Osho where. Biography of Osho (Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh)

Illustration: silentlights

What difference does it make who is stronger, who is smarter, who is more beautiful, who is richer? After all, in the end it only matters whether you are a happy person or not.

Osho's teachings can be seen as a chaotic mosaic composed of elements of Buddhism, Yoga, Taoism, Greek philosophy, Sufism, European psychology, Tibetan traditions, Christianity, Zen, Tantrism and many other spiritual currents, intertwined with his own views. Osho himself said that he does not have a system, because the systems are initially dead, and the living currents are constantly undergoing changes and improving.

This, perhaps, is the main advantage of his teaching - it does not give ready-made quick answers to all questions, but only provides a rich foundation that initially gives a good start for finding one's own path and forming one's own conclusions.

Throughout his life, Osho had different names. This is quite characteristic of the traditions of India and conveyed the essence of his spiritual activity. The name he received at birth is Chandra Mohan Jain. Later, they began to call him Rajneesh - the nickname of childhood. In the 60s, he was called Acharya ("spiritual teacher") Rajneesh, and in the 70-80s - Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh or simply Bhagwan ("enlightened"). By the name of Osho, he called himself only in the last year of his life (1989-1990). In Zen Buddhism, "Osho" is a title that literally translates as "monk" or "teacher". So in history he remained Osho, and it is under this name that all his works are published today.

1. People take everything so seriously that it becomes a burden on them.. Learn to laugh more. To me, laughter is as sacred as prayer.
2. Every action leads to an immediate result. Be careful and watch. A mature person is one who has found himself, who has determined what is right and wrong for him, good and bad. He did it himself, so he has a huge advantage over those who do not have an opinion.
3. We are all unique. No one has the right to say what is right and what is wrong. Life is an experiment in which we define these changing concepts every day. Sometimes, you may do something wrong, but it is through this that you will benefit greatly.
4. There are times when God comes and knocks on your door.. It can happen in one of a million ways - through a woman, a man, a child, love, a flower, sunset or dawn... Be open to hear it.
5. The desire to be unusual is the most common desire. But to relax and be ordinary is really unusual.
6. Life is a series of mysteries and mysteries. It cannot be foreseen or predicted. But there are always people who would be satisfied with a life without secrets - fear, doubts and anxieties would go with them.
7. First, listen to yourself. Learn to enjoy the company of yourself. Become so happy that you no longer care whether someone comes to you or not. You are already full. You don't wait in trepidation for someone to knock on your door. Are you at home already. If someone comes, great. No, that's fine too. Only with such an attitude can a relationship begin.
8. If you are rich, don't think about it, if you are poor, don't take your poverty seriously.. If you are able to live in the world, remembering that the world is only a performance, you will be free, you will not be touched by suffering. Suffering comes only from a serious attitude to life. Start treating life like a game, enjoy it.
9. Courage is a move into the unknown despite all fears. Courage is not the absence of fear. Fearlessness happens when you get bolder and bolder. But at the very beginning, the difference between a coward and a daredevil is not so great. The only difference is that a coward listens to his fears and follows them, while a daredevil leaves them aside and moves on.
10. You change every moment. You are like a river. Today it flows in one direction and climate. Tomorrow is different. I have never seen the same face twice. Everything changes. Nothing stands still. But in order to see this, very penetrating eyes are needed. Otherwise the dust falls and everything becomes old; it seems that everything has already happened.

Listen more consciously. Wake yourself up.
When you feel like everything is boring, kick yourself hard. Yourself, not another.
Open your eyes. Wake up. Listen again.

Bhagawan Shri Rajneesh (Osho)

Secrets of life. Introduction to the teachings of Osho

Life's mysteries

Copyright © 1995 by Osho International Foundation, Switzerland, www.osho.com/copyrights

© LLC Publishing house "Sofia", 2011

Foreword

I only met Rajneesh once, sometime in the early 70's, when he was living at the Woodlands near Camp Corner in Bombay. I read about him in the newspapers and met his disciples who dressed in saffron robes and wore medallions with his image around their necks. At that time his name was Acharya(teacher) rather venerable Bhagwan(divine) and Osho he became later. I had no strong desire to meet Rajneesh, but his followers convinced me that he was different from other spiritual mentors and that I could get answers to my questions. In search of answers, I visited many ashrams and listened to various gurus and priests. But I haven't heard anything from them. Most of their sermons talked about the fact that God is inside each of us, and if you look inside, you can find Illumination, Truth and Reality. There was no sense from this, it's like pouring from empty to empty. More than the teachings themselves, I was interested in the impact they have on their adherents. What makes them gather in crowds of thousands from all over the world to listen to sermons and live in the strictness prescribed by the rules of the ashram? What did they hope to get and what did they not get? I didn't have much trouble and went to see Rajneesh more out of curiosity than out of necessity.

I was given an appointment and asked not to use perfume or cologne on the day of the appointment—I never use them—and also not to use strong-smelling soap in the morning.

At the appointed time I arrived at the Woodlands. I was escorted to a large, spacious office with many books and asked to wait a bit. Acharya. I went to the bookshelves. Most of the books were in English, some in Sanskrit and Hindi. I was struck by the variety of topics: from religion, theology, philosophy, history, biographies, autobiographies to humor and detective stories. I suddenly remembered that I had never seen books in the ashrams before. Some of them had libraries for students, most of them were books on religious topics or generalized sermons of the guru. Other mentors read almost nothing, except for the sacred Indian scriptures, the Vedas, the Upanishads and the epics; they did not attach importance to the study of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity or Islam.

And Rajneesh was interested in everything.

It turns out that while others studied their religions indirectly, Rajneesh studied the originals and created his own teaching. Jain Mahavira and Buddha knew nothing but Hinduism. I do not know what Zarathustra possessed when he elevated the flame to the symbol of purity. It is easier to understand the material on which the Jewish prophets built the basis of the Jewish faith: after all, it is known that both Christianity and Islam that followed it borrowed a lot from the Old Testament. Islam boasts that the prophet Mohammed was completely illiterate. The last of the great religions of India, Sikhism, is largely built on Vedanta. None of the early teachers claimed to be erudite. Rajneesh was perhaps the first of the great gurus to thoroughly study the doctrines of other religions and could rightly claim to be the only specialist in comparative religion. This fact alone inspires respect for him.

Rajneesh entered. He was a man in his forties, of medium build, with a thin, yellowish face. He had a sparse, wavy beard with gray around the edges. On his head was a knitted woolen hat, and he was dressed in a kind of light orange robe that reached to his ankles. I was most struck by his eyes - large and mesmerizing. With a radiant smile, folding the palms of his hands, he answered my greeting: "Namaskar."

We sat down.

- How can I help?

He spoke softly, with a thick Indian accent.

“Not many,” I replied. - I do not have problems.

"Then why did you come here?" You are wasting your time. And mine too.

Not the most favorable start for a dialogue. I blurted out:

- I'm interested. I want to understand why so many people seek you. What are they looking for here?

They have problems and I try to solve them the best I can. If you don't have any problems, then I can't help you.

I quickly came up with a problem.

I am an agnostic and do not believe in the existence of God. On the other hand, I cannot overcome the fear of death. I know that death is inevitable, but I can't believe in reincarnation or Judgment Day. For me, death is the end. Dot. However, I am afraid of her, afraid of dying. How can I overcome this fear that is always present in the depths of the mind?

He paused for a moment before answering.

“You are right, death cannot be avoided, and no one knows exactly when it will come. Remind yourself of these truths, do not be afraid of the dead and dying. Your horror of death will decrease, it is not so terrible. This is all you can do to help yourself.

I saw the point in this: for several years now I have been visiting crematoria and cemeteries, sitting by the bodies of dying friends and relatives. For a while it did help overcome the horror of death, but it always came back. When we met, I didn't know what he thought about the theory of birth, death and reincarnation, otherwise I would have kept asking questions. I was not thrilled by his answer to my question, but I left with the knowledge that there was a man who did not try to impress me with the abstruse jargon so characteristic of gurus, swamis, acharyas and mullahs. I could easily talk with him, we were on the same wavelength. I wanted to know more about his life and teachings.

I happened to meet a young attractive Italian Grazia Marciano, a devoted follower of Rajneesh. She was about twenty; she had gray eyes and copper hair. She wore a wide orange shirt and lungi, and tied an orange ribbon around her head. On the neck is a medallion with the image of Rajneesh. Whenever she came to my office, she brought some literature about Rajneesh and his teachings and managed to spark my interest in him. I have nothing more to say about Grazia. I'd rather talk about Rajneesh.

He was the eldest of eleven children of a cloth merchant. He was born on December 11, 1931 in the small town of Kuchwada in the district of Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh. His childhood name was Chandra Mohan. His parents were Jains, so his full name was Chandra Mohan Jain. As a child, he lived with his mother's parents for several years. The boy was developed, studied well, but did not obey well: the teachers, tired of his antics, constantly complained to the director of the school. Chandra Mohan Jain loved to argue and seek the truth. The illness and death of the grandfather traumatized the young soul. There were no doctors nearby, and the patient was taken on a cart for a long time to the nearest city, where there was a hospital, but the old man died on the way. Rajneesh was shocked. Later, he very often recalled this incident.

In 1953, Rajneesh received a degree in philosophy from the Jain College at Jabalpur. Thanks to a deep study of many religions and prolonged meditation, he comprehended the great esoteric secret, achieved enlightenment. He wrote down the exact date of this event - March 21, 1953. He was only 21 years old.

In 1958 he was appointed professor of philosophy at Jabalpur University. He combined teaching with preaching in various cities of India. Huge crowds began to gather at his lectures, for he was talking about things that no one had talked about before. He had a hypnotic voice and accompanied his bold sermons with parables to illustrate his thoughts, as well as many anecdotes, shattering religious dogmas that had been considered sacred for centuries. Thousands of men and women, mostly educated people, applied to his faith. In 1974 he created the first commune in Pune. By that time, his fame as a guru had spread throughout the world. Foreigners flocked to Pune to listen to him, to study his system of meditation, and became his disciples. They received new names, wore orange clothes and medallions with his image.

The article examines the writings of India's greatest book lover, controversial mystic, provocative speaker, voracious reader of the 20th century, owner of the Lao Tzu library in Pune.

Who is Osho?

Osho Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is an Indian spiritual leader who preached the eclectic doctrine of Eastern mysticism, individual devotion and freedom.

As a young intellectual, he absorbed the ideas of the religious traditions of India, studied and taught philosophy, and practiced social asceticism. The basis of his teachings was dynamic meditation.

Path with Osho

The master's fire is a skillful bold impromptu. His unconventional assistance to people in achieving the divine nature is amazing in terms of the number of followers. Meditation on the transformation of consciousness, reflections on individual development and socio-political problems are reflected in popular print media.

The books are not written by him, they are transcribed based on his reasoning. The ease of reading captures the process of thinking, awakens the depths of consciousness. Osho's books are a list of the foundations of life, as his supporters call them. The study of Rajneesh's considerations instantly concentrates attention, which makes it easier to search for an answer and gives birth to a new way of being.

Osho: Zen here and now

At meetings, Osho spoke about world religions and teachings, based on Zen, which is not scripture or theory, but a direct indication of obvious things. The talks reveal the central role of meditation in personal and collective growth. The theme is especially reflected in the collections:

• "Roots and Wings" (1974).
• "Top of Zen" (1981-1988).
• "The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Self" (1989).

A good start for the transcendental experience is in the illustrated deck of cards system with the Osho guide book. Zen. Tarot. The game concentrates a person on the awareness of the present moment, that important thing that gives clarity to what is happening inside. Collectors will definitely appreciate the artistic presentation of the master's follower - Deva Padma.

Interpreting the mystical experience of Buddha, Jesus and Lao Tzu, Rajneesh speaks about the concept of mind and time, and through meditation teaches not to identify with them. The psychological teachings of Osho are Zen, awakening from sleep.

Two-volume collection "Golden Future"

For those worried about tomorrow, this series of conversations should not be overlooked. A lot of discourse has been devoted to the global nature and perspective of humanity, which confirms the popularity of this book by Osho. The list of the collection consists of 2 volumes:

1. "Meditation: The Only Way".
2. "Freedom from the Past"

Here Rajneesh sees a person in a new society built on the principles of meritocracy, where the qualification of voters for management positions would be the highest dominant. The ideas he voiced about a single world constitution affect the reorganization of the structure of society, government and education.

According to Osho, the arrival of a new world is inevitable, as well as the inevitable death of the old one, where the model of misunderstanding was created on purpose so that the oppression of guilt was the main trump card over people. He says that people cannot be equal and each person is unique, and calls the idea of ​​equality the most destructive thing that could penetrate the human mind.

Silent music

The discourse on inner spiritual birth came out in 1978, the topic is considered in different aspects. Inspired by the life of the mystic poet Kabir, Osho discusses his work. The name of the series - "Divine Melody" - is dedicated to the spiritual experience of the poet at the moment of enlightenment, so the mystic designated the inexplicable feeling that visited him, which became the core of Osho's book.

The list of discourse is supplemented by teachings about the transformation of the energy of the ego (inner poison) into honey (blessing). He explains that evil (lower) can be transformed into good (higher). Osho sees compassion as the symphony of anger, and love as the purified echo of sex. The conversation is interesting with statements about the feminine principle, here special attention is paid to this.

