Mr Christopher Calder published an article on wikipedia before few days ago.
It seems to me very hurting and lame logically. He had tried his best to make it as worse as possible for him. He mentioned many things Please check here what does he writes :
Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth
by Christopher Calder
When I first met Acharya Rajneesh at his Bombay apartment in December of 1970, he was only 39 years old. 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 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 spiritual 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 powers of telepathy and astral projection, which he used nobly to bring comfort and inspiration to his disciples. Many phony gurus have claimed to have these mysterious abilities, but Rajneesh had them for real. The Acharya never bragged about his powers. Those who came near soon learned of them through direct contact with the miraculous. |  Rajneesh, aka "Osho" at his arrest in October 1985 |
One or two amazing occult adventures 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. 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.
 "Ma Anand Sheela," Osho's Top Deputy, at her arrest in 1985 | Life is complex and multilayered and my naive illusions about the phenomena of perfect enlightenment faded with the years. It became clear to me 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.
When former university professor 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 that everyone should start calling him Bhagwan, a title which can mean anything from 'divine one' to God. Rajneesh became irritated when I would politely correct his mispronunciations of English words after his lectures, 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.
One false move, one grand error.
| Rajneesh lived in an ivory tower, rarely leaving his room unless to give a lecture, his life experience cushioned by throngs of adoring devotees. As most human beings who are treat 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. 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, which he undoubtedly was not. |  Originally Osho gave himself the lofty title "Sri Bhagavan Rajneesh" |
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 easily understand. He rationalized his constant lying as "left-handed 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. He suffered from what Europeans call myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or what Americans call Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). His classic symptoms included the obvious fatigue, extreme sensitivity to smells and chemicals (now called "multiple chemical sensitivity"), allergies, recurrent low grade fevers, photophobia, and orthostatic intolerance (neurally mediated hypotension). 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 in 1990. He 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 also lower IQ due to a lack of sufficient blood and oxygen being pumped to the brain (brain hypoxia). When he was most ill he would complain of becoming lightheaded as soon as he stood up. He thought he was getting a different cold or flu every week. In reality he suffered from a singular chronic illness with flu like symptoms that can last for decades.
In his last years Rajneesh used prescription drugs, mainly Valium (diazepam), as an analgesic for his aches and pains. He took the maximum recommended dose of 60 milligrams per day. He also inhaled nitrous oxide (N2O) mixed with pure oxygen (O2) which helped his asthma and brain hypoxia, but which did nothing for the quality of his judgment. Naive about the powerful effects of Western medications and overconfident about his own ability to fight off their potentially negative effects, Rajneesh succumbed to addiction. His downfall and humiliation followed swiftly.
Rajneesh was a physically ill man who became mentally corrupt. His drug 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.
There was much speculation in the American media that Osho had actually committed suicide by taking a drug overdose. As no one has confessed to giving Osho 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 Osho'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 Osho's passing. Pointedly, Vivek decided to kill herself just before Osho's final birthday celebration. Bhagwan Shree 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, Osho's is reported to have said "Let me go. My body has become a hell for me."
The rumor that Osho 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. Osho died with a full beard and no exceptional baldness other than ordinary male pattern baldness at the top of his head. Many of the symptoms which may have led Osho's doctors to suspect thallium poisoning were in fact common symptoms of dysautonomia (damage to the autonomic nervous system) 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 alternating between constipation and diarrhea.
The only proven cases of poisoning related to Osho were carried out by Rajneesh sannyasins themselves (a sannyasin is an initiated disciple, one who takes sannyas). The victims included totally innocent people at an Oregon restaurant, two Wasco County Commissioners, and members of Rajneesh's own staff who 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.
Rajneesh felt that teaching ethics and morality was unnecessary because the increased consciousness of meditation would automatically lead to good behavior. Rajneesh's own actions and the behavior of his disciples proves that theory to be untrue. There is no direct connection between meditation and ethics and the dangers and limitations of teaching ethics are far outweighed by the destructive anarchy that a lack of teaching creates. Certainly students of meditation should at least be reminded that lying, cheating, stealing, and killing are not acceptable behavior. But Osho taught that you should do as you please and many of his disciples and he himself committed many ethical crimes. This lapse of judgment was largely due to the arrogant and downright fascist attitude that one can become so high and mighty that one is beyond the need for something as old fashioned as polite and sane ethical behavior.
