nations, not a problem originating in the USA, Canada, and Europe, where birth rates are actually declining.  North America and Europe are only experiencing population increases due to legal and illegal immigration from Third World nations.  Having his Western disciples medically sever their reproductive capabilities only added to this imbalance, and many former disciples now regret they complied without question to his thoughtless edicts.

     Discouraging followers from having families is a common device of gurus to keep disciples from spending money on children rather than handing their cash over to the guru himself.  Childless disciples make better workers and are usually more subservient.  Thus, sexual sterilization fit into Rajneesh's business plan and his desire to create an army of followers who felt that "only the relationship to guru is important."  Rajneesh was the son of an ambitious Jain businessman, and he was more like his father than he ever realized.  Rajneesh's enlightenment was overlaid on top of a mind attuned to business and making money.  

     In the 1980s, Rajneesh declared that the AIDS epidemic would soon kill three quarters of the world's population and that a major nuclear war was just around the corner.  He thought he could escape nuclear holocaust by building underground shelters and slow the spread of AIDS by having his disciples wash their hands with alcohol before eating meals.  His more reasoned admonition was for his followers to always use condoms.  To enforce his sexual rules, which also involved elaborate instructions on the use of rubber gloves during sexual encounters, Rajneesh encouraged his sannyasins to spy on each other, reporting the names of those who failed to conform to his orders.

     The disaster of Rajneesh appointing himself the singular great brain of the universe was compounded by his lack of real world reasoning skills, and this was apparent even before he started taking large amounts of Valium and inhaling nitrous oxide.  Rajneesh had no understanding of the scientific method.  If he thought something was true, in his own mind, that made it true.  Rajneesh could weave magnificent philosophical dreams and addict his disciples to imagined worlds of spiritual adventure, but those dreams did not have to stand any empirical test of truth.  In the world of science, you have to prove what you say is true through testing.  In the world of philosophy and religion, you can say anything you desire and throw caution to the wind.  If your words sound good to the masses, they will sell whether they are fact or fiction. 

     Rajneesh ruled his desert empire as a warlord with his own private army and puppet government.  His visions and ideas, faulty or not, were taken without question as the word of God.  His disciples were judged by their ability to surrender to his will, and any opposing views were branded as an unspiritual lack of faith.  As conditions at the ranch became progressively more unpleasant, a number of sannyasins escaped by hiding in the back of outgoing trucks.  Their quest for freedom upset Rajneesh, who demanded that the disillusioned must now ask his permission to leave.  Rajneesh then dramatically threatened suicide if others escaped by stealthful means.

     Rajneesh's poor reasoning became even more apparent during and after the Oregon commune scandal.  After being jailed and then deported from the USA, Rajneesh angrily declared America "a wretched country" and branded Americans as "subhuman," ignoring the fact that it was he, an Indian, who pled guilty to felony immigration fraud, and that it was Sheela, an Indian, who ordered the most serious crimes which brought his empire to ruin.  Even in his fifties, Rajneesh was still lying to get his own way, and still demanding to be the center of attention.  In 1988, suffering from drug and illness induced dementia, Rajneesh publicly pouted that his box of toys, his expensive car collection and jewel encrusted watches, had been taken away from him.

     Rajneesh's disciples thought they were following an authoritative "enlightened master."  In reality they had been mislead by a highly fallible human animal who was still a little boy at heart.  Rajneesh had not only misrepresented himself personally, but he misrepresented the phenomena of enlightenment itself.  The idealized fantasy of perfect enlightenment does not exist anywhere in the real world, and it has never existed.  The universe is far too big and complex for anyone to be its "master."  We are all subjects, not masters, and those who pretend to be infallible and all-knowing end up looking even more the fool as history inevitably proves them wrong.

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"Nature does not use anything as a model.  It is only interested in perfecting the species.  It is trying to create perfect species and not perfect beings." -  U.G. Krishnamurti

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     The famous sages of old seem perfect to us now because they have become larger than life myths.  The long passage of time has allowed their followers to cover up their guru's flaws, just as Rajneesh disciples are currently censoring history to cover up Rajneesh's great failings.  Rajneesh was never more infallible than any other human being.  Unfortunately, cosmic consciousness does not automatically render greater intelligence, wisdom, and honesty.   

