Osho was one of the most famed as well as the most controversial spiritual leaders of his time. He came to be known as ‘Acharya Rajneesh’ in 1960s, assumed the name ‘Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’ during the 1970s and 1980s and called himself ‘Osho’ in 1989.
He was a professor of Philosophy and traveled extensively to various parts of India, giving lectures on Secularism and Gandhi. He institutionalized religion and advocated an open attitude towards sexuality, which landed him in a number of controversies. Founder of Osho International Meditation Center, he devised a number of meditation techniques and came to be known as a spiritual therapist.
1. Youth – Enlightenment – University studies: 1931 – 1957
osho youth picsBorn in Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh, India on December 11, 1931, Osho says of his parents, “I had chosen this couple for their love, their intimacy, their almost one-ness.” Growing in an atmosphere of tremendous love, freedom and respect, Osho was an intuitive and adventurous child with the knack of penetrating to the very heart of a situation. Exploring life fearlessly and intensely, he insisted on experiencing life for himself rather than acquiring beliefs or knowledge given by others. “My childhood was certainly golden – not a symbol, absolutely golden; not poetically but literally, factually… Those years were unforgettable.”
When he was seven years old, his maternal grandfather died with his head in Osho′s lap as they traveled in the back of a bullock cart on the long journey to reach the nearest doctor. This had a profound effect on his inner life, provoking in him a determination to discover that which is deathless.
“I learned much in that moment of his silence…,” Osho said later, “I started on a new search, a new pilgrimage.” This, and other stories in Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, give rich insight into Osho′s early years, and the innocent spirit of the flame of rebellion and playfulness he brought to every endeavor in his life.
At the age of twenty-one, Osho became enlightened. “For many lives I had been working on myself, struggling, doing whatsoever can be done – and nothing was happening. The very effort was a barrier… Not that one can reach without seeking. Seeking is needed, but then comes a point when seeking has to be dropped… And that day the search stopped… it started happening. A new energy arose… It was coming from nowhere and everywhere. It was in the trees and in the rocks and the sky and the sun and the air – and I was thinking it was very far away. And it was so near…” A full account of his enlightenment can be found in his book The Discipline of Transcendence.
After his enlightenment on March 21, 1953, Osho graduated from the University of Saugar with first class honors in philosophy. While a student, he won the All-India Debating Championship. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Jabalpur for nine years.
2. Travelling all over India – lecturing, teaching: 1957 – 1974
osho acharyaOsho (then called Acharya Rajneesh) traveled throughout India giving talks, challenging religious leaders in public debate and meeting people from all walks of life. He read extensively, everything he could find to broaden his understanding of the belief systems and psychology of contemporary man.
Osho had now begun to develop his unique dynamic meditation.
Modern man, he said, was so burdened with the outmoded traditions of the past and the anxieties of modern-day living that he must go through a deep cleansing process before he could hope to discover the thought-less, relaxed state of meditation. He began to hold meditation camps around India, giving talks to the participants and personally conducting sessions of the meditations he had developed.
In 1962 Osho opens his first Meditations Centres known as Jivan Jagruti Kendras (Life Awakening Centres), and names his movement Jivan Jagruti Andolan (Life Awakening Movement). As of 1967 he started to initiate people into sannyas. One of Osho′s oldest sannyasins was Kiran.
In 1969 followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invited Osho to talk to them. This was the first occasion on which Osho addressed a western audience, and the first time he talked publicly at length in English.
In 1970 Osho decided to stop traveling and settled in Bombay where he continued to give regular public lectures. By the following year, he had begun to attract a small Western following, and these early Westerners enjoyed personal and close relationships with their master. Among their number was a shy twenty-two-year-old English woman named Christine Wolff. Taking on the name Ma Yoga Vivek, she became Osho′s constant companion.
3. Bhagwan in Poona 1: 1974 – 1981
osho poona 1For more than thirty-five years Osho worked directly with people who came to him, sharing his vision of a “New Man” aka “Zorba the Buddha”, and inspiring them to experiment with a life based in meditation. Bridging the ancient truths of simpler times with the current reality of man, he created numerous meditation techniques which give seekers an avenue to experience the ultimate.