The collection contains reflections on Christian theology and theologians, the latter he considers superficial in relation to the interpretation of the Bible.

According to him, the root cause of all problems, difficulties, dilemmas and conflicts is nothing but the mind. Osho calls to understand its nature and regularity through meditation. Here he also answers questions about homosexuality, selfhood, the difference between ego and self-confidence.

Insight quotes

"The reasons are within ourselves, outside are only excuses." The meaning of life can change rapidly, and one statement by Osho is enough for that. Rajneesh quotes carry the meaning of universal wisdom. He brilliantly defines what courage, enlightenment, the happiness of being yourself, loneliness and many human aspects are. Excerpt brochures are often a desk accessory. The basis for the collections was the incredible love of people for the teachings of Osho. Quotes help unblock consciousness, leave the logical familiar world, see the environment from a different angle: “Only an unhappy person tries to prove that he is happy; only a dead person tries to prove that he is alive; only a coward tries to prove that he is brave. Only a man who knows his baseness tries to prove his greatness.

The universal, fascinating system of the impromptu master is riddled with paradoxes and true essence, sometimes leading to absurdity. An inquisitive mind to study the work of other, no less famous figures, gave birth to his genius.

What did you study, what were your favorite books by Osho? The list of Rajneesh himself is completely diverse, he is one of the reading people on the planet. You can list the sources of his inspiration for a long time, in his collection there are Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Naimi, Chuang Tzu, Plato, Omar Khayyam, Aesop, Uspensky, Suzuki, Rama Krishna, Blavatsky.

There are enough printed publications to help change lives, but they are not imbued with that special melody, conscious change, happiness and freedom, like Osho's books. The list of recommendations was chosen to shock the sleeping consciousness:

• "Love. Freedom. Loneliness". The provocative discourse is devoted to radical and intellectual views on this trinity from the name.
• "Book of Secrets". A Practical Guide to the Secrets of the Ancient Science of Tantra. Rajneesh gives a clear understanding that meditation is more about mentality than technique. These pages reflect the wisdom of exploring the meaning of life.
• Osho: Emotions. A discourse on the nature of emotions and far beyond them. Through 30 years of experience, the master offers alternative methods for their simple understanding. Reading guarantees light penetrating into the hidden corners of one's own unique individuality.
• "The sound of one hand clapping." The Last Recorded Before Osho Went into Silence (1981). A Zen book for people who are open and receptive to the truth of things.

The education of a philosopher, the ability to build long improvisations on the proposed topic brought Rajneesh deserved fame, because he was able to see the obvious from a different, unexpected side.

Chandra Mohan Jain(Hindi चन्द्र मोहन जैन , December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990) has been better known since the early seventies as Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh (English pronunciation(inf.), Hindi भगवान श्री रजनीश - Russian the blessed one who is god ) And Acharya, and later as Osho(Hindi ओशो - Rus. oceanic, dissolved in the ocean ) - an Indian spiritual leader and mystic, attributed by some researchers to neo-Hinduism, the inspirer of the neo-orientalist and religious-cultural movement of Rajneesh (English) Russian. . The preacher of a new sannyas, expressed in immersion in the world without attachment to it, life-affirmation, rejection of the ego and meditation and leading to total liberation and enlightenment.

Criticism of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi and traditional religions made Osho a controversial figure during his lifetime. In addition, he defended the freedom of sexual relations, in some cases arranged sexual meditation practices, for which he earned the nickname " sex guru» . Some researchers call him the "guru of scandals."

Osho is the founder of the ashram system in many countries. During his stay in the United States, he founded the international settlement of Rajneeshpuram, several residents of which, until September 1985, committed serious crimes, including a bioterrorist act. After being deported from America, Rajneesh was denied entry by 21 countries or declared him "persona non grata". Osho's organization was ranked among the destructive sects in the official documents of Russia and Germany, as well as by individual specialists. In the USSR, the Rajneesh movement was banned for ideological reasons.

After Osho's death, attitudes towards him in India and around the world changed, he became widely regarded as an important teacher in India and an attractive spiritual teacher throughout the world. His teachings have become part of popular culture in India and Nepal, and his movement has gained a certain distribution in the culture of the United States and around the world. Osho's talks, recorded between 1969 and 1989, have been collected and published by followers in over 1,000 books.

• 1 Names
• 2 Biography
  • 2.1 Childhood and youth (1931-1950)
  • 2.2 Years of study (1951-1960)
  • 2.3 Lecture tours
  • 2.4 Bombay
    • 2.4.1 Neo-Sannyas Movement Foundation
    • 2.4.2 Bhagwan
  • 2.5 Ashram in Pune (1974-1981)
    • 2.5.1 Development and growth
    • 2.5.2 group therapy
    • 2.5.3 Daily events at the ashram
    • 2.5.4
    • 2.5.5
  • 2.6 Stay in the USA (1981-1985)
  • 2.7
  • 2.8 Pune (1987-1990)
• 3 Osho's teachings
  • 3.1 Ego and mind
  • 3.2 Meditation
  • 3.3
  • 3.4 Zen
  • 3.5 Renunciation and the "new man"
  • 3.6 The Ten Commandments by Osho
• 4 Osho movement
  • 4.1 Followers in Russia
• 5 Criticism
• 6 Responses to criticism
• 7 Legacy
  • 7.1 In India
  • 7.2 Osho International Meditation Resort
  • 7.3 Worldwide
  • 7.4 Cultural heritage
• 8 Selected writings
• 9 Literature

Names

Osho used various names throughout his life. This was in accordance with Indian traditions and reflected the consistent change in his spiritual activity. Below are the meanings of Osho's names in different periods of life:

• Chandra Mohan Jain(Hindi चन्द्र मोहन जैन ) is a real civil name.
• rajneesh(Hindi रजनीश) - This name was a nickname given to Osho in childhood by his family. Literally, it translates as "lord of the full moon."
• Acharya Rajneesh(Hindi आचार्य रजनीश ) - so it was called from the mid-sixties to the early seventies. Acharya means "teacher" or "spiritual teacher", and also in some cases "professor".
• Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh(Hindi भगवान श्री रजनीश ) or shortly Bhagwan- Osho bore this name from the beginning of the seventies until the end of 1988. Bhagwan means "enlightened" or "awakened". In India the word Sri used as an everyday address, its meaning is close to the address "mister". At the end of 1988, he abandoned this name, which also means divine status, with the comment: “Enough! The joke is over."
• Osho(Hindi ओशो) - this is how he called himself in the last year of his life, from the beginning of 1989 until his death on January 19, 1990. In Zen Buddhism "Osho" is a title that literally translates as "monk" or "teacher". This is how Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Chan, was addressed respectfully. Name "Osho" was suggested to him by his students, as it was often mentioned in the Zen parables that he commented on. Osho once added a new meaning to this word, connecting it with the concept of "oceanic" by William James (in English, the word "ocean" sounds like "ocean"). In the literature of the Rajneesh movement, another interpretation is presented: the syllable "O" means love, gratitude and synchronicity, and "sho" means the expansion of consciousness in all directions. All new editions of his books and other works of his are published today under the name Osho.

Biography

Childhood and youth (1931-1950)

Chandra Mohan Jain was born on December 11, 1931 in Kuchwad, a small village in the state of Madhya Pradesh (India). He was the eldest of eleven children of a cloth merchant and was raised by his grandparents for the first seven years. His family, who belonged to the Jain religious community, gave him the nickname Rajneesh or Raja ("King"). Rajneesh was a bright student and had good academic performance at school, but at the same time he had a lot of trouble with teachers because of his disobedience, frequent absences from school and all sorts of provocations towards his classmates.

Rajneesh faced death early. His grandfather, to whom he was deeply attached, died when he was seven years old. When he was fifteen years old, his girlfriend (and cousin) Shashi died of typhoid fever. The loss deeply affected Rajneesh and his quiet teenage years were marked by melancholy, depression and chronic headaches. It was at this time that he ran 15 to 25 km a day and often meditated to the point of exhaustion.

Rajneesh was an atheist, criticized belief in religious texts and rituals, and as a teenager showed an interest in hypnosis. For some time he participated in the communist, socialist and two nationalist movements that fought for the independence of India: the Indian National Army and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha. However, his membership in these organizations was short-lived as he did not want to follow any external discipline, ideology or system. Also, Rajneesh was well-read and knew how to lead discussions. He had a reputation as a selfish, arrogant, even rebellious young man.

Years of study (1951-1960)

At the age of nineteen, Rajneesh began his education in philosophy at Hitkarine College in Jabalpur. After a conflict with a teacher, he had to leave the college and move to D. N. Jain College, also located in Jabalpur. While still a student in Jabalpur, on March 21, 1953, while meditating during a full moon in Bhanvartal Park, he had an extraordinary experience during which he felt overwhelmed with happiness - an experience that he later described as his spiritual enlightenment:

That night I died and I was reborn. But the person who is reborn has nothing to do with the one who died. It is not a continuous thing... The person who has died has died totally; there was nothing left of him... not even a shadow. The ego died totally, completely... On that day, March 21st, a person who had lived many, many lives, millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not at all connected with the old, began to exist ... I became free from the past, I was torn out of my history, I lost my autobiography.

He graduated from DN Jain College in 1955 with a bachelor's degree. In 1957 he graduated with honors from the University of Saugara with a master's degree in philosophy. After that, he became a teacher of philosophy at the Raipur Sanskrit College, but soon the vice-chancellor asked him to look for another job, as he considered that Rajneesh had a detrimental effect on the morality, character and religiosity of students. In 1958, Rajneesh began teaching philosophy at Jabalpur University and became a professor in 1960. As a renowned lecturer, he was recognized by his peers as an exceptionally intelligent man who overcame the shortcomings of his early education in a small town.

Lecture tours

In the 1960s, whenever his teaching activities allowed him, Rajneesh made extensive lecture tours of India in which he parodied and ridiculed Mahatma Gandhi and criticized socialism. He believed that socialism and Gandhi exalted poverty rather than renounce it. He argued that in order to defeat poverty and backwardness, India needed capitalism, science, modern technology and birth control. He criticized orthodox Hinduism, calling the brahminical religion dead, filled with empty rituals, oppressing its followers with fear of damnation and promises of blessings, and said that all political and religious systems are false and hypocritical. Through these statements, Rajneesh made himself unpopular with the majority, but they brought him some attention. At this time he began to use the name Acharya. In 1966, after a series of provocative speeches, he was forced to resign from his teaching position and took up private practice and teaching meditation.

Acharya Rajneesh's early lectures were in Hindi and therefore were not aimed at Western visitors. Biographer R. Ch. Prasad noted that the amazing charm of Rajneesh was felt even by those who did not share his views. His performances quickly earned him a devoted following, including among wealthy businessmen. Such visitors received individual counseling about their spiritual development and daily life in exchange for donations. The tradition of seeking the advice of a scholar or saint is a common practice in India, similar to how people in the West receive advice from a psychotherapist or counselor. Based on the rapid growth of the practice, the American religious scholar and Ph.D. James Lewis suggested that Rajneesh was an unusually gifted spiritual healer. Since 1962, Rajneesh held meditation camps several times a year with active purification techniques, at the same time the first meditation centers began to appear (Jeevan Jagrati Kendra or Awakened Life Centers).

His Awakened Life (Jeevan Jagrati Andolan) movement during this period consisted mainly of members of the Jain religious community in Bombay. One such member of the movement participated in India's struggle for independence and held a significant position in the Indian National Congress party, and also had close ties with the leaders of the country, such as Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Morarji Desai. The daughter of this politician, Lakshmi, was the first secretary of Rajneesh and his devoted student.

Acharya Rajneesh argued that shocking people was the only way to wake them up. Many Indians were shocked by his 1968 lectures, in which he strongly criticized Indian society's attitudes towards love and sex and advocated the liberalization of attitudes. He said that primordial sexuality is divine and that sexual feelings should not be repressed, but should be accepted with gratitude. Rajneesh argued that only by recognizing his true nature, a person can be free. He did not accept religions that advocated withdrawal from life, the true religion, according to him, is an art that teaches how one can enjoy life to the fullest. These lectures later appeared as a book entitled "From Sex to the Superconscious" and were published in the Indian press, who called him a "sex guru". Despite opposition from some established Hindus, however, in 1969 he was invited to speak at the Second World Hindu Conference. There, taking the opportunity, he attacked all organized religions and their priests, which caused a state of rage among the Hindu spiritual leaders present at the conference.

Bombay

Neo-Sannyas Movement Foundation

At a public meditation event in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the spring of 1970, Acharya Rajneesh presented his dynamic meditation for the first time. In July 1970, he rented an apartment in Bombay, where he received visitors and also began holding talks with small groups of people. Although Rajneesh, according to his own teachings, did not at first seek to found an organization, on September 26, 1970, during a meditation camp in Manali, he created the first school of “neo-sannyasins (English) Russian. , who are now more commonly referred to simply as sannyasins. Initiation into sannyas meant receiving a new name from him, for a woman, for example, such as "Ma Dhyan Shama", for a man, for example, "Swami Satyananda", as well as wearing orange clothes, a mala (necklace) with 108 wooden beads and a medallion with the image of Rajneesh.