     Rajneesh died addicted to Valium, and he experienced all of the negative symptoms of drug addiction, which included slurred speech, paranoia, poor judgment, and dramatically lowered intelligence.  At one point his paranoia and confusion were so great that he thought a group of German cultists had cast an evil spell on him.  His physical disabilities and drug abuse were simply more than his mortal brain could take.  His biggest flaw, his disregard for the ordinary concept of truth, was his ultimate downfall, and for that crime he must be held fully responsible.

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"Never give a sucker an even break." - W.C. Fields

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     Rajneesh lied when he said he had enlightened disciples.  He lied when he said he never made a mistake.  Near the end of his life he was forced to admit that he was fallible, as his list of bungles had grown to monstrous proportions.  He lied by pretending that his therapy groups were not mainly just a money making device.  Rajneesh lied about breaking United States immigration laws, and he only admitted the truth after he was presented with overwhelming evidence against him.  He lied by saying that he was adopted in a phony scheme to get permanent residence status.  Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was no bank robber, but he was quite literally a pathological liar.  The ridiculous thing is that all of his lies were totally unnecessary and counterproductive.  As conventional and square as it may sound, honesty really is the best policy.

     Rajneesh lied when he claimed that he was not responsible for the horrors of the Oregon commune.  Rajneesh was responsible because he hand picked Ma Anand Sheela and the people who committed the major crimes of conspiracy to commit murder, poisoning, first-degree assault, burglary, arson, and wiretapping.  Rajneesh himself gave direct verbal approval for Sheela's illegal bugging and wiretapping of his own disciples.  The fact that Rajneesh did not order or have preknowledge (hopefully) of the most serious violent crimes does not mean that he was not ethically responsible for them.  Rajneesh never turned against Ma Anand Sheela until he started to suspect that Sheela was stealing money from him.  

     Just one month before Sheela fled the commune, Rajneesh spoke of her publicly, stating that "I have been preparing her like a sword.  I told her to go out and cut as many heads as possible."  Later, Rajneesh feigned innocence and claimed that Sheela was controlling him in spite of the obvious fact that Rajneesh was the singular reason the commune existed.  Rajneesh was surrounded by thousands of adoring disciples who would have gladly expelled or even jailed Sheela any time he gave the order.

     Sheela did Rajneesh's dirty work, and the fact that she went farther in her crimes than Rajneesh had planned does not exonerate him of all guilt.  Upon leaving the commune, Sheela stated that she was tired of "being his slave for 16, 17 or 20 hours a day," and tired of "taking food out of the mouths of people to buy him watches and Rolls-Royces."  Rajneesh then publicly claimed that Sheela had extorted millions of dollars from the commune.  Sheela's response to his charge was that Rajneesh had spent all of the money himself on his own expensive toys, and that Rajneesh was bad at mathematics and "can't count."  Clearly, Rajneesh's insane purchases of dozens of bejeweled ladies' watches and over 90 Rolls-Royce automobiles cost the commune many millions of dollars.  After her release from prison, Ma Anand Sheela continued to work for a living without obvious signs of enormous wealth.   Sheela committed many crimes, but Rajneesh himself was never "innocent."    

     If a teacher puts a drunken sailor in charge of driving a school bus, and the children end up dead, then the teacher is responsible for their deaths.  Rajneesh knew what kind of a person Sheela was, and he chose her because of her corruption and arrogance, not in spite of it.  Rajneesh personally tutored Sheela in how to control and manipulate his own disciples, and it was Rajneesh himself who encouraged Sheela's infamous outbursts on the ABC television show, Nightline.  In a cowardly attempt to evade his own failings, Rajneesh changed his name to Osho, as if a change in name could wash away his sins.

     There is no publicly released evidence to suggest that Rajneesh ordered the germ warfare attack on the ten Oregon restaurants.  There is also no publicly released evidence that implicates Rajneesh in the plot to have a sannyasin pilot fly an airplane full of explosives into an Oregon courthouse in order to intimidate the political opposition.  Luckily, the sannyasin pilot who was asked to perform that insane task was not as dumb as the plotters, and he fled the commune without committing any crime.