Seeing that the complexities of life needed to be addressed, he worked closely with many prominent therapists from the West to create new therapies based in meditation.
Terence Stamp is one of the many who took sannyas from Osho in 1976.
Slowly Osho builds up what he calls a Buddhafield.
4. Rajneeshpuram: 1981 – 1985
osho rajneeshpuramAfter his initial work in India, Osho was invited to America where a bold communal experiment to translate his vision into a living reality began. Ma Anand Sheela, Osho′s private secretary at the time, and a few other women were in charge. Thousands of Osho′s disciples poured their love into a barren piece of land and began to transform it into a flowering oasis in the desert.
But Osho′s presence and the success of the commune revealed the hypocrisies inherent in the beliefs and prejudices of the current age, particularly in the religious and political establishment. The antagonism of these groups toward Osho and the commune mounted, and after only four years, after a short stay in an American prison, he was forced to leave America.
This is described in a book by Max Brecher called A Passage to America. Read more about it here.
The inhabitants of a nearby little town, called Antelope, were glad that Osho and his people were gone, as is clear from a plaque at the base of the Antelope post office flagpole, to mark that time.
The inscription reads:
“Dedicated to those of this community who, through the Rajneesh invasion and occupation of 1981-85, remained, resisted, and remembered.”
During the Rajneeshpuram period, the gachchamis were introduced.
5. Worldtour: 1985 – 1986
Osho then began a World Tour. He is refused entry by 21 countries. In the midst of this campaign of worldwide persecution orchestrated by the US Government, Osho responds with characteristic humor and uncompromising honesty, publicly challenging his persecutors and at the same time showering his love unconditionally, giving some of his most intimate talks to disciples who gathered around him wherever he went.
Notes:
While Osho went on a World Tour, many sannyasins left the USA and spread all over the world. A substantial part of them landed in Ibiza. Anthropologist Anthony d′Andrea, aka Techno Tony, has spent recent years investigating club/rave centres around the World, researching a PHD thesis on ′Club Cultures′. He writes in this pdf file that sannyasins became a crucial bridge between Ibiza′s 60s counterculture and the 90s electronic dance subculture.
Somewhere on his world tour: Osho celebrating and dancing with his sannyasins (video, 27.4 MB, 352 x 288, right-click and ′save link as′). “Celebration is my message”, says Osho.
Another celebratory video from before one of Osho′s Last Testament lectures (.mp4 of 4.6 MB)
6. Osho in Poona 2: 1986 – 1990
Finally, Osho returned to Poona, India, giving talks twice a day. Thousands of seekers from around the world came together again to be in the presence of this rare buddha and mystic, and a new commune grew around him. It was during this time that Osho announced that he did not want to be called Bhagwan again: “Enough is enough! The joke is over.” In these years of his final discourses, Osho gradually began to withdraw from public activities. His fragile health often prevented him from giving discourses, and the periods of his absence grew longer. He introduced a new element into his discourses, guiding his audience into a three-stage meditation at the end of each sitting. Eventually he delivered his last discourse series, answering questions and commenting on Zen sutras.osho poona 2
After his failing health had caused him to stop giving discourses, a message came that the name Rajneesh was also being dropped. Many of his disciples had already collectively decided to call him Osho. He has explained that the word ′Osho′ is derived from William James′ expression ′oceanic experience′ which means dissolving into the ocean. “Oceanic describes the experience,” says Osho, “but what about the experiencer? For that we use the word ′Osho′.”
In the following months, whenever his health permitted, he would appear in the evening to sit with his disciples and friends in a meditation of music and silence, after which he would retire to his room while the assembly watched one of his videotaped discourses. These sittings together with Osho are called White Robe Brotherhood Meetings.
