Osho Rajneesh Cult Documentary

[Tibetan_Ice]

The next time anyone would like to cite Osho as any type of spiritual authority, pleas watch this documentary all the way through...

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice

[thelerner]

I know, I know, not a respected anything but I still like some of his stuff.  We could add crazed hypocrite to the list, but there is also (imo) some genius there too, certainly of the manic kind.  Highs, lows.. little inbetween.  Possibly a brain imbalance that created both.

Edited July 16, 2015 by thelerner

[3bob]

so learner did you see the picture of his sweet girlfriend that killed herself? (besides the twisted genius stuff?)

[gatito]

In a 1985 talk quoted in a book of his speeches, From Death to Deathlessness, Osho claimed the Holocaust was more peaceful than the way in which Indians died under colonial rule.

'Adolf Hitler’s violence with the Jews was far more peaceful, because he killed people in the most up-to-date gas chambers, where you don’t take much time,' he said.

'Thousands of people can be put in a gas chamber, and just a switch is pressed. Within a second you will not know when you were alive and when you died. Within a second, you evaporate.

'The chimneys of the factory start taking you, the smoke – you can call it the holy smoke – and this seems to be a direct way towards God. The smoke simply goes upwards.'

 

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2675391/BBC-staff-furious-controversial-mystic-follows-teachings-guru-believes-Jews-died-peacefully-gas-chambers-invited-teach-employees-MEDITATION.html

Edited July 17, 2015 by gatito

[thelerner]

so learner did you see the picture of his sweet girlfriend that killed herself? (besides the twisted genius stuff?)

nope..  djf;asfj  <<me making aggressive pointless comment

 

guys I called him a 'crazed hypocrite' (and almost added lunatic, probably should have)   If you want a long deep discussion I can bring up some of his writings and meditations that I think were solid and we can judge each piece independently.  He certainly did evil and was horrible role model.

 

Yet like a certain type of manic person he produced a huge amount of work much bad, much contradictory and some good.  You guys are the ones bringing him up, not me.  

 

 I found the documentary tame, there have been nastier exposes.  Out of curiosity, if you've studied his life, would you say he always dark and crazy, or got increasingly so with age, drug use and disciple worship? 

Edited July 19, 2015 by thelerner

[3bob]

What, is Osho's sick twisted-ness rubbing off on you learner ? Strange since you mostly seem the mellow type to me.

[thelerner]

I am mellow.. damnit.  

 

I'm just being truthful.  Long time ago I got a book by a woman who was into Osho and wrote down some of his meditations.  She didn't promote the man so much as write up some of the meditations he 'invented' that she liked, and some of them were good imo.   By that time I knew about his craziness, and repeat for the 3rd time I think the man was a lunatic and evil.  

 

There's a group called IMU in Chicago that would do Full Moon Meditations; a bit of dharma talk, followed by 3 rounds of 45 minutes meditation, 15 minutes dance.  Osho was never mentioned, it had nothing to do with him, yet in my mind it was an Osho-like event.  Meditate then freestyle dance, repeat.   It was/is good stuff.  A break from orthodox meditation mindset. 

 

Apart from that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln; ..apart from his evil doings and lunacy that unique eccentric; dance, experience joy, no boxes, was an aspect of his teaching that I admire.  Its too bad his brand of Crazy Wisdom, came with so much other crazy.  

 

Watching the video, it seemed like his commune could have been a heaven on earth kind of place.  It had so much going for it, but alas he himself was the snake.   And attracted a few others but the ideal, drive, most of the people held promise. 

Edited July 17, 2015 by thelerner

[3bob]

what the hell, I don't cuss...  (much) 

Learner, It sounds that you mean well and are trying to take or make the best out of a bad situation which I see as admirable in a way. As for myself I can't make or give that much leeway to anything Osho tried to pull off or to the people still around who are still trying to pull off Osho stuff with or in his name.

[thelerner]

I understand that.  There's a bitterness when you see people seemingly praising someone you consider evil.  They may not be praising the man, only an aspect of there work, but even that creates anger and feelings of betrayal of the victims left in the wake.  I've been there.

 

You are totally right to bring up the evil done and lives ruined.   and yet.. what ever I said above. 

Some do so much bad, their very name is cursed. 

Edited July 17, 2015 by thelerner

[Perceiver]

Just because someone is an evil son of a bitch doesnt mean that they cant say intelligent stuff. People need to be able to separate the two.