     Rajneesh was directly responsible for the twisted mix of totalitarian slavery and libertine indulgence that the commune represented.  According to highly credible published reports, Rajneesh allowed middle aged men to have sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls at the commune in the name of sexual freedom, yet his disciples were not allowed to have a mind of their own and had to totally surrender to the great Bhagwan's will.  Disciples were often forced to work 12 hours a day in cold and difficult conditions, while Rajneesh himself experienced "groovy spaces" in his private heated indoor pool and watched countless movies on his big screen projection television, all the while enjoying his daily supply of drugs.  Rajneesh showed his divine love for his disciples by squandering millions in hard earned commune assets on his car collection and expensive jewelry, and all in the name of egolessness and spiritual surrender. 

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     Why did Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh own over 90 Rolls-Royces?  Why did Saddam Hussein own dozens of luxurious palaces?  Those desires were products of the base animal mind of two men who grew up surrounded by poverty.  Enlightenment does not care about symbols of power and potency.  Looking for hidden esoteric explanations for obsessive behavior is pointless.  Is there an occult reason that Elton John spends over $400,000. per month on flowers?  Is there a secret spiritual reason that Rajneesh had a collection of dozens of expensive ladies' watches?  The universal cosmic consciousness is completely neutral and without any need to possess, impress, or dominate.  It also cannot drive or tell time.

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     One of Rajneesh's most blatant lies was that "the enlightened one gains nothing from his disciples."  Rajneesh wanted people to believe that everything he did was a free gift born of pure compassion, and that he gained nothing personally from the guru-disciple relationship.  In obvious provable fact, Rajneesh gained much from his disciples: money, power, sex, and the titillation of constant adoration.  Just as rock stars become energized by screaming fans at concerts, Rajneesh gained emotional energy and support from his army of sannyasins.  The energy transfer was a two-way street, not a totally free one-way gift.  Being a guru was his business, his only business.  Without that income, at least on the physical level, he was just a short, balding, physically disabled Indian man who could not hold a job.  Rajneesh's very real enlightenment would not pay his bills or give him the material luxuries he craved.

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     Consciousness needs entertainment to survive, and Rajneesh used his disciples as playthings for his own amusement.  Rajneesh had no bankable power of his own, so he could only gain material power by manipulating others to do his will.  The equation was simple.  The more disciples he attracted, the more power and wealth he obtained.

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     During Rajneesh's incarceration in America, a security video camera recorded Rajneesh while he was left alone in a waiting room.  Rajneesh looked bored and disgusted, just as any ordinary man might be.  He didn't look blissful or enlightened at all.  In my own opinion that video clip revealed the stark truth about the phenomena we call 'enlightenment.'  The realization of the Void is not enough for anyone.  All human animals, enlightened or not, need social interaction and the comforts of the material world to be content.

     Rajneesh, on so many levels, was just an ordinary man.  Sexually he was even less than ordinary.  Pretending to be a great Tantric in his early years, Rajneesh handed out ridiculously bad sexual advice at a time when he had very little first hand experience with sex himself.  During his Bombay years, Rajneesh often grabbed the breasts of young female disciples.  On at least one occasion, he asked a couple to have sex in front of him so that he could watch.  The couple wisely rejected his request.

     Rajneesh often asked women half his age to strip in front of him so that he could "feel their chakras."  To facilitate this practice, he installed an electric lock on his bedroom door that could be activated from a button on his desk.  Rajneesh groped the breasts of two of my female friends and "felt the chakras" of a third.  I soon began to realize that like so many other girl grabbing Indian gurus who had made the headlines, Rajneesh on the human level was just an ordinary sexually immature Indian male.  My lady friend who suffered the chakra feeling incident was so put off that she never came back to see him again.  He had told her "Don't worry.  You are mine now."  That grasping statement had chilled her as much as the sexual advance.  The young woman was a student of Indian music and had previously been sexually exploited by a famous Indian musician.  She knew first hand what many Indian men were like.  Rajneesh proved himself to be predictably and disappointingly the same.

     After Rajneesh started having sexual intercourse on a regular basis, the spiritual need for him to "feel the chakras" of his female disciples mysteriously vanished.  Rajneesh rationalized having sex with his female disciples by claiming that the act would bless them so much that they would become enlightened in some future lifetime.  His admission years later that there is no such thing as reincarnation made his sexual rationalizations appear even more ridiculous and self-serving.  

