RAJNEESH
CONTRA OSHO
One repays a
teacher badly, if one always remains a pupil only. Why do you not pluck at my
wreath?
-Nietzsche
For me, Rajneesh I know as a master, died in early
seventies during his early Poona days, though I came across him, around 1977,
through his books. Due to my limited exposure then, I had a fleeting knowledge
of a mystic called Acharya Rajneesh operating from Poona. I accidentally came
across one of his books and I was jolted out of a deep psychological slumber.
I, for the first time in life, could clearly see myself with all my acquired
crutched. It was the beginning of an active doubt – quest towards self-discovery.
My priorities were changed overnight. I was started on a wonderful exploration
Nietzsche, Krishnamurti, Bubber, Tao, Zen, Hassids, Gibran, Fritz Perls, Alan
Watts, Gibran, Encounter groups, and Upanishads etc. were the strange keys he
was dropping for my inner locks. It is only through him that I am able, today,
to stand up against him. Thank you, Rajneesh! This attack is, as Nietzsche
said, ’an act of gratitude’ on my part.
I
can never, even now, utter “Bhagwan
Shree” or “Osho” without feeling
embarrassed, for these were alien to my whole understanding of Acharya
Rajneesh.
Acharya Rajneesh, I knew, was a supreme iconoclast
with a sharp, shrewd and analytical mind who used logic to give a glimpse of
transcendental wisdom. I was enthralled by his erudite exposition and
unconventional approach to anything he touched upon in his discourses. He
presented hitherto unexplored perspective of various thoughts. Rajneesh spoke
in sheer poetry and pregnant silences. His method was allegorical and retained
a wonderful cathartic humour. He was brilliantly using intellect to
de-intellectualize the people and to let them see things beyond their
intellectual conceptualization of them. His language was contemporary and
devoid of verbosity, which like me, emboldened many to seek the thinkers whom
he was continuously and lovingly expounding and who had earlier seemed
forbidding.
It
was Rajneesh, who sowed the seeds of honest enquiry in me. I came to question
my long acquired prejudices and my conditioned aspiration of life and its fixed
goals. He instilled in me the difference between ‘open and responsive’ and
being ‘obedient and slavish’. His habit of name dropping, of brilliant men and
women he had come to admire through his extensive readings, was the gateway for
me, to explore and experience myself the various thinkings of modern and
ancient times. And this wonderland was an enchanting and fulfilling tapestry of
modern and ancient philosophies, psychologies, nearly mystical experiments of
modern sciences and what not.
Each
of these experiences changed my world–view in a profound way – subtly preparing
me through intellectual stimulation for deep psychological journey. While
exposure to Nietzsche completely changed my philosophical outlook; Alan Watts
gave me a perspective on spirituality. While Fritz Perls, Sheldon Kopp prepared
the psychological ground and Zen, Tao, Krishnamurti; Gurdjieff etc. put me on
never ending process of integration. My own poetry took a totally different
direction; I was, at last, trying to stand on my own. My total lack of
professional aspirations was making my nears and dears miserable but I was, for
the first time in my life, experiencing strange dimension where quest is a
reward. All of this was happening because of Rajneesh’s first spark, which he
put in me through his discourses. Ah! I must tell the readers that all this is
not to daunt you with my intellectual (which is so little!) snobbery but simply
to share the mile – stones of my inner journey.
Rajneesh
started as a social philosopher who was trying to awaken the youth into action
based on the psychological understanding of the issues. Born a Jain, he soon
attracted rich Jain young people who perhaps saw in him a possible “Tirthankar” or were simply fired by
his powerful and revelatory oration. At that time Rajneesh was simply concerned
with the awakening of the healthy doubt among people about the various
institutions, which had degenerated into vices. The people around him formed ‘Jan Jagriti Kendra’, an organization
of progressive people aimed at the transformation of the society. Slowly
Rajneesh ventured into religion when he started giving discourses on man’s
inner potentials and later his simple yet powerful dynamic meditation. The
ideas, if not original, were told in a fresh way, peppered with metaphorical
tales to hammer the point. The lectures were short and unrepetitive. He used
his great argumentative method to demolish the myths of institutions like
marriage, religion, state etc. these discourses were authoritative, scholarly,
stimulating and carried an inherent sound wisdom. He was growing into a modern
seer who, with his sensitive and restrained manner and inspired conviction, was
breaking people’s somnabulance and their conformity.
