The media can be rough, and reactionary. Never has a Master had such a bad press! He was called "The Sex Guru", was accused of leading a Mind Controlling Cult and was exiled from his commune in Oregon without legal or just cause. One FBI spokesman said that this was done because firstly, he'd committed no actual crime as such, and secondly, that the alternative option of assassination was considered dangerous as martyrdom would likely inspire and strengthen his community. The objective was to break up the commune as effectively as possible. An attempt to brand his following as the planet's first bio-terrorists went down very well with the media at the time, although the two people who turned themselves in for the crime were convicted only on the evidence of their own confessions, and both served just a little time in a relatively comfortable federal pen. Neither was notable as a long-term or "leading" sannyasin. One early oddity that should have woken America's intelligent (they must have some, surely) journalists up a bit was that the poisoning wasn't at election time (though this was supposedly it's purpose) and the poison was spread in a salad bar. Sannyasins would eat in a salad bar, the master encouraged vegetarianism. Surely sannyasins wanting to poison opposition supporters to keep them away from the ballot box would have done it when it could have affected the vote – they'd have poisoned a steak house! It's now more generally known that the name "Bhagwan", a name he was called for many years, has a long spiritual tradition. Mahavira, the Jain Master, and Gautama Buddha were both called "Bhagwan" by their sannyasins. The nearest English translation is "Blessed One" and in no way does it mean "Master of the Vagina" This is a long discredited fabrication thought up by who knows, widely adopted by the media at the time in their frantic efforts to support and appease the headman of a fundamentalist sect who also happened to be the President of the USA. (Ronald Regan) If you search the web, even now, you'll find sites that still carry this lie, stated as a fact. Osho's body was cremated in 1990, and since then, sensationalist and malicious rumours and fabrications have given way to an occasionally more rational view of this remarkable man. He made the essence of Indian spiritual experience available to the Western mind, his discourses highlighted valuable practices and deep insights from traditions and teachings as disparate as Christianity, Sufisim, Zen, Vedanta, Tantra, Psychology, Classical Greek Philosophy and Hasidic Judaism. He revered and encouraged study of the great and minor spiritual masters, insisting that transcendence is not a graded or measurable thing - no master's enlightenment can be said to be greater, higher or superior to any other master's. Just differences of style, reflecting differences in audience and culture. For me, Osho's work was an introduction to the spiritual territory that went far beyond my earlier (voracious) reading of mainly Christian, or at any rate, Western-mindset-influenced studies of comparative religion. The teachings of Jesus, in particular, were brought to life for me by this erudite man. I had developed into quite the Christian hater, after being at a Church of England boarding school, where obedience to the Prince of Peace's will, or at least our priest's version of that, was rigidly enforced with a whippy but heavy cane. The depth of hypocrisy I saw in every aspect of this "religious education" shocked me deeply, and it was many years before I could approach any religious writings with an open mind. Whatever one thinks of him personally, whether influenced by the media or not, Osho left an indisputably brilliant, relevant and huge volume of transcribed and recorded talks. His exceptionally fine mind was, in his younger years, debating champion of India, and his talent for revealing the essence of spiritual matters to westerners is unsurpassed.
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