Explain to me a bit about the spiritual tradition of gurus and disciples - 2

From: "jagbir singh" <adishakti_org@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:27 am
Subject: Explain to me a bit about the spiritual tradition of gurus and disciples - 2

—- In adishakti_sahaja_yoga@yahoogroups.com, "jagbir singh"
<adishakti_org@y...> wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
> i received an email that read:
>
> "Dear Jagbir,
>
> Please could you explain to me a bit about the spiritual tradition
> of gurus and disciples; and how this all works in SY? Do all
> people need gurus for teaching and help; from my own experiences I
> think that they probably do? What I mean is, people really need a
> teacher for guidance along the path, someone very advanced and
> experienced to tell and ask about specific problems and personal
> situations and difficulties, a yoga master. Especially people from
> the Western cultures and from restrictive religious backgrounds
> need help understanding the Eastern concepts of spirituality, and
> need personal guidance at times."
>

For part 2 i have taken "Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost
Truth", a false guru Shri Mataji warned in the early 70s, many years
before the world knew what was taking place. At that time Osho was
at the peak of his guru business and few paid any attention to Her.
(Thanks Semira for this piece.)

i like the part where Osho "once undiplomatically proclaimed to the
American media that everything Jesus said was "just crazy." " Any
guru - past, present or future - who does not recognize Shri Jesus
is still whirling in the wheel of rebirth. (Not recognizing an
Incarnation like Shri Jesus is plain ignorance, a red flag that tags
false gurus and should warn seekers/disciples. Explaining the
nourishing parables of Christ requires far more enlightenment and,
of course, Divine authority.)

No guru or religious institution till date has been able to reveal
and make comprehensible sense of the most secret of Jesus' teachings
as Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi. Only a divine personality sent by the
Divine can do so. And the Comforter has fulfilled exactly what Shri
Jesus' promised to humanity, teaching us all that He could not two
millennia ago. Shri Mataji is indeed a Sadguru, and much more.

jagbir


—————————————————————————————————-

Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth

Acharya Rajneesh was only 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 (see
picture of Rajneesh at his best). 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 what I considered to be 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 assumed that
everything he said 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 astounding power of telepathy and direct
energy transmission, which he used nobly to bring comfort and
inspiration to his disciples. Many phony gurus have claimed to have
mysterious abilities, but Rajneesh had them for real. Those who
came near soon learned of them through direct contact with the
miraculous. 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 photograph of J.
Krishnamurti). J. Krishnamurti could barely give a coherent lecture
and 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 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, Krishnamurti never committed any
crime, never pretended to be more than he was, and never used other
human beings selfishly.

Life is complex and multilayered and my naive illusions about
the phenomena of perfect enlightenment faded with 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 J.
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
innovative meditation techniques that worked with dramatic power
(see explanation and warning about Osho's Dynamic Meditation
technique near the bottom of the page). Rajneesh lifted thousands
of seekers to higher levels of consciousness and detailed Eastern
religions and meditation techniques with luminous clarity (see
Rajneesh leading group meditation).

One false move. One grand error.

Acharya Rajneesh was born on December 11th, 1931, in the
village of Kuchwada in central India. The term 'charya' 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. When the man I knew as
Acharya Rajneesh suddenly changed his name to Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh, I was dismayed. 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 name 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 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 (see photograph of Rajneesh in his room in
Bombay). His isolation became even more complete when he moved from
his small Bombay apartment to a large and luxurious 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 1975

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, born out of his own ignorance and
gullibility (see Do you have a soul?). His psychic presence,
however, was 100% real and very 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 living 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 diseases are also often
highly sensitive to chemicals and smells. Rajneesh's poor health
and strange symptoms were a product of real neurological damage, not
some esoteric supersensitivity caused by his enlightenment.
Rajneesh had Type II diabetes, asthma, severe back pain, and most
likely fibromyalgia.

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 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 1970's
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 (see Osho in
the Dental Chair), which he claimed increased his creativity (see
dangers of N2O). 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 powerful effects of drugs and
overconfident about his own 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 addicts while working at a
methadone clinic in the United States. Rajneesh had miraculous
mental powers, but he was an ordinary human being physically and
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 power. Valium
addicts often think the CIA or other unseen villains are plotting
against them, so it is not surprising that he imagined he was
poisoned by the United States Government. His reasoning power
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.
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, yet another classic symptom
of CFS.

