Here, an old friend of Sannyas News, Iqbal Singh (formerly Swami Shantam Prem) returns to declare his abiding love, appreciation and gratitude for Osho, and to re-open a specific question about the Master’s death in early 1990:
19th January 2026 is approaching, the date when Osho Rajneesh left His body 36 years ago.
In between I don´t use the stolen word ‘Osho’ for the late master, nor do I believe in the bluffy assertion: “Never Born, Never Died”.
Still I love and appreciate the genius mystic who had a good intention to bring the world together, to make the people of various countries and cultures sit together for meditation and fall in love.
The purpose of creating this thread is to ask the long-term followers and friends of Master:
Do they still think Master was poisoned by American authorities and that poison became the cause of his death at the age of 58?
Let the thread grow and our enquiry for truth shine.
At the age of 62, my life philosophy is, ‘Truth Liberates, not the Gurus’.
Love,
Iqbal Singh
Full of gratitude for the late master. Rise and fall of His firm is quite an impressive piece in order to understand the business of New Age spirituality.
Iqbal Singh enquires, “Do they still think Master was poisoned by American authorities and that poison became the cause of his death at the age of 58?”
The adverb “still” does not apply in my case, because I never held a fixed opinion about the cause of Osho’s death.
On the one hand, Osho suffered from a litany of medical complaints, didn’t exercise, and took loads of tranquillisers and canisters of nitrous oxide, which might have given him some form of temporary relief from his physical discomfort, but certainly would have been detrimental to his physical health.
On the other hand, I have listened to Osho’s description of how he was poisoned, and it sounded convincing. Then again, Osho sounded convincing when talking about many subjects, and he was not always telling the truth.
Perhaps one day some information will be released, which I doubt, telling how Osho was poisoned by American operatives, even though the U.S. targeted killing programme operates without meaningful oversight outside the executive branch, and essential details about the programme still remain secret, including what criteria the government uses to put people on CIA and military kill lists as well as how much evidence is required before it does so.
What I find most important about Osho’s death is the manner in which he died. He was cool about it. No matter what opinion one holds about Osho, there is no denying that he faced death in an enlightened way and set a marvellous example for all of us.
“What I find most important about Osho’s death is the manner in which he died. He was cool about it. No matter what opinion one holds about Osho, there is no denying that he faced death in an enlightened way and set a marvellous example for all of us.”
How you know? Have you been with him in his last hours?
Lokesh said “Then again, Osho sounded convincing when talking about many subjects, and he was not always telling the truth.”
That is right, it was a consequence of always using devices to move his disciples. It is a reason why one needs to be careful when reading Osho’s books. I am reminded…
“A beautiful story about Gautam Buddha…One morning a man asked him, ”Is there a God?” Buddha looked at the man, looked into his eyes and said, ”No, there is no God.”
That very day in the afternoon another man asked, ”What do you think about God? Is there a God?” Again he looked at the man and into his eyes and said, ”Yes, there is a God.”
Ananda, who was with him, became very much puzzled, but he was always very careful not to interfere in anything. He had his time when everybody had left in the night and Buddha was going to sleep; if he had to ask anything, he would ask at that time.
But by the evening, as the sun was setting, a third man came with almost the same question, formulated differently. He said, ”There are people who believe in God, there are people who don’t believe in God. I myself don’t know with whom I should stand. You help me.”
Ananda was very intensely listening now to what Buddha says. He had given two absolutely contradictory answers in the same day, and now the third opportunity has arisen – and there is no third answer. But Buddha gave him the third answer. He did not speak, he closed his eyes. It was a beautiful evening. The birds had settled in their trees – Buddha was staying in a mango grove – the sun had set, a cool breeze had started blowing. The man, seeing Buddha sitting with closed eyes, thought that perhaps this is his answer, so he also sat with closed eyes with him.
An hour passed, the man opened his eyes, touched the feet of Buddha and said, ”Your compassion is great. You have given me the answer. I will always remain obliged to you.”
Ananda could not believe it, because Buddha had not spoken a single word. And as the man went away, perfectly satisfied and contented, Ananda asked Buddha, ”This is too much! You should think of me – you will drive me mad. I am just on the verge of a nervous breakdown. To one man you say there is no God, to another man you say there is a God, and to the third you don’t answer. And that strange fellow says that he has received the answer and he is perfectly satisfied and obliged, and touches your feet. What is going on?”
