The destruction of Osho’s Discourse, December 19th, 1984
December 19th, 1984 was a watershed in every sense for both Osho and Sannyas.
For the first time Osho publicly criticised the organisation that Sheela had created around him. Up until that point, at least publicly, Osho had always seemed to support the organisation and Sheela unequivocally.
Just a few weeks before on October 30th, 1984, he had broken his three year (public) silence by beginning to speak to disciples once a day as he had done before in India (apart from periods of illness) from 1974 to 1981.
There was however an important difference. Osho spoke initially to a small group of about 40 so-called close disciples and the video of the discourse was played the following day for the rest of the commune.
Sheela was visibly distressed by Osho’s decision to start giving discourses again. According to Prem Sangeet, the then Rajneeshpuram City Attorney “Sheela cried for several days and begged Osho not to speak again”. In fact Osho originally wanted the videos to be played early in the morning before work, when the disciple’s mind and body was fresh, but Sheela argued huge back-logs in work that needed to be done for the city commune, and in the end videos of these talks were played after work – just as disciple’s were tired after a long day’s labour. It was not uncommon for half the audience to fall asleep.
From December 19th Sheela must have known that the game was up – the game of the strange autocracy she had grown into.
At first Sheela ordered the 19th December video to be “lost” and the so-called “Number 20 discourse” was consigned to the flames – as soon as it had been delivered to the 40 or so people who heard it. No video of the day before was played to the commune on the 20th December to which communards had by that time become accustomed.
Those few who were not part of Sheela’s circle who heard the discourse recall that Osho called for autonomous centres and communes again, and not ones merged with the Ranch organisation – as had increasingly happened since 1983. He also said that no-one could henceforth claim they were speaking on his behalf. (A common trick by Sheela and her group).
Finally he underlined that he was not intending sannyasins to be left under any kind of “Fascist Regime”.
Just a month later in January,1985 Osho sent Sheela back to India to look for a place for the new commune, together with Jayananda her husband and Krishna Deva and other then leading lights of her group. At a stroke, Osho was making it plain that the dream of a sannyas city state was not his, but Sheela’s. As he told Savita (Sheela’s number two) when the Ranch was collapsing six months later, this experiment of yours is as nothing compared to my enlightenment and the enlightened contact with my sannyasins. And Osho clearly fell about reconsolidating his real work and connection with his people without intermediary from October, 1984.
One may legitimately wonder why for several years Osho allowed this group to take over the whole of his temporal work, and for that he could be held accountable. Nonetheless once it was clear that to him the leadership of the commune had gone severely off the rails as outlined above he began to put it right with an alacrity that many accounts do not acknowledge.
Comments on topic are welcome.
Parmartha
So let’s get this straight. A video goes missing in 1984, and in April of 2011, this has relevance?
Let’s cut the fat out of the equation. Either you trust that Osho knew what he was doing, or you do not. If you think he knew, does that make him bad? If he did not, does that make him stupid?
Could the truth perhaps lay somewhere in the middle? Fascist? Seriously? A little hard work never hurt anybody, and its not like there was no choice involved. I think the only ones who might have a claim to being stuck were the kids. Legitimately, you can wonder whatever you want, but actually you will never know. One thing is for sure though, and that is that for some, the ranch period is seen as a stain on the purity of Osho, which therefore must be rationalized as some sort of theatre of the absurd, replete with an arch evil perpetrator , evil compliant minions, and worker bees humming along blindly while the big dog was just hanging back in (public) silence and enjoying afternoon drives in the car of his choice. Hey ya’know… it was all good right up until the moment it wasn’t, hmm. Anyways, back to this moment…..
2011, even the most sleepy conutries on the earth are getting awake from the cozy sleep under fasict regimes. Have sannyasins learnt the art of sharing management skills. Is Pune of now is different from rajneeshpuram of 1984?
Osho has surely learnt from His mistakes at puram, so before leaving the body, he created an institution of Inner Circle. How Sheela syndrom has worked again, this time through a man´s body, is a matter of further discussion.
Bingo, it is not in this case me who is saying that the Ranch had become a fascist type place. It was Osho – and the discourse in which he most alluded to it was destroyed. I lived through this period as a commune member. It was not so marvelous. Many, like me, felt we were in a major spiritual experiment of surrender, but were not so happy in it, but we persisted with it as it held out the promise of transformation.
