OSHO'S APOCALYPTIC ALARMISM

Osho initially claimed that all wars would end by the year 2000 as the world would become so interdependent between different countries, that wars would become politically unacceptable for governments. And Osho also affirmed that with the appearance of the nuclear bomb, the possibility of a new world war was eliminated.

But later Osho hired an advertising agency to advise him on how to gain more disciples. He was told that prophesies of the end of the world sold best. So, after hearing that, Osho completely changed his speech and began to predict the Third World War would come (see link).

And Osho also pretended that he and his sannyasins (initiated disciples) could survive in caves and underground bunkers, and then reemerge to save the world.

But this motivated some of his sannyasins, who were already waking up from the brainwashing, to flee from that congregation, as that was the case of Susan Harfouche who related the following:

« In order for you to better understand the paranoid situation that existed in Rajneeshpuram (the small town established by Osho in Oregon) let me explain the reasons why I finally decided to move away from Osho and his community:

• Visits from the FBI and immigration authorities. 
• Being instructed to lie or not say anything. 
• The plans to build a hotel and gambling casino! Sheela lying. 
• Future plans to live in underground cities prior to a six-year nuclear war, which is supposed to begin in ten years and destroy everything.

That last topic was the one that really did it for me, because there was just no way I was going to be confined in close quarters underground with these mindless people!

If there really were only ten years left, I decided I should get back out in the world and enjoy the life God gave me.

There are thousands in this group, and not one enlightened. The realization of the true situation, for me, was sad. I call it: “the death of a dream.” »

(www.oshounveiled.blogspot.com/2020/08/susans-experiences-in-rajneeshpuram.html)

And Osho not only traumatized adults, but also and especially he traumatized children, as related by Hira Bluestone, who was a little girl living in Rajneeshpuram at the time:

« My fears of death were reawakened when word came down from on high that the world was going to end, that Rajneesh wanted us to build caves to live in so that we might survive the inevitable nuclear holocaust. We would be the chosen people to populate the world and create a society full of love and laughter. It escaped our notice that this was at odds with the fact that Rajneesh so strongly discouraged procreation that in four years in a city of nearly 5000 people, there was only one single birth. In any case, they began to fill our heads with visions of horror.

They began to fill our heads with visions of horror. First, I remember them reading a book to us. It was written from the point of view of a young girl who had survived the attacks on Hiroshima, but who now had leukemia and was dying. They told us to prepare. Finally, the thing that pushed this 8-year-old psyche over the edge, was the movie "The Day After". They often showed us movies, bootlegged copies of various VHS tapes that they'd managed to score, but they were usually flicks like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "the Incredible Mr. Limpet". Maybe not all appropriate for children, but none scary and usually funny.

Anyway, we were told to meet at the cafeteria to see a movie. We were told we didn't have a choice, it was required. We had been paired with "big brothers" or "big sisters" and it was their job at this time to make sure their charges sat through this movie. So, we unwittingly piled into the sitting hall at the cafeteria and gathered to watch this movie. As I remember it, it was about World War III and the aftermath of nuclear winter. All I remember is the sight of people's bodies being vaporized into ash. I was terrified. Mouna and I spent most of the movie hiding in fear in the bathroom together. It was awful. After that, I became obsessed with death.

I began to think about death constantly. I worried that Sarv would die. Then I worried that I would die and Sarv wouldn't survive without me. Then I wondered what happened to me when I died. Then I worried that I would never kiss a boy or get my period before I died (I was reading a lot of Judy Blume books at the time). I do think that it was a little weird that I was so constantly obsessed with death at such a young age, but being Jewish by birth anyway, I think it was in my genes.