Those unfamiliar with the Rajneesh story can read the book Bhagwan: The God That Failed, by Hugh Milne (Shivamurti), a close disciple of Bhagwan during his Poona and Oregon years. Originally published by Saint Martin's Press, the book can be found through Amazon.Com and Amazon.Com.UK. I can verify many of the facts that 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.
Firstly, Rajneesh did not suffer from "hypochodria," as Mr. Milne suggested. Rajneesh had a very real neurological disease, probably inherited, which he mistook for frequent viral infections. Rajneesh became unusually afraid of germs only due to his very innocent and understandable medical ignorance. I fully agree with Mr. Milne that Rajneesh suffered from "megalomania," however, and will add that Rajneesh had a Napoleonic, obsessive and compulsive personality.
The Void has no ambition whatsoever, a fact which current Osho disciples keep forgetting. Rajneesh could only speak for his own personal animal mind, which is the case for all of us. 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 Void is infinity and beyond human desire, so how can that which is beyond the human mind have human ambitions? The phenomena we called Rajneesh, Bhagwan, and Osho was only a temporary lens of cosmic energy, not the full cosmos itself. Personality worship is not spiritual in any way and self-indulgent attachment to guru is no better than obsessive clinging to money, power, and social privilege. I am sure Mr. Milne has learned that fact very well, but many fanatic Osho disciples have missed the point entirely.
Mr. Milne also suggests that Rajneesh used "hypnosis" to manipulate his disciples. Rajneesh had a wonderful, melodic, and naturally hypnotic voice which would be a great asset to any public speaker. However, in my personal opinion, 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).
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.
Rajneesh, as George 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 sexual lust backed up by the potent advantage of oceanic spiritual 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 he even declared to the media that "My religion is the only religion." Diplomacy and modesty were not his strong points.
Gurdjieff, to my knowledge, 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 meditation. 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.
Rajneesh earned his psychic abilities honestly through many lifetimes of intense inner work. Unfortunately, when he finally achieved the ability to fully channel the vastness of the Atman, he failed to apply the needed wisdom of self-restraint. His human mind so rebelled against Asian asceticism, which he claimed to have practiced for many lifetimes, that he failed to ensure that his borrowed power was only used for the good of others.
"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." Henry Kissinger
After leaving India, Rajneesh created his Oregon commune from his own powerful mind. He made himself the ultimate dictator, his picture placed everywhere as in an Orwellian bad dream. That totalitarian atmosphere was just one of the many reasons I did not stay at the Oregon commune beyond several brief visits. I was interested in meditation, not in a big concentration 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 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. Bhagwan never understood this truth of history and referred to democracy scornfully as "mob-ocracy." 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 drug laced beer 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 once again homeless 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. 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 highly advanced, literally glowing student of meditation, but her only meditation method was being with Bhagwan and absorbing his tremendous spiritual presence. When her one method and 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 simply to avoid taking responsibility for his own bizarre behavior, which was the underlying cause of Vivek's despair.
The very same Western disciple who administered nitrous oxide to Osho has been spreading negative rumors about Vivek, claiming that she was not a meditative person (as himself) and that she committed suicide because of a hormonal imbalance and also because she was depressed about reaching the age of forty. 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 dangerous drug abuse with no legitimate medical justification.
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 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 of knowledge around him could have easily handled the truth and were already motivated without the need for propaganda. But Rajneesh had been a high guru for such a long time, not just in this life but in previous lives as well, 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 proclaimed 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 European and North American 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.
Rajneesh also 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.
"When it comes to gurus, take the best and leave the rest." Ramamurti Mishra
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. 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 had no understanding of, or appreciation for, the scientific method. If he thought something was true, in his own mind, that made it true. His disciples had to obey his words or be banished from the mini-nation he created in the Oregon desert. Rajneesh ruled his 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 negativity and an unspiritual lack of faith.
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 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, still demanding to always be the center of attention, and by 1988, suffering from drug and illness induced dementia, was pouting that his box of toys, his expensive car collection and jewel encrusted watches, had been taken away.
Rajneesh's disciples thought they were following a reliable and authoritative "enlightened master." In reality they had been mislead by a highly fallible enlightened 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.
