Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990) and latter rebranded as Osho was leader of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic.
In the 1960s he traveled throughout India as a public speaker and was a vocal critic of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and Hindu religious orthodoxy.
Rajneesh emphasized the importance of meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity and humor—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialization.
In advocating a more open attitude to human sexuality he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex guru".
In 1970, Rajneesh spent time in Mumbai initiating followers known as "neo-sannyasins". During this period he expanded his spiritual teachings and commented extensively in discourses on the writings of religious traditions, mystics, and philosophers from around the world. In 1974 Rajneesh relocated to Pune, where an ashram was established and a variety of therapies, incorporating methods first developed by the Human Potential Movement, were offered to a growing Western following. By the late 1970s, the tension between the ruling Janata Party government of Morarji Desai and the movement led to a curbing of the ashram's development and a back taxes claim estimated at $5 million.
In 1981, the Rajneesh movement's efforts refocused on activities in the United States and Rajneesh relocated to a facility known as Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County, Oregon. Almost immediately the movement ran into conflict with county residents and the state government, and a succession of legal battles concerning the ashram's construction and continued development curtailed its success.
In 1985, in the wake of a series of serious crimes by his followers, including a mass food poisoning attack with Salmonella bacteria and an aborted assassination plot to murder U.S. Attorney Charles H. Turner, Rajneesh alleged that his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and her close supporters had been responsible. He was later deported from the United States in accordance with an Alford plea bargain.[
After his deportation, 21 countries denied him entry. He ultimately returned to India and a revived Pune ashram, where he died in 1990. Rajneesh's ashram, now known as OSHO International Meditation Resort and all associated intellectual property, is managed by the Zurich registered Osho International Foundation (formerly Rajneesh International Foundation). Rajneesh's teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought, and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.
My fav quotes (not a review): -Page 2 | "Film is one of the most potential things that man has yet invented. It has given people their childhood again... again they can think in pictorial language." -Page 5 | "But in this group, you have to work totally differently. No individuality should be brought in... as if the whole group is one individual." -Page 47 |"because only a person who can create anger on demand can be capable of dropping it on demand" -Page 69 |"Create a nightmare consciously. And not just so-so; make it as intense as possible. Give it as much energy as possible and let the imagination have full play. Make it so real that you yourself almost forget that it is imagination. Only then will it disappear." -Page 94 |"In India they call it the way of the elephant. The elephant goes and takes a bath in the river and then come out and throws dirt on himself. He simply forgets. But this is how the mind functions." -Page 104 "Both these ways have failed. The East has failed because it tried meditation without love. The West has failed because it tried love without meditation." -Page 130 "So play deeply, meditate daily. Devote your whole life to music... devote it completely. Surrender to it. And don’t think of it as a hobby. Hobby is a profane word. Think of it as prayer, and go to your drums with deep respect. First bow down to them... they are the doors... and be respectful to them." -Page 130 "If you are not feeling good, if you are feeling angry, don’t play. If you are feeling sexual, don’t play. Choose the most silent, blissful moments to play, so as the playing becomes more and more associated with blissful moments, it will create more bliss." -Page 155 "They are not afraid of your naked body. They are afraid of their repressions! They are afraid that they may forget everything – they may rape you! They are afraid of their own desires, inhibitions, and they know if somebody provokes them too much they may forget all etiquette, all formality, all religion, all morality. They may forget that they are human beings; they may become just like animals. They may jump on you and rape you." -Page 171 "T’ai Chi hits the very core of the small nerves, of which there are millions in the body. By and by it infuses life into those small nerves, the body cells, and makes them alive. Ethiopian dance, or things like Karate, are very vigorous. There is a sudden onrush of energy, and it is so much that it by-passes the small cells, but for the bigger musculature it is perfectly good and very very helpful." -Page 237 "Buddha said, ’There are two types of silences. One is when you want to say something and you are not saying it.’ In English you have the expression ’a pregnant silence’. Something is there and maybe the quality of it is such that it cannot be said. It is inexpressible but it is there. Buddha said,’That man told me not to be in a pregnant silence, an eloquent silence, so I didn’t say anything through words and I didn’t say anything through silence. ’But there is another silence, which is simple. It is not absence of saying, not empty of saying, but simply full of silence."