Osho movement. The consequences of yoga and meditation Osho. Osho's university years, studies and teaching activities

Chandra Mohan Jain(Hindi चन्द्र मोहन जैन , December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990) since the early seventies is better known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (English pronunciation(inf.), Hindi भगवान श्री रजनीश - Russian the blessed one who is god ) And Acharya, and later as Osho(Hindi ओशो - Russian. oceanic, dissolved in the ocean ) - 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. . A preacher of a new sannyasa, expressed in immersion in the world without attachment to it, life affirmation, renunciation 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 freedom of sexual relations, in some cases he organized 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. While in the United States, he founded the international settlement of Rajneeshpuram, several of whose residents committed serious crimes, including a bioterrorist act, before September 1985. After being deported from America, Rajneesh was denied entry by 21 countries or declared him “persona non grata.” Osho's organization was classified as a destructive sect in 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, his attitude in India and around the world changed, and he became widely regarded as an important teacher in India and an attractive spiritual teacher throughout the world. His teachings became part of popular culture in India and Nepal, and his movement gained some currency in the culture of the United States and around the world. Osho's conversations, recorded between 1969 and 1989, have been collected and published by his followers in the form of more than 1000 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-Sannyasa 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 Teachings of Osho
  • 3.1 Ego and mind
  • 3.2 Meditation
  • 3.3
  • 3.4 Zen
  • 3.5 Renunciation and the “new man”
  • 3.6 "Ten Commandments" 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 works
• 9 Literature

Names

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

• Chandra Mohan Jain(Hindi चन्द्र मोहन जैन ) is a real civilian name.
• Rajneesh(Hindi रजनीश) - This name was the nickname given to Osho as a child by his family. It literally translates as “lord of the full moon.”
• Acharya Rajneesh(Hindi आचार्य रजनीश ) - that's what it was called from the mid-sixties to the early seventies. Acharya means "teacher" or "spiritual master", and also in some cases "professor".
• Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh(Hindi भगवान श्री रजनीश ) or briefly Bhagwan- Osho bore this name from the early 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 “Mr.” At the end of 1988, he abandoned this name, which also meant divine status, with the comment: “Enough! The joke is over."
• Osho(Hindi ओशो) - this is what 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 they respectfully addressed Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Chan. 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, linking 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 his other works are published today under the name Osho.

Biography

Childhood and youth (1931-1950)

Chandra Mohan Jain was born on December 11, 1931 in Kuchwada, 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 capable student and did well 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 had an early brush with death. His grandfather, to whom he was strongly attached, died when he was seven years old. When he was fifteen years old, his friend (and cousin) Shashi died of typhoid fever. The losses affected Rajneesh deeply and his quiet teenage years were marked by melancholy, depression and chronic headaches. It was at this time that he ran from 15 to 25 km a day and often meditated to the point of exhaustion.

Rajneesh was an atheist, criticized faith in religious texts and rituals, and showed an interest in hypnosis as a teenager. 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 Sangh. However, his membership in these organizations was short-lived as he did not want to follow any external discipline, ideology or system. Rajneesh was also well-read and knew how to conduct 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 his 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 the 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 in common with the one who died. It is not a continuous thing... The person who has died has died totally; there is nothing left of him... not even a shadow. The ego died totally, completely... On that day, March 21, a personality who had lived many, many lives, millennia, simply died. Another being, completely new, completely unrelated to 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 Saugar University, receiving a Master of Philosophy degree. After this, 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 the University of Jabalpur, and in 1960 he became a professor. 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, Rajneesh, whenever his teaching work allowed him, made large lecture tours throughout India, in which he parodied and ridiculed Mahatma Gandhi and criticized socialism. He believed that socialism and Gandhi celebrated poverty rather than rejecting it. He argued that in order to overcome 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 through fear of damnation and promises of blessings, and said that all political and religious systems are false and hypocritical. These statements made Rajneesh unpopular among most, 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 began individual practice and teaching meditation.

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

His Awakened Life Movement (Jeevan Jagrati Andolan) 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 connections with the country's leaders such as Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Morarji Desai. This politician's daughter, Lakshmi, was Rajneesh's first secretary and his devoted student.

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

Bombay

Neo-Sannyasa 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 initially seek to found an organization, he created the first school of “neo-sannyasins” on September 26, 1970, during a meditation camp in Manali. ", who are now more often called simply "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.

Orange clothing and 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 wearing orange clothes, which Lakshmi spontaneously chose for herself. His sannyas, according to Rajneesh, should be life-affirming because it celebrates “the death of everything you were yesterday.” Rajneesh himself should not have been worshiped in the context of sannyas. Acharya was considered by sannyasins as a catalyst or "the sun pushing the flower to open." In 1971, the first disciples 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 subsequent years.

Bhagwan

That same year, Rajneesh dropped the title "Acharya" and adopted instead the religious name Bhagwan (literally: Blessed One) Shri Rajneesh. The 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 merge with me remain, everyone else has fled." At the same time, he also shifted the focus of his activities. He was now less and less interested in giving lectures to the general public; instead, he stated 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 giving lectures in English. In Bombay his health began to deteriorate; Due to the poor quality of Bombay's air, asthma, diabetes, and his allergies began to worsen. His apartment became too small to accommodate visitors. His secretary Lakshmi went in search of a more suitable place to stay and found it 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 Catherine 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 continued uninterrupted. Sannyasins worked in the ashram and often received free room and board for some time. The following years were marked by the constant expansion of the ashram, the number of visitors from the West became more and more. 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 founded meditation centers in their own countries. Some people reported that they had never come into contact with sannyasins, and that only after seeing a photograph of Bhagwan somewhere, they felt an inexplicable connection with him and after that they knew that they had to meet Bhagwan. Others read Bhagwan's books and thus they also began to want to see him. Bhagwan received a significant influx of feminist groups; Most of the ashram's economic activities were led by women.

Bhagwan, the description said, was “a physically attractive man with hypnotic brown eyes, a beard, chiseled features and a charming smile, his defiant actions and words, as well as his idiosyncrasy and apparently fearless and carefree behavior attracted a large number of disappointed people from the West, being 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 therapeutic methods played a significant role. European and American practitioners from the humanistic psychology movement came to Pune and became Bhagwan's students. “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 was 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 a significant 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 Intensive Enlightenment, and a group in which participants had to try to answer the question “Who am I?” In subsequent years, the number of available methods increased to approximately eighty.

To decide which therapy groups to attend, visitors either consulted Bhagwan or made a choice according to their preferences. Some of the early ashram groups, such as Encounter, were experimental and allowed physical aggression as well as sexual contact between participants. Conflicting reports of injuries sustained during Encounter group sessions 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 Esalen Institute, found that some groups encouraged participants to “be cruel” rather than “play the role of cruel” (the norm for encounter groups held in the United States) and criticized for "the worst mistakes of some of Esalen's inexperienced group leaders." Nevertheless, many sannyasins and visitors were interested in participating in an exciting experiment for them. In this sense, they were inspired by Bhagwan's words: “We are experimenting here with all the ways that make it possible to heal human consciousness and enrich man.”

Daily events at the ashram

A typical day at the ashram began at 6 a.m. 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 responses to questions from visitors and students. The conversations were peppered with jokes, anecdotes and provocative remarks that constantly caused bursts of hilarity among his devoted audience. Various meditations took place throughout the day, such as “meditation kundalini", "meditation nataraj” and therapies, the high intensity of which was attributed to spiritual energy, Bhagwan’s “Buddha Field”. In the evenings, Darshans took place, personal conversations between Bhagwan and a small number of devoted students and guests, and initiation of students (“acceptance into sannyas”) took place. The occasion for darshan was usually the arrival of a student at the ashram or his impending departure, or a particularly serious matter that the sannyasin would like to discuss personally with Bhagwan. Four days a year had special significance, these days were celebrated: the enlightenment of Bhagwan (March 21); his birthday (December 11) and the birthday of Guru Purnima; the full moon, during which the spiritual teacher is traditionally venerated in India, and Mahaparinirvana, the day when all departed enlightened ones are venerated. For visitors, the stay in Pune was usually an intense and very vivid experience, regardless, ultimately, of whether the visitor "took sannyas" or not. The ashram, according to the descriptions of the students, was at once “an amusement park and a madhouse, a house of pleasure and a temple.”

Bhagwan's teachings emphasized spontaneity, but the ashram was not free from rules. There were guards at the entrance, smoking and drugs were prohibited, and some parts of the territory, such as House of Lao Tzu, in which Bhagwan lived, was available only to a limited number of students. Those who wanted to attend a lecture in Buddha Hall (“Please leave your shoes and your brains at the door,” said a sign at the entrance) had to first take an odor test because Bhagwan was allergic to shampoos and cosmetics. And those who had such odors were denied access.

Negative media reports

In the 1970s, Bhagwan first came to the attention of the Western press as a "sex guru". Criticism has focused on his therapy groups, Bhagwan's attitude towards sex and his often humorous 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 William II, died of a stroke in Pune. After which, the alarmed 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 into therapy groups against their will, that they suffered nervous breakdowns, and that they were forced into prostitution and drug dealing.

The hostility of the surrounding society was demonstrated to some extent 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 of therapy groups and footage of Bhagwan openly criticizing then Prime Minister Morarji Desai, the head of the Indian government, who proposed taking a tougher stance against the ashram. On top of all this, the ashram's tax exemption was retroactively revoked, resulting in millions in tax claims. The government stopped issuing visas for foreign visitors who listed the ashram as their primary destination.

Change of plans and beginning of Bhagwan's silent phase

Considering the ever-increasing number of visitors and the hostile attitude of the city administration towards people moving in with 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 arson and poisoning of the fountain in Saswad made it clear that the activities of the ashram there were also not welcomed. 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 decreased 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 touched the middle of the student’s forehead or “third eye” with his thumb. On April 10, 1981, Bhagwan began a silent phase and began holding satsangs (silent congregational sitting with short periods of reading from various spiritual works and live music) instead of daily discourses. Around the same time, Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman) replaced Lakshmi as Bhagwan's secretary. Sheela came to the conclusion that Bhagwan, who was then suffering from a very long-term and painful problem of a slipped disc, should travel to the United States to receive better treatment. Bhagwan and Vivek initially did not seem to be particularly supportive of this idea, 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 this year he was taken to the United States for treatment, as he suffered, in particular, from diabetes and asthma.

Osho's followers bought a ranch for $5.75 million Big Muddy area of ​​64 thousand acres in Central Oregon, on the territory of which the settlement of Rajneeshpuram (now a suburb of Antelope) 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, Rajneeshpuram's popularity 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. The city opened a school, post office, fire and police departments, and a transport system of 85 buses. Between 1981 and 1986, the Rajneesh movement amassed approximately $120 million through various meditation workshops, lectures and conferences, with admission 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" Osho also owned 4 airplanes and 1 combat helicopter. In addition, Osho owned “almost a hundred (numbers vary) Rolls-Royces.” His followers reportedly wanted to increase the number of Rolls-Royces to 365, one for each day of the year.

At the same time, contradictions with local authorities regarding construction permits intensified, as well as in connection with calls for violence from residents of the commune. They intensified in connection with statements by 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 took on the role of the only intermediary between Osho and his commune.

Internal contradictions also intensified within the commune. Many of Osho's followers, who disagreed with the regime established by Sheela, left the ashram. Faced with difficulties, the board of the commune, led by Sheela, also used criminal methods. In 1984, salmonella was added to the food of several restaurants in nearby Dallas to test whether the outcome of the upcoming election could be influenced by reducing the number of people eligible to vote. On Sheela's orders, Osho's personal physician and two Oregon government officials were also poisoned. The doctor and one of the employees became seriously ill, but eventually recovered.

In 1984, the Federal Bureau of Investigation filed a criminal case against the Rajneesh sect"since in Antelope" weapons warehouses and drug laboratories were discovered on the territory of the center of Rajnesh».

After Sheela and her team hastily left the commune in September 1985, Osho called a press conference at which he reported information about their crimes and asked the prosecutor's office to initiate an investigation. As a result of the investigation, Sheela and many of her employees were detained and later convicted. Although Osho himself was not involved in criminal activities, his reputation (especially in the West) suffered significant damage.