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 Valium and an aggravation of his ME/CFS 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)

Upon his sudden death in 1990 there was much media speculation
that Rajneesh had committed suicide by drug overdose. 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 just before his 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 wishes. 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 were in fact common symptoms of dysautonomia caused by
ME/CFS. 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.

The only proven cases of poisoning related to Rajneesh were
carried out by Rajneesh's own sannyasins in 1984. A sannyasin is an
initiated disciple, one who takes sannyas. There were 751 poison
victims, including women and small children, at ten different
restaurants in the small city of 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 (see the Rajneesh bioterrorism
newspaper story).

Rajneesh disciples poisoned salad bars with salmonella
bacteria, which was mixed into salad dressings, fruits and
vegetables, and the restaurants' coffee creamers. Forty-five people
became so ill they had to be hospitalized, thus 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. Michael Sullivan, a
Jefferson County District Attorney, also became ill after leaving a
cup of coffee unattended as Rajneesh sannyasins roamed the
courthouse. Rajneesh never bothered to apologize 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 (see
Rajneesh and Sheela's mugshots).

Rajneesh felt that teaching ethics was unnecessary because
meditation would automatically lead to good behavior. The actions
of Rajneesh himself 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 honest
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 and
Amazon.Com.UK. There have been several 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 by name 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 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 and compulsive 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 (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 conscious state 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, as the Greek-Armenian mystic George Gurdjieff (see
photo of Gurdjieff), often used the power of the Atman for clearly
personal gain. Both men used their cosmic consciousness to
overwhelm and seduce women, which was largely a harmless affair in
my opinion. Gurdjieff was ashamed of his own behavior in this
regard 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 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 personal ambition, 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 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 (see plaque in
honor of local resistance to Rajneesh invasion of Antelope,
Oregon).

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 (see
photo of Poonjaji), 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 superheros, and that we all share the same
cosmic being, no matter what our class and social standing.

The maverick anti-guru U.G. Krishnamurti (see photo of U.G.)
was even more critical of Rajneesh. During the mid 1970's 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 as 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 counter attacked 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 have never
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 anti-democratic 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 because of 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 "mob-ocracy." 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 local Wasco County elections, 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-drug mixture, but 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.
If Rajneesh sannyasins had only held truth above all instead of
obedience to guru above all, then no crimes would have been
committed and the commune might still be in existence today.

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 (see photo of
Vivek).

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 same disciple who administered nitrous oxide to Rajneesh
has spread negative rumors about Vivek, claiming that she was not a
meditative person, as himself. He also claims that Vivek committed
suicide because she was depressed about reaching the age of forty
and that she suffered from a hormonal imbalance. This same
sannyasin denied to me emphatically that he gave Rajneesh
irresponsible levels of nitrous oxide, but later admitted to others
that he gave Rajneesh one to two hour nitrous oxide "treatments"
every day for five months. That level of exposure is clearly drug
abuse with no legitimate medical justification.

The young Acharya Rajneesh started his life as a teacher who
condemned false gurus and 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. This seemingly irreconcilable
contradiction is the real reason I write this essay. I love to go
into uncharted territory where others fear to tread.

When you combine man's natural tendency for selfishness with an
ivory tower lifestyle, you have a situation where ethical behavior
can appear to be optional. Combine the unhealthy atmosphere of self-
deification with a debilitating progressive illness that lowers IQ,
and on top of that add drug abuse, then you have a cliff that even
an enlightened man could fall from. That fall could happen only if
the enlightened man makes one wrong choice, one false move, from
both the heart and from the mind.

Bhagwan's wrong choice was to disregard 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 superman 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 "there is no authority" due to the
intrinsic nature of the cosmos. Ardent Rajneesh disciples didn't
heed 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.

While Rajneesh was a brilliant philosopher 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 medical 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 falling. 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 medical sterilization fit into Rajneesh's business plan and
desire to create an army of followers who felt that "only the
relationship to guru is important."