[Nungali]

There are some basic problems with a lot of his teachings ... I saw some friends go   through various stages of he movement. Sad really.  One went all the way, stayed at the Poona and USA commune ... it did not sound good from his stories, and he was  devoted to him.

 

You have to see the interview with him , the first one after he broke his vow of silence ... he reveals a LOT in that ! 

Edited July 17, 2015 by Nungali

[LAOLONG]

Something is very wrong with a guru how buy for himself a fleet of rolls royce cars.

[LAOLONG]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavan

That the name he gave himself .the indian did not like it.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

I'm not familiar with Osho's teachings or methods, so I don't know how useful they are. However, IMHO thelerner and Perceiver are right about separating a person's work from the moral dubiousness of their actions.

 

Just because someone is an utter failure at basic morality and conventional wisdom doesn't mean they have nothing useful to say on ultimate wisdom. And acknowledging one isn't trying to cover up or ignore the other.

[Nikolai1]

I watched this and I came away thinking that Osho's main shortcoming was a kind of naïveté. Or if not that, then he was deliberately trying to challenge the ascetic sexless expectation that we all have of the religious man. There is genuine merit in this, and it is a lesson that we all need to learn. Spirituality is beyond concern for the material. The craziness was the people who actually ran the place. Nakedly ambitious types who got their hands on immense funds and didn't understand anything except to fight and build, fight and build.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Chang]

There is little doubt that Osho was the leader of a cult which was fashionable with spiritual seekers for many years. All things considered he probably did more harm than good to his disciples.

 

That said it should be remembered that in his later years the day to day running of his organisation was passed to a group of ladies known as the Big Mama's, these headed by one Ma Anand Sheela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Anand_Sheela

who was anything but spiritual and who was responsible for much of the lunacy afoot around Osho.

 

All things considered the buck stopped with Osho who allowed this group to assume control, his disciples should also question themselves. Osho's was a cult appealing to those who sought to bask in the radiance of an achieved master and they found fools gold rather than the real thing. There is still no shortage of such people and still no shortage of "Masters" who are only too happy to take them in. 'Caveat Emptor'

[3bob]

a half truth is mixed with a half lie, and half the battle is seeing that to take a full stand against it.

[Nungali]

I'm not familiar with Osho's teachings or methods, so I don't know how useful they are. However, IMHO thelerner and Perceiver are right about separating a person's work from the moral dubiousness of their actions.

 

Just because someone is an utter failure at basic morality and conventional wisdom doesn't mean they have nothing useful to say on ultimate wisdom. And acknowledging one isn't trying to cover up or ignore the other.

 

That's because, as you say, you are not familiar with his work, nor seen the effects it had on some of his 'disciples';

 

 There are basic flaws in some of his teachings about convulsive therapy which can damage practitioners.

 

 He openly admitted his mission was to teach his followers how stupid they were in accepting his 'guruship' and publicly demonstrated their foolishness at his instigation in front of international media .  

 

 It was also a huge money making scam.

 

 Much of it was a watered down pop-version of neo-Reichian psychology and body work with cool Indian  sounding terminology for ego-centred westerners.

 

Other parts were his writings on teachers and philosophers ... this was  crappy as the devotees (at least the ones I knew )  would not read eg. Rumi original works ... but they would read Rajneeshe's version of Rumi ... then go around saying they were Sufi's  

 

Then start 'teaching' Sufi dance and 'workshops'. 

 

 

It created a 'guru-projection syndrome'   (that is, the practitioners tried to then be the gurus for others not in the movement ... in some cases after only a few month of  doing the 'meditations' themselves ... I actually had to take care of a a very disturbed person for several weeks after they attended one of their retreats ... they were 'opened up' by intensive forced psychological practices, then booted out as they didnt know how to handle what happened to the person. I actually went and fronted the person organising this 'retreat' and she told me that they are not responsible for what happens afterwards or during the retreat ??? 

 

So IMO ... it has little to do with his personal 'arse iness'   .... some of it I was quiet impressed by *  ...  its the teachings and practices and the arsehole type sanyassins I have issue with ... I actually had a relationship with one for a while 0 was she screwed up ... in ways that they claimed they had 'cleared'  - no way ... she was insecure, jealous. etc. etc. and she was doing practices for years to supposedly become free of that  ... no way ... I was much more 'free' than her in those regards ... with no 'Osho guruship' to 'guide me' 

 

* Rajneesh to reporter  "That is a lie ! I do not have 91 Rolls-Royces  .... you should get your facts straight before you report such rubbish!  .....      I have 93 Rolls-Royces ."  