His
ideas on sexuality were far ahead of the Indian morality of his times, though
those were quite near the latest scientific findings. He forced the people to
see sexuality in healthier and normal manner. He was perhaps the only
contemporary spiritual leader to speak on sex so forthrightly. He returned the
dignity to sex, exploding the myth of Christian–guilt, reinterpreting the
ancient Indian seers‘ vision of sex in a contemporary vocabulary.
The
Acharya who had said that imposing a code of dress or rituals is a spiritual
crime; was undergoing a change himself. Unlike Nietzsche, his favourite
philosopher, he discarded the role of spiritual “buffoon” and became a Guru.
The skeptic deserted himself in order to ‘enlighten’ many. It was all against
which Rajneesh had previously stood for. He was compromising his spiritual as
well as philosophical stand for man’s freedom, even from God. This Rajneesh who
had now claimed himself “Bhagwan Shree”,
had catapulted himself to a long and endless ego trip. In a prophetic moment,
Rajneesh had observed that the price of peaks is sometimes paid by being
plunged into deep valleys. He was no longer a man who talked of never ending
inner journeys, who was eloquently opposed to the spiritual slavery and mocked
Gurudoms. When I came across his first book, where prefix of his name was
changed to “Bhagwan Shree” I was
aghast but my gratitude over-whelmed me and I convinced myself with his clever
explanations.
He
was still charming with his words, had rather bloomed and honed his style. His
discourses were now well-orchestrated events. The entry, the pauses, the
unblinking hypnotic stare, the raunchy joked in the climax were stage-managed
to the perfection but now lacked the gentle but sure prodding of the mind, the
sincerity of a skeptic and restrain of the seer.
I
was in turmoil, for I was seeing what I was not ready to acknowledge. He was
like an intoxicated scholar, who even while losing his grip on himself still
retained cultured and sophisticated flow of words through slurs and hiccups.
His
discourses were still evocative and alluring. Of late he started a new line of
his spiritual merchandise having a high emotive quality, with the discourses on
Sufis and bhaktas. This was the merciless manipulation of the simple people,
having already won the intellectuals and aesthetes. He was to later speak
disparagingly, viciously attacking the same mystics he had earlier elevated by
his illumination words. This intellectual giant was bale to make the logic
stand on it’s head any mesmerize the people by his verbal-jugglery. Now too
sure of his position and his disciple’s blind adulation, he did not care much
to hide his motives. He claimed that the mystics and thinkers were mere pegs on
which he was hanging his thoughts. A great psychological tool to be handled
with utmost dexterity and love was being abused with impunity!
I
was alone in my disagreement among the people around me. The conformists, after
shunning him for his iconoclastic stand, were now flocking to him to hear him
speak soothingly and assuring that all was well with them indeed. The old
disciples were by then too programmed to know the difference.
People
who came in contact with him started performing at their optimum level, but
then it is an established psychological observation that the results of
imagined or induced euphoria, like threat, are the same as those of real
euphoria or threat. These people were, like in a Pavlovian experiment, provided
with exceptional motivation and thus were giving their best. The industrial
progress of Hitler’s Germany is another sad and not so distant example. The
spiritual and psychological bankruptcy was the cost of having those optimum
creative levels.
The
disciples were not longer encouraged to seek their own answers. If one showed
the signs of resolving his or her confusion, he or she was snubbed and then
very subtly maneuvered to revert to his confusions and to have faith, for
psychological salvation, not in himself but in all – knowing master. This was a
criminal manipulation of fine and sensitive minds. Rajneesh who used to provoke
the people into finding the answers for themselves, by posing stimulating and
provoking questions, was issuing irons – clad statements and edicts.
In
the whole commune of thousands of people only two people were bestowed the
privileged of being called ‘enlightened’
and that too posthumously! Only because
these were also socially two most privileged people. One was his father and
other was Vimal Kirti, the prince of a western country – the most visible
disciple. Rajneesh could not bear to declare any body his equal during his
life. They were ‘enlightened’,
according to Rajneesh, at the time of their death. One was the personal vanity
and the other a market strategy. So much for their ‘enlightenment!’