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
disciples 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.

During his earlier Poona days Rajneesh stated that we are
attracted to beautiful people because their outer beauty represents
the inner beauty of their souls, as it is the soul which creates the
physical body and mind. Science knows as fact that DNA creates the
body and brain, not any mysterious and immaterial "soul." Outward
beauty does not even guarantee a sane mind. Ted Bundy, the infamous
serial killer, was quite handsome and charming outwardly, yet he is
estimated to have murdered between 35 and 50 women just for the
trill of it (see photographs of Ted Bundy).

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 the case even before he started
taking large amounts of Valium (see The Ridiculous Teachings of
Wrong Way Rajneesh). Rajneesh had no understanding of, or
appreciation for, 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 (see Common Lies of
the Phony World of Mystics).

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 Americans "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 in the end.

"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 effectively cover up their guru's flaws,
just as Rajneesh disciples are currently rewriting and censoring
history to cover up Rajneesh's great failings. Rajneesh was never
more infallible than any other human being. What we call
enlightenment is not a cure-all for faults and frailties that cling
to human animals even after they achieve maximum possible
consciousness, which is perhaps a more realistic definition of the
term 'enlightenment.'

The contradiction of corruption and enlightenment can occur
because the individual is only the lens of enlightenment, not the
source of cosmic power itself. The enlightened only allow universal
energy to pass through them unblocked, untouched, and
uncontaminated. In a way, no one ever really becomes enlightened
personally. Enlightenment happens at the place where you are
standing, but you cannot own it or possess it. All the words of so-
called enlightened men come from the human brain which interprets
the phenomena of enlightenment like a translator. The words do not
come from the enlightenment itself. By definition enlightenment
cannot speak. It is absolutely silent and beyond any need to
speak.

Rajneesh died addicted to Valium and he experienced all 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 with no excuses.

"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. At 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 the
therapy groups run by his disciples were not mainly just a money
making device. Rajneesh lied about breaking United States
immigration laws and only admitted the truth when he was presented
with overwhelming documented 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 he was not responsible for the
horrors of the Oregon commune 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 pre-knowledge (hopefully)
of the more serious crimes does not mean that he was not ethically
responsible for them. Rajneesh did not turn against 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
reason the commune existed. Rajneesh was surrounded by thousands of
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 further 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 l6, 17 or
20 hours a day" and of "taking food out of the mouths of people to
buy him watches and Rolls Royces."

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. In a cowardly attempt to evade his own failings
he changed his name from Rajneesh 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 the 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 pre-
pubescent 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 (see photo of Osho wearing jewel
encrusted watch), and all in the name of egolessness and spiritual
surrender (see Jim Weaver's newspaper article on the Rajneesh
commune conflict).

Why did Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh own 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. Being a guru was his business, his only
business. Without that income, at least on the material level, he
was just a short, balding 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, unless of course he used his
intoxicating energy to gain power and money from his own disciples.

Just as rock stars become energized by screaming fans at
concerts, Rajneesh gained emotional energy and support from his
disciples. The energy transfer was a two-way street, not a totally
free one-way gift. 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.

Consciousness needs entertainment to survive and Rajneesh used
his disciples as playthings for his own amusement. Rajneesh had no
bankable power of his own. 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.

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 he had very little first hand experience
with sex himself. During his Bombay era, Rajneesh often grabbed the
breasts of his 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 his desk where he spent most of his time.
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 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. 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.

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 young woman
was highly upset and forced by circumstance to have an abortion.
Rajneesh, protecting his image as a great guru, lied about his
involvement and claimed that she 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 anti-sexual and highly hypocritical Indian social
structure. Later on, after his position as a guru had become
secure, Rajneesh publicly bragged to the American media about having
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 (see news story). World history, Asian mythology,
politics, and the world 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. It 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 1970's 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 Brahman 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
demanded total surrender from his troops (disciples), just as Hitler
did. Rajneesh condoned illegal spying on his own disciples and used
informants to weed out the disloyal. Sheela, his personal
secretary, turned the tables on Rajneesh by bugging Rajneesh's
trademark high-backed chair. 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 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 semi-automatic assault rifles. Rajneesh
was never an admirer of the great Indian pacifist Mahatma Gandhi,
but he did have a unhealthy fascination with Adolf Hitler, as well
as United States General George Patton. According to Shivamurti,
Rajneesh watched the movie Patton over and over again on his big
screen television at his ranch in Oregon.