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

On October 29, 1985, after Bhagwan's personal plane landed for refueling in Charlotte, North Carolina, he was detained without an arrest warrant and without formal charges being filed at that time. The motive for the detention was said to be Bhagwan's unauthorized attempt to leave the United States. (According to Rajish, he and his 8 close associates were going to fly to Bermuda on vacation). For the same reason, Bhagwan was denied bail. He was placed in a pre-trial detention center, having previously been registered in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary 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 admitted 2 of the 34 counts of violating the immigration law against him. As a result, on November 14, Bhagwan was given a suspended sentence of 10 years in prison, he was fined $400,000, and after that Bhagwan was deported from the United States without the right of return for 5 years. Bhagwan disbanded his Oregon ashram and publicly declared that he was not a religious teacher. Also, his disciples burned 5 thousand 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 traces of the influence of Sheela, 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 the separation of church and state. Later, in 1988, the US Supreme Court upheld the legality of Rajneeshpuram.

Around the World (1986)

On January 21, 1986, Bhagwan announced his intention to travel around the world to visit his followers living in various countries. In February 1986, Bhagwan arrived in Greece on a 30-day tourist visa. After this, 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 entered the villa of a local film director where Bhagwan lived and arrested 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 preserving. 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 on a plane to England, where he is also not allowed to stay, and then, on March 7, flies to Ireland, where he receives a tourist visa. The next morning, the police come to the hotel and demand Bhagwan's immediate flight out of the country, but the authorities later allow him to remain in Ireland for a short time due to Canada's refusal to allow Bhagwan's plane to land in Grenada to refuel the plane. At the same time, Bhagwan was denied entry by 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 fly to Montevideo. In Uruguay, sannyasins discovered the reasons for refusals to visit a number of countries. These reasons were telexes containing "diplomatic classified information" in which Interpol reported allegations of "drug addiction, smuggling and prostitution" among people around Bhagwan.

On May 14, 1986, the Uruguayan government intended to announce at a press conference that Bhagwan would be granted permanent residence. But according to a number of sources, on the evening of the previous day, Sanguinetti, who was the president of Uruguay, was contacted by American authorities 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. 18 June Bhagwan agrees to leave Uruguay. On June 19, he flies to Jamaica on the 10-day visa he received. Immediately after arrival, a US Air Force plane lands next to Bhagwan's plane. The next morning, all visas of Bhagwan and his followers are invalidated. After this, he flies to Lisbon and lives in a villa for some time until the police come to him again. As a result, after Bhagwan, under pressure from the United States, was denied entry by 21 countries or declared him “persona non grata,” he returned to India on July 29, where he lived in Bombay with his friend for six months. In India, Osho opens a center for psychotherapeutic and meditation programs.

Religious scholar A. S. Timoshchuk and historian I. V. Fedotova note that “ The call for total freedom, coupled with very liberal views on marriage and sexuality, has caused 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 lived most of his life. Immediately after the news of Osho's return became known, the city's police chief ordered him to immediately leave Pune on the grounds that Rajneesh was a "controversial personality" and "could disrupt order in the city." However, the Bombay High Court overturned this 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. It was now called the Multiversity, where the therapy would work as a bridge to meditation. Osho developed new meditation-therapeutic methods, such as the “Mystical 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 joint activities in Oregon, most sannyasins no longer sought to live together with other sannyasins, but began to prefer an independent lifestyle in society. Red/orange clothing and malas have been largely phased out, 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 were passing through the gates of Osho Commune International in the Indian city of Pune every day. Osho conducts 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 deteriorating health (nausea, fatigue, pain in the limbs and insufficient resistance to infection) was caused by his poisoning by the US authorities while he was in prison. His doctor and former lawyer Philip J. Toelkes (Swami Prem Niren) suggested that radioactive thallium was in Osho's mattress since the symptoms were concentrated on the right side, but provided no evidence. Federal prosecutor Charles H. Hunter described it as "a complete sham," while others suggested exposure to HIV or chronic diabetes and stress.

Since early 1988, Osho's discourses have focused exclusively on Zen. His daily lectures now take place in the evening, rather than in the morning, as was previously the case.

In late December, Osho announced that he no longer wished to be called "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh", and in February 1989 he took the name "Osho Rajneesh", which was shortened to "Osho" in September. He also demanded that all brands previously branded "RAJNEESH" be rebranded internationally as "OSHO". His health continued to weaken. He made his last public speech in April 1989, and after that he simply 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 White Robe Brotherhood) were subjecting him to some form of evil magic. An attempt was made to search for the criminals, but no one could be found.

On October 6, 1989, Osho chooses the “inner circle” - this group consists of twenty-one closest disciples, who are entrusted with the responsibility of administrative management and solving basic practical issues in the life of the commune. A sannyasin university was founded in June-July. It consists of a number of faculties covering various seminars and group programs.

On January 17, 1990, Osho's health condition deteriorated significantly. Osho appeared at the evening meeting only to greet those gathered. 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 established. There are several unconfirmed versions; according to the official statement of Osho’s doctor, death occurred from heart failure caused by complications of diabetes and asthma. According to followers close to Osho, death occurred due to the slow action of thallium, which Osho was poisoned with during his imprisonment in the United States. Before his death, Osho refused doctors’ offers to carry out urgent medical intervention, telling them that “the Universe itself measures its own time.” Osho's body was taken to the hall where a mass gathering took place and then cremation. Two days later, the ashes remaining from Osho's body were transferred to the Chuang Tzu Hall - to the very room that was to become his new bedroom. Some of the ashes were also transferred to Nepal, to the Osho-Tapoban Ashram. A sign was placed over the ashes with the words that Osho himself had dictated a few months earlier: “OSHO. Never born, never died, only stayed on this planet Earth from December 11, 1931 to January 19, 1990.”

Osho's 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 its own views. Religious scholar L.I. Grigorieva wrote that “ Rajnesh's teachings are a mixture of elements of Hinduism, Taoism, Sufism, etc." He himself spoke about it this way: “ I don't have a system. Systems can only be dead. I am an unsystematic, anarchic flow, I am not even a person, but simply a 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 - to bring together all the flowers of Tantra, Yoga, Tao, Sufism, Zen, Hasidism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism...»; « Truth is outside of 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 manage to die as they are and be reborn so renewed that they cannot even imagine it now... only those few brave souls will be ready to hear, for 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 you said something else. What should we obey? I can understand their confusion. They only grasped at the words. Conversations have no value for me, only the spaces between the words I speak are what are valuable. Yesterday I opened the doors to my emptiness with the help of some words, today I open them with the help of other words» .

Religious scholar M.V. Vorobyova noted that the main goal of Osho’s teachings is “ immersion in this world and in this life" Religious scholar S.V. Pakhomov pointed out that the goal of Osho’s teachings is “ loss of self in the oceanic consciousness" Pakhomov also noted that Osho developed a variety of meditative practices to achieve this goal, including the practice of dynamic meditation, which has gained the greatest popularity among all practices.

Religious scholar L.I. Grigorieva wrote that “ The ultimate goal of Rajneesh's religious practice is to achieve a state of enlightenment and total liberation. The ways to achieve this state are to discard stereotypes of culture, upbringing, traditions, and to reject 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 guise of tantrism A".

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

1. Independent analysis of events, resistance to the influence of any ideology and independent resolution of one’s own psychological problems.
2. Acquiring one’s own experience of “living life to the fullest”, abandoning life “by books”, searching for “the causes of suffering, joy, dissatisfaction”.
3. The need to bring out one’s internal and psychologically destructive “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 teachings are a philosophy of vitalism of “pure vitality,” in which a person’s initial sensations are more important than any social norms. Knorre figuratively describes the return to “pure feeling” before the acquisition of various stereotypes and civilizational complexes as enjoying life without asking “why” and “why.” To return to this state and liberate the “true self,” psychophysiological training is used.

Combining many traditions, Osho gave a particularly important place to the Zen tradition. For followers, meditation occupies the most important place among all Osho's teachings. The ideal in Osho's teachings is Zorba the Buddha, who combines the spirituality of Buddha with the features of Zorba.

Despite hundreds of dictated books, Rajneesh did not create a systematic theology. During the period of the Oregon commune (1981-1985), a book called “The Bible of Rajneesh” was published, but after the dispersal of this commune, Rajneesh stated that the book was published without his knowledge and consent, and called on his followers to get rid of “old attachments” to to which he also 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 uncontrollable impulsive actions arising from unconscious neurotic patterns, has much in common with Freud and Gurdjieff. His vision of a “new man” transcending the limitations 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 reason... do not be guided by principles, etiquette, norms of behavior.” He rejected the asceticism and self-restraint of Patanjali's classical yoga and stated that " craving for violence, sex, acquisitiveness, hypocrisy - is a property of consciousness”, also indicating 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 was expressed by “ in convulsive shudders, hysterical behavior" It is considered likely that for this reason Rajneesh's ashrams became the target of criticism for antisocial activities: promiscuity, accusations of delinquency, etc.

Osho was a supporter of vegetarianism and had an ambivalent attitude towards alcohol and drugs. According to critics, the latter circumstance was one of the main factors that made his teaching attractive to the counterculture generation in Western countries. Drugs were prohibited at Osho's ashram.

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

Osho was convinced that most people could not be trusted to have children, and also that the number of children being born throughout the world was 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 one to achieve enlightenment faster, since in this case it is possible to “give birth to oneself.” Osho's call for sterilization was followed by 200 sannyasins, some of whom subsequently recognized this decision as erroneous. Sociology professor Lewis Carter suggested that the words about recommended sterilization were said by Rajneesh in order not to complicate the planned and secret move from Pune to America.

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

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 criticized Christianity, finding masochistic practices in it. Religious scholar L.I. Grigorieva noted on the same occasion “ He denies all religions: “I am the founder of the only religion, the other religion is a fraud. Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha simply seduced people.““The same statement by Osho as a self-description is cited 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 the only religion,” Rajneesh declared, “other religions are deception.” Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha simply seduced people... My teaching is based on knowledge, on experience. People don't need 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 limits of 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 views 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, causing them to suppress genuine emotions and isolate themselves from the joyful experiences that arise naturally from accepting the present moment: “The mind has no innate capacity for joy... It only thinks about joy.” As a result, people poison themselves with neuroses, jealousy and insecurity.

Osho argued that psychological repression (repression or repression), often advocated by religious leaders, causes repressed feelings to reappear in a different guise. For example, in the case of sexual repression, society becomes obsessed with sex. Osho pointed out that instead of suppressing, people should trust themselves and accept themselves unconditionally. According to Osho, this cannot be understood only intellectually, since the mind can only perceive it as another piece of information; meditation is necessary for a more complete 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 the sleep of mechanical reactions caused by beliefs and expectations. He used Western psychotherapy as a preliminary to meditation to give sannyasins an understanding of their "mental and emotional garbage."

Osho proposed a total of more than 112 meditation methods. His methods of “active meditation” are characterized as successive stages of physical activity and tension, ultimately 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 (for example, Kundalini meditation, which consists of shaking, Nadabram meditation, which consists of humming), which are less active, although they also include 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 processes of "witnessing" allowed the sannyasin to realize the "leap into awareness." Osho believed that such cathartic, cleansing methods were necessary as a preliminary stage, since many modern people found it difficult to immediately use more traditional methods of meditation due to great internal tension and the inability to relax.

Traditional meditation methods given to sannyasins included zazen and vipassana.

Osho emphasized that absolutely everything 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 reaches a crescendo, I am no longer there. There is only dance».

Sexual practices and tantra

Osho and the Osho movement are known for their progressive and ultra-liberal views on sexuality. Osho gained fame as a sex guru in the 1970s due to his tantric teachings on the "integration of sexuality and spirituality", as well as the work of some therapy groups and the encouragement of sexual practices among sannyasins. Ph.D. sociologist Elisabeth Puttick has pointed out that Osho believed that tantra influenced his teachings most, along with Western sexology, based on the works 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 brought wrong results 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 his followers from sex:

The so-called religions say that sex is a sin, and Tantra says that sex is only a sacred phenomenon... After you are cured of your disease, you do not continue to carry the prescription and the bottle and the medicine. You throw it away.

