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This article is about the spiritual teacher formerly known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. For other meanings of the word "Osho", please see Osho (disambiguation).

Osho
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Born	11 December 1931 Kuchwada, India
Died	19 January 1990 Pune, India
Nationality	Indian
Movement	Jivan Jagruti Andolan; Neo-sannyas
Famous works	From Sex to Superconsciousness My Way, the Way of the White Clouds The Book of Secrets

Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain (रजनीश चन्द्र मोहन जैन) (December 11, 1931 – January 19, 1990), better known during the 1960s as Acharya Rajneesh, then during the 1970s and 1980s as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and later taking the name Osho, was an Indian spiritual teacher. He lived in India and in other countries including, for a period, the United States, and inspired the Osho movement, a controversial spiritual and philosophical movement that still has many followers.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

If you really want to know who I am, you have to be as absolutely empty as I am. Then two mirrors will be facing each other, and only emptiness will be mirrored. Infinite emptiness will be mirrored: two mirrors facing each other. But if you have some idea, then you will see your own idea in me.^[1]

Osho was born Chandra Mohan Jain (चन्द्र मोहन जैन) in Kuchwada, a small village in the Narsinghpur District of Madhya Pradesh state in India, as the eldest of eleven children of a cloth merchant. At the time, an astrologer predicted that he might die before he was seven years old according to the birth chart.^[2] His parents, who were Taranpanthi Jains, sent him to live with his maternal grandparents until he was seven years old.

Osho said this was a major influence on his growth because his grandmother gave him the utmost freedom and respect, leaving him carefree; without an imposed education or restrictions.

At seven years old he went back to his parents. He explained that he received a similar kind of respect from his paternal grandfather who was staying with them. He was able to be very open with his grandfather. His grandfather used to tell him, "I know you are doing the right thing. Everyone may tell you that you are wrong. But nobody knows which situation you are in. Only you can decide in your situation. Do whatsoever you feel is right. I will support you. I love you and respect you as well."^[3] He resisted his parents' pressure to get married.^[4]

He was a rebellious, but gifted student, winning the title of All-India Debating Champion.^[5]

He started his public speaking at the annual Sarva Dharma Sammelan held at Jabalpur since 1939, organised by the Taranpanthi Jain community into which he was born. He participated there from 1951 to 1968.^[6] Eventually the Jain community stopped inviting him because of his radical ideas.

Osho said he became spiritually enlightened on 21 March 1953, when he was 21 years old. He said he dropped all effort and hope. After an intense seven-day process he went out at night to a garden, where he sat under a tree:

He finished his studies at D. N. Jain College and the University of Sagar,^[8] receiving a B.A. (1955) and an M.A. (1957, with distinction) in philosophy. He then taught philosophy, first at Raipur Sanskrit College, and then, until 1966, as a Professor at Jabalpur University. At the same time, he travelled throughout India, giving lectures critical of socialism and Gandhi, under the name Acharya Rajneesh (Acharya means "teacher"; Rajneesh was a nickname^[9] he had been given by his family^[10]). In 1962, he began to lead 3- to 10-day meditation camps, and the first meditation centres (Jivan Jagruti Kendras) started to emerge around his teaching, then known as the Life Awakening Movement (Jivan Jagruti Andolan).^[11] He resigned from his teaching post in 1966.^[11]

In 1968, he scandalised Hindu leaders by calling for freer acceptance of sex; at the Second World Hindu Conference in 1969, he enraged Hindus by criticising all organised religion and the very institution of priesthood.^[12]

In 1969 a group of Osho's friends established a foundation to support his work. They settled in an apartment in Mumbai where he gave daily discourses and received visitors. The number and frequency of visitors soon became too much for the place, overflowing the apartment and bothering the neighbours. A much larger apartment was found on the ground floor (so the visitors would not need to use the elevator, a matter of conflict with the former neighbours).

On September 26, 1970 he initiated his first disciple or sannyasin at an outdoor meditation camp, one of the large gatherings where he lectured and guided group meditations. His concept of neo-sannyas entailed wearing the traditional orange dress of ascetic Hindu holy men. However, his sannyasins were not expected to follow an ascetic lifestyle.^[12]

[edit] 1971–1980

From 1971, he was known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Shree means Sir or Mister; the Sanskrit word Bhagwan means "blessed one".^[13] It is commonly used in India as a respectful form of address for spiritual teachers.^[14]

The new apartment also proved insufficient, and the climate of Mumbai was deemed very bad for his delicate health. So, in 1974, on the 21st anniversary of his enlightenment, he and his group moved from the Mumbai apartment to a newly purchased property in Koregaon Park, in the city of Pune, a four-hour trip from Mumbai. Pune had been the secondary residence of many wealthy families from Mumbai because of the cooler climate (Mumbai lies in a coastal wetland, hot and damp, Pune is inland and much higher, so it is drier and cooler).