Perhaps Rajneesh's worst personal trait was that he could dish
it out but could not take it himself. 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 a late night comedy television show used the
footage sarcastically as a joke about "God" complaining.

During Rajneesh's appearance on the ABC television show
Nightline, Rajneesh gave evasive and dishonest answers to all of Ted
Koppel's questions and 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 the 93 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 the automobiles were owned by the commune, not by him.

Rajneesh pretended not to know that he was leaving the United
States to escape an impending arrest warrant, thus secretly
abandoning his disciples to face the music on their own. His own
sannyasins did not know he had left the commune until they learned
from the media of the arrest of Rajneesh and several followers at
the North Carolina airport. Their luggage contained a bag of cash,
a box of expensive jewel encrusted watches, and a handgun.
Rajneesh's defense was that he was innocently sleeping when police
boarded the private jet he had hired to escape to Bermuda. Rajneesh
said 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 on immigration fraud.

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. The NBC television show Saturday Night
Live climbed on the Rajneesh comedy bandwagon by doing a skit about
an auction with actor Randy Quaid selling off "the Bhagwan's" 93
Rolls-Royces. Years later the Fox Network cartoon show, The
Simpsons, 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 etc.,
and start screaming out loudly that "you stole Bhagwan's watch!"
His words and manner were so childishly irrational that he reminded
me of 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.

Some may be horrified that an enlightened man could become a
convicted felon, but that has not stopped me from seeking the
ultimate existential truth. Rajneesh's life is a lesson for us all
to practice what we preach. Rajneesh gave great advice, but he
could not heed his own wise words. He is also a reminder not to
take what people say very seriously. It is better to observe how
people live and put less emphasis on what they speak. Talk is
cheap. Actions are more costly and telling.

Do enlightened men have egos? In my younger idealistic years I
would have said the answer is no. Rajneesh, Gurdjieff, and even J.
Krishnamurti prove to me that they do. I became convinced that
Rajneesh had an ego when I saw him on television in chains being
transported from jail to an Oregon courthouse. In response to a
reporter's question he looked into the television camera and spoke
to his disciples saying "Don't worry. I'll be back." It was not
what he said, but the look in his eyes that was positive proof for
me. I could see his ego in action, calculating and manipulating.
Once you see something that clearly no rationalizations can cover up
the basic truth. Rajneesh was magnificently enlightened, but he was
also profoundly egotistical.

For ordinary humans the ego is the center of awareness and the
Void is perceived only at the periphery. People look at a picture
taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and they see the Void as an
outside object, not as a personal identity. When you become
enlightened, either temporarily in a satori or permanently as a
Buddha, the situation is reversed. Now the Void is your center of
awareness and the ego is at the periphery. Ego does not die, it
just no longer takes the center stage of your attention.

Enlightenment is a functional disassociation of identity. The
human brain is a biologically created thinking machine that has
evolved for both personal self-preservation and the 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. The ego function is so vital for survival
that the human brain evolved with two potential ego mechanisms, one
a centralized ego and the second a larger and more diffuse backup
system utilizing less central portions of the brain.

If the body and brain becomes physically ill with high fever
and the centralized ego center is damaged, the backup ego mechanism
may temporarily take over its function. This is ego displacement
without enlightenment. The backup self-maintenance system keeps
sleep walkers out of danger and helps enlightened human animals find
food and the basics of life, so they do not physically die as a
result of their own deep meditation.

Enlightened humans do not feel their more diffuse ego and thus
they feel as free as space itself. In actuality ego is still
present and working, just as our autonomic nervous system keeps on
working whether we are aware of its function or not. You do not
have to consciously tell your heart to beat 70 times a minute
because it will keep on beating regardless of your awareness. The
brain function that controls heart rate is automatic (autonomic) and
does not need our consciousness to make it work.