In the last year of his life, Osho organised an administration of his closest disciples to take care of his work after he had left his body. Osho himself chose the 21 members of this inner circle who could contribute in the administrative work and who had different areas of expertise. This committee was to make decisions unanimously. Members of the inner circle were for life, only to be replaced after death by the remaining members. After a while, the required unanimity making quick action impossible according to some, a group of 6 people formed within the inner circle, called “The Præsidium”, which, over time, became decisive in policy making; this led to struggles within the inner circle whereupon many members left. Nowadays only three people take care of the management of Osho′s legacy, three people of non-Indian descent, which contributes to disagreements between leading Indian and non-Indian disciples.
7. Poona 3: 1990 – … I Leave You My Dream
osho samadhiOn 19 January 1990 Osho leaves his body after a long sickness due to his poisoning by the US- Government in 1985. His body was brought to Buddha Hall the same evening so that his Sannyasins could give him a send off. Later on his body was carried to the burning ghat at the river near the ashram and cremated in a large celebration with all his Sannyasins.
Just a few weeks before his demise, Osho was asked what would happen to his work when he was gone.
He said:
“My trust in existence is absolute. If there is any truth in what I am saying, it will survive. The people who remain interested in my work will be simply carrying the torch, but not imposing anything on anyone. I will remain a source of inspiration to my people. I want them to grow on their own – qualities like love, around which no church can be created, like awareness, which is nobody′s monopoly; like celebration, rejoicing, and remaining fresh, childlike eyes. I want my people to know themselves, not to be according to someone else. And the way is in.”
He also said:
“If you have loved me, I will live with you forever. In your love, I will live. If you have loved me, my body will disappear but I cannot die for you…
Even if I am gone I know you will search for me. Yes, I can trust you will hunt for me in every stone and flower, in every eye and star… And I can promise you one thing: if you hunt for me, you will find me – in every star and every eye – because if you have really loved a Master, you have moved into eternity with him. The relationship is not of time; it is timeless.
There is going to be no death. My body will disappear, your body will disappear – that will not make any change. If the disappearance of the body makes any change, it simply shows that love had not happened.
Love is something beyond the body. Bodies come and go, love remains. Love has eternity in it – timelessness, deathlessness.”
(Osho – The Divine Melody #10)
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Another One Biography :
1931 – 1953 Early Years
December 11,1931: Osho is born in Kuchwada, a small village in the state of Madhya Pradesh, central India.
He is the eldest of eleven children of a Jaina cloth merchant. Stories of His early years describe Him as independent and rebellious as a child, questioning all social, religious and philosophical beliefs. As a youth He experiments with meditation techniques.
March 21, 1953: \o becomes enlightened at the age of twenty-one, while majoring in philosophy at D.N. Jain college in Jabalpur.
1953 – 1956 Education
1956: Osho receives His M.A. from the University of Sagar with First Class Honors in Philosophy.
He is the All-India Debating Champion and Gold Medal winner in His graduating class.
1957-1966 University Professor and Public Speaker
1957: Osho is appointed as a professor at the Sanskrit College in Raipur.
1958: He is appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jabalpur, where He taught until 1966.
A powerful and passionate debater, He also travels widely in India, speaking to large audiences and challenging orthodox religious leaders in public debates.
1966: After nine years of teaching, He leaves the university to devote Himself entirely to the raising of human consciousness. On a regular basis, He begins to address gatherings 20,000 to 50,000 in the open-air maidans of India’s major cities. Four times a year He conducts intense ten-day meditation camps.
In 1970, the 14th of April, He introduces His revolutionary meditation technique, dynamic Meditation, which begins with a period of uninhibited movement and catharsis, followed by a period of silence and stillness. Since then this meditation technique has been used by psychotherapists, medical doctors, teachers and other professionals around the world .
1969 – 1974 Mumbai Years
Late 1960’s: His Hindi talks become available in English translations.
1970: In July, 1970, He moves to Mumbai, where He lives until 1974.