Religious scholar A. A. Gritsanov pointed out that sexual meditation, related to the direction of tantra, was a way in Osho’s teachings “ achieving superconsciousness", and Osho himself believed that only through intense " experiencing sexual emotions" Maybe " understanding their nature"and liberation from sexual" passions-weaknesses". Religious scholar S.V. Pakhomov pointed out that Osho “ encouraged sexual liberation among his adherents, considering “tantric” sex to be 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 female followers. The main source of these rumors is the unreliable book of Hugh Milne. Osho's personal physician, G. Meredith, described Milne as a "sexual maniac" who made money from the pornographic desires of his readers. In addition, several women said that they had sexual relations with Osho. Some followers pointed out unrealized sexual fantasies about Osho. There is no reliable evidence to support rumors of Osho's sexual relationships. Most followers believed that Osho was celibate.

There was a problem of emotional abuse in the Osho movement, and it was especially pronounced during the period of Rajneeshpuram. Some people were seriously injured. Sociologist of religion Eileen Barker has pointed out that some of Pune's visitors returned with stories of "sexual perversion, drug dealing, suicide," as well as accounts of physical and mental harm from Pune's programs. But even among those who were traumatized, many rated their experience positively, including some who had already left the movement. In general, the majority of sannyasins assessed their experience as positive and defended it with arguments.

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 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 does not explicitly separate 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 at the Pune ashram, but " These are the groups that attracted the most attention from the press» .

Religious scholar L.I. Grigorieva believed that in Osho communities there were widespread “ sexual orgies presented under the guise of tantrism» .

Religious scholar and Indologist A. A. Tkacheva noted that “dynamic meditation” contributed to the “unblocking” of the nervous system of Osho’s followers through strong chaotic movements and the “splashing out” of the “repressions” and “complexes” that arose during socialization. Here the action used was completely opposite to the normal one. Tkacheva notes that since Osho combined tantra with Freudianism in his practice, hence he was 99% convinced that all human complexes are based on sexual grounds. 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 reach a state of “liberation”, “catharsis”.

Religious scholar A. S. Timoshchuk and historian I. V. Fedotova noted that about Osho’s meditation camps, which were organized in various parts of India, “ often told"how about places" where you can take part in orgies and indulge in drugs" They also write that currently “ it's hard to say what really happened there“, since Osho does not differentiate the manifestations of life into 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 especially singled out the Zen tradition. In later conversations, Osho indicated that Zen was his “ideal of religiosity”:

All religions except Zen are already dead. They have long turned into compacted 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 forgot 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. To tell the truth, he can't teach anything. This is almost the strangest thing that has happened in human history - strange, because Zen rejoices in emptiness, flourishes when there is nothing. It is embodied not in knowledge, but in ignorance. He does not distinguish between the worldly and the sacred. For Zen everything is sacred.

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, the only thing that matters is whether you are a happy person or not.

Osho's teachings can be imagined 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 movements intertwined with his own views. Osho himself said that he does not have a system, because systems are initially dead, and living currents are constantly undergoing changes and improvement.

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

Throughout his life, Osho had different names. This is quite characteristic of the traditions of India and conveys the essence of his spiritual activity. The name he received at birth was Chandra Mohan Jain. Later they began to call him Rajneesh, his childhood nickname. In the 60s, he began to be called Acharya (“spiritual teacher”) Rajneesh, and in the 70s and 80s – Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh or simply Bhagwan (“enlightened one”). He called himself Osho 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 to them. Learn to laugh more. To me, laughter is as holy as prayer.
2. Every action leads to an immediate result. Be careful and observe. A mature person is one who has found himself, who has determined what is right and wrong, good and bad for him. 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 tell you 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 that is how 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, a sunset or a sunrise... Be open to hear it.
5. The desire to be unusual is the most common desire. But relaxing and being ordinary is truly unusual.
6. Life is a series of riddles and secrets. It cannot be foreseen or predicted. But there are always people who would be satisfied with life without secrets - fear, doubts and anxieties would go away with them.
7. First, listen to yourself. Learn to enjoy your own company. Become so happy that you will no longer be bothered whether someone comes to you or not. You are already full. You don't wait in trepidation to see if someone will knock on your door. Are you at home already. If someone comes, great. No - that's also good. Only with such an attitude can you start a relationship.
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 peace, remembering that the world is only a performance, you will be free, you will not be touched by suffering. Suffering only comes from taking life seriously. Start treating life like a game, enjoy it.
9. Courage is moving into the unknown, despite all the fears. Courage is not the absence of fear. Fearlessness happens when you become 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 will be different. I never saw the same face twice. Everything changes. Nothing stands still. But it takes very discerning eyes to see this. Otherwise the dust settles and everything becomes old; it seems that everything has already happened.

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

We welcome you, our dear visitors and subscribers to our website updates. Would you be interested to know how a man born in a small Indian village became famous throughout the world, became famous for his unconventional views on religion and the universe, achieved the highest degree of freedom and spiritual enlightenment, organized an entire commune, acquired a fleet of Rolls Royces and other interesting facts?

If yes, then read on, we will tell you about the great Indian leader, the mystical inspirer who comprehended the highest secrets of life, the founder of a qualitatively new religious and cultural movement, Osho. The biography of this person deserves special attention. Although the great sage himself said that he had no biography, and over the past thirty-two years he was an absolute nothing. In the article you will read the most outstanding, interesting and surprising facts from the life of the great mentor.

Biography of Osho: Osho's golden childhood and youth

In the small Indian village of Kuchvade, in the state of Madhya Predesh, on December 11, 1931, a boy was born, who was named Chandra Mohan Jain. This is the official name of the future spiritual leader. His father was a textile trader. And over the next few years, ten more children were born into their family in succession. Chadra Mohan Jain was the eldest.

In his book “Glimpses of a Golden Childhood” Osho describes his village as a place where there was no post office or railway. He writes that there was a beautiful lake and small hills, the houses were covered with thatch. And the only brick house in the entire village was the one where Rajneesh himself was born, but this house was also small. There was not even a school in the village, for this reason Osho did not study until he was nine years old. And these years were the most valuable. Fifty years later, this village has not changed, there is no hospital or police, but no one gets sick there. Some people from these places have never seen a train or even a car in their lives, but they live quietly, blissfully and happily.

Your first seven years of life Osho lived with his dearly beloved maternal grandfather and grandmother. He was so attached to them that he called his grandmother mom. And he called his real mother “babi”, this term means “older brother’s wife.” His family belonged to the Jain religious community. The Jainism religion preaches non-violence, non-harm to all living things in the world, the main thing is the self-improvement of the soul to achieve omniscience and eternal bliss. It was the relatives who came up with the nickname Rajneesh or Raja for the boy, which means king.

When the boy was seven years old, death took away a very close and beloved person - his grandfather. It was a hard blow. Osho lay motionless on the sofa for three days, hoping to die. When this did not happen, he concluded for himself that death was impossible. The boy began to follow funeral processions in order to understand the essence of death, but this brought him nothing.

And at the age of fifteen he lost his girlfriend (cousin Shashi), she died of abdominal type. These deaths successively had a very strong impact on Rajneesh's mental state. He suffered from depression, headaches, melancholy, and tortured himself by running twenty kilometers a day and long meditations.

Osho studied well at school, but often clashed with teachers, skipped classes, disobeyed and provoked his classmates in every possible way.

Later in his literary works, Osho openly writes that he hates teachers, at least in the old sense. He even beat his teachers. In his youth, he was distinguished by arrogance and selfishness, daring views, and denial of all social norms and rules.

Education and work.

• Osho went to school at the age of 9.
• At the age of 19, Rajneesh began his studies in philosophy at Hitkarine College, but as a result of a conflict with one of the teachers, he left this educational institution, continuing his studies at Jain College.
• At the age of 24, Osho graduated from college, and a couple of years later, having received a diploma with honors, he emerged from the gates of Sagar University with a Master of Philosophy.
• Until 1966, Rajneesh taught philosophy to students, while traveling around the world and giving speeches, preaching his views. There were conflicts with the leadership because of its too free atheistic views, denying any conventions, traditions and requirements of social norms.
• After 1966, Osho began to actively present the art of meditation to the world, preaching the full joy of physical life and enlightenment through meditation.

Meditation and absolute enlightenment.

From early childhood, Chandra conducted experiments on his own body, studying its endurance and other capabilities. He dived into the whirlpool funnel, reached its source and swam to the surface. I walked along a thin path over the abyss. He claimed that during such experiences his mind stops, and then complete clarity and awakening sets in.

In addition, he practiced various types. And so, as a result of these researches, at the age of 21, the young man first experienced “satori” (a state of absolute enlightenment, happiness). This is an experience that cannot be described in words. Buddha called this state “nirvana.” Osho himself believed that he died that night, and then was reborn again, and now he is a completely different person than he lived before.

Rajneesh experienced the effects of all possible meditations and created a new technique, “dynamic meditation,” which involves the use of loud music and random movements.

Osho first organized such a meditation in 1970 near Bombay. It was an incredible, shocking sight. People ran, jumped, shouted, screamed, and tore off their clothes. The point of this technique was relaxation, that is, in order to completely relax and free your mind, you first had to get a lot of tension, so that in the second part of the meditation, complete relaxation would be an intoxicating contrast.

The connection between sex and superconsciousness.

In 1968, Osho moved to Bombay and was invited to hold a conference on the theme of love. There, the sage proclaims his views on sexuality, explaining that sexual energy, when transformed, develops into meditation and love. And sexual satisfaction contributes to the release of kundalini energy. This is energy “coiled into a snake” that “lives” at the base of the spine in the area of ​​the coccyx.

Osho denies the need to suppress sexual desires, because, in his opinion, during forced abstinence, love and meditation are not possible. And accordingly, it is not possible to achieve superconsciousness and personal inner freedom.

He had a negative attitude towards marriage and having children, but preached free love and loneliness. He was loyal to drugs and alcohol.
With such views, he provokes anger and indignation of the public, and conversations on the topic of “love” have to be held in a narrower circle in the central park of Mumbai. Subsequently, based on these conversations, Osho’s most popular book, “From Sex to Superconsciousness,” was published. They even began to secretly call him “Sex Guru.”

In 1970, the guru held his meditation camps and initiated the first group of selected people into “neo-sansyan”. They must completely renounce the world, all their property and personal life, and take a vow of celibacy. They wear red clothes, beads and medallions with the image of the mentor himself.

Moving to Pune

In 1974, the great sage moved to live in the city of Pune. There he organizes an ashram (a refuge for his followers). Hundreds of people from all over the world come there to listen to Osho's talks. He touches on the themes of human consciousness, spiritual development, enlightenment, and explains the essence and meaning of the religions of the world. Based on his conversations, more than a thousand books have been published by authors from different countries.

Osho followed the path of forming a new man, Zorba the Buddha. This is the one who, accepting and enjoying all the gifts of life (Zorba), cultivated in himself a higher spiritual consciousness (Buddha). Every day the master held very beautiful conversations with his students and followers.

American commune.

For several years, Osho suffered from asthma and diabetes, his condition worsened significantly in 1981. Then he was taken to the USA for treatment. The great sage fell into silence. Rajneesh's followers organized the Rancho Rajneeshpuram commune on the territory they purchased. Osho lived there for four years with his students.

Gradually, Rajneeshpuram grew to a whole city of about five thousand people. And the desert area has turned into a real green oasis. Every summer, admirers of Osho’s philosophy from all over the world came there. It was a daring, unprecedented attempt to create a transnational communist society. During the five years of its existence, not a single child was born in the commune.

Researchers of the biography of Osho Rajneesh note that by the end of 1982, his fortune reached two hundred million dollars (due to various seminars, meditation practices, conferences and lectures), which were not subject to taxes (Osho hated taxes. There was a case when he was still working professor, he was offered a salary increase, but the sage refused, citing the fact that he did not want to pay taxes). In addition, his fleet consisted of about one hundred Rolls Royces; his followers wanted to increase their number to three hundred and sixty-five, one for each day of the year. The mentor owned four more airplanes and one helicopter.

During the period of silence of the great teacher, the assistant to his personal secretary, Ma Ananda Shila, took over the management of the commune. Osho himself lived as a guest, practically never leaving home and not participating in the management of the commune. In addition, he begins to have more and more health problems.