Some enlightened human animals have become fooled by the
phenomena of ego displacement and thought they no longer had any
personal selfishness that could cause trouble. Meher Baba (see
picture) spent much of his life bragging about how great he was, yet
at his center he felt perfectly egoless. He once even proclaimed
that "No one loves me as much as I deserve to be loved." In truth
Meher Baba was very egocentric and should have realized that even
enlightenment is no excuse for bragging.

The same fundamental misjudgment plagued Acharya Rajneesh. He
became fooled into thinking that he was above arrogance and greed,
but that was simply not the case. The ego is an integral part of
the structure of the human brain. It is not simply psychological,
but neurological and hard wired into our neural pathways (see the
scientific study of 'self''). The self-survival, self-defense
mechanism we call 'ego' 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 fallible and 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.

Despite his corruption, his poor judgment, and his disastrous
last years, everyone who experienced Acharya Rajneesh's oceanic
energy still loves at least the memory of his magnificent presence.
Through it all, the good, the bad, and the horrific, Rajneesh's
vibrations were always powerful and positive. Visitors to the Osho
ashram in India often feel a giant wave of cosmic presence there.
That wave is but the vibrational remnant of what we once called
Rajneesh. The body has been turned to ashes, and Rajneesh himself
is gone, but the wave can still be felt. In the same way J.
Krishnamurti's presence remains a powerful force at Arya Vihara, his
former home in Ojai, California.

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.

It is because I value the truth above all that I write what I
believe are essential criticisms. If we cannot analyze our mistakes
then our suffering was a waste of time. The ongoing cover-up of
Rajneesh's frailties by his establishment disciples will only
destroy the possibility of learning from his tragedy. Osho
worshipers can destroy the tapes and physical evidence of his
insane behavior, but they cannot change what actually happened.

Even after returning to Poona, Rajneesh continued his Valium
and nitrous oxide use and seemed unable to learn from his mistakes.
Rajneesh had often branded his critics as "idiots," yet in his final
years he himself did not have any sane voice inside himself to say
No! Enough is enough! Like a deranged alcoholic, Rajneesh could
not stop his destructive behavior and the quality of his judgment
dropped below that of even the most ordinary of unenlightened human
beings. Rajneesh had used the myth of Tantra to rationalize his
dishonesty and selfishness, and now he could not stop. He had
become a drug addict, plain and simple, and no amount of spiritual
rationalizations could alter that fact.

I miss Acharya Rajneesh, never Osho, because he was at his
finest when he had no manipulating political organization
surrounding him. When Acharya Rajneesh was just a man in an
apartment with one old Chevrolet, not dozens of Rolls-Royces, he was
more honest and true. When he became his own political
establishment things started to go wrong, and that is often the case
with men of great power.

The Rajneesh scandal exposed the unconscious slavery of Bhakti
Yoga and the underlying fraudulence and corruption of "lefthanded
Tantra." What is needed is an honest path, built on self-
observation, self-reliance, and respect for truth. The days of the
know-it-all guru are over. It is time to realize the source of all
things directly.

Rajneesh's lifelong teaching had been that enlightenment was 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 was no reincarnation and that the
concept of reincarnation was a "misinterpretation." 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 (see Do you have a
soul?).

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 eyes. 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.

Addendum - On letters I have received

Any thoughtful person can imagine the wide range of letters I
have received as a result of posting my Web essay on Acharya -
Bhagwan - Osho - Rajneesh. To date about half of the letters have
been from former Rajneesh disciples who generally agree with my
comments and who thank me for putting them on the Web. Those who
agree tell me they see "compassion for all involved" on my Web page
and that I got it "just about right."

The other letters I receive are from current disciples of the
now deceased Osho, many whom have never actually met the man in
person. Those letters range from death threats from several German
disciples to poorly written and often unsigned insults. The Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance also gets lots of hate mail, but
from many different cults, not just from one. It is interesting to
see how most personality cults are alike in this regard. The us vs.
them mentality takes over and anyone who does not tow the party line
of the cult is deemed a villain.

