111 Facts About Rajneesh

1.

Rajneesh was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader during his life.

2.

Rajneesh rejected institutional religions, insisting that spiritual experience could not be organized into any one system of religious dogma.

3.

Rajneesh experienced a spiritual awakening in 1953 at the age of 21.

4.

In 1970, Rajneesh spent time in Mumbai initiating followers known as "neo-sannyasins".

5.

In 1974, Rajneesh relocated to Pune, where an ashram was established and a variety of therapies, incorporating methods first developed by the Human Potential Movement, were offered to a growing Western following.

6.

That year, Rajneesh was deported from the United States on separate immigration-related charges in accordance with an Alford plea bargain.

7.

Rajneesh's teachings have had an impact on Western New Age thought, and their popularity reportedly increased between the time of his death and 2005.

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8.

Rajneesh was profoundly affected by his grandfather's death, and again by the death of his childhood girlfriend Shashi from typhoid when he was 15, leading to a preoccupation with death that lasted throughout much of his childhood and youth.

9.

Rajneesh became critical of traditional religion, took an interest in many methods to expand consciousness, including breath control, yogic exercises, meditation, fasting, the occult, and hypnosis.

10.

Rajneesh, according to his uncle Amritlal, formed a group of young people that regularly discussed communist ideology and their opposition to religion.

11.

Rajneesh became briefly associated with socialism and two Indian nationalist organisations: the Indian National Army and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

12.

In 1951, aged 19, Rajneesh began his studies at Hitkarini College in Jabalpur.

13.

Rajneesh began speaking in public at the annual Sarva Dharma Sammelan held at Jabalpur, organised by the Taranpanthi Jain community into which he was born, and participated there from 1951 to 1968.

14.

Rajneesh later said, he became spiritually enlightened on 21 March 1953, when he was 21 years old, in a mystical experience while sitting under a tree in the Bhanvartal garden in Jabalpur.

15.

Rajneesh immediately secured a teaching position at Raipur Sanskrit College, but the vice-chancellor soon asked him to seek a transfer as he considered him a danger to his students' morality, character, and religion.

16.

In parallel to his university job, he travelled throughout India under the name Acharya Rajneesh, giving lectures critical of socialism, Gandhi, and institutional religions.

17.

Rajneesh travelled so much that he would find it difficult to sleep on a normal bed, because he had grown used to sleeping amid the rocking of railway coach berths.

18.

Rajneesh stated that he believed that in India, socialism was inevitable, but fifty, sixty or seventy years hence, India should apply its efforts to first creating wealth.

19.

Rajneesh said that socialism would socialise only poverty, and he described Gandhi as a masochist reactionary who worshipped poverty.

20.

Rajneesh did not regard capitalism and socialism as opposite systems, but considered it disastrous for any country to talk about socialism without first building a capitalist economy.

21.

Rajneesh criticised orthodox Indian religions as dead, filled with empty rituals, oppressing their followers with fears of damnation and promises of blessings.

22.

Rajneesh characterised brahmin as being motivated by self-interest, provoking the Shankaracharya of Puri, who tried in vain to have his lecture stopped.

23.

At a public meditation event in early 1970, Rajneesh presented his Dynamic Meditation method for the first time.

24.

Rajneesh himself was not to be worshipped but regarded as a catalytic agent, "a sun encouraging the flower to open".

25.

Rajneesh had by then, acquired a secretary, Laxmi Thakarsi Kuruwa, who as his first disciple had taken the name Ma Yoga Laxmi.

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26.

Rajneesh raised the money that enabled Rajneesh to stop his travels and settle down.

27.

Rajneesh now traveled rarely, no longer speaking at open public meetings.

28.

Rajneesh spoke at the Pune ashram from 1974 to 1981.

29.

In evening darshans, Rajneesh conversed with individual disciples or visitors and initiated disciples.

30.

Tupe claims that he undertook the attack because he believed Rajneesh to be an agent of the CIA.