During Sheela's reign, disagreements and contradictions arise in the commune, causing some students to leave Rajneeshpuram. And the top management, led by Sheela, use illegal methods: drugs, poison, weapons, bioterrorism.

In 1984, Osho suddenly ended his vow of silence and began to talk.

According to one version, Osho himself claims Shila as other followers who disappeared from Rajnipuram. The FBI begins an investigation, finds a cache of weapons, drugs and even a secret passage at the ranch in case of need to escape. According to the testimony of the residents of the commune, all this was arranged by Sheela and her assistants. They were detained in 1985 and later convicted.

Opponents of Rajneesh's teachings adhered to the version that the teacher himself was the organizer of all the chaos that was happening in the commune, and Sheela was his accomplice.

Rajneesh himself is facing 34 charges, of which he admits only two - illegal emigration (he entered America on a tourist visa). Moreover, they are detaining him without a warrant and without an indictment.

In his conversations, the educator was sincerely perplexed at how the US authorities could bring 34 charges against a man who spent four years in captivity, in complete silence. The mentor is sentenced to 10 years of suspended imprisonment, a fine and is required to leave the United States as soon as possible. During the 12 days Osho spent in American prisons, in his opinion, he significantly undermined his health and they even tried to poison him with thallium (a highly toxic heavy metal).

Osho's reputation was ruined, especially in the west. As a result, twenty-one states refused entry to the educator. Rajneesh's organization was classified as a destructive sect. In the USSR, his movement was strictly prohibited.

Trip around the world.

In 1986, the mystic goes on a journey around the world. Having visited the countries of Greece, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Canada, Holland, Uruguay, from most of which he was expelled (except Uruguay), he returns to Bombay. There his followers again began to gather around him in large numbers, and the master returned to Pune, where he organized the International Osho Commune. Conversations, celebrations, and the creation of new meditation practices began again.

Death of Osho

Rajneesh loved the Himalayas, he believed that this was the best place to die. It's wonderful to live there, but it's the best place on earth to die. He sincerely believed that death for him would not be a complete stop, death would be a holiday, a new birth.

Osho left his bodily shell in 1990 in Pune.

According to eyewitnesses, on January 19 he became ill, he refused medical help, his intuition told him that the Universe itself knew when and who should leave. He knew that he was about to die, quietly closed his eyes and left this world.

There are several versions of his death. Some believe that he died of a heart attack, others say that from AIDS, oncology or drugs.
But this is not the main thing, the main thing is that after the death of Rajneesh, the attitude towards his philosophy changed in India and throughout the world. He has come to be considered a very important spiritual teacher, and his teachings are revered and studied in many countries.

The Osho Times International magazine is published twice a month; it is published in nine languages ​​(Russian is not among them). Osho meditation centers and ashrams continue to operate in many countries around the world. In Moscow there are several Osho meditation centers (for example, the “Winds” center), founded by his followers.

Names during life.

During his life, the great mentor changed his names several times.

Basic commandments of Osho.

During his lifetime, Osho was against any rules or postulates. Once, when asked by a journalist about the Ten Commandments, the sage formulated the following for fun:

1. Never follow any commandments unless they come from yourself.
2. Life is the only god, and there are no other gods.
3. The truth is within you, there is no need to look for it in the outside world.
4. Love is nothing more than prayer.
5. The path to realizing the truth is to become nothing. Nothingness is the goal of enlightenment.
6. You need to live here and now.
7. Wake up. Live consciously.
8. There is no need to swim - you need to float.
9. Try to die in every moment, so that in every moment you can be new.
10. There is no need to look for anything. You need to stop and see. It is what it is.

The main ideas of his movement are the third, seventh, ninth and tenth commandments. It’s worth thinking about; they really have a deep meaning.

This is just a brief description of the main stages of the life and spiritual activity of the great Osho. He died, but his works and the works of his followers around the world continue to exist and attract more and more people with their magical texts.

We wish you pleasant reading, and we, in turn, will delight you with new interesting articles. Subscribe to updates on our site, share with friends.

May peace and goodness be with you!

December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990

Osho was born on December 11, 1931 in Kushwad (Central India). His family loved him very much, especially his grandfather, who gave him the name “Raja”, which means “king”. He spent his entire childhood in his grandfather's house. His father and mother took him in only after the death of his grandfather and grandmother. Before school, the boy was given a new name: Rajneesh Chandra Mohan.

His biographer writes: “The birth of Rajneesh was not an ordinary event. This was the birth of a man who had previously come to Earth in search of truth. He traveled innumerable ways, passed through many schools and systems. His previous birth was 700 years ago in the mountains where his mystical school was located, which attracted many students of different traditions and beliefs from many different countries. Then the Master lived 106 years. Before his death, he began a 21-day fast, which was supposed to lead him to enlightenment. But he had a choice - he could take one more birth before his final disappearance into eternity. He looked at his family of disciples: among them there were many who had stopped on their path and needed help. He also saw the great potential that was to arise from the synthesis of East and West, body and soul, materialism and spirituality. He saw the possibility of creating a new man - a man of the future, completely divorced from the past. He, who had come so close to the ultimate achievement, for which he had worked hard for many lifetimes, decided to incarnate again in a human body. Because of his pure love and compassion, he promised his disciples to return and share his truth with them, to help them bring their consciousness to a state of awakening.”

This promise determined his entire life. From early childhood he was interested in spiritual development, studied his body and its capabilities, and constantly experimented with various methods of meditation. He did not follow any traditions and did not seek teachers. The basis of his spiritual search was experiment. He looked very closely at life, especially at its critical, extreme points. He did not believe in any theories or rules and always rebelled against the prejudices and vices of society. “Courage and fearlessness were the wonderful qualities of Rajneesh,” said his childhood friend. He loved the river very much and often stayed on it at night, swimming in the most dangerous places and diving into whirlpools. He later said: “If you fall into a whirlpool, you will be caught, you will be pulled to the bottom, and the deeper you go, the stronger the whirlpool will become. The natural tendency of the ego is to fight it, because the whirlpool looks like death. The ego tries to fight the whirlpool, and if you fight it in a rising river or near a waterfall, where there are many such whirlpools, you will inevitably disappear, because the whirlpool is very strong. You won't be able to overcome it.

But the whirlpool has one phenomenon: on the surface it is large, but the deeper you go, the narrower the whirlpool becomes - stronger, but narrower. And almost at the very bottom the funnel is so small that you can very easily get out of it without any struggle. In fact, near the bottom, the funnel itself will throw you out. But you will wait for the bottom. If you fight on the surface, if you do anything for it, you cannot survive. I have tried with many whirlpools: this experience is wonderful.”

The experience in the whirlpools was similar to the experience of death. Little Rajneesh had an early brush with death. When he was five years old, his younger sister died, and at the age of seven he experienced the death of his beloved grandfather. Astrologers predicted that he would face death every seven years: at seven, fourteen and twenty-one. And although he did not die physically, his experiences of death during these years were the deepest. This is what he experienced after the death of his grandfather: “When he died, I felt that it would be a betrayal to eat. Now I didn't want to live. It was childhood, but something very profound happened through it. For three days I lay and did not move. I couldn't get out of bed. I said: “If he died, I don’t want to live. I survived, but those three days were a death experience. I died then, and I came to understand (now I can talk about it, although at that time it was only a vague experience), I came to the feeling that death is impossible...”

At the age of 14, knowing about the astrologer's prediction, Rajneesh came to a small hidden temple and lay there awaiting his death. He did not want her, but he wanted to face his death consciously if it did come. Rajneesh asked the priest not to disturb him and to bring him some food and drink once a day. This extraordinary experience took place over the course of seven days. Actual death did not occur, but Rajneesh did everything possible to “become like a dead man.” He went through several scary and unusual experiences. From this experience he learned that once death is accepted as a reality, its acceptance immediately creates a distance, a point from which one can observe the flow of events in life as a spectator. This lifts him above the pain, sadness, anguish and despair that usually accompany this event. “If you accept death, then there is no fear. If you cling to life, fear will be with you.” Having gone through the experience of the deceased being intensely and meditatively, he says: “I died along the way, but I came to understand that there is still something immortal here. One day you will accept death totally and you will become conscious of it.”

The third time this happened was on March 21, 1953, when Rajneesh was 21 years old. On this day, enlightenment happened to him. It was like an explosion. “That night I died and was reborn. But the person who is reborn has nothing in common with the one who died. It is not a continuous thing... The person who has died has died totally; there is nothing left of him... not even a shadow. The ego died completely, completely... On that day, March 21, a personality who had lived many, many lives, millennia, simply died. Another being, completely new, completely unrelated to the old, began to exist... I became free from the past, I was torn out of my history, I lost my autobiography.”

At this point, Rajneesh's story effectively ends. The man, whose name was Rajneesh Chandra Mohan, died at the age of 21, and at the same time a miracle happened: a new enlightened man was reborn, completely free of ego. (It should be noted that enlightenment is not a concept that can be explained in known logical terms. It is rather an experience that transcends any verbal description. The Buddha, the most famous Enlightened man on earth, called it “nirvana.”)

After this event, Rajneesh's external life did not change. He continued his studies at Jabalpur College in the philosophy department. In 1957 he graduated from Saugar University, receiving a diploma with honors, a gold medal and a Master of Philosophy degree. Two years later he became a lecturer in philosophy at Jabalpur University. Students loved him very much for his humor, sincerity and uncompromising desire for freedom and truth. During his 9-year university career, Osho traveled throughout India, often traveling 15 days a month. A passionate and skilled debater, he constantly challenged orthodox religious leaders. Addressing an audience of 100 thousand, Osho spoke with the authority emanating from his enlightenment, he destroyed blind faith to create true religiosity.

In 1966, Osho left the university department and devoted himself entirely to spreading the art of meditation and his vision of a new man - Zorba the Buddha, a man who synthesizes the best features of East and West, a man who is able to enjoy a full-blooded physical life and is able to simultaneously sit silently in meditation, achieving peaks of consciousness.

1968 Osho settled in Bombay and soon the first Western seekers of spiritual truth began to come to him. Among them were many specialists in the field of therapy, representatives of humanistic movements, wanting to take the next step in their growth. The next step, as Osho said, was meditation.

Osho experienced his first glimpses of meditation as a child, when he jumped from a high bridge into a river, or walked along a narrow path over an abyss. There were a few moments when the mind stopped. This caused an unusually clear perception of everything around him, his presence in it, and complete clarity and separateness of consciousness. These experiences, experienced repeatedly, aroused Osho's interest in meditation and prompted him to look for more accessible methods. Subsequently, he not only tested all the meditations known since ancient times, but also came up with new, revolutionary techniques specifically designed for modern man. These meditations are commonly called “dynamic meditations” and are based on the use of music and movement. Osho brought together elements of yoga, Sufism and Tibetan traditions, which made it possible to use the principle of energy transformation through the awakening of activity and subsequent calm observation.

Osho first demonstrated his morning dynamic meditation in April 1970 at a meditation camp near Bombay. That day everyone was stunned and fascinated at the same time. Indian journalists were amazed to see the participants screaming, screaming and tearing off their clothes - the whole scene was fatal and very intense. But just as strong was the tension in the first, intense stage, just as deep was the relaxation in the second part, leading to complete peace, unattainable in ordinary life.

Osho explained: “For 10 years I continuously worked with the methods of Lao Tzu, that is, I continuously studied direct relaxation. It was very simple for me and so I decided that it would be simple for anyone. Then, time after time, I began to understand that this was impossible... I, of course, said “relax” to those whom I taught. They understood the meaning of this word, but could not relax. Then I decided to come up with new methods of meditation that first create tension - even more tension. They create such tension that you become simply crazy. And then I say “relax.”

What is “meditation”? Osho spoke a lot about meditation. Based on his conversations, many books have been compiled, in which all aspects of meditation are discussed in great detail, from the technique of execution to explanations of the subtlest internal nuances. Here is a short excerpt from the “Orange Book”.

“The first thing you need to know is what meditation is. Everything else will follow. I cannot tell you that you should do meditation, I can only tell you what it is. If you understand me, you will be in meditation and there is no should. If you don't understand me, you won't be in meditation.