The famous sages of old seem perfect to us now only 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 ultimate existential truth is silent and beyond all words. Rajneesh embodied that truth up to the day he died. Visitors to his ashram in Poona, India, who are open to meditation, will feel a giant wave of consciousness there. That wave use to be connected to a human body we called Rajneesh. The body has been turned to ashes but the wave can still be felt. In the same way J. Krishnamurti's presence can still be felt at Arya Vihara, his former home in Ojai, California.
"What you tell them is true, but what I tell them (the useful lies) is good for them." Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh 1975
The contradiction of corruption and enlightenment can occur because the brain is never enlightened and enlightenment never says or does anything. In a way no one ever really becomes enlightened. 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 mind and body 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.
There are many layers to our beings. Some traditions have categorized those layers as seven bodies, the first being the physical body and the seventh the nirvanic, the void from which all is born. No matter how you count the layers they do exist and the purely mental layer is always there if you have a physical body. That layer can be affected by disease and chemical exposure.
Osho died addicted to Valium and he experienced all the negative symptoms of drug addiction, which included slurred speech, paranoia, poor judgment, and 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
Bhagwan lied when he said he had enlightened disciples. He lied when he said he never made a mistake. Later he was forced to admit he was fallible as his list of bungles grew to monstrous proportions. He lied by pretending that the therapy groups run by his disciples were not mainly a money making device. Rajneesh broke immigration laws and lied about it in court. He lied by saying that he was adopted in a phony scheme to get permanent residence status. Bhagwan Rajneesh was no murderer or bank robber, but he certainly was a very big liar. The ridiculous thing is that all of his lies were totally unnecessary and counterproductive. Honesty really is the best policy.
Sadly, 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. The fact that Rajneesh did not order or have pre-knowledge of the most serious crimes does not mean he was not ethically responsible for them. 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 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 Bhagwan to Osho, as if a change in name could wash away his sins.
Some may be horrified that an enlightened soul 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. Bhagwan 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 (see links near the bottom of the page). 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 our attention.
Enlightenment is a functional and desirable disassociation of identity which is rooted in subtle body development and in physical brain function. The human brain is a biologically created thinking machine that has evolved for both personal self-preservation and the survival of the human 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 (the Void) 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.
Nature has also 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, but 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 solidified, Rajneesh publicly bragged about having sex "with hundreds of women."
Rajneesh's sex life was of no interest to me and I do not find any fault with him for having the same sexual desires that all men have. I do find fault when he was dishonest and cruel for 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. In her anger, the young woman told the American Embassy her story. That incident marked the beginning of Rajneesh's troubles with the United States Government. Most of Rajneesh's close disciples believed the young woman, not the much older "enlightened" man. Similarly, decades later many would believe a young White House intern, not a much older Presiden Bill Clinton. Being President, or being "enlightened," does not always ensure good behavior.
All human beings are animals, specifically mammals. It has been proven that human DNA is at least 98% the same as chimpanzee DNA. World history, Asian mythology, politics, and the world of alpha male gurus makes allot more sense if you keep that unavoidable scientific fact in mind. Our most primal subconscious motivating forces come from the animal world, which we are still a part of.
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 spent much of his life bragging about how great he was yet at his center he felt perfectly egoless. In truth he was very egoistic 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 but that was simply not the case.
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.
Everyone who experienced Acharya Rajneesh's oceanic energy still loves him, myself included. It is only because I value the truth above all that I write what I believe are needed criticisms. If we cannot honestly analyze our mistakes then our suffering was a waste of time. The ongoing cover-up of Bhagwan's frailties by his establishment disciples will only destroy the possibility of learning from his tragedy.
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.
How can the ocean go into the drop if the drop has an ego in it? My answer, as previously stated, is that the ego is an integral part of the structure of the human brain. It is not simply psychological but also neurological and hard wired into our neural pathways (see neurological basis for a sense of 'self'). The self-survival, self-defense mechanism we call 'ego' cannot be destroyed unless the body dies.
Huston Smith, the well known author and professor of world religions, believes that no man attached to this mortal coil can achieve the ultimate transcendence. You first have to physically die and when the last coil is broken you are totally free. I believe the ego steps aside and becomes less of a problem for most enlightened men, but it is never totally destroyed as long as you have a physical body.