The
Oregon days, his subsequent globe trotting for a place to restart his commune
and final coming to Poona were at once sad and self-revelatory for the
discernible. The enthusiastic and creative people around him, who were infused
by his visionary dreams, transformed Rajneesh Puram, once a barren and arid
land of 64 thousand acres, into an agricultural and aesthetic marvel. These
very sincere people were exposed to the subtle programming of mind. There was
arrogance towards local population and there never was felt and earnest need to
win their trust. Bodyguards; wire-tapping and psychologically subversive
methods were being adopted to coerce the disciples into submission. An assured
professional briskness was apparent in all such deeds in a commune of
supposedly spiritual people. Rajneesh was an abettor of all these by his now
not so eloquent silences. He even gave the stamp of his approval to all this
when somebody showed some misgivings. All this garish display of wealth, power
and unquestioned authority were not the signs of a spiritually arrived man,
though these were surely the symptoms of a highly motivated, manipulative and
extraordinarily clever ego.
The
unruly impulses in Rajneesh were claiming him more rapidly and visibly.
Post–Oregon era saw Rajneesh with the wild sense of grandeur and paranoia,
sense of persecution. The previous wit and humour was replaced with vindictive
and insulting jibes at personalities. The discourses were becoming long,
torturous and repetitive monologues. The jokes, increasingly stale and
offensive, were merely titillating instead of having the previous cathartic and
many times, illumination quality. The catholicity of the visionary became the
grotesque ranting of a man obsessed with having an unrivalled place in the
history of human kind. Every thinker, mystic and philosopher was imperiously
denounced and their visions deride at. They were all, now, the contemptuous
minor figures of history whose little, if any, insights even owed their debts
to the new interpretation by this modern master. The skeptic had returned in
Rajneesh but it was not the old skeptic whose penetrating insights were infused
with the mystical vision and loving empathy. This skeptic was derisive,
dismissive, offensively contemptuous, intolerant and not patient, analytical,
loving and compassionate.
The
mala (necklace) with “Bhagwan Shree”
in the locket and orange dress-code were certainly not the signs of a previous
great skeptic. These were the signs of a sick man, who after coming in position
of authority and by the virtue of his charisma, was fulfilling his narcissistic
and juvenile wishes. This extremely photogenic man was, like Narcissus,
becoming a victim of himself. The ever-growing crowds around him were like
psychological assurances to his crumbling, once robust, self.
During
his late pre-Oregon days, he actively created a myth around him. The precise
date was arrived at to give credence and ritualisticity to his alleged
enlightenment. The story of his ‘previous births’ was fed to the credulous
pupils.
On
my side, my disillusionment was now not merely sentimental but strong
intellectual as well as spiritual disenchantment. There was also a profound
grief on seeing the precursor of my quest falling down and being way laid by
himself.
Once
again Nietzsche’s advice echoed in my mind ‘Where
one can no longer love, there should one_ _pass by!’ and I took his
counsel.
What
happened later was rather predictable. It was a progressive degeneration of a
man whom I once so loved and admired. He was thoroughly enjoying the status of
being “one man industry” and a showman par excellence. But this was not the joy
of a man who had found his center. Crowds around him, like any charismatic
leader, were perpetrating his sickness by transforming themselves to it and by
feeling gratitude in fulfilling his every infantile tantrum. Diamond studded
watched and head gears, ninety two Rolls-Royces, exclusively for himself and
expensive clothes were the toys which were still proving insufficient o fill
his inner vacuum.
Like
his life, his death is also tinged with controversy. His body was laid for
public view only for ten minutes and hastily consigned to the fires.
Rajneesh
of a wholesome, healthy, transcendental, liberating and integrating vision had
died for me long ago while “Bhagwan
Shree”, ”Zorba the Buddha” or now “Osho”
left his body on 19th January 1990. The sudden interest and slow
deification after his death by the populace is the predictable phenomenon of
human kind. Like my Rajneesh, I too stand against this psychological status
–quo. I, like my first master, Rajneesh, intend to create controversy through
this writing but which should not culminate in the total negation of Rajneesh,
rather it should help, by dispassionate enquiry, to rediscover his holistic and
psychologically liberating vision through the process of elimination of the
unessential.
Thank
you, Rajneesh, for kindling in me the sense of independence of soul. I abide by
the sage advice of Nietzsche, whom you introduced to me: “Independence of soul–that is at stake here ! No sacrifice can be
great! Even one’s dearest friend one must be willing to sacrifice for it,
though he be the most glorious human being.”
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