The orange color of the dress and the mala are the attributes of traditional sannyasins in India, who are considered there as holy ascetics. There was an element of chance in choosing such a deliberately provocative style. This happened after Acharya Rajneesh saw Lakshmi in orange clothes, which Lakshmi spontaneously chose for himself. His sannyas, according to Rajneesh, should be life-affirming because it celebrates "the death of everything you were yesterday." Rajneesh himself, in the context of sannyas, should not have been worshiped. The acharya was seen by sannyasins as a catalyst or "the sun that pushes the flower to open". In 1971, the first students began to arrive from Western countries and join the movement. Among them was a young Englishwoman who received the name "Vivek" from Acharya Rajneesh. Rajneesh came to the conclusion that in a past life she was his friend Shashi. Before her death, Shashi promised Rajneesh that she would return to him. After her "return", Vivek was Rajneesh's constant companion in later years.

Bhagwan

In the same year, Rajneesh dropped the title "Acharya" and adopted instead the religious name Bhagwan (literally: Blessed) Shri Rajneesh. The conferment of this title was criticized by many Hindus, but Bhagwan seemed to enjoy the controversy. He later said that the name change had a positive effect: "Only those who are ready to dissolve with me stay, everyone else has run away." At the same time, he also shifted the focus of his activities. Now he was less and less interested in lecturing to the general public; instead, he declared that he would primarily deal with the issue of transforming people who had an internal connection with him. As more and more students came to him from the West, Bhagwan began to give lectures in English as well. In Bombay his health began to fail; due to the poor quality of the Bombay air, asthma, diabetes, and also his allergies began to increase. His apartment became too small to accommodate visitors. His secretary Lakshmi went looking for a better place to stay and found one in Pune. Money for the purchase of two neighboring villas, occupying an approximate area of ​​2.5 acres, came from patrons and students, in particular, from Ekaterina Venizelos ( Ma Yoga Mukta), heir to the fortune of a famous Greek figure.

Ashram in Pune (1974-1981)

Development and growth

Bhagwan and his followers moved from Bombay to Pune in March 1974. Health problems bothered him for some time, but the construction of the ashram in Koregaon Park did not stop. Sannyasins worked at the ashram and often received free accommodation and meals for some time in return. The following years were marked by constant expansion of the ashram, with more and more visitors from the West. By 1981, the ashram had its own bakery, cheese production, arts and crafts centers for tailoring, jewelry, ceramics and organic cosmetics, as well as a private medical center with more than 90 employees, including 21 doctors. Performances, musical concerts and pantomimes were held. The increase in the flow of people from the West was partly due to the return of some Western students from India, who often established meditation centers in their countries. Some people reported that they had never been in contact with sannyasins, and that only when they saw a photograph of Bhagwan somewhere did they feel an inexplicable connection with him and after that they understood that they should meet with Bhagwan. Others read Bhagwan's books and thus they also had a desire to see him. Bhagwan received a significant influx of feminist groups; most of the economic activity of the ashram was headed by women.

Bhagwan, the description said, was "a physically attractive man with hypnotic brown eyes, a beard, chiseled features and a winning smile, his defiant actions and words, as well as his idiosyncrasy and apparently fearless and carefree demeanor, attracted a large number of disappointed people from the West, as signs that some real answer may be found here.” In addition, he was distinguished by the fact that he accepted modern technology and capitalism, had nothing against sex and was very well read - he easily quoted Heidegger and Sartre, Socrates, Gurdjieff and Bob Hope, and also spoke freely about tantra, the New Testament, Zen and Sufism.

group therapy

In addition, the syncretic combination of Eastern meditation and Western therapies played a significant role. European and American practitioners from the humanistic psychology movement came to Pune and became Bhagwan's disciples. “They came to him to learn from him how to live meditatively. They found in him a spiritual teacher who fully understood the concept of holistic psychology they had developed and, the only one they knew, who could use it as a tool to bring people to higher levels of consciousness, ”writes Bhagwan's biographer. The therapy groups soon became an essential part of the ashram, as well as one of the largest sources of income. In 1976, there were 10 different therapies, including Encounter, Primal, and Intense Enlightenment, and a group in which participants had to try to answer the question "Who am I?" In subsequent years, the number of methods available increased to about eighty.

To decide which therapy groups to go through, attendees either consulted with Bhagwan or made a choice according to their preferences. Some of the early groups at the ashram, such as the Encounter, were experimental and allowed for physical aggression as well as sexual contact between members. Conflicting reports of injuries sustained in the sessions of the Encounter group began to appear in the press. After one of the participants suffered a broken arm, violent groups were banned. Richard Price, then a well-known therapist in the humanistic psychology movement and co-founder of the Esalene Institute, found that some groups encourage members to "be violent" rather than "play the role of violent" (which is the norm for Encounter groups held in the United States) and criticized for "the worst mistakes of some of Esalen's inexperienced group leaders." However, many sannyasins and visitors were interested in participating in this exciting experiment. In this sense, they were inspired by the words of Bhagwan: "We are experimenting here with all the ways that make it possible to heal the human consciousness and enrich the person."

Daily events at the ashram

A typical day at the ashram began at 6 am with one hour of dynamic meditation. At 8 o'clock Bhagwan gave a public lecture in the so-called "Buddha Hall". Until 1981, lecture series in Hindi alternated with series in English. Many of these lectures were spontaneous commentaries on texts from various spiritual traditions or were answers to questions from visitors and students. The conversations were spiced with jokes, anecdotes, and provocative remarks that constantly elicited outbursts of amusement from his devoted audience. Various meditations took place during the day, such as "meditation kundalini”, “meditation nataraj and therapy, the high intensity of which was attributed to spiritual energy, Bhagwan's "buddha field". In the evenings, there were Darshans, Bhagwan's private conversations with a small number of devoted disciples and guests, as well as initiation of disciples ("acceptance into sannyas"). The reason for darshan was usually the arrival of the disciple at the ashram or his forthcoming departure, or a particularly serious matter that the sannyasin would like to discuss personally with Bhagwan. Four days in the year were of particular importance, these days were celebrated: the enlightenment of Bhagwan (March 21); his birthday (December 11) and Guru Purnima's birthday; the full moon, during which the spiritual teacher and Mahaparinirvana are traditionally revered in India, the day when all the departed enlightened ones are revered. For visitors, the stay in Pune was generally an intense and very vivid experience, whether or not the visitor "took sannyas" in the end. The ashram, according to the descriptions of the students, was at the same time "an amusement park and a lunatic asylum, a pleasure house and a temple."

Bhagwan's teaching emphasized spontaneity, but the ashram was not free from rule. There were guards at the entrance, smoking and drugs were prohibited, and some of the territory, such as House of Laozi where Bhagwan lived was only available to a limited number of students. Those who wanted to listen to the Buddha Hall lecture (“Please leave your shoes and mind outside,” the sign at the entrance said) had to first take a scent test because Bhagwan was allergic to shampoos and cosmetics. And those who had such smells were denied access.

Negative media reports

In the 1970s, Bhagwan first came to the attention of the Western press as a "sex guru". Criticism of him has been directed at therapeutic groups, Bhagwan's attitude towards sex, and his often joking but sharply social values ​​statements ("Even people like Jesus remain a little neurotic"). The behavior of sannyasins has become a separate subject of criticism. In order to earn money for their further stay in India, some of the women went to Bombay and engaged in prostitution. Other sannyasins tried to smuggle opium, hashish and marijuana, some of them were caught and imprisoned. The reputation of the ashram suffered from this, among other things. In January 1981, Prince Wolf of Hanover ( Swami Anand Vimalkirti), cousin of Prince Charles and descendant of Emperor Wilhelm II, died of a stroke in Pune. After that, anxious relatives wanted to make sure that his little daughter would not grow up with her mother (also a sannyasin) in Pune. Members of the anti-cult movement began to claim that sannyasins were forced to take part in therapy groups against their will, that they suffered from nervous breakdowns, and that they were forced into prostitution and drug trafficking.

The hostile attitude of the surrounding society was to some extent demonstrated to Bhagwan when an attempt was made on his life in 1980. A young Hindu fundamentalist, Vilas Tupe, threw a knife at Bhagwan during a morning lecture, but missed. A banned film about the ashram appeared in India, which censored footage showing therapy groups and footage of Bhagwan openly criticizing then-Prime Minister Morarji Desai, head of the Indian government, for taking a tougher stance against the ashram. On top of all this, the ashram's tax exemption was retroactively cancelled, resulting in millions in tax claims. The government stopped issuing visas for foreign visitors who listed the ashram as their main destination.

Change of plans and the beginning of Bhagwan's silence phase

Given the ever-increasing number of visitors and the hostility of the city administration towards people moving to Bhagwan, the students began to consider moving to Saswad, located about 30 km from Pune, where they wanted to build an agricultural commune. However, the burning and poisoning of the fountain in Saswad made it clear that the activities of the ashram were also not welcomed there. Subsequent attempts to acquire land for an ashram in Gujarat failed due to opposition from local authorities.

Bhagwan's health deteriorated in the late 1970s, and his personal contact with sannyasins declined from 1979 onwards. Evening Darshans began to be held in the form of energy Darshans - instead of personal conversations, there was now a "transfer of energy", which happened when Bhagwan's thumb touched the middle of the student's forehead or "third eye". On April 10, 1981, Bhagwan began a phase of silence and instead of daily discourses began to conduct satsangs (quiet sitting together with short periods of reading from various spiritual works and live music). Around the same time, Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman) replaced Lakshmi as Bhagwan's secretary. Sheela came to the conclusion that Bhagwan, who was suffering from a very long and painful problem of slipped discs at the time, should travel to the United States for better treatment. Bhagwan and Vivek didn't seem to be very supportive of the idea at first, but Sheela insisted on moving.

Stay in the USA (1981-1985)

In the spring of 1981, after a long illness, Osho entered a period of silence. On the recommendation of doctors, in June of this year he was taken to the United States for treatment, as he suffered, in particular, from diabetes and asthma.

Osho followers buy ranch for $5.75 million Big Muddy an area of ​​64 thousand acres in Central Oregon, on the territory of which the settlement of Rajneeshpuram (now a suburb of Anteloope) was founded, where the number of adherents reached 15 thousand people. In August, Osho moved to Rajneeshpuram, where he lived in a trailer as a guest of the commune.

During the four years that Osho lived there, the popularity of Rajneeshpuram grew. So, about 3,000 people came to the festival in 1983, and in 1987 - about 7,000 people from Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. A school, post office, fire and police departments, a transport system of 85 buses were opened in the city. Between 1981 and 1986, the Rajneesh movement amassed about $120 million through various meditation workshops, lectures, and conferences with attendance fees ranging from $50 to $7,500.

Religious scholar A. A. Gritsanov notes that “ By the end of 1982, Osho's fortune reached 200 million tax-free dollars". Osho also owned 4 aircraft and 1 combat helicopter. In addition, Osho owned "nearly a hundred (numbers vary) Rolls-Royces." Reportedly, his followers wanted to increase the number of Rolls-Royces to 365, one for each day of the year.

At the same time, conflicts with local authorities regarding building permits, as well as in connection with calls for violence by the inhabitants of the commune, escalated. They intensified in connection with the statements of Osho's secretary and press secretary, Ma Anand Sheela. Osho himself continued to remain silent until 1984 and was practically isolated from the life of the commune. The management of the commune was taken over by Sheela, who assumed the role of the sole intermediary between Osho and his commune.

Within the commune, internal contradictions also intensified. Many followers of Osho, who disagreed with the regime established by Sheela, left the ashram. Faced with difficulties, the leadership of the commune, led by Shila, also used criminal methods. In 1984, salmonella was added to the food of several restaurants in the nearby town of Dallas to see if the results of the upcoming elections could be influenced by reducing the number of people eligible to vote. On Sheela's orders, Osho's personal physician and two Oregon officials were also poisoned. The doctor and one of the staff became seriously ill, but eventually recovered.

In 1984, the Federal Bureau of Investigation initiated a criminal case against the Rajnesh sect", because in Antelope" on the territory of the center of Rajnesh, weapons depots, drug laboratories were discovered».

After Sheela and her team hurriedly left the commune in September 1985, Osho called a press conference to give information about their crimes and asked the prosecutor's office to initiate an investigation. As a result of the investigation, Shila and many of her employees were detained and later convicted. Despite the fact that Osho himself did not participate in criminal activities, his reputation (especially in the West) was significantly damaged.

On October 23, 1985, a federal jury in closed session considered the indictment against Osho in connection with violations of immigration law.

On October 29, 1985, after Bhagwan's personal plane landed for refueling in Charlotte, North Carolina, he was detained without a warrant for arrest and without formal charges being filed at that time. The motive for the detention was Bhagwan's unauthorized attempt to leave the United States. (According to Rajish, he was going to fly to rest in Bermuda with his 8 close associates). For the same reason, Bhagwan was denied bail. He was placed in a pre-trial detention center, having previously registered in the Oklahoma state prison under the name "David Washington". On the advice of his lawyers, who agreed with the accusing party, Bhagwan signed Alford Plea- a document according to which the accused admits the charges and at the same time maintains his innocence. As a result, Bhagwan pleaded guilty to 2 of the 34 counts against him for violating the immigration law. As a result, on November 14, Bhagwan was conditionally sentenced to 10 years in prison, he was fined $ 400,000, and after that Bhagwan was deported from the United States without the right to return for 5 years. Bhagwan disbanded his ashram in Oregon and publicly declared that he was not a religious teacher. Also, his students burned 5,000 copies of the book "Rajneeshism", which was a 78-page compilation of the teachings of Bhagwan, who defined "Rajneeshism" as "a non-religious religion." Rajneesh said he ordered the book to be burned to rid the sect of the last vestiges of Sheela's influence, whose clothes were also "added to the fire".