Soon after the constant end-of-the-world hype, all the talk about it disappeared. It was like they realized, OK maybe the end of the world is coming, maybe it's not, but lets get back to the business of living. In any case. no caves were built and no further plans were made for our survival. I guess they decided that the shit had been sufficiently scared out of us. »

(www.bluest-one.blogspot.com/2005/09/fear-and-loathing-in-antelope.html)

OBSERVATIONS

In reality, what happened is that Osho got bored with that subject and simply he abandoned it to return to his usual doctrine, and this shows me how little circumspect was this guru, because he did not mind modifying his teaching according to his whims.

For example here, first he assured that there would no longer be wars, but then as some publicists told him that if he was catastrophic, then he would attract more people, therefore Osho totally changed his message, ensuring that the Third War World was coming. But since later he was annoyed by the implication of having to build the underground shelters and live in caves, then he simply told his supporters to forget about it and carry on as before.

And that shows how little serious was this individual.

And it also shows the few respects that Osho had towards his followers, because he did not mind traumatizing them and filling them with paranoia, and above all the children, leaving them completely horrified, since I ask you:

In what Osho served him terrorize the children if they weren't going to be able to do anything anyway?

Doing that was completely useless, but Osho did it only to generate more the noise that the end of the world was coming, but a few weeks later Osho had already gotten bored with that psychosis environment that he himself had generated, and he simply dropped that subject as if nothing had happened.

"That I told you that there would no longer be wars and now I tell you the opposite. It does not matter, you continue to venerate me... And that later I told you that the end of the world was coming and now I tell you that is no longer important. It doesn't matter either, you keep worshiping me..."

OSHO'S PARANOIA

On this matter, Chris Coates wrote the following:

The teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had always had an apocalyptic thread running through them and in the late 1970’s he predicted that World War Three would start in 1993 in the Middle East, would last six years and would destroy modern civilization except for a few Rajneesh communes which would survive to start the new world.

Later this turned into a prophesy of a “great crisis” that would occur between 1984 and 1999 during which every kind of destruction would be visited on the Earth; floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, nuclear war.

And in this cyclone of destruction Rajneeshism would create a “Noah’s Ark of consciousness” to save humanity.

It appears not to have been clear whether this great crisis was meant to be taken metaphorically or as a reality, though at least one of the groups leading therapists believed that Bhagwan meant that extra-terrestrials would descend in their mother-ships to save them.

This doom laden message was heightened when AIDs broke out in the early 1980’s. The reaction of the Rashneeshies to the threat of AIDs was quick and fairly draconian. Bhagwan announced that this was a sign of the great crisis and would wipe out two thirds of mankind. Instructions were sent out from the Oregon headquarters.

About this subject, Tim Guest said:

« We were told: in order that sannyasins would survive, a radical programme of preventative measures was to be introduced immediately. … All sexual intercourse, with other sannyasins and between sannyasins and non-sannyasins, would take place using protection. Condoms, plastic gloves and dental dams were to be issued to every sexually active sannyasin. Plastic gloves had to be worn for all genital contact. Contaminated waste-bins would be available for disposal in the kitchens, toilets, and dormitories. »

(My Life in Orange)

Every member was tested for HIV and a system of coloured beads on members malas was introduced:

-      a blue bead for those not been tested,

-      a yellow bead for those awaiting their test results,

-      and a green bead for those who had tested negative.

Anyone who had sex with someone without a green bead was to have their beads confiscated for three months.

As it turned out no one at the Medina commune (the main of England) tested positive – had they done so they were to be placed in isolation and cared for by the community.

In the 1980’s the Rajneeshi communes would self-destruct in a scenario of their own making rather than serve as Arks to survive an external apocalypse.

(www.blog.utopia-britannica.org.uk/1093)

(Observation: the scaremongering Osho expressed prophesying the soon arrival of the Third World War was not due to paranoia, but was a premeditated tactic to seek to attract more followers, as I detailed it in the post before this one.)