Meditation has nothing to do with cults, organizations,
politics, or business, but for many meditation is a secondary
issue. For them it is all about hero worship and blind obedience to
the memory of a now dead guru, which is a silly waste of time in my
opinion. Why not go directly to the source of all gurus and
religions through your own meditation? There is an old Zen saying
that "One should not become attached to anything that can be lost in
a shipwreck." Certainly this admonition applies to gurus as well.

Several Osho followers have written me claiming to be
enlightened, and I hear reports that many Osho disciples now make
that claim. One man said that he was "the new Osho" and invited me
to visit his Web page. His page displayed a large heroic picture of
himself, much self-promotion, and an advertisement for prostitutes
in Russia, who he claimed were practicing "Tantra." So for
him "enlightenment" and being "the new Osho" literally means to be a
pimp.

Another man, who had never met Osho in person, claimed that
reading Osho's books helped him get over his "mental illness" and
now he was "enlightened" himself. He then forcefully instructed me
to rewrite my Web page to make it "less judgmental" and suggested
that Osho's hypocrisy was just a means to convey his enlightenment
to others. Well, Osho certainly did convey his hypocrisy to others!

One young woman, who grew up on the Rajneesh Oregon commune,
asked me how she could make money out of teaching Osho's meditation
techniques. I replied that she should go to an employment agency
and get an honest job. Meditation and business do not mix and there
are too many money hungry gurus out there already.

It shocks me to find that many Osho disciples do not care about
the crimes that were committed and are not bothered by the lies and
hypocrisy of their own movement. They don't seem to comprehend that
as a result of the germ warfare attack committed by Rajneesh
sannyasins on restaurants in Oregon, that meditation groups have
gotten a very bad name around the world. The unrelated but equally
infamous nerve gas attack on a subway station in Tokyo by a Japanese
cult named Aum Shinrikyo worsened this situation considerably.

The attitude of many Osho sannyasins seems to be that as long
as they get their psychic kicks it does not matter who was hurt or
how unethical and disgraceful their own behavior was. In their
minds everyone in the world was responsible for the Oregon debacle
except them! As a result of this careless attitude many Americans
now feel that if a meditation group starts an ashram nearby it is
time to buy a gun and a gas mask.

The amount of historical revisionism and propaganda put out by
some Osho disciples rivals the efforts of Maoists during the 1960s
and their state of mind is similar. If you want to believe in one
perfect man, a pope of the universe, then anyone who criticizes that
pope is deemed a devil. Thus all the subtleties of my essay are
lost on these disciples and all they claim to see on my Web page
is "hate and anger." Of course they do not see the hate in
themselves directed at anyone who does not share their own narrow
beliefs.

Shivamurti's book, Bhagwan: The God That Failed, could have
easily been entitled The Man Who Became His Own Opposite, or The Man
Who Betrayed Himself. I often tell people that if they could go
back in time and kidnap the Acharya Rajneesh of 1970, then bring him
up through the years to meet the Osho of the late 1980s, that the
two men would be at war with each other. Acharya would have hated
Osho's pompous self-indulgence and Osho would have never tolerated
the young Acharya's brash criticisms. Acharya Rajneesh spoke of
freedom and compassion. Osho once said that he wished someone
would "shoot" (assassinate) former Soviet leader Mikael Gorbachev
because he was leading the Soviet Union to Western style capitalism
instead of his own imagined "spiritual communism." His change in
teaching was remarkable.

I would like to think that the early Acharya Rajneesh would
have approved of my essay, but who can say for sure. For those who
suggest I am not being loyal to Osho, I counter that I am honestly
trying to be loyal to Acharya Rajneesh, the man I took sannyas from,
not Osho. The Acharya was a man I still deeply love and respect.
But that Acharya Rajneesh died along time before Osho was even born,
and the two men were as different as day and night.

My message to letter writers is to go ahead and write me. You
can vent your anger or thank me, but neither will have much affect
on me as I have heard it all before, from both sides. I can only
sigh and ask myself how Acharya Rajneesh, who started out as an anti-
guru extraordinaire, ended up as he did with this current crop of
disciples. Perhaps it shows that power can corrupt anyone and that
the means rarely justifies the ends.