On December 10, 1985, Rajneeshpuram's registration was invalidated by District Judge Helen J. Fry for violating the constitutional provisions of separation of church and state. Later, in 1988, the US Supreme Court recognized the legitimacy of Rajneeshpuram.

World Tour (1986)

On January 21, 1986, Bhagwan announces his intention to travel around the world to visit his followers in various countries. In February 1986, Bhagwan arrives in Greece on a 30-day tourist visa. After that, the Greek Orthodox Church demands that the Greek authorities expel Bhagwan from the country, arguing that otherwise "blood will be shed." On March 5, without any permission, the police enter the territory of the villa of a local film director, where Bhagwan lived, and arrest the mystic. Bhagwan pays a fine of $5,000 and flies to Switzerland on March 6, making the following statement to Greek journalists before leaving: “If one person with a four-week tourist visa can destroy your two-thousand-year-old morality, your religion, then it is not worth keeping. It must be destroyed."

Upon arrival in Switzerland, he receives the status of "persona non grata" due to "violation of US immigration laws." He flies by plane to England, where he is also not allowed to stay, and then, on March 7, he flies to Ireland, where he receives a tourist visa. The next morning, the police arrive at the hotel and demand that Bhagwan leave the country immediately, but later the authorities allow him to stay in Ireland for a short time due to Canada's refusal to allow Bhagwan's plane to land in Grenada to refuel the aircraft. At the same time, Bhagwan is denied entry to Holland and Germany. On March 19, an invitation to visit with the possibility of permanent residence was sent by Uruguay, and on the same day Bhagwan and his followers flew to Montevideo. In Uruguay, sannyasins discovered the reasons why a number of countries refused to visit. These reasons were telexes containing "diplomatic classified information" in which Interpol reported allegations of "drug addiction, smuggling and prostitution" among the people around Bhagwan.

On May 14, 1986, the government of Uruguay intended to announce at a press conference that Bhagwan was granted permanent residence. But according to a number of sources, Sanguinetti, who was president of Uruguay, was contacted by the American authorities the previous evening and demanded that Bhagwan be expelled from the country, threatening otherwise to cancel the American loan to Uruguay and not provide loans in the future. June 18 Bhagwan agrees to leave Uruguay. On June 19, he arrives in Jamaica on a 10-day visa he received. Immediately after arrival, a US Air Force plane lands next to Bhagwan's plane. On the morning of the next day, all visas of Bhagwan and his followers are invalidated. After that, he flies to Lisbon and lives in a villa for some time, until the police come to him again. As a result, after Bhagwan is denied entry by 21 countries under pressure from the United States or declares him “persona non grata”, he returns to India on July 29, where he lives in Bombay with his friend for six months. In India, Osho opens a center for psychotherapy and meditation programs.

Religious scholar A. S. Timoshchuk and historian I. V. Fedotova note that “ The call for complete freedom, coupled with very liberal views on marriage and sexual relations, has sparked public outrage around the world and may have played a sinister role.».

Pune (1987-1990)

On January 4, 1987, Osho returned to Pune to the house where he had lived most of his life. Immediately after it became known about the return of Osho, the city police chief ordered him to immediately leave Pune on the grounds that Rajneesh was "a controversial personality" and "could disrupt the order in the city." However, the Supreme Court of Bombay City overturned the order on the same day.

In Pune, Osho holds discourse evenings every day, except when they are interrupted due to ill health. Publications and therapies resumed and the ashram was expanded. Now it became known as the "Multiversity", where the therapy was supposed to work as a bridge to meditation. Osho developed new meditation-therapeutic methods, such as the Mystic Rose, and began to lead meditations in his discourses after a break of more than ten years. The flow of visitors increased again. But now, having gone through the experience of working together in Oregon, most sannyasins no longer wanted to live together with other sannyasins, but began to prefer an independent way of life in society. The red/orange attire and mala have been largely eliminated, having been optional since 1985. The wearing of red robes exclusively in the ashram was reinstated in the summer of 1989, along with white robes for evening meditation and black robes for group leaders.

By the end of 1987, thousands of sannyasins and visitors pass through the Osho Commune International gate in the Indian city of Pune every day. Osho has daily darshans, but his health is steadily deteriorating. In conversations, Osho often repeats that he cannot stay with his people for a long time, and advises listeners to focus on meditation.

In November 1987, Osho expressed his belief that his deterioration in health (nausea, fatigue, pain in the limbs and lack of resistance to infection) was due to his poisoning by the US authorities while he was in prison. His physician and former attorney Philip J. Toolkes (Swami Prem Niren) suggested that radioactive thallium was in Osho's mattress as the symptoms were concentrated on the right side, but provided no evidence. U.S. Attorney Charles H. Hunter described it as "a complete sham", while others have suggested HIV exposure or chronic diabetes and stress.

Since the beginning of 1988, Osho's discourses have focused exclusively on Zen. His daily lectures now take place in the evening, and not in the morning, as before.

At the end of December, Osho announced that he no longer wanted to be called "Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh", and in February 1989 he took the name "Osho Rajneesh", which was shortened to "Osho" in September. He also requested that all brands formerly branded "RAJNEESH" be rebranded internationally as "OSHO". His health continued to decline. He gave his last public speech in April 1989, and after that he just sat in silence with his followers. Shortly before his death, Osho suggested that one or more people at the evening meetings (now referred to as the Brotherhood of the White Robes) subjected him to some form of evil magic. An attempt was made to search for the perpetrators, but no one could be found.

On October 6, 1989, Osho chooses the "inner circle" - this group consists of twenty-one closest students, who are entrusted with the responsibility of administrative management and solving the main practical issues of the life of the commune. In June-July the Sannyas University is founded. It consists of a number of faculties covering various workshops and group programs.

On January 17, 1990, Osho's health deteriorated significantly. Osho appeared at the evening meeting only to greet those assembled. When he entered the hall, it was noticeable that it was extremely difficult for him to move.

Osho died on January 19, 1990 at the age of 58. An autopsy was not performed, so the cause of death has not been determined. There are several unconfirmed versions, according to the official statement of the doctor Osho, the death occurred from heart failure caused by complications of diabetes and asthma. According to followers close to Osho, death was due to the slow action of thallium, with which Osho was poisoned during his imprisonment in the United States. Before his death, Osho refused the doctors' proposals for urgent medical intervention, telling them that "the Universe itself measures its own time." Osho's body was transferred to the hall, where a mass meeting took place, and then a cremation. Two days later, the ashes left from Osho's body were transferred to the Chuang Tzu hall - to the very room that was supposed to be his new bedroom. Some of the ashes were also transferred to Nepal, to the Osho-Tapoban ashram. A tablet was placed over the ashes with the words that Osho himself had dictated a few months earlier: “OSHO. Never born, never died, only visited this planet Earth from December 11, 1931 to January 19, 1990.

Osho teachings

Osho's teachings are extremely eclectic. It is a chaotic mosaic composed of elements of Buddhism, Yoga, Taoism, Sikhism, Greek philosophy, Sufism, European psychology, Tibetan traditions, Christianity, Hasidism, Zen, Tantrism and other spiritual movements, as well as their own views. The religious scholar L. I. Grigoryeva wrote that “ the teachings of Rajnesh are a mixture of elements of Hinduism, Taoism, Sufism, etc.". He himself spoke of it this way: I don't have a system. Systems can only be dead. I am an unsystematic, anarchic stream, I am not even a person, but just a certain process. I don't know what I told you yesterday»; « … the flower is rough, the fragrance is subtle… That’s what I’m trying to do – bring together all the flowers of Tantra, Yoga, Tao, Sufism, Zen, Hasidism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism…»; « Truth is beyond specific forms, attitudes, verbal formulations, practices, logic, and its comprehension is carried out by a chaotic, not a systematic method» ; « I am the beginning of a completely new religious consciousness, - said O. - Please do not connect me with the past - it is not even worth remembering»;« My message is not a doctrine, not a philosophy. My message is a kind of alchemy, the science of transformation, so only those who can die as they are and be reborn so renewed that they cannot even imagine it now ... only those few daredevils will be ready to hear, because to hear is to go at risk».

Many of Osho's lectures contain contradictions and paradoxes, which Osho commented as follows: " My friends are surprised: Yesterday you said one thing, and today - another. What are we to listen to? I can understand their bewilderment. They just grabbed the words. Conversations are of no value to me, only the spaces between the words I speak are what is valuable. Yesterday I opened the doors to my emptiness with some words, today I open them with other words.» .

The religious scholar M. V. Vorobyova noted that the main goal of Osho’s teachings is “ immersion in this world and in this life". The religious scholar S. V. Pakhomov pointed out that the goal of Osho’s teachings is “ the loss of one's "I" in the oceanic consciousness". Pakhomov also noted that Osho developed a variety of meditation practices to achieve this goal, including the practice of dynamic meditation, which has become the most famous of all practices.

The religious scholar L. I. Grigoryeva wrote that “ The ultimate goal of the religious practice of Rajnesh is to achieve a state of enlightenment and total liberation. The ways to achieve this state are the rejection of stereotypes of culture, upbringing, traditions, the rejection of everything that society imposes." Wherein " the destruction of "social barriers and stereotypes" should occur during communication with the "teacher", and the acquisition of inner freedom - through the practice of "dynamic meditation" and sexual orgies, presented under the banner of tantrism A".

Candidate of Philosophical Sciences S. A. Selivanov pointed out that Osho’s distinctive “calling cards” are: dynamic meditation, neo-sannyas, the idea of ​​​​a “community” realized in Pune, in which there are halls for meditation, therapy, music, dance, painting and others arts, and the idea of ​​Zorba-Buddha, a new whole person. Selivanov also noted that Osho formed four development paths for the followers of his teachings:

1. Independent analysis of events, opposition to the influence of any ideology and independent resolution of their own psychological problems.
2. Acquisition of one's own experience of "living a full life", rejection of life "according to books", search for "the causes of suffering, joy, dissatisfaction".
3. The need to bring out one's inner and psyche-destroying "hidden desires" in the process of self-realization.
4. "Enjoy simple things... - a cup of tea, silence, conversation with each other, the beauty of the starry sky."

Religious scholar B.K. Knorre believes that Osho's teaching is a philosophy of vitalism of "pure vitality", in which the initial sensations of a person are more important than any norms of society. Knorre figuratively describes the return to “pure feeling” before acquiring various stereotypes and civilizational complexes as enjoying life without questions “what for” and “why”. Psychophysiological trainings are used to return to this state and release the “true self”.

Combining many traditions, Osho assigned a special place to the traditions of Zen. For followers, the most important place of all Osho's teachings is meditation. The ideal in the teachings of Osho is Zorba-Buddha, combining the spirituality of the Buddha with the features of the Zorba.

Despite hundreds of dictated books, Rajneesh did not create a systematic theology. During the period of the Oregon commune (1981-1985) a book was published called "The Bible of Rajneesh", however, after the dispersal of this commune, Rajneesh stated that the book was published without his knowledge and consent, and urged his followers to get rid of "old attachments", to to which he attributed religious beliefs. Some researchers believe that Rajneesh used all the major world religions in his teachings, but preferred the Hindu concept of "enlightenment" as the main goal for his followers.

Osho also used a wide range of Western concepts. His views on the unity of opposites are reminiscent of Heraclitus, while his description of man as a mechanism condemned to uncontrolled impulsive actions stemming from unconscious neurotic patterns has much in common with Freud and Gurdjieff. His vision of the "new man" transcending the limits of tradition is reminiscent of Nietzsche's ideas in Beyond Good and Evil. Osho's views on the liberation of sexuality are comparable to those of Lawrence, and his dynamic meditations are indebted to Reich.

Osho calls for doing what comes from feeling, flows from the heart: "Never follow the mind ... do not be guided by principles, etiquette, norms of behavior." He denied the asceticism and self-restraint of Patanjali's classical yoga and stated that " craving for violence, sex, money-grubbing, hypocrisy - is a property of consciousness", also pointing out that in the "inner silence" there is "neither greed, nor anger, nor violence", but there is love. He encouraged his followers to throw out their base desires in any form, which found its expression " in convulsive shudders, hysterical behavior". It is considered likely that for this reason the Rajneesh ashrams were criticized for anti-social activities: promiscuity, accusations of delinquency, etc.

Osho was a supporter of vegetarianism and was ambivalent about alcohol and drugs. According to critics, the latter circumstance was one of the main factors that made his teachings attractive to the counterculture generation in Western countries. Drugs were banned in the Osho Ashram.

Osho promoted free love and often criticized the institution of marriage, calling it the "coffin of love" in early conversations, although he sometimes encouraged marriage for the opportunity for "deep spiritual fellowship." Later in the movement came the ceremony of marriage and a focus on long-term relationships. Early calls against marriage came to be understood as "a desire to live in love and harmony without contractual support" rather than an unequivocal rejection of marriage. At the same time, the sannyasins also took into account the fact that Osho opposed dogma in his teachings.

Osho was convinced that most people cannot be trusted to have children, and also that the number of children being born all over the world is too high. Osho believed that "twenty years of absolute birth control" would solve the problem of overpopulation of the planet. Osho also pointed out that childlessness will allow you to achieve enlightenment faster, since in this case it is possible to "give birth to yourself." Osho's call for sterilization was followed by 200 sannyasins, some of whom later recognized this decision as a mistake. Sociology professor Lewis Carter suggested that Rajneesh's words about the recommended sterilization were said in order not to complicate the planned and secret move from Pune to America.