Meditation is a state of “no-mind”. Meditation is a state of pure consciousness without content. Usually your mind is too full of nonsense, just like a mirror covered with dust. The mind is a constant bustle - thoughts move, desires move, memories move, ambitions move - it's a constant crush. The day comes, the day goes. Even when you are sleeping, the mind is functioning, it is dreaming. It's still thinking, it's still worrying and sadness. He prepares for the next day, continues his underground preparations.

This is the state of non-meditation. Just the opposite is meditation. When there is no crowd and thinking has stopped, no thought moves, no desire is held back, you are completely silent... such silence is meditation. And in this silence the truth is known, never again.

Meditation is a state of “no-mind”. And you will not be able to find meditation with the help of the mind, because the mind itself will move. You can find meditation only by putting the mind aside, becoming cold, indifferent, unidentified with the mind, seeing the mind passing by but not identifying with it, not thinking that “I am it.”

Meditation is the realization that “I am not the mind.” As this awareness goes deeper and deeper, little by little there appear moments-moments of silence, moments of pure space, moments of transparency, moments when nothing is held in you and everything is permanent. In these moments you will learn who you are, you will learn the secret of existence.

A day is coming, a day of great bliss, when meditation becomes your natural state.”

Elsewhere Osho says: “Only meditation can make humanity civilized, because meditation will release your creativity and remove your tendency to destroy.”

Being an enlightened man, Osho realized more clearly than others the fragility of the current existence of humanity on Earth. Constant wars, savage treatment of nature, when more than a thousand species of plants and animals die out every year, entire forests are cut down and seas are dried up, the presence of nuclear weapons of enormous destructive power - all this puts man on the line beyond which there is complete extinction.

“Life has brought us to a point where the choice is extremely simple: only two paths, two possibilities. Humanity will either commit suicide or decide to meditate, to be in peace, tranquility, humanity, love.

Live naturally, live peacefully, turn inward. Spend some time alone and silently observing the inner workings of your mind.

In this inner silence you will experience a new dimension of life. There is no greed, no anger, no violence in this dimension. Love will appear, and in such abundance that you will not be able to contain it, it will begin to pour out of you in all directions.” And meditation gives a person such a state.

In 1974, Osho moved to Pune, where, together with his sannyasin students, he opened an ashram in the beautiful Koregaon Park. Over the next 7 years, hundreds of thousands of seekers from all over the world come there to experience new Osho meditations and listen to his conversations. In his conversations, Osho touches on all aspects of human consciousness, shows the innermost essence of all existing religions and systems of spiritual development. Buddha and Buddhist teachers, Sufi masters, Jewish mystics, Indian classical philosophy, Christianity, yoga, tantra, Zen... Here are a few of his books: “The Mustard Seed. Conversations about the sayings of Jesus”, “Wisdom of the Sands. Conversations about Sufism”, “Buddha: the emptiness of the heart”, “Parables of Zen”, “Tantra: the highest understanding”, “True sage. About Hasidic parables”, “Psychology of the esoteric”, “Book of secrets”, “Priests and politicians (mafia of the soul)”, “The new man is the only hope for the future”, “Meditation is the first and last freedom”, “Meditation: the art of inner ecstasy "

Osho says about his books: “My message is not a doctrine, not a philosophy. My message is a certain alchemy, the science of transformation, so only those who have the will to die as they are now and be born again into something so new that you can't even imagine it now... only a few such brave people will be ready to be heard, because what is heard will lead to risk, you will have to take the first step towards revival. This is not a philosophy that you can put on yourself and start bragging about it. This is not a doctrine with the help of which you can find answers to the questions that bother you... No, my message is not verbal contact. It's much more risky. It is nothing more or less than death and rebirth...”

Many people from all over the Earth felt this and found the strength and courage to touch this source and begin their own transformation. Those who are finally confirmed in this decision accept sannyas. The sannyas that Osho gives is different from the traditional one. This is neo-sannyas.

Former sannyasins - people who completely devoted themselves to spiritual practice, went to monasteries or secluded places and studied together with their Master, reducing contact with the outside world to a minimum. Neo-sannyas Osho does not require this. Neo-sannyas is not a renunciation of the world, but rather a renunciation of the madness of the modern mind that creates divisions between nations and races, drains the Earth's resources into weapons and wars, destroys the environment for profit, and teaches its children to fight and dominate others. Modern sannyasins, Osho's students, are in the thick of life, doing the most ordinary things, but at the same time they regularly engage in spiritual practice and, first of all, meditation, combining material life with spiritual life, synthesizing in themselves the love of life of the Greek Zorba and the height of spiritual consciousness Buddha. This is how a new man is formed - Zorba the Buddha, a man who will be free from the madness of the modern mind. According to Osho, “a new man is the only hope for the future.”

One who becomes a sannyasin receives a new name as a symbol of commitment to meditation and a break with the past. The name, usually derived from Sanskrit or Indian words, contains indications of a person’s potential capabilities or a specific path. Women receive the prefix “Ma” - an indication of the highest qualities of female nature to cherish and take care of themselves and others. Men receive the prefix “Swami,” which Osho translates as “self-mastered.”

Osho met with his students every day, except for periods when he was ill. His conversations were very beautiful. This is how Swami Chaitanya Kabir describes his meeting with the Master:

“We sit quietly listening; He enters with his hands folded in greeting. The lecture begins with some simple stunning statement. And the morning flows into us. Energy flows around words, Ideas, stories, jokes, questions, Weaving them into a grand symphony, The container of everything. Mocking, great, blasphemous, holy... - And always in contact with our consciousness, At the right moment leading us straight to the center. Themes develop on their own, Taking an unexpected turn, Reflecting in clarity into something opposite And returning back. He speaks until we can no longer hear his words In the deafening growing silence. The surf is roaring everywhere. "Enough for today!" He comes out smiling, folded hands send greetings to everyone, we sit.”

1981 For many years Osho suffered from diabetes and asthma. In the spring his condition worsened and he plunged into a period of silence. On the recommendation of doctors, in June of this year he was taken to the United States for treatment.

Osho's American disciples bought a 64,000-acre ranch in Central Oregon and founded Rajneeshpuram there. Osho came there in August. During the 4 years that Osho lived there, Rajneeshpuram became the most daring experiment in creating a transnational spiritual commune. Every summer, 15,000 people from Europe, Asia, South America and Australia came to the festival held there. As a result, the commune became a prosperous city with a population of 5,000 people.

1984 Just as suddenly as he stopped speaking, Osho spoke again in October. He spoke about love, meditation and human unfreedom in a crazy, heavily conditioned world. He accused priests and politicians of corrupting human souls and destroying human freedom.

“I raise my hand against the past of all humanity. It was not civilized, it was not humane. It did not in any way contribute to the flourishing of people. It wasn't spring. It was a real disaster, a crime committed on such a huge scale that we renounce our past, we begin to live according to our own being and create our own future. ...The people gathered around me are learning how to be happier, more meditative, how to laugh more joyfully, live more actively, love deeper and bring love and laughter to the whole world. This is the only defense against nuclear weapons. We are not creating armies here to conquer the world. We are creating a commune of individuals who have their own spirituality, because I want these individuals to be free, responsible, vigilant and conscious people, not allowing anyone to dictate to them, but also not imposing anything on anyone.”

From the very beginning of the experiment to create a commune, federal and local authorities tried to destroy it in any way possible. Subsequently, documents confirmed that the White House participated in these attempts.

In October 1985, the American government accused Osho of violating immigration laws and took him into custody without any warning. He was held in custody for 12 days in handcuffs and shackles and was denied bail. He suffered physical harm in prison. According to subsequent medical examinations, he was exposed to a life-threatening dose of radiation in Oklahoma and was also poisoned with thalium. When a bomb was discovered in the Portland prison where Osho was being held, he was the only one who was not evacuated.

Concerned for Osho's life, his lawyers agreed to admit that he had violated immigration law, and Osho left America on November 14. The commune fell apart.

The US government was not content with violating its own constitution. When Osho went to other countries at the invitation of his disciples, the United States, using its influence in the world, tried to influence other countries so that Osho's work would be disrupted wherever he went. As a result of this policy, 21 countries banned Osho and his companions from entering their borders. And these countries consider themselves free and democratic!

In July 1986, Osho returned to Bombay and his disciples began to gather around him again. In January 1987, as the number of people coming to him grew rapidly, he returned to Pune, where by that time the International Osho Commune had been formed. Daily beautiful discourses, meditation weekends, and holidays began again. Osho creates several new meditations. He called one of them, “The Mystical Rose,” “the greatest breakthrough in meditation 2500 years after the Vipassana meditation of Gautama Buddha.” Thousands of people have taken part in the Mystic Rose Meditation, not only at the Pune commune, but also at Osho meditation centers around the world. “I have created many meditations, but this one may be the most essential and fundamental. It can reach the whole world.”

The meditation lasts 21 days as follows: one week participants laugh for 3 hours a day, the second week they cry for 3 hours a day, the third week they silently observe and witness for 3 hours a day. During the first two stages, those involved simply laugh and cry for no reason, passing through layers of stiffness, depression and pain. This clears the space in which silent witnessing will happen later. After cleansing with laughter and tears, it is easier not to identify or get lost in everything that happens: in thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations.

Osho explains: “All of humanity has gone a little “crazy” for the simple reason that no one laughs from the heart, completely. And you suppressed so much sadness, so much despair and anxiety, so many tears - they all remained, covering you, enveloping you and destroying your beauty, your grace, your joy. All you have to do is go through these two layers. Then, while witnessing, simply open clear skies.”

This meditation, like many others, is therapeutic in nature. Scientific research done during and after the Mystic Rose group meditation has shown that participants experience profound and permanent changes in many areas of their lives. They consist of deep inner relaxation, a decrease in psychosomatic illnesses and an increasing ability to feel and express one's emotions in everyday life and at the same time to be detached from these emotions - to become a witness to one's experiences.

Now there are many other therapeutic groups in the Osho International Commune. All of them are united into the Osho Multiversity. As part of the Multiversity: School of Centering, School of Creative Arts. International Academy of Health, Academy of Meditation, Center for Transformation, Institute of Tibetan Pulsations, etc. Each school offers its own program aimed at developing a person’s spiritual qualities. The leaders of the schools are people from different countries who share and support Osho’s views on man and his place in this world.

The Osho Times International magazine is published twice a month, which is distributed throughout the world and is published in nine languages ​​(except Russian). There is an international Osho connection - a computer network between meditation centers and Osho ashrams in different countries.

Osho left his body on January 19, 1990. He was often asked the question, what will happen when he dies? Here is Osho's response to Italian television, transmitted through his personal secretary:

“Osho relies and trusts existence. He never thinks about the next moment. If everything is good at this moment, then the next moment flows from this and will be even richer.

It doesn't want to become a prison like other religions do. He even dropped the word “Bhagwan”, just because one of the meanings of this word is “God”. The moment someone is God, then of course you are a slave, a created being. They can destroy you without asking. Even the stars disappear, but what about human life?

He doesn't want any of this to resemble religion in any way. His work focuses on the individual and his freedom, and in the end it is one world, without any restrictions of color, race or nationality.

You are asking what will happen when Osho dies. He is not God and he does not believe in any prophets, prophecies or messiah. They were all selfish people. Therefore, whatever he can do at this moment, he does. What happens after he leaves he leaves to the will of existence. His trust in existence is absolute. If there is any truth to what he says, it will survive. Therefore, he calls his sannyasins not followers, but travel companions.

He said clearly: “Don't cling to the past. Continue searching. You can find the right person because you have already had a taste.” And this question is strange. Nobody asked what would happen when Einstein died. Existence is so limitless and so inexhaustible that people grow as naturally as trees, unless they are mutilated by society. If they are not destroyed by people for their own purposes, then they will bloom on their own, Osho does not offer any program. On the contrary, he wants everyone to be deprogrammed. Christianity is a program. His job is to deprogram people and make their minds clear so they can grow on their own. Support is welcome, but no demands.

Absurd questions are always asked by people who think that they rule the world, Osho is simply part of the Universe. And everything will continue fine without him. It's not a problem. And he will be happy that there is no religion, and no one will proclaim himself a successor when he leaves. If anyone declares himself his successor, he must be avoided. Such people destroyed Buddha, Christ, Krishna.