     Rajneesh had much inside him that I wanted: light, energy, and a vastly expanded state of being.  Regrettably, he also had much inside him that I did not want or respect.  I do not find fault with Rajneesh for having the same sexual desires that all men have.  I did find fault when he was dishonest and cruel for purely selfish reasons.

     While living in Bombay, Rajneesh made one young woman pregnant through an aggressive and unasked for seduction.  This was  was not rape by any definition, but rather a case of psychic overpowering, which is not against any law because no legal system recognizes that psychic powers even exist.  The woman was highly upset and forced by circumstance to have an abortion.  In order to protect his image as a great guru, Rajneesh lied about his involvement and claimed that the girl had imagined the whole affair.  The young woman told the American Embassy her story, and that incident marked the beginning of Rajneesh's troubles with the United States Government.

     Nature has provided human animals with a strong, virtually unstoppable sex drive to ensure reproduction of the species.  Because of the overwhelming importance and power of sex, most gurus, enlightened or not, have maintained active sex lives which are often kept secret for purely political reasons.  In his early years, Rajneesh lied about his strong sexuality by claiming to be celibate.  To be fair, this has to be understood in the context of a rigidly antisexual and highly hypocritical Indian social structure.  Later on, after his position as a guru had become secure, Rajneesh publicly bragged to the American media that he had sex "with hundreds of women."  All of Rajneesh's sex partners were his own female meditation students who were used as his personal harem.

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     All human beings are animals, specifically mammals.  Scientists now believe that human DNA is approximately 93% the same as chimpanzee DNA.  World history, Asian mythology, politics, and the behavior of alpha male gurus makes allot more sense if you keep that unavoidable fact in mind.  Our most primal subconscious motivating forces come from the animal world, which we are still a part of. 

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     The last time I visited the Rajneesh ashram in Poona, India, was in 1988.  The ashram was literally like a loud convention of German Brownshirts (storm troopers) by that point.  Rajneesh, alias "Osho," was still very popular in Germany due in part to his comments in the German magazine Der Spiegel, which were widely interpreted as being pro-Hitler.  Many young Germans, who were looking for a strong and charismatic leader, were thrilled by his words.  Those who lost loved ones during World War II were justifiably shocked.  

     Even in the early 1970s in Bombay, Rajneesh made careless statements which could easily be interpreted as being pro-Hitler and pro-fascist.  In one lecture on "esoteric groups" he claimed that Adolf Hitler had been telepathically propped up by an occult Buddhist group that Rajneesh himself was in contact with.  During World War II it is well known that a number of Brahmin Indian yogis and Japanese "Zen masters" had supported the Axis cause and the extermination of the "inferior races," so Rajneesh's claim was not entirely surprising, if not totally believable.  

     In Poona, Rajneesh gave an infamous lecture in which he stated that Jews had given Hitler "no choice" but to exterminate them.  In his last years Rajneesh declared that "I have fallen in love with this man (Adolf Hitler).  He was crazy, but I am crazier still."  Rajneesh said that he wanted his sannyasins "to take over the world" and that he had studied Hitler to gain insight into how to accomplish the task.  For a man who portrayed himself as the world's smartest, highest, and greatest soul, such remarks were proof to me that his drug use had destroyed the quality of his mind.

     Rajneesh's comments about Hitler could be discounted as obnoxious but largely harmless hot air if it were not for the fact that he put many of Hitler's techniques into practice.  Rajneesh used Hitler's "big lie" method of mind control very effectively, and he demanded total surrender from his troops (disciples).  Rajneesh condoned illegal spying on his own followers and used informants to weed out the disloyal.  Ma Anand Sheela, his personal secretary, turned the tables on Rajneesh by bugging Rajneesh's trademark high-backed chair, a betrayal his "third eye" never detected.  The Oregon police later found Rajneesh's illegally taped conversations, but due to rules of evidence they could not be used against him in a court of law.  The tapes were reported to be highly damning as to Rajneesh's culpability in much of the commune's day to day illegal activities.