Osho considered women to be more spiritual than men. Women held more leadership positions in the community. Among followers, their ratio to men also ranged from 3:1 to 6:4. Osho wanted to create a new society in which "the sexual, social and spiritual liberation of women" would happen.

Religious scholar A. S. Timoshchuk and historian I. V. Fedotova noted that Osho “ argued that all religions of the past are anti-life", and in turn" his teaching is the first to consider man in his entirety, as he is". Osho said that Christianity is a disease”, and often scolded Christianity, finding masochistic practices in it. The religious scholar L. I. Grigoryeva noted on the same occasion “ He denies all religions: “I am the founder of the only religion, another religion is a sham. Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha just corrupted people.”» The same statement by Osho as a self-description is given by the representative of the American Christian counter-cult movement and apologist Walter Martin. A. A. Gritsanov cites the same statement in a different version: “ I am the founder of a single religion, - Rajneesh declared, - other religions are a hoax. Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha simply corrupted people... My teaching is based on knowledge, on experience. People don't have to believe me. I explain my experience to them. If they find it right, they accept it. If not, then they have no reason to believe in him.».

Osho's talks were not presented in an academic setting, his early lectures were known for their humor and Osho's refusal to take anything seriously. This behavior was explained by the fact that it was a "method of transformation", pushing people "beyond the mind."

ego and mind

According to Osho, every person is a Buddha with the potential for enlightenment, unconditional love and response (instead of reaction) to life, although the ego usually prevents this by identifying with social conditioning and creating false needs and conflicts and an illusory self-awareness.

Osho sees the mind as a survival mechanism, copying behavioral strategies that have proven effective in the past. Turning the mind to the past deprives people of the ability to live authentically in the present, forcing them to suppress genuine emotions and isolate themselves from the joyful experiences that naturally arise when accepting the present moment: "The mind has no innate capacity for joy ... It only thinks of joy." As a result, people poison themselves with neurosis, jealousy and insecurity.

Osho argued that psychological repression (repression or repression), often advocated by religious leaders, causes repressed feelings to re-emerge in a different guise. For example, in the case of sexual repression, society becomes obsessed with sex. Osho pointed out that instead of repressing, people should trust themselves and accept themselves unconditionally. According to Osho, this cannot be understood only intellectually, since the mind can perceive it only as more information, meditation is necessary for a fuller understanding.

Meditation

Osho presented meditation not only as a practice, but also as a state of consciousness that will be maintained in every moment, as a complete understanding that awakens a person from a sleep of mechanical reactions due to beliefs and expectations. He used western psychotherapy as a preliminary step in his meditation to help sannyasins understand their "mental and emotional garbage."

Osho proposed a total of over 112 meditation methods. His methods of "active meditation" are characterized as successive stages of physical activity and tension, leading to silence and relaxation. The most famous of these is dynamic meditation, which is described as a microcosm of Osho's worldview.

Osho has developed other active meditation techniques (eg Kundalini shaking meditation, Nadabram humming meditation) that are less active although they also involve physical activity. His later meditation therapies required multiple sessions over several days. So the Mystic Rose meditation included three hours of laughter every day for the first week, three hours of crying every day for the second week, and three hours of silent meditation every day for the third week. These "witnessing" processes enabled the sannyasin to realize the "leap into awareness." Osho believed that such cathartic, cleansing methods were necessary as a preliminary stage, since for many modern people it was difficult to immediately use more traditional methods of meditation due to great internal tension and the inability to relax.

The traditional meditation methods given to sannyasins included zazen and vipassana.

Osho emphasized that absolutely anything can become an opportunity for meditation. As an example of the temporary transformation of dance into meditation, Osho cited the words of the dancer Nijinsky: “ When the dance turns into a crescendo, I am no more. There is only dance».

Sexual Practices and Tantra

Osho and the Osho movement are known for their progressive and ultra-liberal attitudes towards sexuality. Osho rose to prominence as a sex guru in the 1970s for his tantric teachings of "integrating sexuality and spirituality", as well as for the work of some therapeutic groups and the encouragement of sexual practices among sannyasins. Sociologist Elisabeth Pattik, Ph.D., has pointed out that Osho believed that Tantra influenced his teachings the most, along with Western sexology based on the writings of Wilhelm Reich. Osho tried to combine traditional Indian tantra and Reich-based psychotherapy and form a new approach:

All our efforts up to now have failed because we have not made friends with sex, but have declared war on it; we have used repression and lack of understanding as ways to solve sexual problems... And the results of repression are never fruitful, never pleasant, never healthy.

Tantra was not the goal, but the method by which Osho freed the followers from sex:

The so-called religions say that sex is a sin, and tantra says that sex is only a sacred thing... After you have cured your disease, you do not continue to carry a prescription and a vial and a medicine. You drop it.

The religious scholar A. A. Gritsanov pointed out that sexual meditation, related to the direction of tantra, was in the teachings of Osho a way " achievement of superconsciousness", and Osho himself believed that only through intense " experiencing sexual emotions" Maybe " understanding their nature"and liberation from sexual " passions-weaknesses» . The religious scholar S. V. Pakhomov pointed out that Osho “ encouraged among his adherents and sexual emancipation, considering "tantric" sex as the driving force leading to "enlightenment"» . Religious scholar D. E. Furman noted that tantric sex was one of the methods that Osho gave to some students for “ comprehension of the absolute».

There are rumors that Osho had sexual relations with followers. The main source of these rumors is an unreliable book by Hugh Milne. Osho's personal physician, G. Meredith, described Milne as a "sexual maniac" who makes money off of readers' pornographic desires. In addition, several women said they had sexual relations with Osho. Some female followers pointed to unrealized sexual fantasies about Osho. There is no reliable evidence to support the Osho sexual relationship rumors. Most followers believed that Osho was celibate.

In the Osho movement, there was a problem of emotional abuse, it was especially pronounced during the functioning of Rajneeshpuram. Some people were severely injured. Religious sociologist Eileen Barker has pointed out that some of Pune's visitors have returned with tales of "sexual perversion, drug dealing, suicide" as well as stories of physical and mental harm from Pune's programs. But even among the people who were injured, many were positive about their experience, including those who had already left the movement. In general, the majority of sannyasins assessed their experience as positive and defended it with arguments.

The religious scholar A. A. Gritsanov pointed out that in the critical press of the 70s there were publications about orgies in communities, and also that the nickname " sex guru» Osho received from the journalists of that time. At the same time, A. A. Gritsanov wrote: “ Some researchers believe that the word “orgies” is hardly applicable to Osho’s practices, since Rajneesh emphatically does not divide the various manifestations of life into positive and negative: like many Hindu cults, in Osho’s doctrine, the concepts of “good” and “evil” are blurred”, also noting that there were few groups with nudity and sexual practices as cathartic processes in the Pune ashram, but “ These are the groups that have attracted the most media attention.» .

The religious scholar L. I. Grigorieva believed that in the communities of Osho were distributed " sexual orgies presented under the banner of tantrism» .

The religious scholar and Indologist A. A. Tkacheva noted that “dynamic meditation” contributed to “unblocking” the nervous system of Osho’s followers through strong chaotic movements and “splashing out” the “repressions” and “complexes” that arose during socialization. Here, the action was completely opposite to normal. Tkacheva notes, since Osho combined tantra with Freudianism in his practice, from here he was 99% convinced that all human complexes are based on sexual soil. Therapy in this case is expressed in group sex. Blockages and complexes were perceived as “karmic traces” that block the path to achieving enlightenment, and jumps and jumps were supposed to help come to a state of “emancipation”, “catharsis”.

The religious scholar A. S. Timoshchuk and the historian I. V. Fedotova noted that about Osho’s meditation camps, which were arranged in various parts of India, “ often told» how about places « where you can participate in orgies and indulge in drugs". They also write that currently hard to say what really happened there”, since Osho does not distinguish between the manifestations of life for good and bad, but considers them one and the same. Osho taught to accept all people and oneself completely, including sexual energy».

Zen

Of all the traditions, Osho singled out the Zen tradition in particular. In later conversations, Osho pointed out that Zen was his "ideal of religiosity":

All religions except Zen are already dead. They have long since turned into caked fossil theologies, philosophical systems, dry doctrines. They have forgotten the language of the trees. They forgot about the silence in which even a tree can be heard and understood. They have forgotten the happiness that naturalness and spontaneity brings to the heart of any living being.<…>I call Zen the only living religion because it is not a religion, but religiosity itself. There are no dogmas in Zen, Zen does not even have founders. He has no past. In truth, he can't teach anything. This is almost the strangest thing that has happened in human history - strange, because Zen rejoices in emptiness, blossoms when there is nothing. He is embodied not in knowledge, but in ignorance. He does not distinguish between the worldly and the sacred. Everything is sacred to Zen.

A look at the charlatan Osho Rajneesh - from the standpoint of the religion of Orthodoxy

Cult of Rajneesh(Osho) "Quinton hovered in the skies of the East, where it is more terrible than in the underworld of the West."

(G.K. Chesterton)

According to the famous Orthodox researcher of sects Mikhail Medvedev, “the cult of Rajneesh is one of the most destructive for the consciousness of adherents. The technique of internal growth in the cult lies in the fact that the spiritual growth of the adept is directly dependent on the approach and attachment to the personality of the guru. All this is coupled with the idea of ​​supposedly personal gain.

Other names: "The only religion."

Management: The founder of the movement is Rajneesh (Osho).

One of the most active followers of Osho Rajneesh in Moscow - Popova Natalya Pavlovna (born 1951).

In Russia, an organization called the Osho Movement is widely known.

Her followers study the teachings of the Indian philosopher Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh. The first organization appeared back in 1991 in Ukraine in Kyiv, then it appeared in other cities of the CIS countries, including Russia. What are the followers of this organization doing? This is meditation according to the Osho system, the treatment of various diseases and astrology.

The question immediately arises, what is "Osho"? Translated from Old Japanese: "o" - with great respect, love, gratitude, harmony; "sho" - expansion of consciousness and blessings, existence.

This organization is included in the list of religious groups and destructive religious organizations of Eastern orientation. You should be careful and thoroughly study the information about the activities and reviews of knowledgeable people.

Also, this movement appears under a different name " The only religion". Calling himself "Oh founder of the One Religion» Rajneesh was an enlightened master for some and a notorious destroyer of ancient Indian traditions and beliefs, a "spiritual terrorist" and "sex guru" for others.

In Moscow, one of the most active followers of Osho is Popova Natalya Pavlovna. Osho centers are usually led by sannyasins dressed in red and orange robes. These movements were formed in 22 countries, including the USA, India, England, France, Canada, Japan, Russia and other countries.
In Russia, in such cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg and Voronezh, they have been operating since 1996 under the name " Tantra Yoga «.

It is authentically known that the cult (represented by Popova N.P.. and other members of the group) conducted classes at secondary school No. 984 in Moscow. There is no exact data on the number of followers in Russia. It is only known that there are about 35 followers of Rajneesh in Voronezh.

Center locations

Headquarters of the Shosh movement - OSHO Commune International, 17 Koregaoh Park, Poona 411011 MS India.

Osho Centers, led by sannyasins dressed in red and orange robes, have been established in 22 countries, including the USA, India, England, France, Canada, Japan, Russia and other countries.

In Russia - in St. Petersburg, Voronezh (in force since 1996 under the name " Tantra Yoga") and Moscow.

It is known that the organization (represented by Popova N.P. and others) conducted classes at secondary school No. 984 in Moscow.

The number of adherents of the fraudster Guru Osho Rajneesh

By 1984 Guru OSHO Rajneesh collected about 350 thousand followers, whose average age was 34 years.

There are no exact data for Russia. It is only known that in Voronezh there are 30-35 followers of Rajneesh and their number throughout the country is steadily growing.

The followers of Osho in Russia are now much more orthodox Christians in all of India. Osho was a living Buddha who came to earth. Osho's teachings have always caused a storm of passions of love and acceptance, as well as attacks and rejection. In any case, there are no indifferent people to Osho.

People united by the same views often communicate with each other, hold joint events. The Russian portal of Osho even appeared in Russia. It contains a lot of interesting information about the Osho system, about his history. People can communicate with each other via the Internet. Also there you can see announcements about new camps, trainings, various seminars or just about rest for all like-minded people.

Even an ordinary person who does not share Osho's views, you can go and see all the materials located there. If you are just interested, you can take part in one of the camps Osho adherents and get to know the people and the teachings better.
There is also a dating service, there are many photo reports about ashrams and travels.

Dynamic Meditation in India - humble soviem without debauchery

Doctrine of Osho Rajneesh

Rajneesh teachings is a mixture of Tantrism with self-made revelations and the delirium of Rajneesh himself. , which occupies a special position in Hinduism, is the path of permissiveness. Before Christianity spread to India, Tantrism reached a level of brutality, cruelty, sorcery and prejudice that is often incomprehensible to modern consciousness. In its grossest forms, it includes .

Osho teachings- The topic is complex and far from unambiguous. This teaching captivates both ordinary citizens (oh, who among us does not dream of love - huge and all-encompassing?), And famous people. So, for example, in the media, there is information that Osho Rajneesh is fond of the teachings. She stated at a press conference in Yaroslavl that she would learn slowness and a special look at the surrounding reality from Osho.