Everything he can do, he does. There is no specific plan that needs to be implanted in your mind. This creates fanatics. Every individual is unique, so no program can make humanity happy, because then they wear other people's clothes and shoes that don't fit them. All humanity is like clowns.

The people who remain interested in his work will simply carry the torch. But they will not impose anything on anyone, neither with bread nor with sword. He will remain a source of inspiration. for us. And this is what most sannyasins will feel. He wants us to grow on our own...Qualities like love, which no church can be built around, like awareness, a quality that no one can monopolize, such as celebration, joy, a fresh childlike perspective. He wants people to know themselves, regardless of anyone else's opinion. And the path leads inward. There is no need for an outside organization or church.

Osho is for freedom, individuality, creativity, for making our Earth even more beautiful, for living in this moment, and not waiting for paradise. Do not be afraid of hell and do not be greedy for heaven. Just be here in silence and enjoy while you are. Osho’s whole philosophy is that he strives in any way to destroy everything that later becomes slavery: authorities, groups, leaders - all these are diseases that must be completely avoided.”

Osho did not write books. All published books are recordings of his conversations with his students. The energy of the listeners, their preparedness and interest determined the direction of the conversation. These conversations reflect the relationship between the Master and his students, their mutual penetration.

“These words are alive. They contain the beat of my heart. This is not a teaching. My words are a knock on your door so you can get home. Accept my gift."

"There were also false prophets among the people, like
and you will have false teachers who
will introduce destructive heresies and, rejecting
the Lord who bought them, they will bring
self-inflicted death"
2 Peter 2:1

1. "Love yourself and do what you want"

The story of Rajneesh (Osho) and his cult is the story of the rise and fall of one of the adventurers of our time. Rajneesh deeply despised humanity and did not consider it necessary to hide his aspirations; perhaps even more than in the stories of other sects, here the reasons that motivated the newly-minted guru - greed, lust, vanity and thirst for power - are brought to the surface with undisguised cynicism. It is worth adding that the cult of Rajneesh is difficult to attribute even to pseudo-Hindu new formations - it is absolutely an “author’s work” operating in the area of ​​the New Age movement.

Rajneesh Chandra Mohan (1931-1990) born in Kushwad (Central India, modern Madhya Pradesh) into a Jain family. Jainism arose around the end of the 6th - beginning of the 5th century. BC This religion recognizes the existence of an individual soul - jiva, but denies the existence of a supreme God. Like adherents of other Indian religions, Jains see salvation in the liberation of the jiva from the chain of rebirths.

He who has achieved liberation becomes, as it were, a living god and an object of worship. This Jain idea had a significant influence on Rajneesh, although in general his teaching is extremely eclectic.

Rajneesh was the eldest of his five sisters and seven brothers. Until the age of seven, Rajneesh lived with his grandparents. Rajneesh recalled that issues of spiritual liberation occupied him from a very early age. In his youth, he began to experience various meditative techniques; At the same time, he tried not to follow any traditions and did not look for teachers, always relying only on himself. One of Rajneesh's main childhood experiences was the experience of death. In his diary of 1979, he writes that in his childhood he followed funeral processions, like other children followed a traveling circus. In 1953, while Rajneesh was studying at the philosophy department of Jabalpur College, he, in his words, experienced “enlightenment” - his last experience of death, after which it was as if he was reborn. As a student, Rajneesh led a life that was far from conforming to the strict ascetic norms of Jainism. But they entered his soul so deeply as a child that, for example, he vomited all night when he ate with his friends after sunset (eating in the dark is strictly prohibited for Jains - you can swallow it without noticing what... some small insect into which, say, the soul of a great-grandfather was reincarnated). Jainism does not know repentance, and Rajneesh was able to resolve the internal conflict only by rebelling against the “superstitions” of the religion of the fathers and all other religions. The theoretical basis for this for Rajneesh was the “philosophy of life” (Nietzsche and others), which he became acquainted with at the university.

In 1957, Rajneesh graduated from Saugar University with a gold medal in the All India Debating Competition and a Master of Philosophy degree, then taught philosophy at Jabalpur University for nine years. During this time, he travels around India, meeting and holding debates with various religious and public figures. Speaking to audiences of thousands, he gradually gains fame as a polemicist and rebel. In 1966, Rajneesh left the university and began to preach his own teaching, which was a paradoxical mixture of bits of Jainism, Tantrism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, Hasidism, Nietzscheanism, psychoanalysis, popular “psycho-spiritual” therapies and the teachings of Krishnamurti and Gurdjieff. Having no initiation into any of the mystical traditions, he reinterpreted everything in his own way, adapting it to his own needs.

At this time, Rajneesh called himself Acharya ("teacher"). He wandered on foot and rode a donkey around India, calling for inner transformation in order to survive the coming nuclear holocaust and preaching a kind of new nonconformist religiosity, opposition to traditional religions, which Rajneesh sharply attacked at every opportunity: “We are making a revolution... I am burning old scriptures, destroying traditions..." ; "I am the founder of the only religion, other religions are deceptions. Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha simply seduced people..." ; “Faith is pure poison” and so on in the same spirit. More than once he said that he did not believe in any prophets or in the Messiah and that they were all selfish people. Rajneesh saw the main mistake of traditional religious doctrines and meditative techniques in the fact that they call on a person to give up a “full-blooded” physiological life, offering “spiritual enlightenment” in return.

Rajneesh called the truly enlightened new man, combining the rich life of the flesh and meditation, materialism and spirituality, Western activity and Eastern inaction, Zorba the Buddha (the Greek Zorba is an energetic lover of life, the hero of the novel of the same name by the Greek writer Nikos Kazanzakis. In Zorba the Buddha he saw "a man of the future, completely cut off from the past."

The main postulate of Rajneesh's “only religion” can be expressed by paraphrasing the famous patristic saying: “Love God and do what you want.” When applied to the teachings of Rajneesh, it turns out: “Love yourself and do what you want.” According to Rajneesh, there is no god except man, and this is a hedonistic god: “Everyone has the potential to become God... God is a state of consciousness... it is a way of enjoying life right here and now”; “The first thing you need to understand,” Rajneesh taught, “is that you are perfect. If someone tells you that you need to become even more perfect, then that person is your enemy, beware of him.” “You can be Christ, so why should you become a Christian?”

If you follow Buddha you will be in trouble - millions have already been. If you follow Christ, you will also get into trouble. Look at any followers - they inevitably get into trouble, because life changes every minute, and they adhere to dead principles. Remember the only golden rule: “There are no golden rules!”

To achieve a spiritually and physically fulfilling life “here and now,” you need to “be spontaneous,” because “life is spontaneous.” Rajneesh saw the main obstacle preventing a person from being a god and enjoying every moment of life in the division of the mind into two warring principles: the conscious and the unconscious. A person identifies himself only with his conscious mind, and this does not allow him to achieve inner integrity. Only when the potential, the unconscious, is allowed to blossom can a person experience the “bliss of being.” Passions and unconscious impulses should not be suppressed or overcome, but intensely and exhaustively lived. Following one's passions and lusts is, according to Rajneesh, the path to achieving divine freedom.

Immersion in the unconscious, turning off the reflective mind and removing all moral restrictions subsequently led some of Rajneesh's students, especially if they were neurotics, psychopaths, drug addicts or alcoholics, to serious mental illnesses. Rajneesh himself, however, believed that true madness is a split of consciousness into two unequal and mutually hostile halves, consciousness and unconsciousness:

You are crazy and you need to do something about it. Old traditions say: -Suppress your madness. Don't let it come out, otherwise your actions will become crazy," but I say, "Let your madness come out. Become aware of it. This is the only path to health." Release it! Inside it will become poisonous. Throw it out, completely free your system from it. But this catharsis must be approached systematically, methodically, because it means going crazy with the method, becoming consciously crazy.

Schizophrenia goes away after deep awareness. Don't fight yourself. Always remember that the winner is wrong. When conflict arises, follow nature.

The nature that Rajneesh proposes to follow is fallen: “If a conflict arises between love and celibacy, follow love and surrender to it entirely”; “...if it happens that you choose anger, give yourself entirely to it” and the like.

Traditional teachings cannot cure a person from the conflict in his mind, because they themselves are the culprits of this division. “Religions gave rise to schizophrenia” by binding the unconscious with their law and commandments. But Rajneesh opposes the insufficiency of the law not with the freedom of grace-filled transformation, which he had never heard of, but with the permissiveness of lawlessness:

There are no sinners. Even if you have reached the very bottom in this life, you are as divine as before, you cannot lose this divinity. I tell you: salvation is not needed, it is in you.

Rajneesh considers it vitally important for the diseased rationalism of humanity to free the infernal unconscious:

A revolution in human consciousness is no longer a luxury, but an extreme necessity, for there are only two possibilities: suicide or a qualitative leap of consciousness to the level that Nietzsche called the Superman.

2. "Meditation is a state of no-mind"

Rajneesh's preaching did not have much success in India until he settled in Bombay in 1968, where he soon had his first students from the West. These were mainly Americans and British, most of whom had gone through various new religious movements, the craze for “narco-spirituality,” the hippie movement, occult psychotherapeutic groups, etc. In this audience, Rajneesh’s illogical and immoral “non-teaching” about man-theology found a warm response . Rajneesh adds to his name, instead of Dcharya, the epithet Bhagwan Sri - “God the Lord”. From the beginning of the 70s, he began to regularly conduct so-called meditation camps, mainly in mountainous areas.

Rajneesh opposed the purposeful and utilitarian activity of the conscious mind to “celebration” or “play,” that is, activity for the sake of enjoying the activity itself, and not its final result. Such activity, in his opinion, can rightfully be called meditation.

Meditation is a state of no-mind. Meditation is a state of pure consciousness without content... You can find meditation only by putting the mind aside, becoming cold, indifferent, not identified with the mind, seeing the mind passing by, but not identifying with it, not thinking that " I am him."

Rajneesh's meditation is similar in description to the dhyana of classical yoga, but achieving samadhi required enormous ascetic efforts, and Rajneesh's methods were even simpler and more effective than Sri Aurobindo's "integral yoga"; they fully corresponded to the superficiality and relaxation of his audience, offering an easy path to “enlightenment” as a kind of acute “spiritual” pleasure. At the same time, Rajneesh did not stop speculating on the fears of his flock, generated by the Cold War and the emerging environmental crisis, presenting meditation as the only way to solve these problems.

In April 1970, at a meditation camp near Bombay, Rajneesh first demonstrated the “dynamic” (or “chaotic”) meditation he had invented. Here is its “technology”:

Stage 1: 10 minutes of deep, rapid breathing through the nose. Let your body be as relaxed as possible... If the body wants to move during this breath, allow it... Stage 2: 10 minutes of catharsis, full cooperation with whatever energy the breath has generated... Do not suppress anything. If you want to cry, cry, if you want to dance, dance. Laugh, scream, yell, jump, twitch: whatever you want to do, do it! Stage 3: 10 minutes of shouting “Hoo-hoo-hoo.” Raise your arms above your head and jump up and down while shouting, “Hoo-hoo-hoo.” When jumping, land firmly on the soles of your feet so that the sound penetrates deep into the sexual center. Exhaust yourself completely. Stage 4: 10 minutes of complete stop, frozen stay in the position in which you are. Through breathing, the energy was awakened, purified by catharsis and raised by the Sufi mantra "Hu". And now let it work deep within you. Energy means movement. If you no longer throw it out, it starts working inside. Stage 5: 10 to 15 minutes of dancing, celebrating, giving thanks for the deep bliss you have experienced.

Deep breathing under the beat of a drum at the first stage of “dynamic meditation” leads to hyperventilation of the lungs, as a result of which a person becomes drunk from excess oxygen. Then he “comes off” as best he can, to the point of exhaustion. Having exhausted all reserves of activity, a person, according to Rajneesh, can no longer control the conscious mind, and it turns off. In a state of “blackout,” when the head is empty and the body is completely relaxed, the unconscious comes into its own. Rajneesh passed off this cheap psychophysiological trance as enlightenment.