The two adjoining houses and six acres of land became the nucleus of an Ashram, and those two buildings are still at the heart of the present-day Osho International Meditation Resort. This space allowed for the regular audio and video recording of his discourses and, later, printing for worldwide distribution, which enabled him to reach far larger audiences internationally. The number of Western visitors increased sharply, leading to constant expansion.^[15] The Ashram now began to offer a growing number of therapy groups, as well as meditations.^[16]

During one of his discourses in 1980, an attempt on his life was made by a Hindu fundamentalist.^[17]

Osho taught at the Pune Ashram from 1974 to 1981.

[edit] 1981–1990

On 10 April 1981, having discoursed daily for nearly 15 years, Osho entered a three-and-a-half-year period of self-imposed public silence,^[18] and satsangs (silent sitting, with some readings from his works and music) took the place of his discourses.

In mid-1981, Osho went to the United States in search of better medical care (he suffered from asthma, diabetes and severe back problems). After a brief spell in Montclair, New Jersey,^[19] his followers bought (for US$6 million) a 64,000-acre (260 km²) ranch in Wasco County, Oregon, previously known as "The Big Muddy", where they settled for the next four years and legally incorporated a city named Rajneeshpuram.

Osho greeted by sannyasins on one of his daily "drive-bys" in Rajneeshpuram, 1982.

Osho stayed in Rajneeshpuram as the commune's guest, living in a modest home with an indoor swimming pool. Over the coming years, he acquired fame for the large number of Rolls-Royces^[20] his followers bought for his use.

Osho ended his period of silence in October 1984. In July 1985, he resumed his daily public discourses in the commune's purpose-built, two-acre meditation hall. According to statements he made to the press, he did so against the wishes of Ma Anand Sheela, his secretary and the commune’s top manager.^[21]

Increasing conflicts with neighbours and the state of Oregon,^[22] as well as serious and criminal misconduct by the commune's management (including conspiracy to murder public officials, wiretapping within the commune, the attempted murder of Osho's personal physician, and a bioterrorism attack on the citizens of The Dalles, Oregon, using salmonella),^[23] made the position of the Oregon commune untenable. When the commune's management team who were guilty of these crimes left the U.S. in September 1985, fleeing for Europe, Osho convened a press conference and called on the authorities to undertake an investigation.^[22] This eventually led to the conviction of Sheela and several of her lieutenants.^[24] Although Osho himself was not implicated in these crimes,^[24] his reputation suffered tremendously, especially in the West.^[25]

In late October 1985, Osho was arrested in North Carolina as he was allegedly fleeing the U.S. Accused of minor immigration violations, Osho, on advice of his lawyers, entered an "Alford plea" – through which a suspect does not admit guilt, but does concede there is enough evidence to convict him – and was given a suspended sentence on condition that he leave the country.^[24]

Osho then began a world tour, speaking in Nepal, Greece and Uruguay, among others. Being refused entry visas by more than twenty different countries, he returned to India in July 1986, and in January 1987, to his old Ashram in Pune, India. He resumed discoursing there.

In late December 1988, he said he no longer wished to be referred to as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and shortly afterwards took the name Osho.

On January 19, 1990, four years after his arrest, Osho died, aged 58, with heart failure being the publicly reported cause. Prior to his death, Osho had expressed his belief that his rapid health decline was caused by some form of poison administered to him by the U.S. authorities during the twelve days he was held without bail in various U.S. prisons. In a public discourse on 6 November 1987, he said that a number of doctors that were consulted had variously suspected thallium, radioactive exposure, and other poisons to account for his failing health:

His ashes were placed in his newly built bedroom in one of the main buildings (LaoTsu House) at his last place of residence, his Ashram in Pune, India. The epitaph reads, "OSHO. Never Born, Never Died. Only Visited this Planet Earth between Dec 11 1931 – Jan 19 1990."

[edit] Legacy

With 200,000 visitors annually, the Osho International Meditation Resort in Pune, India, is one of the largest spiritual growth centres in the world today.