Buddha said, ”Ananda, the first thing you have to remember is those were not your questions, those answers were not given to you. Why did you get unnecessarily concerned with other people’s problems? First solve your own problems.”
Ananda said, ”That’s true, they were not my questions and the answers were not given to me. But what can I do? I have ears and I hear, and I have heard and I have seen, and now my whole being is puzzled – what is right?”
Buddha said, ”Right? Right is awareness. The first man was a theist. He wanted my support – he already believed in God. He had come with an answer, ready-made, just to solicit my support so that he can go around and say, “I am right, even Buddha thinks so.” I had to say no to him, just to disturb his belief, because belief is not knowing. The second man was an atheist. He had also come with a ready-made answer, that there is no God, and he wanted my support to strengthen his disbelief and so he can go on proclaiming around that I agree with him. I had to say to him, “Yes, God exists.” But my purpose was the same.
If you see my purpose, there is no contradiction. I was disturbing the first man’s preconceived belief, I was disturbing the second person’s preconceived disbelief. Belief is positive, disbelief is negative, but both are the same. Neither of them was a knower and neither of them was a humble seeker; they were already carrying a prejudice.
The third man was a seeker. He had no prejudice, he had opened his heart. He told me, “There are people who believe, there are people who don’t believe. I myself don’t know whether God exists or not. Help me.” And the only help I could give was to teach him a lesson of silent awareness; words were useless. And as I closed my eyes he understood the hint. He was a man of certain intelligence – open, vulnerable. He closed his eyes.
As I moved deeper into silence, as he became part of the field of my silence and my presence, he started moving into silence, moving into awareness. When one hour had passed, it seemed as if only a few minutes had passed. He had not received any answer in words, but he had received the authentic answer in silence:
Don’t be bothered about God; it does not matter whether God exists or does not exist. What matters is whether silence exists, awareness exists or not. If you are silent and aware, you yourself are a god. God is not something far away from you; either you are a mind or you are a god. In silence and awareness mind melts and disappears and reveals your divineness to you. Although I have not said anything to him, he has received the answer, and received it in a perfectly right way.”
Perhaps one shouldn’t go to Osho’s books for the truth, but just to pay attention when the question resonates.
If I were to hazard a personal opinion, based mostly on intuition, I don’t think the Americans poisoned Osho. I think it is more likely that his physical deterioration was due to prolonged use of laughing gas. He was always sensitive to smells, and I think his body slowly wore out from the misuse over the years.
The statement “never born, never died” is a quality piece of esoteric bluff, I agree with you, Iqbal. “Never born” implies an enlightened presence before birth, “never died” implies an enlightened presence after death. Well, who knows where the truth lies? However, even the Buddha only became enlightened at age 35.
The other thing I find interesting is that Osho very rarely employed his own parables or teaching stories. He always seemed to get his stories from other sources but would sometimes modernise or otherwise modify them.
“Never born, never died” is originally from Meher Baba.
He said it 1954.
Long before Osho started the disciple game.
Honestly, whether he was poisoned or not doesn’t seem important to me. He clearly suggested he had been, and he wasn’t treated well by the authorities. They didn’t like him and were apparently threatened by him. Whether his so-called threat was real or not, he hardly figures as a threat these many years later. He is largely forgotten today, his books aren’t found much in bookstores and an ageing group of Sannyasins have little influence today.
Many I know of are either more lost and confused than they ever were; isolated in small groups, reaching out to each other with memories of days past. Mostly they reminisce and have forgotten his key message, if they ever really understood what his message was.
Osho was a mountain of a man, an extraordinary figure, self-realised, transcendental, but he made mistakes and was truly of his time. How could an Indian truly understand the West? How could he incorporate his own realisation with such young, ‘inexperienced of life westerners’?
He did as well as he could, and was bound by his own lack of knowledge, bound too by how little he was truly interrogated by his own disciples. Too often we accepted his words, but rarely challenged him to explain or to demonstrate his understanding.
We put him on a pedestal and later many blamed him, when we really need to look at ourselves and our own prejudices.
Let me reiterate, I too was at fault but I don’t blame Osho or myself. Living Life itself is the great teacher and those few real masters of old, like Osho, I’m forever grateful to. But his time has gone, and whether he was poisoned or not, it’s really of no importance to me or to the wider public. If we remember him at all, let it be because we have learned from him, and incorporated this understanding into our daily lives.