However, this is not surprising, because Osho Rajneesh, the founder of the doctrine of meditation as a universal method of comprehending life, spoke many times in his speeches about homosexuality. These thoughts have been transformed over time, and at the moment are most accurately reflected in the lectures. "About men: all about the modern man «.

Proceedings of Osho(books without a logical idea and meaning, as well as outright plagiarism and census of old books) are actively purchased by gays and lesbians in retail outlets belonging to the brand " Indigo". So what is it all the same: unbridled sex without restrictions or the great love of everyone for everyone and everything?

However, the followers and faithful students of Osho Rajneesh are fierce opponents of the point of view that this is a doctrine of sexual tolerance and permissiveness, they believe that sex, correctly understood and accepted in the soul, is very, very far from promiscuity.

The central role in the teaching is played by "dynamic meditation" (three phases of intense movement and catharsis result in two phases of calm and relaxation).

« Founder of a single religion» urged his followers

"stop time by plunging into the moment."

He preached "liberation from one's own "I", from conscience. He said that you need to live without thinking about anything, without burdening yourself with thoughts about the past, or the future, or about the family, or about daily bread. And as the only way to do this, he pointed to his system, including meditations, chants, ritual dances, similar to the dances of the first hippies.

“I became my own universe,” Rajneesh explained.

After intense meditation, he was seized by a kind of cosmic despair or an urge to commit suicide: become a god or die! Over time, all questions dissolved and left, and a “great void” was created in his brain. He says that on March 21, 1953, he fell into a featureless, bottomless abyss of nothingness. Obviously, that's exactly what happened. Rajneesh fell into the bottomless abyss of his manic pride and devilish seduction, under the influence of drugs and experienced syphilis.

“I became non-existent,” he admitted. “I felt a huge presence around me in my room… a strong vibration… a huge explosion of light… I was drowning in it… That night the door to another reality opened… the real Reality… It was nameless… but it was there.”

At that moment, something completely alien took possession of Rajneesh.

He himself described it this way:

“That night I died and was born again. But the one who was born had nothing to do with the one who died… The one who died died completely, nothing was left of him… After the explosion, there was only emptiness. Whatever happened before, it wasn't me and it wasn't mine";

“That night another reality opened its door, another dimension became available. This experience shakes you to the core. You can never be the same after such an experience, it will bring new visions into your life, new qualities ”;

“On that day, the twenty-first of March, a person who lived many, many lives, millennia, just died. Another being, absolutely new, not at all connected with the old, began to exist ... I became free from the past, I was torn out of my history, I lost my autobiography. That night I died and I was reborn. But the man who was reborn had nothing to do with the one who died... The man who died died totally; there was nothing left of him ... not even a shadow.

Possessed Imp

The experiences described by Bhagavan Rajneesh are very reminiscent of the process of demons entering a person. The person obsessed with them really becomes completely different. It is obvious that Rajneesh experienced a diabolical initiation that night. Later, members of his family admitted that he was no longer the same person that he used to be.

Just possessed by the Devil - Guru Osho Rajneesh

Researcher Tal Brook claims that Rajneesh is indeed possessed by the devil. He has the quality of a complete possession, a kind of antichrist who is "really connected to the other side of the universe."

Brook tells the story of Ehart Flozer, one of Rajneesh's faithful disciples, who recounted encounters - gang rape, forced sexual partner exchanges, forced homosexuality, abortions, countless deaths and suicides in the Poona community. Female favorites such as Laxmi, Rajneesh's number one witch, were thrown into the streets of India penniless. Others tell stories of satanic communities, spiritual vampirism, souls being robbed of the will to live, countless suicide victims.

“She was crazy about him, crazy with this Rajneesh,” the old nun explained, speaking of Isabella, a Spanish girl from a noble family. - But Rajneesh used her and threw her away. She was a fragile bird, and he crushed her... But she continued to believe in Rajneesh, repeating that it was just a test of her devotion... She ended up in a lunatic asylum in Pune... mumbling all sorts of nonsense... God! I tell you - he is the devil! .

Rajneesh said: "Meditation is a state of pure consciousness without any content." To achieve it, he directly called on his followers to rage - he advised every morning to jump with their hands up, shouting: “Hu! Hu! Hoo!", recommended making faces in front of a mirror, imagining yourself without a head, buzzing through your nose, walking on all fours around the room and growling like a dog, sucking milk from a baby bottle, and generally "being an astronaut of your inner space" .

In the stories about the cult of Rajneesh, it is really about the kingdom of darkness, as it were. They are somewhat similar to the stories of the orgies of the ancient Druids in England, when a huge horned god, sitting on a throne, like the embodiment of evil, contemplated the dirt-covered altar. These people who exalt themselves as God are like little antichrists, and whose

“the coming, according to the work of Satan, will be with all power, and lying signs and wonders, and with all unrighteous deceit” (2 Thess. 2:9, 10).

Any traditional religion brings light, kindness with it, but Rajneesh, realizing to whom he sold his soul, associated himself exclusively with death. He later recalled:

“Loneliness gripped me from the age of 7. Loneliness has become my nature. This death has become for me the death of all attachments. Whenever my relationship with someone started to get intimate, that death stared at me. From that day on, every moment of consciousness of life was invariably associated with the consciousness of death.

To match his inner nature, he spent his gatherings. Meditation at the Rajneesh ashrams includes specific dances where participants are blindfolded, undressed, and put themselves into an ecstatic trance. Hundreds of thousands of residents of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta gathered for his lectures, ending in mass shaking and ripping off clothes. Many times, such "dances" in Rajneesh groups, for example in the USA, ended in group sex.

Here are the words of the adept Rajneesh Ma Prem Paras: “Once you begin to question the mind, sooner or later you will fall into the abyss of meditation.” It is into the abyss of madness and the power of demons that the followers of Rajneesh break down.

No matter what the defenders of this kind of “spirituality” say, it all very much resembles the ritual rites of Satanists.

Those who did not accept his teachings were declared narrow-minded and stupid, while Rajneesh attributed the halo of a “misunderstood genius” to himself: “Many great mystics behaved like fools, and their contemporaries were completely at a loss: how to figure out their life - and the greatest wisdom was present in her. To be wise among you is indeed foolish. Nothing will come of this venture; you'll only create a lot of trouble." This is a very comfortable position in relation to critics. Since you criticize me, it means that you have not yet grown up to my level, which means that you are narrow-minded and unspiritual individuals. But this is pure swindle and megalomania!

The Fake Teachings of Sex Guru Bhagawan Osho Rajneesh

How real the teachings of Rajneesh do not correspond to those false sugary pictures from his life that his followers paint for us can be seen from his following passages:

"Easy life. Don't complicate it with pretense. Nobody urinates. So only in textbooks. Everyone writes - this is life. Love blossoms out of the dirt of sex. Compassion comes from the dirt of anger. And nirvana is from the dirt of this world ”;

“Considering yourself a rooster is crazy; but to consider yourself a human being is even more crazy, because you do not belong to any form ... You belong to the formless ... And until you become formless, nameless, you will never be mentally healthy ”;

"You came to me. You have taken a dangerous step. It's risky, because next to me you can get lost forever. To come closer can only mean death, and nothing else. I look like an abyss";

“I can only help you become nothing. I can only push you into the abyss... into the abyss. You will not achieve anything, you will simply dissolve. You will fall and fall and dissolve, and the moment you dissolve your whole being will experience ecstasy”;

"When I initiate you into sannyas, I initiate you into this nameless, homeless death";

"A real, perfect person ... has no attachments."

Like other sectarians, Rajneesh predicted a very imminent approach to a worldwide catastrophe: “This crisis will begin in 1984 and end in 1999. All types of destruction will reign on earth at this time - from natural disasters to suicide by the achievements of science. In other words, floods not seen since the time of Noah, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and everything possible will be given to us by nature ... There will be wars that will bring humanity to the brink of nuclear war, but Noah's ark will not save it. Rajneeshism is the Noah's ark of consciousness, a corner of calm in the center of a typhoon... The catastrophe will be global and inevitable. It will not be possible to hide from it only in my teaching.

In early 1984, Rajneesh expanded on his prediction of an alleged catastrophe to come, noting that Nostradamus' prophecy would be fulfilled and AIDS would kill 2/3 of the world's population. At the same time, he declared to his followers: “I will not say that the Rajneeshists will survive the catastrophe, but I can say with absolute certainty that those who survive will be Rajneeshists, and the rest will be monkeys (that is, not grown up to the level of the Rajneesh “superman”, - ed.) or commit suicide. In the end, the rest don't matter."

Unlike other gurus who preach self-denial, Rajneesh immediately became known as the sex guru of India, preaching complete renunciation of oneself through absolute indulgence to one's desires. He frankly calls for premarital sexual relations, "open" marriages and the destruction of the family, free sex. "Suppression is a word that should not be in a sannyasin's vocabulary," was his ad in Time magazine. Rajneesh encouraged tantric (sexual) yoga, ecstatic dancing, stripping, and even drug use as a means of meditation. Sterilization of women as an anti-pregnancy remedy is also a common practice. “The path to desirelessness lies through desire,” Rajneesh instructed his followers.

“Develop your sexuality, don't repress yourself! he called. - Love is the beginning of everything. If you miss the beginning, there will be no end for you ... I do not inspire orgies, but I do not forbid them either. Everyone decides for himself."

Rajneesh wrote: “When in meditation you have a moment of enlightenment, a glimpse of some kind of ecstasy, let it happen, let it penetrate into the depths of you and delve into it yourself.” Usually, when Rajneesh's henchmen were brought to a state of ecstasy, people committed such indecencies that they were later afraid to remember. But they just believed Rajneesh and followed his advice.

The “love” preached by Rajneesh in practice turned out to be the most unbridled sex without any restrictions, including group sex. That is why he was nicknamed the "sex guru".

However, the students and followers of Rajneesh vehemently object to this view. Thus, Swami Satya Vedanta wrote: “Bhagavan does not teach 'free sex' or sexual tolerance as misunderstood. On the contrary, he declares in no uncertain terms that sex, properly understood, has nothing to do with promiscuity.

The resolution of this dispute can be found in Osho's quote on the topic of sex, which quite clearly and unambiguously reflects the clear position of Rajneesh on this issue:

“Sex exists everywhere, it is nothing, it is not at all mysterious. If you want to understand sex, it is enough to understand animal sex, and everything that is applicable to sex in animals is also applicable to man. In this sense, a person is nothing more";

“There is nothing sinful about pure simple sex ... There is no need to hide it behind the beautiful word “love”. There is no need to create a romantic fog around him” (, p. 5);

“It has to be a pure phenomenon: the two feel at this moment that they would like to connect on a deeper level, that's all. No obligation, no duty, no obligation in this. Sex should be full of play and prayer” (, p.6);

“I give you complete freedom. My efforts are here only to help you go beyond that; thus, if you are homosexual, you must go beyond homosexuality; if you are heterosexual, you must go beyond heterosexuality” (, p. 50);

“A baby in a crib plays with his genitals, and the mother comes in and removes his hands. Now this is a shock to the child; he becomes afraid to touch his own genitals. And it's so nice to touch them ... it's so relaxing. By touching them, the child achieves a non-sexual orgasm; it's just a pleasure. The natural urge to touch the genitals, to play with them is so beautiful” (, p. 55);

“When sex becomes connected, merged with comprehension, a completely new energy is born - this energy is called Tantra ... Real Tantra is not a technique, but love. This is not a technique, but a prayer… You can stay in a tantric connection for hours… The mantra is focused on a different kind of orgasm… A tantric orgasm can be called an orgasm of the valley” (, p.70-74);

“Normal sexual orgasm looks like crazy, tantric orgasm is a deep, relaxed meditation… Tantric love act can be done as many times as you want… Just keep playing and don’t think about sexual intercourse at all. It may or may not happen” (, pp.76-77).

Not only the preaching of freedom of sexual life attracted Rajneesh. “Every sannyasi,” he wrote, “must make a great contribution, for we are trying to realize a great dream in which all religions can meet, in which the earth can become our home - not divided into nations, races and skin colors.” This dream will be realized by the followers of Rajneesh - "enlightened" or going to "enlightenment".

The Ashrams of Rajneesh became nurseries and incubators for the "new people of the new world". And, of course, only Guru Bhagwan will help them to show the path to "enlightenment". "Everyone has the potential to become God... God is a state of consciousness... it is a way of enjoying life right here and now." "Enlightenment" is a leap into the unknown, and in order to make it, you need to surrender with your whole soul to Bhagwan, remove the mental barriers in front of him.

"When you become a disciple, when I initiate you... I'm just trying to help you find yourself."

Osho propagated the ideal of a new man as a person capable of enjoying a full-blooded physical life and at the same time reaching the heights of the spirit. He called such a person Zorba-Buddha, choosing Buddha as a symbol of the soul, and Zorba as a symbol of the body (Zorba is the hero of one of the novels of the Greek writer Kazantzakis, endowed with a huge potential for love of life).

The pseudo-guru said: “Live the life of a Zorba completely, and you will naturally enter the life of a Buddha… The Zorba is only the beginning… The Zorba is an arrow. If you follow it correctly, it will lead to the Buddha ... Sooner or later, when you allow your Zorba to achieve full self-expression, there will be nothing left for you but to look for something higher, more perfect and majestic. ”

Osho taught his students not to suppress the Zorba. Live intensely, he urged, reject nothing, accept and explore everything: matter and spirit, soul and body, love and meditation. “Go deep into all the experiences of life,” Osho said.