One of the components of the Rajneesh vinaigrette is the occult tantric teaching about chakras. True, Rajneesh added on his own that the chakras are perceptible only when they are polluted; if the chakras are clean, then the kundalini energy flows through them unhindered.

The main task of the “Hu” mantra is to open the muladhara chakra at the base of the spine and release kundalini, which in everyday life is spent on a person’s sex life. This is its natural use; however, for enlightenment it is necessary that it move in the opposite direction, up the “energy channel”, simultaneously opening all other chakras. Rajneesh did not hide the fact that this method is very dangerous for the physical body and that many outstanding yogis who practiced this method died before reaching old age from severe and painful diseases. However, at the same time, he believed that the use of kundalini was the most effective method of opening the chakras and that further help from a guru could reduce its negative effects. The main benefit that the ascending movement of kundalini brings, in his opinion, is that it allows “cosmic energy” to descend into a person and circulate in all his bodies, including the physical. The last two stages of chaotic meditation provide the opportunity to feel and enjoy this circulation.

In addition to “dynamic meditation,” Rajneesh also introduced “kundalini meditation,” which he developed, during which the sectarians shook violently in order to “disperse the clamps of the body” and danced “so that the newly found flowing vitality would manifest itself.” In order for meditation to be most effective, Rajneesh recommended doing it for 21 days in a row, combining it with yogic breathing exercises, in complete isolation and silence, or blindfolded.

3. Pune Commune

In the early 70s, Rajneesh began to initiate everyone into “sannyasins”, who, however, did not necessarily have to leave the “world”; only the most fanatical of them later began to settle in Rajneesh's ashrams. And, of course, these “sannyasins” did not take any vows and did not lead an ascetic life; on the contrary, Rajneesh called on them to abandon all “conventions.” The only thing that was required of them was to completely “open up” to Rajneesh and surrender to him in everything. Sannyasins received new Sanskrit names "as a symbol of commitment to meditation and a break with the past." Women received the obligatory prefix “Ma” (mother), and men received the prefix “Swami”. They had to wear bright orange robes and wooden rosaries with a portrait of Rajneesh on their necks, and also always carry a nut with a “piece of the body” of their guru (usually clippings of his hair or nails).

In 1974, Rajneesh moved to Pune (India), where he opened his first ashram commune in Koregaons Park. The ashram could accommodate up to 2 thousand people at a time, and up to 50 thousand people passed through it per year. Over the course of seven years, the Pune center was visited by hundreds of thousands of “spiritual seekers” from the West. By the end of the 70s, about 10 thousand fans of Bhagavan lived in the ashram, and about 6 thousand more pilgrims, whom the ashram could no longer accommodate, settled in Pune. Every day, Rajneesh delivered sermons in broken English, richly seasoned with all kinds of stories, jokes, ridicule and blasphemy. These sermons and lectures were recorded on tape and published in the form of separate books (the guru himself wrote nothing except diaries), the number of which currently exceeds six and a half hundred. In addition to books translated into more than 30 languages, Rajneesh's followers distribute audio and video recordings of his speeches. To organize the production and sale of these products, Rajneesh's favorite student and personal secretary, Indian adventuress with an American passport, Ma Ananda Sheela (Sheela Silverman), created the Rajneesh Foundation Limited company in New Jersey, the turnover of which soon amounted to millions of dollars. According to one of the Rajneeshists, “the organization has long understood the power of money.”

Pilgrims returning from Pune, initiated into neo-sannyas, began to open subsidiary ashrams and become their leaders. By the beginning of the 80s, 500 such centers had already been created - in other places in India, as well as in another 22 countries, including the USA, England, France, Canada and Japan.

At the ashram in Pune there were “therapy groups”, in which professional psychotherapists worked. Rajnish sannyasins generally lived only in groups, subordinate to a leader. Mind control in such communes was especially effective. For example, when Rajneesh hinted that a woman burdened with children could not achieve enlightenment, many female sannyasins were surgically sterilized at the cult center in Laguna Beach.

Naturally, a well-constructed cult could not do without apocalypticism. Rajneesh predicted the imminent approach of 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 scientific achievements. In other words, floods unprecedented since the time of Noah, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and nature will give us everything possible... There will be wars that bring humanity to the brink of nuclear war, but Noah’s Ark will not save it. Rajneeshism is a Noah's Ark of consciousness, a corner of calm in the center of a typhoon... Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bombay - all these cities will perish in a worldwide catastrophe, which will not be limited to local destruction. It will be global and inevitable. It will be possible to hide from it only in my teaching.

In early 1984, Rajneesh expanded his prediction of a coming catastrophe, saying that a certain Nostradamus prophecy would be fulfilled and AIDS would kill two-thirds of the world's population. When asked whether the Rajneeshites would survive the coming nuclear holocaust, Bhagavan replied:

The monkeys made the leap and became humans, but not all of them. Some of them are still monkeys to this day... I will not say that the Rajneeshites will survive the catastrophe, but I can say with absolute confidence that those who survive will be Rajneeshites, and the rest will be monkeys or commit suicide. In the end, the remaining ones don't matter.

Rajneesh preached freedom of fornication and perversion, while calling family and children an unnecessary burden. He said:

There is nothing sinful in pure simple sex... No duty, no duty, no obligation in it. Sex should be full of play and prayer.

Develop your sexuality, don’t suppress yourself!.. I don’t inspire orgies, but I don’t forbid them either.

Visitors to the Pune commune returned with stories of such sexual orgies, as well as perversions, drug addiction and drug trafficking, and suicides among ashram residents. It happened that meditation sessions in Rajneesh ashrams ended in fights and stabbings. Many people lost their health after experiencing the “Rajneesh therapy”. Here is an excerpt from memories of a visit to the ashram in Pune around 1980:

Murders, rapes, mysterious disappearances of people, threats, arson, explosions, abandoned children of "ashram residents" begging on the streets of Pune, drugs - all this is the order of the day [here]... Christians working in the mental hospital of Pune will confirm everything that has been said , not forgetting to mention the high level of mental disorders, due [in particular] to the fact that the ashram took political power into its own hands and there was no one to complain about it.

The scandals associated with Rajneesh and his shocking statements attracted Western journalists. In addition, shaven-headed, bearded, wearing a “Sufi” cap and loose-fitting “spiritual” vestments, Rajneesh was distinguished by his photogenic personality. He first appeared in the American press in early 1978, when Time magazine published an article about him under the headline “The Lord God from the East.” The magazine reported that this gifted guru stood out among the early apostles of the various New Age "human potential" movements. Subsequently, Rajneesh remained in the spotlight of the Western press and in the first half of the 80s he became the most fashionable guru in the West, eclipsing the Maharishi.

4. "I am the guru of the rich"

In 1980 and early 1981, Hindu traditionalists made two unsuccessful assassination attempts on Rajneesh. At the same time, in 1981, an investigation was launched, which showed that “Rajnish Foundation Limited was up to its neck in tax evasion, misappropriation of donations for charitable purposes, theft and criminal cases against sect members.” That same year, the government of Indira Gandhi deprived the Rajneesh Ashram of the status of a religious organization, and he had to pay huge taxes. Rajneesh, without waiting for the end of the investigation, stopped giving lectures and generally speaking in public on May 1, 1981. From that time on, Rajneesh’s intermediary in communicating with the world became his “right hand” Sheila Silverman. Having sold off the ashram's property in the early summer of 1981, withdrawing money from his Indian accounts and taking with him 17 of his most devoted students, Rajneesh went to the United States on a tourist visa, ostensibly for treatment, and some Rajneesh sources indicate that he was going to be treated for a spinal disease, and others - that from diabetes and asthma.

With the money of Rajneesh's American students and mainly the second American husband, Ananda Sheela, a huge Big Magdi ranch was purchased in the desert part of Central Oregon, in Wasco County. Here, on dry, infertile lands, the agricultural commune of the Rajneeshites initially settled, and later a city of five thousand called Rajneeshpuram arose, which had an airfield, a comfortable hotel with a casino, shopping streets, restaurants, parks, gardens, greenhouses, roads and regular buses. All this was created by about 2000 followers of Rajneesh. They worked for free, seven days a week, under the scorching sun for 12 hours a day, slept in barracks and all the time listened through loudspeakers to Rajneesh's sermons, in which they were taught that exhausting work is a holiday, meditation, so to speak, a feast of the spirit.

Tens of thousands of other Rajneeshites came to Rajneeshpuram from time to time (in the summer, for example, up to 20 thousand people gathered). They were able to donate significant amounts of money to the gurus, since most of them belonged to the wealthy middle class. More than 300 Rajneesh meditation centers were opened around the world, which also brought in considerable income; Let's say that in British centers the basic annual course of "Rajneesh therapy" cost 3,500 pounds sterling. In addition, the centers offered a whole range of paid New Age courses: bioenergy, body mastery, dehypnotherapy, intuitive massage, neo-tantric yoga, rebirthing and many others. They tried to send those who completed the courses to Rajneeshpuram. For such a trip it was necessary to shell out several thousand dollars more. . Rajneesh believed that “spirituality is a luxury and a privilege of the rich.” About himself, he said: “I am the guru of the rich. There are enough religions that deal with the poor, leave me to deal with the rich.”

He dealt with them quite successfully for his own pocket. By the end of 1982, his net worth had reached $200 million tax-free. He owned 4 aircraft, a combat helicopter and 91 Rolls-Royces. In fact, he expected to have 365 of these most expensive cars in the world, a new car for every day of the year. In the Rolls-Royce, Rajneesh made his daily tour of the flock. The Guru himself drove the car, moving slowly and solemnly, accompanied by machine gunners, along the living orange wall of his adherents, who stood along the edges of the so-called “road of nirvana” and threw pink petals under the wheels of the car. For them it was a rare opportunity to see their idol.

As Rajneeshpuram grew, “sacred cities” began to emerge in all major Western countries, built by Rajneeshists in his model - communes trying to lead an autonomous existence and should become an alternative to the “society of unfreedom.” Amid talk of freedom, Rajneesh's sect gradually turned into a "totalitarian organization with a strict control system." It was with these words that even such a pro-sectarian researcher of new religious movements as Professor Eileen Barker described the commune in Rajneeshpuram.

In Oregon, the Rajneeshites occupied the nearby provincial town of Entelope, won a majority of seats on the city council and renamed it Rajneesh. Most of the original inhabitants of Entelope, mostly elderly people, found themselves under constant surveillance by the sannyasin police forces, were subject to taxes in favor of the sect and were forced to see a nudist beach established by the city council in a local park. They chose to give up and leave the city. The city grew as Rajneesh's followers bought existing houses and built new ones.

Meanwhile, the election deadline for the county legislative assembly approached and the Rajnishites decided to achieve a majority in it too. According to local law, it was enough to live in the state for 22 days to get the right to vote in local elections. Therefore, it was decided to increase the number of voters who would vote for Rajneesh candidates. In the fall of 1984, Operation Share Your Home with Your Neighbor was carried out: sectarians brought about three and a half thousand alcoholics, tramps and drug addicts from New York, San Francisco and other large US cities to the ashram. Frightened by this, local legislative bodies urgently passed a law increasing the period of residence required to participate in elections. The vagrants who gathered in Rajneeshpuram, therefore, did not bring any benefit to the sect. On the contrary, the semi-criminal homeless behaved arrogantly and defiantly, did not want to work for the guru and, on top of everything else, worsened the already not brilliant relations of the communards with the local residents. In Rajneeshpuram, Sheela put together an armed detachment of one hundred militants, but even he was unable to disperse the annoying “neighbors,” and soon their corpses began to be found in the vicinity of the “holy city,” but not in Rajneeshpuram itself. The police established that they were all killed with an unknown poison, and, for obvious reasons, suspected Rajneesh and company.

At the same time, the sect's political ambitions continued to grow. Since the trick with the homeless did not work, now in order to win the elections, the Rajnishites decided to ensure that those who do not support their candidates were not able to take part in the vote. Continuing to be the "tongue" of the silent guru, Sheila Silverman came up with an idea to do this: agents assigned to her sprayed salmonella bacteria on the salad bars of most restaurants in the county, causing many of their customers to get sick. True, this did not help the Rajnishites achieve the desired power in the county.