Frankly I do think there was a lesson, intended or otherwise, at least for me and others I have spoken to who went through that period, which is that surrender is a mistaken path.
Propelling oneself “into the moment” can also be a psychological reaction to past trauma.
Past and future do not exist, but neither does the present according to those who live outside time.
Shantam,
A “Religion” was created during the Ranch period, it was called “Rajneeshism”. It was Sheela’s suggestion. She rationalised it by saying we needed a recognised religion to give Osho the status of a religious leader, which would allow him to stay in the USA indefinitely.
After Sheela left the commune, the Book of Rajneeshism (the Bible of that religion) was publicly incinerated in the commune crematorium, as were Sheela’s robes etc (on the behest of the new administration (Hasya, etc) in a ceremony that I attended on the Ranch. Personally I felt ill at ease with all of us singing away with devotional songs as that was done, as it simply echoed to me what had gone before during Sheela’s own regime. A simple announcement would have been much better. It even felt revengeful to me and lacked sensibility.
The idea of the 21 people running the temporal affairs of the commune after Osho left the planet was idealistic. It never worked from the word go. There were power factions within it so Osho’s instruction that they should all agree before they did anything never worked. In the end, apart from a few that died, many left, and were replaced by yes men and women that are known to support the dominant faction.
Parmartha, Thank you for the post, original and the follow ups as well. What I wrote does seem abrasive when I re-read it… perhaps it would be better said that following the period in question, Osho had ample opportunity to explain things as he saw fit. The rest is up to us. I lived at the ranch, accepted it as my choice, and although some times were incredibly difficult, treasure the experience.
I have almost no knowledge of the goings on today, and as such, have no ability to comment on the parallels that exist, although I am catching up, bit by bit, to what has happened within the sannyas community over the past 25 years. Interesting to say the least.
Bingo, i think you must be enjoying the story of last 25 years of Sannyas.
Meditation, love, surrunder, intrigue, jealousy, power games etc. etc..last 25 years of Sannyas life has all the light and dark elements. In the flow of spirituality, all can be accepted and trasformed. In the cult mentality, all the dark is pressed under the carpet. Something changes with the time..much remains the same!
Few of the Best Osho moments are here-
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Hi Parmartha,
There is a kind of mix up, I think. This discourse of December 19th, 1984 was published with the heading “Enlightened organization is organic harmony”, pages 509 to 532 in the book “The Rajneesh Bible”, Volume 2.
The only direct mention made about Sheela in the whole discourse is “So I am now sending Sheela, every month, for three days to each commune, to see that the religious work is carried out according to my vision; so no sannyasin living in any commune feels that he’s deprived of any facility. All the facilities should be absolutely similar and each commune is autonomous.”
Cheers
Something was published from that day, much watered down but it did not represent the original lecture. Lectures were always videod so the whole commune could watch them in the evening, but this video was conveniently lost. There were about 40 sannyasins in the lecture, mostly Sheelaites but a few from the household. It is from the latter that we know that the lecture contained much more.
Osho was answering a question
“Is organisation neccessary for a religion to survive”?
My information is based on the then Rajneesh International approved book, called “A Passage to America” by Max Brecher which I believe is still in print. and the events around the lost lecture are itemised there on pages 221/222.
I do not have a copy of the Rajneesh Bible but you could check whether what you mention is listed as discourse 20 which is the critical discourse and which was known about by that name by those in the know at the time. You would also know that Sheela published the Rajneesh Bible and her record on Osho text is not good. For example in the “Glimpses” Book she added a chapter to the text, which was fictional, but was then deleted in the later Pune publication of the book.
The eight vols of the Rajneesh Bible were retitled.
You can see the re-titles here
http://www.demonoid.me/files/details/2274729/0019176357906/
You can prob download them at above link or at http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Ebooks/Osho_Books.htm
or at oshoworld.com
I’ve got the book and it’s the discourse 20 all right. It’s a beautiful discourse; in it Osho points out the mistakes made by the masters of the past and categorically emphasizes what he will do to get successful. Quoting him:
“…and remembering that your whole function is to be enlightened, so the torch of enlightenment remains burning. There is no gap. And I’m taking every care that there will be no gap. Bodhidharma will feel jealous of me!” End of the quote.