     Rajneesh turned many of his disciples into the equivalent of armed Brownshirts.  I have received letters from several of Rajneesh's former security guards who admitted they had fallen under the spell of fascism and now regretted their behavior and attitudes.  One wrote that he did not even know how to meditate, and that the thrill of power was what kept him loyal to his great leader.  In Poona, Rajneesh guards beat up an annoying local resident, his hands held behind his back as the guards pummeled him.  In Oregon, Rajneesh guards were armed to the teeth with handguns and military style semiautomatic assault rifles.  Rajneesh was never an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, the great Indian pacifist, but he did have a unhealthy fascination with Adolf Hitler, as well as the United States Army General, George Patton.  According to Hugh Milne (Shivamurti), Rajneesh watched the movie Patton over and over again on his big screen projection television at his ranch house in Oregon.  

     Perhaps Rajneesh's worst personal trait was that he could dish it out but he could not take it.  He constantly put his disciples through great physical hardships, which resulted in serious illness and even death for some, yet he himself lived in luxury and could not endure physical discomfort without complaining loudly like a baby.  After his arrest on October 28th, 1985, at the Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, Rajneesh was interviewed by ABC television news.  He began his jailhouse interview by crying in a shrill voice about his less than royal accommodations in the slammer.  His high pitched whining was so weird and annoying that Saturday Night Live, NBC's late night comedy television show, used the footage sarcastically as a joke about "God" complaining.

     During Rajneesh's jailhouse appearance on the ABC television show Nightline, Rajneesh gave evasive and dishonest answers to all of Ted Koppel's questions, and he behaved as an unusually pompous and inept politician caught red handed at illegal activity.  Rajneesh claimed that he was not responsible for any of the crimes committed at the commune because he was "in silence."  In proven fact, although Rajneesh had stopped giving public lectures for a time, he had never stopped talking to Ma Anand Sheela and other close disciples.  Rajneesh was always the ultimate authority at the commune, even though Sheela committed some of the most serious crimes behind his back.

     Rajneesh's favorite Rolls-Royce dealer stated that "the Bhagwan" had spent hours on the telephone talking to him about his often weekly purchases of new automobiles.  All of his over 90 Rolls-Royces were paid for from general commune funds on his direct orders, not "gifts" from outsiders as he would later try to claim.  Rajneesh was the only person who wanted the cars and he was the only person allowed to drive them.  After bankrupting the commune, he claimed that the automobiles were owned by the commune, not by him.

     In his Nightline interview, Rajneesh pretended not to know that he was leaving the United States during his attempt to escape an impending Federal arrest warrant on racketeering and immigration charges.  Rajneesh's defense was that he was innocently sleeping when police boarded the private jet he had hired to fly to Bermuda.  Rajneesh said that he thought Bermuda was just another American state, and that he was going on vacation to rest and to escape "death threats."  The authorities later learned that a Rajneesh disciple with ties to the United States Justice Department had tipped off Rajneesh about his impending arrest.  His own sannyasins had not even known that he had left the commune until they learned from the media of the arrest of Rajneesh and several followers at the North Carolina airport.  The sad fact was their great "enlightened" guru had secretly abandoned his own disciples, leaving them to face the music all on their own.  The luggage of Rajneesh and his companions was searched and found to contain a bag of cash, a box of expensive jewel encrusted watches, and a handgun.

     The Rajneesh cult had little luck winning over American television viewers.  Ma Anand Sheela disgraced herself on Nightline weeks earlier by bursting into loud obscenities, forcing Ted Koppel to take her off the air.  Saturday Night Live later broadcast a skit about an auction with actor Randy Quaid selling off "the Bhagwan's" over 90 Rolls-Royce automobiles.  Years later, the The Simpsons, the FOX television network's wildly popular cartoon show, produced a spoof of Rajneesh that depicted a white gloved guru driving his Rolls-Royce down a muddy commune road as his disciples felt joy at eating his road dirt.  In the cartoon, the great guru tried to escape the commune with bags of cash in a homemade peddle driven flying machine.

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"When it comes to gurus, take the best and leave the rest." - Ramamurti Mishra

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     During my last visit to the Poona ashram in 1988, Rajneesh was in silence because he was angry at his own disciples.  He wanted his sannyasins to demonstrate in the streets against some Indian officials who had spoken out against him.  Wisely, no one was interested in creating a new confrontation.  This spell of sanity among the flock irritated Rajneesh, who canceled public talks as punishment.  I was thus only able to see him on video tape.