31.

Sheela and Rajneesh had discussed the idea of establishing a new commune in the US in late 1980, although he did not agree to travel there until May 1981.

32.

Rajneesh had been diagnosed with a prolapsed disc in early 1981 and treated by several doctors, including James Cyriax, a St Thomas' Hospital musculoskeletal physician and expert in epidural injections flown in from London.

33.

Years later, Rajneesh pleaded guilty to immigration fraud, while maintaining his innocence of the charges that he made false statements on his initial visa application about his alleged intention to remain in the US when he came from India.

34.

Rajneesh's time was allegedly spent mostly in seclusion and he communicated only with a few key disciples, including Ma Anand Sheela and his caretaker girlfriend Ma Yoga Vivek.

35.

Rajneesh lived in a trailer next to a covered swimming pool and other amenities.

36.

Rajneesh gained public notoriety for amassing a large collection of Rolls-Royce cars, eventually numbering 93 vehicles.

37.

Rajneesh had said as early as 1964 that "the third and last war is on the way" and frequently spoke of the need to create a "new humanity" to avoid global suicide.

38.

In March 1984, Sheela announced that Rajneesh had predicted the death of two-thirds of humanity from AIDS.

39.

Sheela later stated that Rajneesh took sixty milligrams of valium each day and was addicted to nitrous oxide.

40.

Rajneesh denied these charges when questioned about them by journalists.

41.

Rajneesh had coached Sheela in using media coverage to her advantage and during his period of public silence he privately stated that when Sheela spoke, she was speaking on his behalf.

42.

Rajneesh had supported her when disputes about her behaviour arose within the commune leadership, but in early 1984, as tension amongst the inner circle peaked, a private meeting was convened with Sheela and his personal house staff.

43.

Devageet claimed Rajneesh warned that Sheela's jealousy of anyone close to him would inevitably make them a target.

44.

Disciples present during the talk remember Rajneesh stating that "I will not leave you under a fascist regime".

45.

Rajneesh spoke almost daily, except for a three-month gap between April and July 1985.

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46.

Rajneesh accused them of having committed serious crimes, most dating back to 1984, and invited the authorities to investigate.

47.

On 30 September 1985, Rajneesh denied that he was a religious teacher.

48.

Rajneesh said he ordered the book-burning to rid the sect of the last traces of the influence of Sheela, whose robes were "added to the bonfire".

49.

Rajneesh had secretly recorded a conversation between Devaraj and Rajneesh "in which the doctor agreed to obtain drugs the guru wanted to ensure a peaceful death if he decided to take his own life".

50.

Rajneesh constantly hated the fact that we had access to Osho.

51.

Rumours of a national guard takeover and a planned violent arrest of Rajneesh led to tension and fears of shooting.

52.

Rajneesh had by all accounts been informed neither of the impending arrest nor the reason for the journey.

53.

In Manali, Rajneesh said that he was interested in buying, for use as a possible new commune site, an atoll in the South Pacific that Marlon Brando was trying to sell.

54.

Rajneesh had been granted a Uruguayan identity card, one-year provisional residency and a possibility of permanent residency, so the party set out, stopping at Madrid, where the plane was surrounded by the Guardia Civil.

55.

Rajneesh was allowed to spend one night at Dakar, then continued to Recife and Montevideo.

56.

Refuelling in Gander and in Madrid, Rajneesh returned to Bombay, India, on 30 July 1986.

57.

In January 1987, Rajneesh returned to the ashram in Pune where he held evening discourses each day, except when interrupted by intermittent ill health.

58.

Rajneesh devised new "meditation therapy" methods such as the "Mystic Rose" and began to lead meditations in his discourses after a gap of more than ten years.

59.

In November 1987, Rajneesh expressed his belief that his deteriorating health was due to poisoning by the US authorities while in prison.

60.

