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Journalism of Courage
So said Rajneesh aka Acharya, Bhagwan, Osho, Zorba the Buddha in 1979. An ironic prophecy given that we have just passed the deadline and the men and women closest to him in his lifetime are involved in nothing more revolutionary than a bitter struggle over his legacy. I first heard Rajneesh speak in his prime, about 20 years ago at his ashram in Pune. The whole experience 8212; two unkempt white skinned sanyasins sniffing visitors for smells the Bhagwan was allergic to strong odours, the seated bodies swivelling inch by inch to mark the Enlightened One8217;s progress to the Buddha Hall, the envious glances at those he seemed to favour with his closeness 8212; bordered on the ludicrous. The speech itself was hardly impressive. I did not see any evidence of the Bhagwan8217;s famed hypnotic quality, nor did the content rise above trite truisms peppered with anecdotes.
Years later going back to report on his death or the occasion of his having left his body8217; as his followers preferred to term it, I spent some time at the ashram and had reason to see his influence in a more positive light. The spirit of co-operation, for instance, seemed vividly alive. Red-robed sanyasins cheerfully performed all kinds of tasks 8212; one morning I encountered a man on all fours cleaning the path that led to the Osho8217;s quarters. Laboriously polishing every bit till it gleamed, he smiled abstractedly as we passed by. quot;Oh noquot; said my companion, quot;work is meditation, we disturbed his meditation.quot; Talent flourished. There was beauty everywhere 8212; in the music, bits of calligraphy and the Japanese gardens. Even more interesting were the people. At the peak of its popularity the movement is said to have had 200,000 followers. In India the ones to hog the limelight were usually film stars. But all sorts of people flooded the ashram. To me this seemed a significant achievement 8212; to get so manyordinary people to lead what was a fairly extraordinary life.
Various theories have been proffered in the past. Rajneesh, it has been claimed, was ailing and dependent on drugs; it has often been suggested that following his departure from India he had lost control over his flock and surrendered the levers of power to plotters and manipulators. Christopher Calder who calls himself an ordinary student of meditation8217; however puts forward another theory which asserts that the failure was the result of a conscious decision. Rajneesh, Calder claims, never lost the ultimate existential truth of being, but did lose the ordinary concept of truth. quot;He consciously decided to discard truthfulness in favour of what he perceived as useful lies8217;. He calculated that a majority of the earth8217;s population was of such a low level of consciousness that they could not understand or tolerate the real truths. So he decided on the policy of spreading seemingly useful lies to bring inspiration to his disciples and on occasion stress his students in unique situations for their own personalgrowth. This was his downfall and the prime reason he will be remembered by historians as just another phony guru which he undoubtedly was not.