     On the taped lecture, Rajneesh was ranting emotionally, and factually incorrectly, about how the police in the United States had stolen his collection of jewel encrusted ladies' watches.  He said they would never be able to wear them in public because his sannyasins would see the watches on their wrists at airports, train stations, etcetera, and start screaming out loudly that "you stole Bhagwan's watch!"  His words and manner were so childishly irrational that he reminded me of the suicidal cult leader, Jim Jones.  This crazy old man, now called "Osho," was a far cry from the serene, dignified, and highly eloquent Acharya Rajneesh I had met years earlier. 

     Obviously, Rajneesh was not "egoless" as he had often claimed.  The human brain is a biologically created thinking machine that has evolved for both personal self-preservation and survival of the species.  The ego, which is a selfish motivating force, is needed to protect our colony of living cells (the physical body) from danger and to keep our cells replenished with food and water.  If you did not have an ego, you would not be able to think, speak, or find food, shelter, and clothing.

     Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans (fMRI scans) of Tibetan monks and Hindu yogis have shown that during deep meditation the parts of the brain that gives us a sense of location in time and space are less active.  If you slow down the thought process, and at the same time reduce the brain's sense of location, consciousness loses both its content and its boundaries.  You feel infinite, timeless, and empty.  This feeling of an infinite Void gives the false impression that ego no longer exists.  Egolessness is an illusion because the ego function is a fundamental part of the basic physical structure of the brain itself.  Ego cannot be lost unless your brain dies, which will cause your entire body to die.

     Many enlightened humans have become fooled by the reduction of the space localization function of the brain and believed they no longer had personal selfishness that could cause trouble.  Meher Baba spent much of his life bragging about how great he was, yet in his boundaryless consciousness he felt no personal ego.  Meher Baba even proclaimed to the world that "No one loves me as much as I deserve to be loved."  In truth, Meher Baba was very egocentric and he should have realized that even the brain phenomena we call "enlightenment" is no excuse for bragging.  The same fundamental misjudgment plagued Rajneesh.  He became fooled into thinking that he was above arrogance and greed, but that was simply not the case.  The ego is hard wired into our neural pathways and cannot be destroyed unless the physical body dies. 

     Even enlightened humans have to mind their manners and realize that the Atman is the wondrous phenomena they should promote, not their own temporary personalities.  Ramana Maharshi had the right approach in this regard, and that is one reason he is still beloved by all.  Ramana Maharshi promoted the Atman, the universal cosmic consciousness, but never his own mortal body and mind. 

     Rajneesh's spectacular energy was proof that he was enlightened in the Eastern, esoteric sense of the word.  The Eastern, esoteric definition of 'enlightenment' is an energy phenomena, gained only by those who are totally open to the infinite power of the universe.  The Western definition is simply to be a very wise man, which Rajneesh, in my opinion, was not.

     Even after returning to Poona, Rajneesh continued his Valium and nitrous oxide use and seemed unable to learn from his own mistakes.  Rajneesh had often branded his critics as "idiots," yet in his final years Rajneesh had no sane voice inside himself to say No!  Enough is enough!  Like a deranged alcoholic, Rajneesh could not stop his own self-destructive behavior, and the quality of his judgment dropped to below that of even the most ordinary unenlightened human being.  Rajneesh had used the myths of Tantra to rationalize his dishonesty and selfishness, and now he could not stop.  Earlier in life, Rajneesh had skipped out of paying a hotel bill, cheated a real estate agent out of a commission, and obtained millions of dollars from his own disciples through lies and fraud.  In the end, Rajneesh had become a hopeless drug addict as well, and no amount of spiritual rationalizations could alter that fact.

     Rajneesh's lifelong teaching had been that enlightenment is a state of perfect egolessness which brought about wisdom, compassion, and in his unique case, total infallibility.  In the last months of his life, Rajneesh, now renamed "Osho," finally admitted that the ego could not be destroyed, only "observed."  The very basis of his demand for total surrender of his disciples was that the ego contaminated followers had to submit their will to the perfect master, because only the perfect master had no ego and thus could do no wrong.  If this were not true then why should anyone surrender to another fallible and corruptible human ego?