In early 1989, Rajneesh gave a series of some of the longest lectures he had given, titled "Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind", in which he criticised capitalism and spoke of the possibilities of sannyas in Russia.

61.

Rajneesh requested that all trademarks previously branded with "Rajneesh" be rebranded "OSHO".

62.

Rajneesh delivered his last public discourse in April 1989, from then on simply sitting in silence with his followers.

63.

Shortly before his death, Rajneesh suggested that one or more audience members at evening meetings were subjecting him to some form of evil magic.

64.

At age 58, Rajneesh died on 19 January 1990 at the ashram in Pune, India.

65.

Rajneesh's ashes were placed in his newly built bedroom in Lao Tzu House at the ashram in Pune.

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66.

Rajneesh's teachings, delivered through his discourses, were not presented in an academic setting, but interspersed with jokes.

67.

The emphasis was not static but changed over time: Rajneesh revelled in paradox and contradiction, making his work difficult to summarise.

68.

Rajneesh delighted in engaging in behaviour that seemed entirely at odds with traditional images of enlightened individuals; his early lectures in particular were famous for their humour and their refusal to take anything seriously.

69.

Rajneesh spoke on major spiritual traditions including Jainism, Hinduism, Hassidism, Tantrism, Taoism, Sufism, Christianity, Buddhism, on a variety of Eastern and Western mystics and on sacred scriptures such as the Upanishads and the Guru Granth Sahib.

70.

Rajneesh viewed the mind first and foremost as a mechanism for survival, replicating behavioural strategies that have proven successful.

71.

Rajneesh presented meditation not just as a practice, but as a state of awareness to be maintained in every moment, a total awareness that awakens the individual from the sleep of mechanical responses conditioned by beliefs and expectations.

72.

Rajneesh employed Western psychotherapy in the preparatory stages of meditation to create awareness of mental and emotional patterns.

73.

Rajneesh suggested more than a hundred meditation techniques in total.

74.

Rajneesh developed other active meditation techniques, such as the Kundalini "shaking" meditation and the Nadabrahma "humming" meditation, which are less animated, although they include physical activity of one sort or another.

75.

Rajneesh used to organise Gibberish sessions in which disciples were asked to just blabber meaningless sounds, which according to him clears out garbage from mind and relaxes it.

76.

Rajneesh believed such cathartic methods were necessary because it was difficult for modern people to just sit and enter meditation.

77.

Rajneesh emphasised that anything and everything could become an opportunity for meditation.

78.

Rajneesh saw his "neo-sannyas" as a totally new form of spiritual discipline, or one that had once existed but since been forgotten.

79.

Rajneesh thought that the traditional Hindu sannyas had turned into a mere system of social renunciation and imitation.

80.

Rajneesh emphasised complete inner freedom and the responsibility to oneself, not demanding superficial behavioural changes, but a deeper, inner transformation.

81.

Rajneesh said that he was "the rich man's guru" and that material poverty was not a genuine spiritual value.

82.

Rajneesh believed humanity was threatened with extinction due to over-population, impending nuclear holocaust and diseases such as AIDS, and thought many of society's ills could be remedied by scientific means.

83.

Rajneesh said that the new man had to be "utterly ambitionless", as opposed to a life that depended on ambition.

84.

On 1 May 1981, Rajneesh stopped speaking publicly and entered a phase of "silent heart to heart communion".

85.

Rajneesh stated in the first talk he gave after ending three years of public silence on 30 October 1984, that he had gone into silence partly to put off those who were only intellectually following him.

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86.

In reply, Rajneesh said that it was a difficult matter because he was against any kind of commandment, but "just for fun", set out the following:.

87.

Rajneesh has found more acclaim in his homeland since his death than he did while alive.

88.

Over 650 books are credited to Rajneesh, expressing his views on all facets of human existence.

89.

Rajneesh's books are available in more than 60 languages from more than 200 publishing houses and have entered best-seller lists in Italy and South Korea.

90.