Assigning himself the strange title of "Man of the Planet" Rajneesh repeatedly spoke hostilely about traditional religions: "We are making a revolution ... I burn old scriptures, destroy traditions ... Shoot me, but I will not convert to your faith." He called all orthodox religions "anti-life."

“I am the founder of a single religion,” Rajneesh declared, “other religions are a hoax. Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha simply corrupted people... My teaching is based on knowledge, on experience. People don't have to believe me. I explain my experience to them. If they find it right, they accept it. If not, then they have no reason to believe in him.

Representatives of new religious movements in Russia are literally obsessed with the requirements of respect for their organizations and teachings. At the same time, in most cases, they themselves consider it quite acceptable to offend the religious feelings of believers of traditional religions, who make up the majority of the Russian population.

What Rajneesh said and wrote was in no way respectful. This is nothing but insults and incitement of inter-religious hatred:

“Any religion that sees life as meaningless and teaches you to hate it is not a true religion. Religion is an art that shows how to live life. But these shops, which have appropriated the name of religions, do not want the person to become truly religious, because then there will be no need for a priest”;

“All the religions of the past are for the sake of life, none for the sake of the living, none for the sake of laughter. No religion perceives a sense of humor as a property of religiosity. That is why I say that my religion is the first religion that considers man in his totality, in his naturalness, perceives man as a whole, as he is. Holiness doesn't mean something sacred to me, but something accepted in its entirety... It's the first religion that doesn't reject anything from your life. She accepts you as a whole, as you are, and finds ways and methods to make the whole more harmonious ... ";

“All religions have become politics. They use religious terminology, but there is politics behind it all. What is Islam? What is Hinduism? What is Christianity? They are all political groups, political organizations doing politics under the guise of religion... The Temple is no more. The temple has disappeared, it has become politics”;

“Christian priests have been trained for two thousand years, but not a single Jesus has come out of them, and not a single one will ever come out, because you cannot teach to be Jesus. You cannot produce Jesus in a factory. And these are factories, these theological colleges. There you release priests, and if these priests are downright boring, dead, burdensome, then it is not difficult to understand that the whole religion will become the same ... Of course, these Christian priests are dead, everything is planned for them ”;

“A truly religious person cannot be a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist. Religion is absolutely useless. Well, what is the use of the temple? What is the use of the mosque? Why do we need churches? ;

“If this land ever reaches true religiosity, then we will stop teaching Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism - for this is one of the most serious sins in the world.”

He also had bad relations with Hinduism. In India, he is better known as "Ngariya" Rajneesh - a fierce teacher who destroyed ancient myths and beliefs, traditions and teachings. “I teach extreme rebellion,” he declared. “If we want to change society, we must be extremely honest and truthful, we must speak out against it.” Many years ago, at the Second Hindu Religious Congress, where the head of Hinduism, Shankaracharya, chaired, the views of Rajneesh caused strong irritation of representatives of the main currents of official Hinduism, who after that diligently dissociated themselves from him.

Characteristics of Pseudo-Guru Osho Rajneesh

The infamous destroyer of ancient Indian traditions and beliefs, "spiritual terrorist" and "sex guru" Rajneesh was born on December 11, 1931 in a Jain family, adherents of one of the ancient religions of India, in the remote village of Kuchvada in the province of Madhya Pradesh, in Central India. His parents named him Rajneesh Chandra Mohan.

Later, this person became known as Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh (or Rajneesh), which translates as "that blessed one who is God", or Osho ("oceanic", "dissolved in the ocean"). His disciples called him: "acharya" ("teacher") and "bhagwan" (which means "holy man" in Sanskrit).

Rajneesh was the eldest of his five sisters and seven brothers. His childhood was overshadowed by the fact that his father, unlucky in business, was often on the road. Rajneesh's father was replaced by his grandfather, to whom he was very attached.

He spent the first seven years of his life with his grandparents, who gave him complete freedom to be himself. The death of his grandfather, whom he loved very much, had a profound effect on his inner life.

From early childhood, Rajneesh, who declared that he came to enlightenment, completing the fast he started 700 years ago in another life, was obsessed with the idea of ​​​​death.

“Death took a long look at me before life began,” he muses. “Loneliness has become my essence.”

A Hindu astrologer told Rajneesh's parents that the boy would "die" every 7 years until he was 21. It is then that he will finally experience sudden enlightenment. When Rajneesh was 7 years old, his grandfather died; At 14, he almost drowned himself. To the ups and downs of fate, he actively added his own stupidity - he threw himself from high bridges into swift whirlpools, where a rotating funnel of water sucked him in and then carried him back. In such a strange way, he wanted to prove his theory of "cooperation with divine providence in all things."

Osho Rajneesh - communes and communism

In his youth, his greatest passion was reading, but he read quite specific literature for the future guru. During this period he was dubbed a communist (!), because he intensively read Marx and Engels. He even organized a circle of young people, where communist ideology was regularly discussed and opposition to religion expressed. He and his friends believed that socialism would solve all of India's economic problems. At this time, he is an atheist, openly criticizing religious rituals and blind faith in holy scriptures. But gradually there was a disappointment in socialist ideas. Rajneesh realized that he would not receive any dividends here, and announced to his associates in the Marxist circle:

"Only a revolution in consciousness, and not in politics, can bring peace and happiness."

This transition from infatuation with communism to the birth of the idea of ​​creating one's own religion took place sometime between 1945-1950.

Rajneesh was the son of relatively wealthy parents, so he could afford to get a good higher education. In 1957 he graduated from the university and received a diploma with honors, a gold medal and a master's degree in philosophy. After that, he taught philosophy at two Indian universities from 1957 to 1966.

Later, he also tried his hand at occult magic, telekinesis and yoga breath control. He began to travel a lot in India and preach. He wandered on foot and rode a donkey, telling everyone how they can change and be transformed in order to survive. According to his student, who later found the strength to leave this sect, Eckart Floser, in an interview with Forward magazine, Rajneesh's sermons were not very successful, and by 1970 he was nothing more than a tired, poor man, who, however, was very much mistaken, believing that he owns a certain gift and power.

Since 1969, Rajneesh began to initiate his first students, giving them new names and a medallion with his image. In Bombay he decided to create a group of people whom he could begin to teach. Gradually, he overgrown with his students, the room where he lived, no longer contained them.

I am looking for spiritual students, seekers and the rich, please do not disturb the poor!

Then in 1974, Rajneesh moved to the rich Indian city of Pune (120 miles south of Bombay). During this same period, he organized his own neo-Sannyasin international movement. A commune began to form around him, attracting more and more people from the West, "searching for spiritual truth." By the mid-70s, the pseudo-guru was already hosting traveling VIPs, movie stars such as Diana Ross, and even Ruth Carter Stapleton, Jimmy Carter's sister. His bright scarlet-robed sannyasin followers flooded the streets of Poona to the delight of local shopkeepers. A rapidly growing community of 7,000 people soon formed. Countless others made regular visits.

In 1981, Osho came to America, where his followers bought a huge ranch and founded the commune of Rajneeshpuram.

Subsequently, Osho ashrams were formed in other places in India, as well as in 22 more countries, including the USA, England, Germany (in Cologne, Munich, Hamburg), France, Canada, Japan, Russia and a number of other countries. Rajneesh's sermons found their addressees. Up to 50,000 people per year passed through the Pune School of Song and Meditation alone, where the movement's headquarters is located (OSHO Commune International, 17 Koregaoh Park, Poona 411011 MS India). By 1984, Rajneesh gathered about 350 thousand followers, whose average age was 34 years.

Rajneesh's tape-recorded speeches were published and replicated in the form of many books and pamphlets, which were then distributed throughout the world.

Osho Rajneesh Pseudo Guru Centers

Today, more than 500 Rajneesh meditation centers operate around the world. The international meeting place for the followers of this movement is the International Osho Commune in Pune, governed by an elected committee of 11 women and 10 men.

The Osho Commune-owned Multiversity offers hundreds of workshops, groups, and courses presented across its nine departments:

• Osho School of Centering,
• Osho School of Creative Arts,
• Osho International Health Academy,
• Osho Meditation Academy,
• Osho School of Mysticism,
• Osho Tibetan Pulsing Institute,
• Osho Transformation Center,
• Osho School of Zen Martial Arts,
• Osho Academy of Games and Zen Training.

Belonging to the Osho movement, at least until 1985, was symbolized by a kind of clothing (sunrise colors: red, orange, pink), a wooden chain on which hangs an amulet with the image of Osho and a new name.

Osho movements in the CIS and former USSR countries

In the CIS countries, groups on meditation, astrology, and psycho-training have been created in organizations of the Osho movement. In Belarus, Rajneeshists operate in Minsk, in Ukraine - in Kyiv and Odessa, in Georgia - in Tbilisi, in Latvia - in Riga.

In Russia, Osho's followers created their own organizations in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh (operated since 1996 under the name Tantra Yoga, 30-40 followers), Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Kaliningrad, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar and other cities.

In Moscow, the Rajnishevsky Meditation Center "ATMA" operates under the leadership of Soldatov A.V. and Kosikhina V.S., Osho Moscow Center, "Eastern House" under the leadership of Marikhin and other groups of followers of Rajneesh.

Rajneeshists are also actively infiltrating Russian schools. It is known that the Rajneeshists some time ago conducted their classes at secondary school No. 984 in Moscow.

Osho Center conducts regular seminars. In May 1997, the following programs were offered to those who participated in the “Touching Tantra” seminar: “practical tantra yoga, pair exercises, breathing techniques, various tantric techniques, working with chakras, working with the body, ... overcoming barriers in choosing partners, overcoming difficulties in communication between a man and a woman, ... Tarot cards.

Since recently, the Yamskoye Pole Moscow club has been hosting a “meditation disco” every Sunday, where you can not only dance, but also roll on the floor, make faces, yell, jump, bark and whistle. The disco is held by the head of the association "Eastern House" Swami Anand Toshan (in the world - Igor Marihin). Toshan completed a course of study at the Multiversity in Pune and received a spiritual initiation - sannyas. After that, he returned to Russia and began to translate the books of Rajneesh into Russian. Then, together with several friends, he traveled around the country, preaching the teachings of the Master at seminars and lectures. Toshan called his group “Osho Gypsies”, because he had to spend several years “on wheels”. Having recruited followers, Toshan founded the East House center, which includes an Indian dance school, an art studio, meditation training and an Osho disco.

Rajneesh assigned a large role to ecstatic dance - spontaneous movements without worked out steps and memorized positions.

“The body is forgotten, only movement remains. Feel like a tree in the rain in a strong wind.

Therefore, everything is allowed at the Osho disco that does not interfere with others. You can, for example, remove everything from yourself. Or, conversely, wear the most exotic clothes. The role of the DJ at the console is performed by Toshan himself. He looks at the dancers and, depending on their mood, puts on certain music. He did not forbid arranging sexual orgies during such "dances".

As reported in the press from the founding of the Pune center, some visitors to the commune returned with stories of sex orgies and drug use in the Osho communities. Some researchers believe that the word “orgies” is hardly applicable to Osho’s practices, since Rajneesh does not divide the manifestations of life into positive and negative, like many Hindu cults, in Osho’s doctrine, the concepts of good and evil are blurred.

One of the spiritual practices widely used in the Rajneesh cult is the so-called "dynamic meditation". It is explained that allegedly with her help

“the consequences of previous life experience are removed, energy is acquired.”

Each session begins with chaotic breathing to the beat of a drum. Due to the hyperventilation of the lungs accompanying such breathing, a person gets drunk from excess oxygen. He is advised to scream, roll on the floor, make any involuntary movements. The special state experienced by the person is explained as something mysterious, possible only due to some secret that the guru possesses. In fact, according to Professor Dr. Margaret Theiler Singer (University of California), this phenomenon has a clear physiological explanation and is nothing more than a trick.

In the cult of Rajneesh, professional psychotherapists worked together with the guru. Leaders inspire people that the person himself is to blame for his previous painful condition, since he allegedly was inadequate in his behavior. After a few days of "cure" people lose the ability to think for themselves, they become people without their own biography, "existing here and now." Now they are ready to accept the "new doctrine". Gurus are especially emotionally perceived by female followers, they are the majority in the sect. The religious rite looks something like this. Rajneesh shouts out the words: “Life! Death! Despair! Happiness!". They mix, and ultimately it means - "nothing". This mumbling brings students into a trance, similar to meditation. In this state, a person has practically no prudence, a person is out of reality.

Among the meditation practices offered to adepts developed by Osho, there is one called “Die Consciously”.

Becoming a sannyasin (monk) in the cult of Rajneesh, a person completely loses his own will. Therefore, sannyasins can only exist in groups, obeying the will of the leader. The cult of Rajneesh, at least for his American followers, is characterized by a special fanatical devotion of adherents, even against the background of other destructive cults. For example, when Rajneesh hinted that a woman burdened with children cannot achieve enlightenment, many female sannyasins were sterilized right there in the Laguna Beach cult center.

In his cult rites, Rajneesh often introduced his adherents into a state of nirvana (translated from Sanskrit as "bliss", "enlightenment") with the help of drugs, and individual meditation sessions in the ashrams of the "holy man" ended in fights and stabbings. There were cases when sectarians, maddened by Bhagwan's lamentations and drugs, broke each other's arms and legs.