 

[Jeff]

The issue with Osho is actually pretty common with many guru types. He was open to the sixth chakra (3rd eye), was very intelligent, had some real abilities, resided pretty deep in consciousness, and many of his teachings were very insightful and pretty profound. But, in his spiritual arrogance, he never touched the divine (opened the crown) and seemed to have gotten caught up in all of his stuff.

 

In emotional terms, he never realized true/universal love or forgiveness.

 

 

Best wishes.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Jeff

[Tibetan_Ice]

The issue with Osho is actually pretty common with many guru types. He was open to the sixth chakra (3rd eye), was very intelligent, had some real abilities, resided pretty deep in consciousness, and many of his teachings were very insightful and pretty profound. But, in his spiritual arrogance, he never touched the divine (opened the crown) and seemed to have gotten caught up in all of his stuff.

 

In emotional terms, he never realized true/universal love or forgiveness.

 

 

Best wishes.

To me, spiritual arrogance is claiming someone else has not "touched the divine (opened the crown)" as you have stated. And you have applied this diagnosis to "many guru types". Did you conduct an intensive poll?

 

Opening the crown is very easy to do, you should have learned that at AYP with the hundreds of warnings to stay away from the crown.. But here you are claiming that Osho never opened the crown.

 

Did you go back into the akashic records and look up Osho's spiritual accomplishments?

 

How did you determine that Osho never touched the divine?

 

And how do you relate opening the crown with touching the divine? The divine resides in the heart so why would you even have to go near the crown to experience the divine?

 

Are you even aware of the implications of your statements?

[gatito]

Some very good questions TI - but probably best to regard them as rhetorical in this case..

 

[soaring crane]

The core message in the few osho books I've read comes down to "don't be a whiner and don't be a victim". I like that.

[gatito]

The core message in the few osho books I've read comes down to "don't be a whiner and don't be a victim". I like that.

 

Then you clearly need to work on your discrimination..

 

Euthanasia and Eugenics

Rajneesh favoured euthanasia for children with a broad variety of birth defects, such as blindness, deafness, and dumbness: "if a child is born deaf, dumb, and we cannot do anything, and the parents are willing, the child should be put to eternal sleep."^[190] He maintained that people at risk of conceiving children with birth defects "don't have that permission from existence" to "take the risk of burdening the earth with a crippled, blind child".^[190]

Jewish "guilt", the Holocaust and the gas chambers' "holy smoke"

− Rajneesh claimed that Jews "are guilty people, and their guilt is very great" because they crucified Jesus; out of this guilt, they are "always in search of their Adolf Hitlers, someone who can kill them". He asserted that only when Jews "reclaim Jesus", "they will be healthy and whole, and then there will be no need for Adolf Hitlers".^[191]

− − In criticizing historical teachers of pacifism who have encouraged people to: "Just accept the situation in which you are," Rajneesh has stated that "living in poverty is far more dangerous, far more suffering than dying in a beautifully, scientifically managed gas chamber in Germany",^[192] and claimed that "Hitler’s violence was far more peaceful" than (for example) the violence which erupted in India after independence from the British Crown; Hitler "killed people in the most up-to-date gas chambers, where you don’t take much time. Thousands of people can be put in a gas chamber, and just a switch is pressed ... Within a second, you evaporate. The chimneys of the factory start taking you, the smoke – you can call it holy smoke – and this seems to be a direct way towards God."^[193]

− −

Homosexuality as perversion; segregation and relocation of homosexuals

− During the years before his move to the United States, Rajneesh supported and encouraged homosexual sannyasins: "No condemnation, no judgement, no evaluation. If you are a homosexual, so what?! Enjoy it! God has made you that way."^[194] However, during the early to mid-1980s he arrived at a more judgemental assessment of homosexuality and suggested that homosexuals should be isolated: "homosexuals, because they were perverted, created the disease AIDS." "They can live in their own world, in their own way, and be happy, but they should not be allowed to move in the wider society, spreading all kinds of dangerous viruses."^[195] When asked by gay sannyasins to explain his new view of homosexuality, he replied "As a homosexual, you are not even a human being ... You have fallen from dignity."^[196]

− He never changed or retracted these public pronouncements.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh

Edited July 18, 2015 by gatito

[idiot_stimpy]

He was certainly one of a kind.

[gatito]

He was certainly one of a kind.

 

Unfortunately, that's certainly not the case..