OSHO MADE THOUSANDS OF HIS FOLLOWERS NO LONGER CAN HAVE CHILDREN

One of his many barbarities, Osho decided that his followers should be sterilized, and below, I transcribe the texts that I have found about this issue:

Win McCormack's article

Win McCormack is a journalist who has extensively investigated Osho and his movement, and on this subject he wrote the following:

According to Sarah T. and numerous other former sannyasins, Rajneesh strongly discouraged his female disciples from having children and strongly encouraged women followers —especially his women administrators— to have themselves sterilized.

Sarah recalls that in 1980, the year before Rajneesh left India, nearly all the top women in the ashram hierarchy underwent sterilization at the ashram medical center. The method of sterilization used there, she says, was cauterization of the fallopian tubes.

(www.newrepublic.com/article/147871/bhagwans-sexism)

Satya Franklin's testimony

Satya Franklin was a close member of Osho.

Sheela (who was Osho's chief administrator) had a hysterectomy and I believe she was the first.

Bhagwan felt children were a distraction from the spiritual path. He said the nuclear family is a disease." He deterred one of Sheela's entourage from having a child by advising her to "borrow" a friend's for a week and see if she still wanted one.

But the idea of the sterilization was that if you didn't want to have kids anyway and people had multiple sexual partners, it was not unreasonable. Not every man, but scores had vasectomies. I know people who left became angry about the sterilizations. They were livid that their lives were ruined.

Were people forced to be sterilized?

People were told if you want to be on a spiritual path this is good to do. They were not forced, but if they didn't they were at risk of losing their ashram job or being asked to leave. People were not encouraged to be pregnant, that's for sure.

(www.newsweek.com/wild-wild-country-sex-cult-member-reveals-truth-about-orgies-sterilizations-876747)

Lily Dunn's testimony

Lily Dunn knew the Osho commune in England very well

Those families who raised their children within the ashram and at Rajneeshpuram were encouraged to give them up to the greater good of the multiparent family. It was forbidden, from the age of five, for children to sleep with their parents. Children were considered to obstruct their parent’s personal development. Many men, including my father, were encouraged to have a vasectomy on joining the movement; many women were sterilised, some when they were young.

In a recent series of articles for The New Republic, Win McCormack, author of The Rajneesh Chronicles (2010), writes that among the thousands of followers who lived and worked at Rajneeshpuram over the four years of its existence, not one baby was born within the commune.

There was a Facebook page dedicated to a young woman who had attempted to reverse her sterilisation, done at Poona, aged just 19. Years later, she’d fallen in love and wanted to have a baby. She was 33, the same age I was when I saw the posting and had my first child. It is a much more straightforward procedure for a man to reverse a vasectomy than for a woman to reverse sterilisation. The young woman had died.

(www.aeon.co/essays/lost-innocence-the-children-whose-parents-joined-an-ashram)

Win McCormack's second article

I found this Win McCormack article, and there he wrote:

Rajneesh did not want his followers to have children, a subject I wrote about in “Bhagwan’s Strange Eugenics.” Rajneesh made the following statement to the INS in an interview in Portland on October 14, 1982:

-      “Just as murder is considered by the society, so the birth of a child should be considered by the commune.”

He wasn’t kidding. Rajneesh required that all his top women officials have themselves sterilized, and he encouraged his other disciples to do the same. If a woman got pregnant at the Pune ashram in India or Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, she was given a stark choice: Agree to have an abortion, or leave the property forthwith. There were zero children born in Oregon to Rajneesh cult members during the time the commune was extant.

“Bhagwan told his followers that a woman could not become enlightened if she had a child,” a former disciple informed me, “because it would take away from her vital energy. It took so much energy to become enlightened that if you had a child, you wouldn’t have the energy to pursue that path.”

Actually, the reason Bhagwan did not want his followers to have children was the same reason he did not care for them to have stable, committed, loving relationships: Having a child might motivate its parents to forsake the commune for a more normal, adult lifestyle.

(Source: https://newrepublic.com/article/147657/outside-limits-human-imagination)

Discussion

I found this discussion in a sannyasins forum.