I can send you the discourse, if you are interested, just tell me how is the best way.
Cheers
Tan, thanks.
I was a commune member at that time. There was definitely something fishy about that day’s video going on, it was even announced that the video would not be shown for technical reasons.
I can only quote you Max Brecher’s words which have the ring of truth to me. (Page 222)
He says:
“After much protest from those in attendance who were not part of Sheela’s inner circle, a watered down version of “Number 20″ was reproduced in the Rajneesh Times. All barbed and resonating insinuations that Rajneeshpuram was functioning under a fascist regime and that Sheela was not the totally reliable conduit of Rajneesh’s vision were edited out. “
Shantam, A lot has transpired over these years. I am amazed at the ability of some to recall such details as are being discussed here…. which book, what date, etc. I remember many things from the ranch in detail, but all of the books and dates and other trivia were just peripheral to me. I spent the last 6 moths in the European commune (Premrito offered me the opportunity to go) and of course this means I missed all the turmoil of those last few months at the ranch. I left Amsterdam, and returned to the ranch the day before Osho left, and was at the airport to see him off with all the others. A few days later I would also leave, and never look back. A few weeks ago, a package was delivered to my door step, from an old friend. In it, were several editions of the old “Rajneesh times” newspaper that the commune used to print. Guess it got me to thinking.
The Oregonian newspaper has done a Julian Assange Wikileaks type of information disclosure (only in the last week or so) at
http://www.oregonlive.com/rajneesh/index.ssf/documents.html
There are 53 documents there. we are not sure if they were already in the public domain, and the Oregonian has just collected them together, or they have only been released after 25 years, as happens in some gov documents in the UK.
Not for everyone, but for those interested plenty to chew on there!
Hi Bingo,
I was going the other way when you were going to Europe. I was a European commune member invited to Oregon for six months in the work swaps that were going on at that time. Hence perhaps my memory of those last six months Ranch events is a little clearer and based on the experience of being there. Also we knew the National Guard were, as it were, just over the hill, so felt some danger if they were going to arrest Osho as was widely reported. We did have our own guns at the time and did not know how the Rajneesh Peace Police would react to an arrest attempt. I myself and many others felt caught up in something which we certainly did not sign up to.
I remember with friends finding an offbeat trail to walk off the Ranch should such a denouement happen and get to a local road and hitch out of there!
Parmartha, What a coincidence. You walked right into the fire.
I have been reading some of the information from The Oregonian. Devastating.
There is certainly some interesting information contained in the series but like all outside sources, the writer fails utterly to understand the “little” people who spent time there imbibing the spirit of the place. I was not a full time resident, spent only 5 months there during the fall of 1984 and spring of ’85 and did decide against asking for permanent residency yet the warmth and love felt from co-workers and friends is indelibly imprinted on my psyche.
It has long been my sense of things that the Ranch served as a device as many things served this function around Osho. If you are truly with Him, all things in life can serve as devices. My trust in the Master remains intact and was so even during the darkest days of Ranch history. I say to hell with the critics. They are simply ignorant and I include in that, so called sannyasins who rejected Osho and worse.
I just wonder whether Samurai´s of Rajneeshpuram has any idea about the present state of Osho affairs. Whether something meaningful lesson has been learnt by the sannyasins or they are just contented to share the stories of those golden days of war and peace.
Shantam, My Sannyas chi is increasing daily. Regarding meaningful lessons from the past. The whole experience was transformative, not just the ranch but the whole experience of being with Osho and the commune for those years.
I find if difficult to express myself through writing, So I will say this. I have lived a simple life. My master told me to participate, to be present, and to take a risk. To love. To share. To create. To live each moment fully and not be too serious. My master told me to sometimes do the exact opposite
of what I think I want to do, that I might explore avenues I would otherwise never come to know.
He told me to be total, and to go through things, rather than around them. To understand the natural flow of things and to go with that, rather than fight it, and he taught me to be comfortable with my own nature, rather than resist. He told me that sometimes it takes a hammer, and sometimes it takes a hug. He taught me that I dont need to be taught, rather I need to see. He taught me that I am not just an I, but part of a whole, and taught me how to experience that, and live that, and how to communicate that.
For that, I am grateful.