Rajneesh continues to be known and published worldwide in the area of meditation and his work includes social and political commentary.

91.

Internationally, after almost two decades of controversy and a decade of accommodation, Rajneesh's movement has established itself in the market of new religions.

92.

Rajneesh's followers have redefined his contributions, reframing central elements of his teaching so as to make them appear less controversial to outsiders.

93.

Rajneesh's ashram in Pune has become the OSHO International Meditation Resort Describing itself as the Esalen of the East, it teaches a variety of spiritual techniques from a broad range of traditions and promotes itself as a spiritual oasis, a "sacred space" for discovering one's self and uniting the desires of body and mind in a beautiful resort environment.

94.

In 2011, a national seminar on Rajneesh's teachings was inaugurated at the Department of Philosophy of the Mankunwarbai College for Women in Jabalpur.

95.

Rajneesh is generally considered one of the most controversial spiritual leaders to have emerged from India in the twentieth century.

96.

Rajneesh became known as the "sex guru" in India, and as the "Rolls-Royce guru" in the United States.

97.

Rajneesh attacked traditional concepts of nationalism, openly expressed contempt for politicians, and poked fun at the leading figures of various religions, who in turn found his arrogance insufferable.

98.

Rajneesh was seen to live "in ostentation and offensive opulence", while his followers, most of whom had severed ties with outside friends and family and donated all or most of their money and possessions to the commune, might be at a mere "subsistence level".

99.

Academic assessments of Rajneesh's work have been mixed and often directly contradictory.

100.

American religious studies professor Hugh B Urban said Rajneesh's teaching was neither original nor especially profound, and concluded that most of its content had been borrowed from various Eastern and Western philosophies.

101.

George Chryssides, on the other hand, found such descriptions of Rajneesh's teaching as a "potpourri" of various religious teachings unfortunate because Rajneesh was "no amateur philosopher".

102.

Rajneesh saw this as a marketing strategy to meet the desires of his audience.

103.

In 2005, Urban observed that Rajneesh had undergone a "remarkable apotheosis" after his return to India, and especially in the years since his death, going on to describe him as a powerful illustration of what F Max Muller, over a century ago, called "that world-wide circle through which, like an electric current, Oriental thought could run to the West and Western thought return to the East".

104.

Clarke said that Rajneesh has come to be "seen as an important teacher within India itself" who is "increasingly recognised as a major spiritual teacher of the twentieth century, at the forefront of the current 'world-accepting' trend of spirituality based on self-development".

105.

Many sannyasins have stated that hearing Rajneesh speak, they "fell in love with him".

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106.

Frances FitzGerald concluded upon listening to Rajneesh in person that he was a brilliant lecturer, and expressed surprise at his talent as a comedian, which had not been apparent from reading his books, as well as the hypnotic quality of his talks, which had a profound effect on his audience.

107.

Rajneesh corresponded to Weber's pure charismatic type in rejecting all rational laws and institutions and claiming to subvert all hierarchical authority, though Urban said that the promise of absolute freedom inherent in this resulted in bureaucratic organisation and institutional control within larger communes.

108.

Rajneesh's self-avowed Buddha status, he concluded, was part of a delusional system associated with his narcissistic personality disorder; a condition of ego-inflation rather than egolessness.

109.

Singh believes that Rajneesh was a "free-thinking agnostic" who had the ability to explain the most abstract concepts in simple language, illustrated with witty anecdotes, who mocked gods, prophets, scriptures, and religious practices, and gave a totally new dimension to religion.

110.

German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, a one-time devotee of Rajneesh's, described him as a "Wittgenstein of religions", ranking him as one of the greatest figures of the 20th century; in his view, Rajneesh had performed a radical deconstruction of the word games played by the world's religions.

111.

In 2011, author Farrukh Dhondy reported that film star Kabir Bedi was a fan of Rajneesh, and viewed Rajneesh's works as "the most sublime interpretations of Indian philosophy that he had come across".