In October 1984, Rajneesh suddenly spoke. He again accused priests and politicians of corrupting human souls, again asserted that Rajneeshism was “the only defense against nuclear weapons,” and again preached renunciation of the “old world,” setting an example of “spiritual revolutionism”: “I raise my hand against the past of everything humanity."

His speeches became increasingly anti-Christian:

Messiahs are, as a rule, insane. He [Jesus] was absolutely sure that the crucifixion would prove him right, and that is why I see his actions as simply a disguised suicide attempt. If anyone was to blame for his crucifixion, it was himself. He asked for it himself. And not a single source - Jewish or historical - confirms that he was resurrected. Only the New Testament. Fiction. There was no Resurrection.

Rajneesh himself wanted to be his fans instead of Christ: “Let me be your death and resurrection.” . And they sang to him with adoration: “I entrust my heart into your hands.”

The spirit that spoke through the serpent to Eve in Paradise now spoke through the mouth of Rajneesh:

The devil tempted Eve with the argument that God wanted her to remain ignorant. .. He is envious. And this seems to be true, for the God of the Jews is very envious. He doesn't want people to become equal to him. He is not a loving father... Knowledge is not a sin... I advise you to eat from the tree of knowledge..." .

By 1984, the number of Rajneesh's followers exceeded 350 thousand, with their average age being 34 years. Despite the failure in the Wasco elections, the Rajnishites in the same 1984, in connection with the elections to the Oregon Legislative Assembly, gave reason to fear that the sect was striving for political power at the state level. Sheela added fuel to the fire by declaring that, if necessary, Rajneesh's people would turn all of Oregon into Rajneeshpuram. The surrounding farmers, driven to the point by the immoral behavior of the Rajneeshists that they were ready to call them to order by force, Sheela threatened to kill fifteen people for each follower of Rajneesh. . Under the influence of public opinion, the police and then the FBI finally opened a criminal case against the Rajneesh sect. About four dozen FBI investigators were directly investigating Rajneeshpuram. They discovered weapons warehouses, laboratories for the production of drugs that were regularly added to the sectarians’ food, and a carefully camouflaged underground passage for the guru to escape in case of emergency.

On September 14, 1985, Sheila Silverman with her personal guard and her next husband, as well as several other members of the commune board, fled to Western Europe. Rajneesh accused Sheela of trying to poison his personal doctor, attempting to kill the guru himself, killing vagabonds whose bodies the police found in the vicinity of Rajneeshpuram, and wanting to turn the ashram into a fascist organization. Meanwhile, Sheela withdrew $55 million from the ashram's Swiss bank account and tried to escape, but was arrested in Stuttgart by Interpol. She, in turn, stated that “Bhagwan is a spoiled child who cannot breathe without $250 thousand monthly pocket money. He is a genius at exploiting people’s gullibility, a drug addict who cannot live without Valium. His life story is a complete scam. And I was an accomplice in this scam. He and I, we made a great couple of swindlers."

Rajneesh also managed to escape, but on October 29, 1985, he was arrested at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Bhagwan's own plane landed for refueling. Rajneesh and eight of his associates were allegedly flying to Bermuda on vacation.

Rajneesh's trial, held in Portland, Oregon, ended on November 14, 1985. The state authorities, who had already suffered colossal losses due to Rajneesh’s activities, feared that they simply would not be able to endure the extremely expensive, months-long trial. Moreover, according to state Attorney General Charles Turner, they did not want to make a martyr out of Rajneesh. As a result of difficult negotiations with Rajneesh's lawyers, a compromise was reached - Bhagwan pleaded guilty to only 2 of the 34 charges brought against him. Thus, he received a symbolic punishment for violating immigration laws and related criminal norms: ten years of suspended imprisonment plus a $400,000 fine. In addition, Rajneesh was ordered to leave the United States forever within five days. Sheela was found guilty of illegal use of listening devices, arson, beatings and intimidation, attempted murder and infecting 750 people with batulism, for which she was sentenced to prison and a heavy fine. After spending only 29 months in prison, at the end of 1988 she left for Switzerland and married again - to the Swiss Urs Birnstiel, who died in 1992 from AIDS. Sheela reconciled with Rajneesh, but she was never his follower and accomplice. Now 52-year-old Sheela Birnstiel owns two homes for the disabled and elderly near Basel. The contingent of its establishments are people with mental disorders, mainly patients with Alzheimer's syndrome, that is, a memory disorder. In the US, Schiele is again charged in old cases, this time with conspiracy to murder Oregon Attorney General Charles Turner, but her status as a Swiss citizen protects her from extradition. Of Sheela's $469,000 debt to the state of Oregon and Wasco County, an anonymous person recently paid $200,000 (one can assume that this was one of her less than adequate patients).

Rajneesh disbanded the Oregon ashram, burned five thousand copies of his pamphlets and publicly declared that he was not a god. After being deported from the United States, Rajneesh tried to stay in any country where he had followers, but 21 countries either banned him from entering or expelled him without any particular explanation (such as Greece). From this time on, the Rajneesh movement began to increasingly lose its mass character. Crowded communes fall apart, and the degree of influence of the cult on its followers decreases.

The majority of those who deal with the problems of new religious movements speak about the inadmissibility of using repressive measures against extremist totalitarian sects, justifying this by the fact that the banned sect will go underground and become even more dangerous. But a well-executed police operation to liquidate the community in Rajneeshpuram indicates otherwise. It turns out that in exchange for guarantees of personal safety, the cult leader, who values ​​his own person most of all, is ready to dissolve the sect. But just a few months before the events described, even a competent researcher of cults, a Christian apologist, holder of four doctoral degrees, Walter Martin, who, moreover, had a sharply negative attitude towards the Rajneesh sect, wrote: “Rajneesh and his followers attach great importance to the experiment with Rajneeshpuram, which led It would be tragic if the government intervened and ended their dream."

5. "The population needs to be reduced"

In July 1986, Rajneesh was finally able to return to India (he was expelled from there in December 1985). He settled in Bombay, where the few remaining disciples began to gather around him. In the last days of 1986, Rajneesh made two speeches, later published under the general title “The Rights of the New Man.” In these keynote speeches, Rajneesh expresses his resentment at being kicked out of all Western countries, expressing both general indignation at all priests, rich people and white politicians, and surprisingly petty complaints. In particular, he inherited the Declaration of Human Rights. The old Declaration must be replaced by a Declaration of the Rights of a new man, whose “only fundamental right” is “to become a god.”

Revealing in detail the ten points of his Declaration, Rajneesh paints a picture of the world in which his “new people” will live. The right to life in this world will mean the right to a good life, in which there will be no suffering, but only joy and pleasure. It is clear that as the human population increases, there will not be enough resources for a good life for everyone. Therefore, Rajneesh says that “the population must be reduced if a person wants to live with dignity, joy, and not drag out a miserable existence.” To do this, Rajneesh proposes to limit the birth rate by any means, using not only contraception and abortion, but also the destruction of children with congenital defects. In addition, it is necessary to introduce and promote euthanasia in every possible way and recognize the rights of homosexuals.

In the future world, “there should be no nations, no state borders. There should be no religions.” Rajneesh hopes that religions will "dissolve by themselves. The best of various religions will be preserved in Rajneesh's 'one religion'. In a world of absolute freedom, the main cause of slavery must be eliminated, which, according to Rajneesh, is Christian anthropology based on faith in the fact that God created man in His image and likeness. Marriage in the society of the “new people” should disappear, since it is “a counterfeit of love.” The “new people” will come together and diverge freely, and it is better if the partners belong to different nations, and even better - to different races. Children should be separated from their parents and raised by communities. And not even raised, since Rajneesh considers any upbringing, especially religious, a violation of children's freedom.

In a one world there will, of course, be a one world government. What will be the style of his reign? Rajneesh hates the monarchy. Democracy is also not good, because it is a cover for the manipulations of the powerful. In addition, when voting, the “ignorant masses” are guided by random criteria: some of the candidates look better, others speak better. In the new world, elections will be carried out by professional corporations: for example, “only teachers should choose the Minister of Education.” Only those who have received higher education will have the right to vote. The world government will be functional, but will not have power.

When a person, using Rajneesh methods, eliminates division in himself, divisions in the world will also disappear. The new world will be different from the current one, like heaven from hell.

Now there is no need to even describe what hell is. Just look around: here he is... But we can change everything. This earth can be turned into paradise. And then all need for paradise in heaven will disappear, there it will be empty. If we remember Rajneeshpuram, it will become clear what will be done with those who do not want to live in this paradise of radical hedonistic godless humanism.

6. Osho apparently died of AIDS

In January 1987, Rajneesh moved to Pune again. Here he comes up with a new meaningful name for himself - “Osho”, that is, “ocean”, which, apparently, should be associated with vastness, depth, chaos, abyss.

For his followers, Osho abolishes the mandatory wearing of orange clothes and sandalwood beads with his own portrait on them. True, during meditation and in the presence of Osho, sannyasins were ordered to wear white clothes. In addition, maroon robes must be worn at the meditation camps, which are held for three days every month.

Psychotherapeutic programs are being renewed and expanded, and new meditative techniques are being created. One of them, “The Mystical Rose,” Osho modestly considered “the greatest breakthrough in meditation 2500 years after the meditation of Gautama Buddha.” This meditation lasts 21 days; one week the participants laugh for 3 hours a day, the second week they cry for 3 hours a day, the third week they “silently observe” and “testify” how they feel better for 3 hours a day.

Following the example of his longtime competitor in the neo-guru market, the Maharishi, whom Rajneesh had previously criticized in every possible way, Osho is now trying to prove the benefits of his meditation therapy with the help of “scientific research.”

The various therapeutic groups in the Osho International Community were united into the "Osho Multiversity", which in the first half of the 90s included the following non-degree "colleges": School of Centering, School of Creative Arts, International Academy of Health, Academy of Meditation. The Center for Transformation, the Institute of Tibetan Pulsations and others are a completely typical New Age set.

By the end of the 80s, Osho's health had deteriorated significantly. In the last months before his death, if his health allowed, Osho went out to his students for “meditations of music and silence,” and then they watched videos of his previous conversations. Osho died in 1990, apparently from AIDS. When he passed away, he did not leave a full-fledged organization, believing that there was no need for it, and did not appoint an heir. Moreover, he made it clear that if anyone declared themselves to be his successor, he should be avoided. As a result, after the death of the guru, several independent movements formed within the movement. Among them are the “International Academy of Meditation” by Paul Lowe, the “Huma University”, headed by the Dutch sannyasin Verisch, and others.

There are now about 200 Osho meditation centers in the world. The center of the cult is still Pune. A group of 21 sannyasins led by Amrito, Osho's former personal physician, formed the leadership of the ashram after the latter's death. They turned a commune in Pune into a commercial enterprise - an exotic park of "esoteric" recreation, designed for wealthy Western tourists 35-40 years old.

On the territory of the former Soviet Union there are Osho centers in St. Petersburg, Voronezh (operating since 1996 under the name "Tantra Yoga"), Odessa, Krasnodar, Minsk, Tbilisi, Riga and Moscow, where, in addition to the Osho Rajneesh center, there are There is also the “Eastern House” center, created by a young Russian Igor. In the early 90s, he completed a course of study in Pune and returned from there as a sannyasin, Swami Anand Toshan. In addition to meditation training, sending “to study” in Pune and other programs, the “Eastern House” conducts Sunday “Osho Discos”, where “everything is allowed”.

OshoTime International magazine is published twice a month, which is distributed worldwide and published in nine languages. Websites of Osho fans from different countries are abundantly represented on the Internet. But Rajneesh's popularity is not commensurate with the presence of organizations associated with his name - elements of Rajneesh's ideology are an integral part of the New Age movement. Osho's books are sold in all New Age stores and are abundantly presented at any occult literature store.

179. Joachim Keden and others. Sects, spirits, miracle healers. Germany, 1999. -S. 28.

180. Amrit Swami Pres. Decree. op. -P.14.

Photo - Osho (Bhagavan Shri Rajneesh); cover of one of Osho's books; dynamic meditation; Russia - Belly dance lessons with Erasmia - the enlightened dancer Osho - www.oshoforum.ru &www.orientdance.ru