The Rajneesh scandal exposed the unconscious slavery of Bhakti Yoga and the underlying fraudulence and corruption of "left-handed 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.
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. In a way Bhagwan's tragedy has given me more hope. If we have to become perfect human beings to become enlightened then who among us will ever reach that goal? If we realize that enlightenment is just a gradual progression of expansion of consciousness then the goal is attainable by all of us, given enough time. If we work for hundreds of years, through many births and deaths, with a simple goal of just going a little deeper every day, then with scientific certainty I believe those who seek enlightenment will attain it in time. All of the enlightened men I have known or have read about have made that statement in their own words. I believe that is a fact that can be trusted.
Addendum - On letters I have received
Any thoughtful person can imagine the range of leters 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 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 Rajneesh sannyasins have written me claiming to be enlightened and I hear reports that many Rajneesh 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, seemed to claim 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, he certainly conveyed 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 a restaurant in Oregon that meditation groups have gotten a very bad name around the world.
The unrelated but equally infamous Aum Shinrikyo (a Japanese cult) nerve gas attack on a subway station in Tokyo worsened this situation considerably. The attitude of many Osho sannyasins seems to be that as long as they get their psychic kicks out of a cult that it does not matter who was hurt or how unethical and disgraceful the behavior was. In their minds everyone else 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 Rajneesh 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.
One long time disciple of Rajneesh expressed to me how angry she was at the Dalai Lama for only visiting the Rajneesh ashram in Poona once. So for her the Dalai Lama is now a villain just because he did not want to go back for a second visit. The level of intolerance and narrow mindedness in the Rajneesh cult is mind boggling to me and I cannot understand how so many seemingly intelligent people can live in such a small mental space, barricaded against all those who do not believe exactly as they do.
The last time I visited the Rajneesh ashram in Poona, India, was in 1988. It was literally like a loud convention of German Brown Shirts by that point. Osho was still very popular in Germany, due in part to his comments in the German magazine Stern which were widely interpreted to be pro-Hitler. I myself do not believe Osho was a serious supporter of Adolf Hitler. It seemed to me that he was just playing with people's minds, but he made his position ambiguous enough, with enough expressed sympathy for the Axis cause, that many young Germans were thrilled by his words. Those who lost loved ones during World War II were justifiably shocked.
At one point Rajneesh stated that "I have fallen in love with this man (Adolf Hitler). He was crazy, but I am crazier still." I do not believe Rajneesh meant that statement literally. He was joking, but he had lost the common sense to know that one does not joke about loving a man who has killed millions of innocent people. Mel Brooks can get away with it because he is Jewish and has relatives who were killed by the Nazis. For a "spiritual" man who portrayed himself as the world's smartest, highest, and greatest soul, such a remark was proof that his drug taking was destroying the quality of his judgment.
At the time of my visit Osho was in silence as he was angry at his own disciples. He wanted his sannyasins to demonstrate in the streets of Poona 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 Osho who canceled public talks as punishment. I was thus only able to see him on video tape. On the taped lecture Osho was ranting emotionally, and factually incorrectly, about how the police in the United States had stolen his collection of jewel encrusted watches. He said that 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 loud that "you stole Bhagwan's watch!" His words and manner were so childishly irrational that he reminded me of Jim Jones. This Osho was a far cry from the serene, dignified, and highly eloquent man I had met years earlier.
Why did Osho own 90 Rolls Royces? Why does Saddam Hussein own dozens of luxurious palaces? Those desires are products of the base animal mind of two men who grew up in 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 Osho 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.
Shivamurti's book, Bhagwan: The God That Failed, could have easily also 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." The change in his teaching was remarkable, to say the least.
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. He 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 anger or thank me, but neither will have much effect 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 does corrupt and that the means rarely justifies the ends.
In the end where is meditation in all of this? "Color Puncture," "Tantric Tarot Readings," 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 friendly Japanese woman, who was starting a new Rajneesh meditation center in Tokyo, 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 original noble vision, has long been forgotten by many, but not by me.Please reply back. Send your opinion about this article.
Regards,
Sameer
Check here words from OSHO
http://www.esnips.com/web/DivineMp3