Psychiatry and psycho followers of Osho Rajneesh

Psychiatrist Betty Tilden(Great Britain) believes that without the help of medicine, the adherents of the Rajneesh cult are not able to return to normal life. The psychotherapists who worked for Rajneesh were cold, calculating and ruthless people. For Rajneesh, the life and health of his followers were worth nothing:

“I am not interested in your possibilities. If you feel bad, then it should be so. All this is done in the name of love ... ".

According to a journalist from Munich, he is familiar with a dozen former followers of Rajneesh, who were completely mentally destroyed after they left the sect. Here are just two examples of such consequences.

Hamburg musician, 26 years old. Cannot find contact with reality, instantly forgets everything he just said, says, "he has absolutely no energy."

Nurse from Berlin, 29 years old. Suffered from "withdrawal". After leaving the sect, she could not think consistently and committed suicide.

Those who have joined the destructive teachings and practices of Rajneesh eventually become a kind of zombie. A thirty-year-old Perm doctor - a follower of Rajneesh - once said: “My inner experience, the spiritual joy I experienced, testify that the path to true freedom lies through the liberation of a person from the voice of conscience. The voice of conscience in a person is the voice of the devil, which once again confirmed that this organization can be quite confidently classified as potentially the most dangerous in terms of possible participation in the organization of anti-social actions, including terrorist acts.

And this is not surprising, for Rajneesh achieves the complete elimination of all doubts and the mind itself from his followers:

“The mind is like a disease… When there is a mind, you are always caught. The mind rapes you, forces you, you are its prisoner... Meditation is throwing the mind out, it is freeing yourself from the burden. You don't need to carry all your excrement with you, otherwise you will get dumber and dumber";

"The mind is the deadest thing in you... The mind is as dead a part as the hair... The human mind is a monkey";

“Both the one and the other: both the hair and the mind are dead, do not carry them around. It will be wonderful! Make sure that dead particles do not accumulate in you ... Mind is a dead part of you, it is excrement ”;

“Meditation is nothing but emptying, becoming nothing. Emptiness should be your path, goal, everything. From tomorrow morning, start emptying yourself of everything that you find inside ... - everything that you find, just throw it away. Everything that turns up, indiscriminately; empty yourself";

“When the mind is needed, use it like a mechanical device; when you're not using it, set it aside and forget about it. Then become useless and do something useless - and you will begin to live a full happy life ”;

"If you become aware, ugliness, ugliness appears."

Many of his followers "hooked on the needle", becoming drug addicts. “Among my patients were many people from the entourage of Bhagwan, who healed in Pune,” said Professor Claude Olivenstein, director of the Marmotan drug treatment center in Paris. According to the words of the former guru's ward, Time magazine stated that there were cases when sectarians, mad from the rituals of the sect and from drugs, broke each other's legs and arms.

Mikhail Medvedev and Tatyana Kalashnikova, researchers of the harm of meditative practices for human health, wrote: “In the Hindu-occult immersion in the supersensible and in the Christian spiritual life, we have, according to the remarkable researcher of the history of religions L.A. Tikhomirov, “two completely different psycho-spiritual processes that from beginning to end they follow different paths.

A person who follows the path of yogic-occult practice first plunges himself into somnambulistic passivity and causes the soul to disintegrate into separate parts. Having brought himself into a state in which no action is possible, he imagines, by an effort of his disintegrated will, to force the secret of his content from the supersensible. This is the practice of false images and visions, in which the human spirit is even more blinded and drawn into the trap of unusual sensations, from which it cannot free itself. All occult-yogic paths, despite their external diversity, are united in their spiritual essence. Tal Brook, a former initiate of another neo-Hindu guru, Sathya Sai Baba, after visiting Pune, described his impressions as follows:

“The object of horror and adoration in the media, Rajneesh created the image of a “new man” who rejects all norms and traditions. Man, according to Rajneesh, is a hedonistic god who does not depend on anything (except from the inner voice of Rajneesh) and is free to give the cosmos any appearance depending on his desire. This is the dominant pleasure-seeker, existing in himself, owing nothing to anyone. The family is cursed, children are a burden. Bye " neosannyasin"has money, he's wildly having fun. Then interest in him disappears. Murders, rapes, mysterious disappearances, threats, arson, explosions, abandoned children" Ashram members begging on the streets of Pune, drugs are all the rage among the marvelous hybrids in red who consider themselves the audacious pioneers of a new meaning of 'love'.

The Christians working in the Pune Psychiatric Hospital will confirm everything that has been said, not forgetting to mention the high level of mental disorders associated with the fact that the ashram has taken political power into its own hands and there is no one to complain about it.”

In early 1981, there were reports of a threat to Rajneesh's life. A strict regime was introduced in the ashram, everyone entering was searched for weapons. A store was set on fire, and an explosion occurred near the ashram's medical center. According to the cult, the attack on the guru in February forced the ashram administration to speed up the search for a new headquarters that had already begun.

India Today

According to India Today magazine, "Pune police and authorities are unanimous in their opinion that the incidents were instigated by followers of Rajneesh" because "the last two weeks of investigation have shown that the Rajneesh Foundation is up to its neck in unpaid taxes, misappropriation of donations for charitable purposes , thefts and in criminal cases against members of the sect, the investigation of which had not been completed by the time she left the city.

In 1981, the government of Indira Gandhi stripped Bhagwan's ashram of the right to be considered a religious organization. The US Consulate in Bombay issued a visa to Rajneesh, and on June 1, 1981, having sold the property of the ashram and taking 17 of his most devoted students with him, he secretly flew to New York. After Rajneesh left Pune, his adherents spread throughout the West, setting out to found "holy cities" throughout Europe, which were planned to be self-sustaining and which were supposed to become an alternative to society, being examples of "sannyas". In the US, efforts have been made to create a model of a "holy city" run by the "teacher" himself. On July 10, 1981, the Chidvilas Rajneesh Meditation Center in Montclair, New Jersey, purchased the Big Magdy Ranch from an investment company in Amarillo, Texas, for $6 million (of which $1.5 million was in cash). Its territory near Madras (Oregon) covers more than 100 square miles. The center was also able to lease 14,889 acres in the same area from the American Bureau of Land Management.

Soon, two hundred followers of Rajneesh from 16 European countries gathered in Big Magdi to enthusiastically welcome the teacher in his new home in September. After some time, the intentions to build "the first enlightened city in America" ​​under the name of Rajneeshpuram (the city of Rajneesh) were made public. On November 4, 1981, the Vasco County Commission voted by a double margin to hold a referendum in May 1982 on whether the Big Magdi farm could be considered a city. In such cases, only local residents vote, and in this case, the followers of Rajneesh, and it was not difficult to predict the result: 154 votes for the appearance of the city of Rajneeshpuram and not a single one against.

Big Magdy Ranch

In a short time, in the dusty steppe of Oregon, not far from the provincial town of Enteloop, on the abandoned Big Magdy Ranch, an oasis of Western civilization was created: an airfield, a comfortable hotel with a casino, shopping streets, restaurants. Roads were laid with special buses plying along the routes indicated by the “holy man”. This "miracle" was created by the work of 6,000 adherents of Rajneesh, as well as with the money of 500,000 so-called adept-tourists, who live far from the guru, but who regularly came to Oregon to communicate with their leader and transferred impressive sums to his account.

From the beginning, the cult's attempts to create a paradise in the Oregon desert met with fierce opposition. The legitimacy of the new city was questioned for two reasons: first, the separation clause of the state and church was violated, and second, the Vasco County Commission's referendum decision violated the state's land use laws. There was a threat of dismantling most of the buildings. As a precaution against the decision to dismantle Rajneeshpuram and to show that the organization has influence among municipal services and authorities, the Rajneeshists officially occupied the nearby township, deciding to rename it from Entelope to Rajneesh.

Taking advantage of the fact that, according to local law, it is enough to live in the state for 22 days to get the right to vote in local elections, the guru decided to increase the number of voters in Entelope at the expense of his followers. In New York, San Francisco and other major cities in the United States, Bhagwan's supporters began to invite alcoholics, vagabonds, and drug addicts to the ashram. All this continued until the election of the mayor of the town. The operation "share the dwelling with your neighbor", carried out by Rajneesh, thus gathered 3,500 people in the city of Rajneesh. Bhagwan's followers voted for the right person's guru and Enteloup was renamed Rajneesh.

Most of the forty original inhabitants of Entelope, mostly elderly, were subjected to constant surveillance by the police force of sannyasins, were taxed in favor of the sect and were forced to contemplate a nudist beach established by the city council full of Rajneeshists in the city park. They chose to give up and leave the city. The city grew as the followers of Rajneesh bought up existing houses and built new ones.

Rajneesh Foundation International

Meanwhile, the American Immigration Service continued its investigation on suspicion of violating immigration laws and relevant criminal regulations by members of the organization " Rajneesh Foundation International". More than 30 Rajneeshists, including the leadership, were suspected of fictitious marriages of US citizens with foreign citizens. By the way, the residency requirement of Rajneesh himself was also in great doubt, and the American Immigration Service hoped to prove that he received a visa by exaggerating the severity of his illness.

Homeless people and alcoholics, having done their job, could leave. The order to disperse the suspicious company was given to the personal guard of the guru, and he was guarded by a whole detachment of specially trained militants armed not only with small arms, but also with helicopters (there was even at least one combat helicopter with missiles).

Osho at the head of the killers or revived nightmares - the messiahs of Rajneesh

However, the vagabonds were in no hurry to leave the city of Rajneesh proclaimed by them. They were not going to work for the guru either. Reluctantly, the guru was forced to agree that they remain among his flock. But soon strange events began to occur in the vicinity of the newly-made Rajneeshpuram-Rajneesh. Several times the state police had to investigate crimes very similar in style: people seemed to fall asleep, killed by an unknown poison. Moreover, all the victims were from among the recently appeared adherents of Osho, who took part in the vote. Their corpses were found in different places, but not in the Rajneeshpuram e.

The police understandably suspected the guru and his associates. Sensing danger, Rajneesh did not find anything more witty than to withdraw from secular affairs and take a vow of silence. I must say that he didn’t really deal with “secular affairs” anyway, for that he had an army of sectarian slaves.

While Rajneesh retired from the affairs of the commune, taking a vow of silence, a group of his closest assistants committed lawlessness. Major financial scandals in the leadership of the organization became known.

Sheila Silverman

For four years the pseudo-saint was silent. His faithful follower Shila Silverman became the mediator of his communication with the world. She ran the ashram effectively with a hard hand, regularly collected tribute from the sectarians, and of course provided publicity for the reluctant silent man who continued to issue pamphlets calling for "freedom through sexuality."

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Sheela personally led the ashram army, numbering about 100 people in its ranks. When the surrounding farmers tried to call on the inhabitants of Rajneeshpuram to observe Christian morality, or at least the elementary norms of human society, Sheela threatened to kill fifteen farmers for every single follower of Rajneesh, declaring that soon the whole of Oregon would be called Rajneeshpuram: “To achieve this, I am ready every bulldozer going to the demolition of this world, paint it with your blood!” . Under the influence of public opinion, the police, and then the FBI, opened a case against the Bhagwan sect. Rajneesh decided to speak, but it was already too late.

About four dozen FBI investigators were investigating directly in Rajneeshpuram. They discovered arms depots, laboratories for the production of drugs, which were regularly added to food for sectarians. During the searches, they found a carefully camouflaged underground passage for the escape of the guru in case of emergency.

On October 27, 1985, the FBI arrested Rajneesh at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Bhagwan's own plane had landed to refuel. Rajneesh and eight of his associates allegedly flew to Bermuda.

Exposing the chief priestess of Osho - Sheela Silverman

Shortly before the exposure of the "high priestess" Sheila Silverman, who sensed that clouds were gathering over her, considered it good to move with her personal guards and her next husband to Western Europe. While the pseudo-saint sounded the alarm and gathered his thinned ranks, Sheela withdrew $55 million from the ashram's Swiss bank account and disappeared. What kind of accusations Bhagwan did not put forward against his recent associate. He yelled that Sheela had tried to poison the life of the "saint's" personal doctor, made an attempt on the life of the guru himself, killed vagabonds, whose bodies the police found in the surrounding fields ... The "high priestess" was also not inactive. When Interpol tracked down Sheela and her gang in Stuttgart, Silverman willingly told about all the ins and outs of Rajneesh's real activities.

A brief trial of Osho and his sect

The brief trial, held in Portland, Oregon, ended on November 14, 1985. Rajneesh was found guilty on two counts of the federal indictment. The US government structures decided to deport Rajneesh from the country, so he received a purely symbolic punishment: ten years of suspended imprisonment plus a fine of 300 thousand dollars. The criminal pseudo-guru was ordered to collect all his belongings and leave the territory of the United States within five days. The FBI supervised his departure.

In mid-1986, Rajneesh returned to India. Within a few months, the commune in Pune resumed and expanded its psychotherapeutic and meditation programs, which was reflected in the word "Multiversity", which Rajneesh chose as a common name for his teachings and practices.

By the end of the 80s, Rajneesh's health had deteriorated significantly. In the last months before his death, if his health allowed, Rajneesh went out to his students for "meditation of music and silence", and then they watched videos of his previous conversations.

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