1970: Osho – at this time called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh – begins to initiate seekers into Neo-Sannyas or discipleship, a path of commitment to self-exploration and meditation which does not involve renouncing the world or anything else. Osho’s understanding of ‘Sannyas’ is a radical departure from the traditional Eastern viewpoint. For Him it is not the material world that needs to be renounced but our past and the conditionings and belief systems that each generation imposes on the next. He continues to conduct meditation camps at Mount Abu in Rajasthan but stops accepting invitations to speak throughout the country. He devotes his energies entirely to the rapidly expanding group of sannyasins around Him.
At this time, the first Westerners begin to arrive and to be initiated into Neo-Sannyas. Among them are leading psychotherapists from the human potential movement in Europe and America, seeking the next step in their own inner growth. With Osho they experience new, original meditation techniques for contemporary man, synthesizing the wisdom of the East with the science of the West.
1974 – 1981 Poona Ashram
During these seven years He gives a 90 minutes discourse nearly every morning, alternating every month between Hindi and English. His discourses offer insights into all the major spiritual paths, including Yoga, Zen, Taoism, Tantra and Sufism. He also speaks on Gautam Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, and other mystics. These discourses have been collected into over 600 volumes and translated into 50 languages.
In the evenings, during these years, He answers questions on personal matters such as love, jealousy, meditation. These ‘darshans’ are compiled in 64 darshan diaries of which 40 are published.
The commune that arose around Osho at this time offers a wide variety of therapy groups which combine Eastern meditation techniques with Western psychotherapy. Therapists from all over the world are attracted and by 1980 the international community gained a reputation as ‘ the world’s finest growth and therapy center.’ One hundred thousand people pass through its gates each year.
1981: He develops a degenerative back condition. In March 1981, after giving daily discourses for nearly 15 years, Osho begins a three-year period of self-imposed public silence. In view of the possible need for emergency surgery, and on the recommendation of His personal doctors, He travels to the U.S. This same year, His American disciples purchase a 64,000-acre ranch in Oregon and invite Him to visit. He eventually agrees to stay in the U.S. and allows an application for permanent residence to be filed on His behalf.
1981 – 1985 Rajneeshpuram
A model agricultural commune rises from the ruins of the central Oregonian high desert. Thousands of overgrazed and economically unviable acres are reclaimed. The city of Rajneeshpuram is incorporated and eventually provides services to 5,000 residents. Annual summer festivals are held which draw 15,000 visitors from all over the world. Very quickly, Rajneeshpuram becomes the largest spiritual community ever pioneered in America.
Opposition to the commune and new city keeps pace with its success. Responding to the anti-cult fervor which pervades all levels of American society during the Reagan years, local, state and federal politicians make inflammatory speeches against the Rajneeshees. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Treasury Department, and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agency (ATF) are only a few of the agencies spending millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money while harassing the commune with unwarranted and fruitless investigations. Similar costly campaigns are conducted in Oregon.
October 1984: Osho ends three and one half years of self-imposed silence.
July 1985: He resumes His public discourses each morning to thousands of seekers gathered in a two-acre meditation hall.
Sept. – Oct. 1985: The Oregon Commune is Destroyed
September 14: Osho’s personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and several members of the commune’s management suddenly leave, and a whole pattern of illegal acts they have committed – including poisoning, arson, wiretapping, and attempted murder – are exposed. Osho invites law enforcement officials to investigate Sheela’s crimes. The authorities, however, see the investigation as a golden opportunity to destroy the commune entirely.
October 23: A U.S. federal grand jury in Portland secretly indicts Osho and 7 others on relatively minor charges of immigration fraud.
October 28: Without warrants, federal and local officials arrest at gun point Osho and others in Charlotte, North Carolina. While the others are released, He is held without bail for twelve days. A five-hour return plane trip to Oregon takes four days. En route, Osho is held incommunicado and forced to register under the pseudonym, David Washington, in the Oklahoma County jail. Subsequent events indicate that it is probable that He was poisoned with the heavy metal thallium while in that jail and the El Reno Federal Penitentiary.