     Rajneesh even finally admitted that there is no reincarnation, and that the very concept of reincarnation was just a "misinterpretation" of other phenomena.  This shocking admission meant that his previous frequent claims of being a famous guru in past lives were pure fiction, designed to impress, manipulate, and control his disciples.  Rajneesh's main teaching was based on souls, reincarnation, and achieving freedom from rebirth (moksha) through spiritual practice.  His massive drug intake seemed to act as a truth serum at times, allowing admissions of truths that he had previously kept secret in order to remain in control of his cult empire.  The course of Rajneesh's life and his drug induced admissions proved to me that his most basic teachings were wrong and a lie. 

     In his last days, Osho argued with his doctors to ignore their medical ethics and give him even more nitrous oxide.  Osho rationalized his drug addiction just as a teenage boy might if caught smoking marijuana by his mother.  The God "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh" had fallen down to the stumble-drunk Osho, and a substantial number of his disciples were so addicted to his artfully seductive words and false image that they could not even see what was happening right in front of their own eyes.  In late 1989, in a final bizarre act, Osho ordered his dentists to remove most of his teeth for no legitimate medical reason.  If Osho had suspected that the mercury fillings in his teeth were causing him health problems, he could have easily had the old fillings replaced with modern white plastic dental fillings.  Why Osho wanted to have so many teeth removed is a mystery to this day.  Needless to say, their removal did nothing to improve his health.

     In the years after Osho's death, the Poona ashram has been turned into a "cashram" and is run for profit.  Color Puncture, Tantric Tarot, encounter groups, and every crackpot scam in the book is being peddled by Osho disciples for large sums of money.  I think back to the day when the just turned 40 year old Acharya Rajneesh instructed a Japanese woman that "Meditation must not be made into a business."  The corrupt means have gotten so far out of hand that the original intent of the ends has long been forgotten.  It would be wonderful to believe that enlightened men were perfect in every way.  That would make life simpler and sweeter, but it would be fiction, not fact.

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THE LAST PICTURE - Below is the face of madness and superconsciousness living together.  Unfortunately, one does not preclude the other.  Consciousness is just a brain function like memory, not a miracle cure-all.  Meditation does not solve many problems on its own.  Meditation gives us needed relaxation by making us forget the very real problems we are all born with.  Beyond a certain modest level, enlargement of consciousness has no functional benefit whatsoever.  People take a very wrong turn when they equate expanded consciousnesses with expanded wisdom and virtue.  History proves superconsciousness often leads to self-deception and delusions of grandeur.

     Cosmic consciousness adds emphasis and ecstasy to life, but it does not change the final outcome of our lives, and it does not help feed, clothe, and shelter the human race.  There is no other "spiritual" world for us to escape to.  We are all here together sharing this ONE WORLD, which is formed by living cells and time-energy-matter-space, not by souls, reincarnation, and karma.  Meditation is an absolutely wonderful and spectacular brain phenomena, but we should not oversell it or we create the curses of religion, cults, and "belief systems" based on ignorance and wishful thinking.  

Christopher Calder      Note* Christopher Calder's website no longer exists.  His essays are archived here. 

Copyright notice:  Please feel free to copy, repost, or publish Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth (© 1998 Christopher Calder) for educational, noncommercial use.  You may repost or publish any of my essays without cost, but you must clearly state that the essays were written by Christopher Calder, you must not change any of my words or their meanings, and no one has been granted permission to use my writings to sell any products or services.  This is a 100% free website, published only for the benefit of other students of meditation.

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Addendum

*Dynamic Meditation: (warning)  This spectacular meditation method was Rajneesh's trademark, and it remains a tremendously effective tool for naturally expanding consciousness.  Rajneesh never did the technique himself because he didn't need to.  He developed the method simply by observing his disciples, who would occasionally go into spontaneous body movements during his early meditation camps.  When his judgment started to decline, he unfortunately changed the third and fourth stages of the method into a pointless torture test.  The correct and most effective version of this meditation technique has four stages, each lasting ten minutes.