Parmartha commented:

When I worked in a big department in the then ashram, a number of “workers” both male and female got sterilised, and this procedure was given free to those who were seen as dedicated.

The ashram even gave reasons for workers to consider. I no longer believe these reasons came directly from Osho but they were sometimes enunciated as if they did.

One was a perfectly valid reason and still very true today: overpopulation is killing the planet.

Another common point coming from middle managers in the ashram was that children hindered personal growth and meditation: being a seeker one had to be one pointed and plan a life free from distraction. This reason seems more dubious: surely meditation needs to be tested amongst the noises and chaos of the world…

Another reason given to female workers who were considering sterilisation was that they could become more orgasmic and live without fear of pregnancy. Maybe so, but lets face it many people got sexually transmitted diseases, so even that is a mixed-up reason.

During my 40 years of sannyas and being addicted somewhat to networking, I have met a fair few female sannyasins who regretted, in hindsight, their sterilisations, and one does wonder about it. In the best conversation I had about the topic, the sannyasin concerned said that sterilisation should have been only for the very few. It should never have been a “fashion”.

Kavita said:

I have heard too many stories of Osho insisting on having sterilization and also encouraging abortions in his Commune. Well, if that’s true I am sure he had his reasons.

Madhu replied:

I could very well relate to your contribution, although ´my story´ is quite another one, having gone through abortion issues long ago, regret and much pain. It´s a scar in my case.

Lokesh replied:

There is nothing perfectly valid about this reasoning at all, if put in its correct context. Most of the sannyasins who underwent sterilization in Poona 1 were westerners. What does overpopulation have to do with countries like Scotland? Nothing. Same goes for a number of countries in Europe. A lack of young people is putting a strain on pension systems etc.

To believe that those sterilizations helped the world’s overpopulation in any way illustrates a time when people were undergoing the worst kind of brainwashing, because it is pure bullshit.

Another common point coming from middle managers in the ashram was that children hindered personal growth and meditation. More bullshit. The truth is quite the opposite. Many enlightened men and women in the past were also parents.

One of the main recruiters for sterilization in Poona 1 was Diksha. She later apologized for any damage done. Many young women of that time lost their capacity to bear children and later deeply regretted it. One of the more unsavoury aspects of Poona 1. It is history now. Perhaps some will learn from the mistakes we made during those times and then perhaps something good will come of it.

Bottom line is think for yourself and question all authority. Osho was seen as an authority during those times and so were people like Diksha, who actually coerced and encouraged people to have those ops. It was ridiculous and a good reflection of the downside of those crazy times, times when people were ready to give up everything, including their critical faculties and common sense…and for what exactly? Enlightenment?

Does anyone know of just one person who became enlightened due in part to undergoing a sterilization operation in Poona 1? Just the question frames the absurdity of the whole carry-on.

Simond commented:

Lokesh, you describe it well, how in one way or another, and in this case, in the matter of sterilisation, how we have all been duped or fooled by the ignorance and the authority of others.

We are born into an ignorant world, with parents who are themselves ignorant, and teachers who are lost. It is a wonder any of us learn. But some of do see through the veil, like Lokesh which makes you a delight to read.

The sterilisation issue seems a perfect example of how some were duped into an action they later regret and see was totally ignorant and unnecessary.

(www.sannyasnews.org/now/archives/5961)

OBSERVATIONS

Several Osho followers think that it was not he who gave those directives, but his administrators. But as you could verify, witnesses asserted that those directives were given by Osho himself, and he was also who claimed that having children was an obstacle to spiritual development.

Something that is totally false because all the true masters that I know, they assure that having children and raising them properly is one of the greatest teachings that life gives you, because children teach you to develop: patience, understanding, responsibility, affection, and many other qualities more.

And Osho was also the one who put the pretext of overpopulation so that his followers would be sterilized, check his books "Ultimate Philosophy" and "The Last Testament I".