In the end where is meditation in all of this? Color Puncture,
Tantric Tarot, encounter groups, and every phony crackpot scam in
the book is being peddled by Osho disciples for large sums of money,
but what about meditation? Then I think back to the day when the
just turned 40 year old Acharya wisely instructed a Japanese
disciple 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, Acharya Rajneesh's noble vision, has long been
forgotten by many, but not by me (see picture of Acharya Rajneesh
still young).

*Dynamic Meditation: (warning) This spectacular meditation method
was Rajneesh's trademark, and 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 stage 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 breath 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.
For once in your life 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, and is funny,
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 awkwardly held 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 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 himself could never have practiced the
freeze method even in his youth. Asking his disciples to do it
simply showed that he had lost touch with physical reality.
Rajneesh was a fallible human being, never a perfect God.

I advise students to only use the enjoyable early version of
Dynamic Meditation and not the pointlessly difficult freeze method
version. 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 go deep
into the ecstasy 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.

Christopher Calder - E-mail - my home page

Please feel free to copy, repost, or publish Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh,
and the Lost Truth.

Other Web pages at this site

Meditation Handbook

The TES Hypothesis

The Seven Stages of Consciousness

Call For a New Buddhism

Common Lies of the Phony World of Mystics

The Ridiculous Teachings of Wrong Way Rajneesh

Do you have a soul?

Guest author Adithya K. on "The Brain and Meditation"

Useful outside links

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rajneesh.htm - A brief overview
of Rajneesh.

Osho in the Dental Chair - Parmartha's article in "Sannyas News"
about Rajneesh/Osho's use of nitrous oxide. The article neglects to
mention Osho's massive consumption of the drug Valium.

http://www.sannyasnews.com/Articles/OshoDentalChair.html -
Parmartha's article

http://www.resort.com/~banshee/Info/N2O/nitrous.dangers.html -
article on N2O dangers

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E. information

http://www.cfids.org/

U.G. Krishnamurti speaks more truth than any teacher I know of. I
have never met him and do not know if he is "enlightened." -
http://www.ugkrishnamurti.org/ug/ug_video/index.html

Jiddu Krishnamurti A dry, publicly humorless teacher who was
uniquely lovable. His powerful vibrations can still be felt at Arya
Vihara, Krishnamurti's former home in Ojai, California.

http://www.kfa.org/ Krishnamurti Foundation of America

http://www.silcom.com/~jmsloss Lives in the Shadow with J.
Krishnamurti

Ramana Maharshi Every major religious group in India agreed that
Ramana Maharshi was enlightened.

http://www.ramana-maharshi.org/

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was a liar and drunk who many consider
enlightened despite it all.

http://www.gurdjieff.org/

The Secret Life of Swami Muktananda When I first went to India in
1970 I stayed at Muktananda's ashram in Ganeshpuri for several
weeks. It is interesting that Muktananda was very different from
Rajneesh, yet both men ended up committing many of the same
mistakes. Muktananda was not fully enlightened, inarticulate, and
his crude manner reminded me of Benito Mussolini. Rajneesh, by
contrast, was fully enlightened, highly articulate, and a master of
subtlety. In the end, given absolute power and treated as royalty,
both men became as corrupt as the Caesars.

http://www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/secret.htm

Swami Satchidananda Virtually every teacher I met or became
involved with had scandals, except for J. Krishnamurti, the 16th
Karmapa, and Swami Chidananda. Swami Satchidananda taught his
disciples celibacy yet forced himself sexually on his own female
disciples.

http://www.rickross.com/groups/yogaville.html

Suggested reading

Bhagwan: The God That Failed, by Hugh Milne, Saint Martin's Press,
the sordid details of a fall from reason and 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.

The "God" Part of the Brain, by Matthew Alper, available at
http://godpart.com/ or http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. Alper
details the logical scientific argument that spirituality is the
product of genetics and bio-chemistry, and that God, soul, and
reincarnation are inventions of the human brain, used as a device to
relieve the tremendous stress of death awareness.

Rajneesh's (Osho's) books - Be warned that Rajneesh/Osho used words
as a device to influence and control people and 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.

Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth
http://home.att.net/~meditation/Osho.html

 

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