Today, Osho's books are more popular than ever before, with translations published in 55 different languages.^[27][25] At the end of the eighties, the majority of people in South Asia wanted nothing to do with Osho's commune;^[28] but since Osho's death, there has been a sea change in public opinion.^[29] In 1991, an influential Indian newspaper counted Osho, among figures such as Gautama Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, among the ten people who had most changed India's destiny; in Osho's case, by "liberating the minds of future generations from the shackles of religiosity and conformism".^[30] Since then, his teachings have progressively become part of the cultural mainstream of India^[29] and Nepal.^[31]

Osho is one of only two authors whose entire works have been placed in the Library of India's National Parliament in New Delhi (the other is Mahatma Gandhi).^[29] Excerpts and quotes from his works appear regularly in the Times of India and many other Indian newspapers. Prominent admirers include the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh^[32] and the noted Indian novelist and journalist Khushwant Singh.^[32] The Osho disciple Vinod Khanna, who worked as Osho's gardener in Rajneeshpuram,^[33] served as India's Minister of State for External Affairs from 2003 to 2004.^[34]

In the West, figures such as the American poet and Rumi translator Coleman Barks,^[35] the American novelist Tom Robbins^[36] and the German philosopher, author and TV host Peter Sloterdijk^[37] have championed Osho.

Osho's Ashram in Pune has become the Osho International Meditation Resort,^[38] one of India's main tourist attractions.^[28][39] According to press reports, it attracts some 200,000 visitors from all over the world each year;^[32][40] politicians, media personalities and the Dalai Lama have visited the Meditation Resort.^[28]

[edit] Osho's philosophy

Osho taught that the greatest values in life are (in no specific order) awareness, love, meditation, celebration, creativity and laughter. He said that enlightenment is everyone's natural state,^[41] but that one is distracted from realising it – particularly by the human activity of thought, as well as by emotional ties to societal expectations, and consequent fears and inhibitions.

He was a prolific speaker (in both Hindi and English) on various spiritual traditions including those of Buddha, Krishna, Guru Nanak, Jesus, Socrates, Zen masters, Gurdjieff, Sufism, Hassidism, Tantra and many others. He attempted to ensure that no "system of thought" would define him, since he believed that no philosophy can fully express the truth.

An experienced orator, he said that words could not convey his message^[42], but that his basic reason for speaking was to give people a taste of meditation:^[43]

He was often called the "sex guru" after some speeches in the late 1960s on sexuality. These were later compiled under the title From Sex to Superconsciousness. According to him, "For Tantra everything is holy, nothing is unholy",^[45] and all repressive sexual morality was self-defeating, since one could not transcend sex without experiencing it thoroughly and consciously. In 1985, he told the Bombay Illustrated Weekly,

Osho said he loved to disturb people – only by disturbing them could he make them think.^[47] Accordingly, his discourses were peppered with offensive jokes^[48] and outrageous statements lampooning key figures of established religions such as Hinduism, Jainism or Christianity. Concerning the virgin birth, for example, he said that Jesus was clearly a bastard, since he was not Joseph's biological son.^[4] An attempt on his life^[49] was made by a Hindu fundamentalist in 1980. Osho, however, said that the only thing he was serious about in his discourses were the jokes – they were the main thing, and everything else was spiritual gossip.^[50]

[edit] Osho on meditation

According to Osho, meditation is not concentration: it is relaxation, let-go.^[51] It is a state of watchfulness that has no ego fulfilment in it, something that happens when one is in a state of not-doing. There is no "how" to this, because "how" means doing – one has to understand that no doing is going to help. In that very understanding, non-doing happens.^[52]

Osho said it was very difficult for modern man to just sit and be in meditation, so he devised so-called Active Meditation techniques to prepare the ground. Some of these preparatory exercises can also be found in western psychological therapies (i.e. gestalt therapy), such as altered breathing, gibberish, laughing or crying. His most significant meditation techniques are today known as "OSHO Dynamic Meditation", "OSHO Kundalini Meditation", "OSHO Nadabrahma Meditation" and "OSHO Nataraj Meditation". For each meditation, special music was composed to guide the meditator through the different phases of the meditations. Osho said that Dynamic Meditation was absolutely necessary for modern man. If people were innocent, he said, there would be no need for Dynamic Meditation, but given that people were repressed, were carrying a large psychological burden, they would first need a catharsis. So Dynamic Meditation was to help them clean themselves out; then they would be able to use any meditation method without difficulty.^[53]

In the late eighties he developed a new group of "meditative therapies", known as OSHO Meditative Therapies – "OSHO Mystic Rose", "OSHO Born Again" and "OSHO No-Mind." Apart from his own methods, he also reintroduced minimal parts of several traditional meditation techniques, stripped of what he saw as ritual and tradition, and retaining what he considered to be the most therapeutic parts. He believed that, given sufficient practice, the meditative state can be maintained while performing everyday tasks and that enlightenment is nothing but being continuously in a meditative state.^[44]

[edit] Controversy and criticism

Osho had a penchant for courting controversy.^[54]

His liberal views on sex and emotional expression, and the resulting unrestrained behaviour of sannyasins in his Pune Ashram,^[55] at times caused considerable consternation, dismay and panic among people holding different views on these matters, both in India and the U.S.^[19] A number of Western daily papers routinely, and falsely,^[56] claimed that Bhagwan, a traditional title for spiritual teachers in India, meant "Master of the Vagina", and focused their reporting on sexual topics.