And that is also a true fallacy, because what causes overpopulation is not procreating children, but procreating too many children. And if you don't believe me, ask the Europeans and the Japanese.

And there Osho was very hypocritical, because he says that he did not force anyone (see link).

But as the witnesses pointed out, the followers who did not want to abort or sterilize, they were threatened to have to leave the ashram, and fanatical as his followers were, they preferred to obey so as not to leave his guru. But later, when the brainwashing had faded, many of them were repentant.

AVI’S MEMORIES AS A SANNYASIN IN AUSTRALIA

Journalist Brendan Foster interviewed Avi who was a former member of the Rajneesh cult, and this is what he told him:

Avi says me he was part of the religious movement in Fremantle in the early 1980s was like going to a theme park every day but with bucket loads of sex.

The 63-year-old was a devotee of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, who was an Indian self-help guru who attracted thousands of followers from around the world with his talk about sex as a path of super consciousness.

Somewhere between a holy man and a showman, Bhagwan combined eastern mysticism and western capitalism and urged his disciples known as Sannyasins, or Orange People, to cast off their worldly possessions.

Fremantle became a major hub for the movement with hundreds of mostly young and university educated people, flocking to the port city to expand their religious dimensions through sex.

Avi said he first became drawn to the religious movement after visiting India in the late 1970s after quitting his job as a child psychiatrist.

"You could compare it to the 60s and the flower power – it was very open and very much about sex. Osho said go into your sexuality and explore it and don't be trapped in relationships. That drew a lot of criticism at the time," Avi said.

When he talks about his first and only meeting with the Bhagwan, he is suddenly rendered catatonic. There is an eternal pause and I could almost hear the words percolating in his head. His silence is both captivating and unnerving, before his whispers the word serene.

"He was very serene, quiet...there was nothing in the way. What he wanted to create was to combine Zorba and the Buddha. Zorba was this big character and full of life and vitality and the same time meditative and serene. He wanted to blend the western Zorba aspect and yet have that quietness and meditativeness of the Buddha," Avi said.

By the time the Bhagwan moved from his ashram in Pune, India, to a palatial range in central Oregon in 1981, his message of free love and mysticism was eliciting devotion beyond the guru's wildest dreams.

The Indian mystic had previously shunned any trappings of wealth, but soon his range became a money-making racket with millions of dollars from Rajneeshee strongholds overseas, including Fremantle, funnelled into his Oregon range.

Orange-clad disciples were "encouraged" to sell off their possessions including their houses and it's reported an estimated $130 million poured into the ranch between 1981-1985.

One of the images rolled out in the media was the Bhagwan's $7 million worth of Rolls Royce's parked in the remote, dusty valley of his 64,000 hectare range.

The Indian mystic would make his daily drive around his property in one of his luxurious cars, while thousands of followers crowding the roads throwing flowers at him.

Despite being ridiculed in the media for his opulent lifestyle, Avi believed the cars had no meaning to the Bhagwan.

"You lose the bigger picture when you focus on that and the bigger picture is all this is materialism and none of it was important. I know of, but I don't know people who gave property... people gave up their properties to the commune and that was invested in things. What really is important is your journey." he said.

Avi quit the cult in 1985 shortly after the Bhagwan's chief assistant Ma Sheela came to Fremantle.

She became famous for pronouncing "tough titties" in a 60 Minutes interview in 1985 when it was suggested the Orange People were not welcome in Pemberton.

Sheela herself quit the commune shortly after cryptically saying "God's secretary is not easy." She was later sentenced to four and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of attempted murder, assault, arson, electronic eavesdropping, immigration fraud and conspiracy.

"I didn't like her. They way she treated people, I didn't like. So when she came to Freo, I decided I was out," Avi said.

Photo showing sannyasins from the Fremantle commune awaiting the arrival of Ma Anand Sheela in 1985.

(Source: https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/when-the-rajneeshee-sex-cult-turned-fremantle-orange-20170323-gv4nr5.html)