November: Emotions and publicity swell around Osho’s immigration case. Fearing for His life and the well-being of sannyasins in volatile Oregon, attorneys agree to an Alford Plea on two out of 35 of the original charges against Him. According to the rules of the plea, the defendant maintains innocence while saying that the prosecution could have convicted him. Osho and His attorneys maintain His innocence in the court. He is fined $400,000 and is deported from America.
Among others, U.S. Attorney in Portland, Charles Turner, publicly concedes that the government was intent on destroying Rajneeshpuram.
1985 – 1986 World Tour
January-February: He travels to Kathmandu, Nepal and speaks twice daily for the next two months. In February, the Nepalese government refuses visas for His visitors and closest attendants. He leaves Nepal and embarks on a world tour.
February-March: At His first stop, Greece, he is granted a 30-day tourist visa. But after only 18 days, on March 5, Greek police forcibly break into the house where He is staying, arrest Him at gun point, and deport him. Greek media reports indicate government and church pressure provoked the police intervention.
During the following two weeks He visits or asks permission to visit 17 countries in Europe and the Americas. All of these countries either refuse to grant Him a visitor’s visa or revoke His visa upon His arrival, and force Him to leave. Some refuse even landing permission for His plane.
March-June: On March 19 He travels to Uruguay. On May 14th the government has scheduled a press conference to announce that He will be granted permanent residence in Uruguay. Uruguay’s President Sanguinetti later admits that he received a telephone call from Washington, D.C. the night before the press conference. He is told that if Osho is allowed to stay in Uruguay, the six billion dollar debt Uruguay owes to the U.S. will be due immediately and no further loans will be granted. Osho is ordered to leave Uruguay on June 18th.
June-July: During the next month He is deported from both Jamaica and Portugal. In all, 21 countries had denied Him entry or deported Him after arrival. On July 29,1986, He returns to Mumbai, India.
1987 – 1989 Osho Commune International
January 1987: He returns to the ashram in Pune, India, which is renamed Rajneeshdham.
July 1988: Osho begins, for the first time in 14 years, to personally lead the meditation at the end of each evening’s discourse. He also introduces a revolutionary new meditation technique called The Mystic Rose.
January-February 1989: He stops using the name “Bhagwan,” retaining only the name Rajneesh. However, His disciples ask to call Him ‘Osho’ and He accepts this form of address. Osho explains that His name is derived from William James’ word ‘oceanic’ which means dissolving into the ocean. Oceanic describes the experience, He says, but what about the experiencer? For that we use the word ‘Osho.’ At the same time, He came to find out that ‘Osho’ has also been used historically in the Far East, meaning “The Blessed One, on Whom the Sky Showers Flowers.”
March-June 1989: Osho is resting to recover from the effects of the poisoning, which by now are strongly influencing His health.
July 1989: His health is getting better and He makes two appearances for silent darshans during the Festival, now renamed Osho Full Moon Celebration.
August 1989: Osho begins to make daily appearances in Gautama the Buddha Auditorium for evening darshan. He inaugurates a special group of white-robed sannyasins called the “Osho White Robe Brotherhood.” All sannyasins and non-sannyasins attending the evening darshans are asked to wear white robes.
September 1989: Osho drops the name “Rajneesh,” signifying His complete discontinuity from the past. He is known simply as “Osho,” and the ashram is renamed “Osho Commune International.”
1990 Osho leaves His body
January 1990: During the second week in January, Osho’s body becomes noticeably weaker. On January 18, He is so physically weak that He is unable to come to Gautama the Buddha Auditorium. On January 19, His pulse becomes irregular. When His doctor inquires whether they should prepare for cardiac resuscitation, Osho says, “No, just let me go. Existence decides its timing.” He leaves His body at 5 p.m. At 7 p.m. His body is brought to Gautama the Buddha Auditorium for a celebration, and is then carried to the burning ghats for cremation. Two days later, His ashes are brought to Osho Commune International and placed in His samadhi in Chuang Tzu Auditorium with the inscription:
OSHO
Never Born
Never Died
Only Visited This Planet Earth Between
11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990
Source : http://www.satrakshita.be