Osho said that he was "the rich man's guru",^[57] and that material poverty was not a spiritual value.^[58] He was photographed wearing sumptuous clothing and hand-made watches.^[54] He drove a different Rolls-Royce each day – his followers reportedly wanted to buy him 365 of them, one for each day of the year.^[59] Publicity shots of the Rolls-Royces (more than 90 in the end) appeared in the press.^[10]

In his discourses, Osho consistently attacked organisational principles embraced by societies around the world – the family, nationhood, religion.^[60] He condemned priests and politicians with equal venom,^[61] and was in turn condemned by them.^[62]

Osho dictated three books while undergoing dental treatment under the influence of nitrous oxide (laughing gas): Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, Notes of a Madman, and Books I Have Loved.^[63] This led to allegations that Osho was addicted to nitrous oxide gas. In 1985, on the American CBS television show 60 Minutes, his former secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, claimed that Osho took sixty milligrams of Valium every day.

When questioned by journalists about the allegations of daily Valium and nitrous oxide use, Osho categorically denied both, describing the allegations as "absolute lies".^[64]

[edit] Further reading

• Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (St. Martin's Griffin) 2001 ISBN 0-312-28071-8
• Osho, Glimpses of a Golden Childhood (Rajneesh Foundation International) 1985 ISBN 0-88050-715-2; new edition (Rebel Publishing House) 1998 ISBN 81-7261-072-6
• Sue Appleton, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh: The Most Dangerous Man Since Jesus Christ (Rebel Publishing House) 1987 ISBN 3-89338-001-9
• Harry Aveling (ed.), Osho Rajneesh and His Disciples: Some Western Perceptions (Motilal Banarsidass) 1999 ISBN 81-208-1598-X (Hardcover); ISBN 81-208-1599-8 (Paperback)
• Ma Satya Bharti, Death Comes Dancing: Celebrating Life With Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Routledge) 1981 ISBN 0-7100-0705-1
• Satya Bharti Franklin, The Promise of Paradise: A Woman's Intimate Story of the Perils of Life With Rajneesh (Station Hill Press) 1992 ISBN 0-88268-136-2
• Lewis F. Carter, Charisma and Control in Rajneeshpuram: A Community without Shared Values (Cambridge University Press) 1990 ISBN 0-521-38554-7
• Frances FitzGerald, Cities on a Hill: A Journey Through Contemporary American Cultures (Simon & Schuster) 1986 ISBN 0-671-55209-0 (includes a section on Rajneeshpuram previously published in two parts in The New Yorker magazine, Sept. 22 and Sept. 29 1986 editions)
• Juliet Forman, Bhagwan: One Man Against the Whole Ugly Past of Humanity (Rebel Publishing House) 2002 ISBN 3-893-38103-1
• Judith M. Fox, Osho Rajneesh. Studies in Contemporary Religion Series, No. 4 (Signature Books) 2002 ISBN 1-56085-156-2 Excerpts available here
• Tim Guest, My Life in Orange: Growing up with the Guru (Harvest Books) 2005 ISBN 0-15-603106-X
• Bernard Gunther, Swami Deva Amit Prem, Dying for Enlightenment: Living with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Harper & Row) 1979 ISBN 0-06-063527-4
• Rosemary Hamilton, Rosemary Lansdowne, Hell-bent for Enlightenment: Unmasking Sex, Power, and Death With a Notorious Master (White Cloud Press) 1998 ISBN 1-883991-15-3
• Win McCormack, Oregon Magazine: The Rajneesh Files 1981-86 (New Oregon Publishers, Inc.) 1985 ASIN B000DZUH6E
• George Meredith, Bhagwan: The Most Godless Yet the Most Godly Man (Rebel Publishing House) 1988 ASIN B0000D65TA (by Osho's personal physician)
• Hugh Milne, Bhagwan: The God that Failed (St. Martin's Press) 1987 ISBN 0-312-00106-1 (by Osho's one-time bodyguard)
• Bob Mullan, Life as Laughter: Following Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Routledge & Kegan Paul Books Ltd) 1984 ISBN 0-7102-0043-9
• Donna Quick, A Place Called Antelope: The Rajneesh Story (August Press) 1995 ISBN 0-9643118-0-1
• Ma Prem Shunyo, My Diamond Days with Osho: The New Diamond Sutra (Full Circle Publishing Ltd) 2000 ISBN 8-176-21036-6

[edit] References