Stage #1)  Start by standing with your eyes closed and breathe deep and fast through your nose for ten minutes.  Allow your body to move freely.  Jump, sway back and forth, or use any physical motion that helps you pump more oxygen into your lungs.

Stage #2)  The second ten minute stage is one of catharsis.  Let go totally and be spontaneous.  You may dance or roll on the ground.  Screaming is allowed and encouraged.  You must act out any anger you feel in a safe way, such as beating the earth with your hands.  All the suppressed emotions from your subconscious mind are to be released.

Stage #3)  In the third stage you jump up and down yelling Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! continuously for ten minutes.  This sounds silly, but the loud vibration of your voice travels down to your centers of stored energy and pushes that energy upward.  When doing this stage it is important to keep your arms loose and in a natural position.  Do not hold your arms over your head as that position can be medically dangerous.

Stage #4)  The fourth ten minute stage is complete relaxation and quiet.  Flop down on your back, get comfortable, and just let go.  Be as a dead man totally surrendered to the cosmos.  Enjoy the tremendous energy you have unleashed in the first three stages and become a silent witness to the ocean as it flows into the drop.  Become the ocean.  

     Rajneesh unwisely changed the third stage of the method to rigidly holding your arms over your head while shouting Hoo!  Even worse, he changed the fourth stage to freezing in place like a statue with your arms still held awkwardly over your head.  This method is not only uncomfortable to the point of torture, it can also be medically dangerous for those with an underlying heart condition.  When you stand with arms elevated over your head, you increase your level of orthostatic stress.  This means that your heart must work harder to pump blood that has traveled down to your legs back up to your heart and on up to your brain.  You could easily pass out in this position, or induce a heart attack in individuals with coronary artery disease.

     Freezing in place makes deep relaxation impossible as it keeps your mind's controlling functions fully operational.  This holds your consciousness on the surface, defeating the purpose of the exercise.  The point of the technique was to have three stages of intense action followed by a fourth stage of deep relaxation and complete let go.  Rajneesh could never have practiced the freeze method himself, not even in his youth.  Asking his disciples to do it simply showed that he had lost touch with reality.  Rajneesh was a fallible human being, not a perfect God. 

     I advise students to only use the enjoyable early version of Dynamic Meditation.  This wonderful technique was intended to grow with the student and change as the student changes.  After a few years of practicing the method vigorously, the first three stages of the meditation should drop away spontaneously.  You then go into the meditation hall, take a few deep breaths, and immediately enter the deep tranquility of the fourth stage.  Rajneesh intended the method to be fluid, health giving, and fun.  Those new students who wish to experiment with Rajneesh Dynamic Meditation should read the section on Cathartic Dancing Meditation in Meditation Handbook for further warnings and details before experimenting with this powerful technique. 

Suggested reading:

Bhagwan: The God That Failed, by Hugh Milne, Saint Martin's Press.  Hugh's book contains the sordid details of Rajneesh's fall from sanity.  This book can be bought second hand through Amazon.Com.  

Promise of Paradise: A Woman's Intimate Life With 'Bhagwan' Osho Rajneesh, by Satya Bharti Franklin, published by Barrytown/Station Hill Press.  Satya documents much of the strange corruption of the Rajneesh cult and describes in detail the illegal sexual exploitation of children at the Oregon commune.  Her book is also out of print but can be purchased secondhand through Amazon.Com.

Rajneesh's (Osho's) books   Be warned that Rajneesh/Osho used words as a device to influence and control people, and he was not concerned with speaking the truth.  In my opinion, less than 25% of what he said was actually fact, and his books belong in the fiction section of bookstores next to Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.  Much of his teachings represented a kind of self-serving spiritual pornography; a mixture of false ancient teachings and his own ambition motivated distortions.  At his worst, Rajneesh came out with titles like The World of Rajneesh and Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic.  This is like a primadona television newsman who thinks that he is the news story rather than the important headlines of the day.

Note  Onions expressed on this page must be viewed as the ideas of an ordinary student of meditation.  While I truly believe everything I say, you should not believe anything unless you see it, feel it, and know it for yourself.  I make no claims of infallibility.  In fact I absolutely claim fallibility.  Also, this author suffers from dyslexia.  If you find any spelling or punctuation mistakes in any of my essays, please let me know.