As it’s still summer, something a bit different here, while we’re waiting for another article to emerge, two topics taken from the internet that in different ways encapsulate the sheer wonder of this earthly and universal Life we’ve been born into.

Please feel free to comment on either or both topics, and to add any further specific instances conveying “the wonder of it all”.

First, the latest scientific research on UFOs, a 15 mins. video interview with American physicist Michio Kaku, followed by a newspaper article from Barry Long published in 1995, ’Truth and the Ignorance of Science Today’.

After which there’s a video presentation on ‘The Trust Technique’, a mind-blowing, meditative way of relating woth animals.

Here are the links to all three:

Physicist Michio Kaku on the Shift in the UFO Phenomenon

Ma Ananda Sarita

Now a tantra teacher in the U.K., lived on Rajneeshpuram the whole time.

I was there with the first 20 people before Osho came to the ranch and then I was there until there were only six people left. We took a desert and we completely transformed it in only five years and turned it into an oasis. People were working 16-hour days but always singing, dancing, hugging, laughing, and having love affairs. It was a very vibrant and alive place and very joyful. Most of the people who were there had no idea about the crimes that were being committed by Sheela and her close entourage.

The documentary was very touching and fascinating to watch. They tried to be very balanced. However I did find what was missing was more about Osho and the meditative aspect. There were personal development groups happening, people were coming from all over the world to work on themselves. For the outsiders looking in, they would think “oh, that’s a cult,” but you know, the fact of guru and disciple has been a thousands-of-years-old approach to life in India and I think it should have been at least given some kind of attention or spoken about in some way.

In the very early days, I was working in Sheela’s house as a cleaner and later on I was shifted to work in the press office. I saw that things were going in a not very pleasant direction with her and the people around her. I saw that she was under a lot of stress. Osho had invited her to live in his compound, and he advised her to work during the day but in the evening to come back to a meditative space in his compound, to leave the work behind — she chose not to do that. When people are under stress, they do strange things.

This first appeared in “The Cut” . As the Sheela cabal tried to murder Amrito it is important testimony, and a major flaw that the film did not try to interview him, oe see it as important.

The following interview has been edited and condensed.

Did the documentary makers ever reach out to you to be in the documentary?
No. I wasn’t contacted.

How did you feel about that? 
I think there are a few things which really got kind of overlooked which would’ve been nice to have been able to articulate, really.

What would you have wanted to add?
I mean, in a way, Osho’s really not a central part of the documentary at all. If you wanted to really tell the story properly, you’d want to know something about Osho, right? And all the coverage in a way totally misunderstands Osho. I saw Megyn Kelly the other day — it was actually disgusting, really, in terms of misrepresentation — she did an interview with the two guys who did the documentary, and it was kind of, oh you know: these ridiculous cultists, sex all the time, they were killers — sort of just pure misrepresentation. Well, hang on: You don’t say all of Chicago are killers because Al Capone lives there. Another thing is, [the reason we initially went to Antelope is] that we couldn’t get a phone line [where we were]. That’s what it came down to. It wasn’t this invasion of Antelope. I mean, who wanted to go to Antelope? Who in the hell wants to go 19 miles away from your friends, it took 25 minutes in a pickup on a really bumpy road.

Right.
There was no reason why [Oregonians] couldn’t have just left that community alone. They weren’t interfering with anyone’s lives. And in fact, turning a piece of barren desert into an oasis, that’s not a bad project. When you look at the world today you kind of wish there were a few more experiments like that going on. 

In a way, that seems like why the documentary is really resonating with people. People are watching it and saying “Well, the actual utopian ideal of Rajneeshpuram looks kind of appealing” — although of course there was this very ugly and awful stuff that was happening behind the scenes.

Let me just clarify that. The other part of the story which is really not clear, but you could pick up on it, is that over a period of time, basically Sheela split from Osho. She openly said, “I’m not interested in meditation at all.” So you’ve got a non-meditater trying to understand the vision of someone whose only interest is meditation. That’s a pretty strange starting point. And then, basically, she starts saying: “He’s lost interest in his vision, but I know what his vision is and I’m going to be the one to deliver it.” As time went by, she really started to push back and not do anything Osho wanted. By 1984, she’s really kind of going off the rails, really.

Why didn’t you leave after the murder attempt? 
I would never have thought of leaving. I’m there because this is the most amazing experiment ever, and primarily I’m there to be with Osho. So I would just do my best  later to keep my back against the wall, you know what I mean!?

Sheela has definitely been this sort of object of fascination, I think, for people who’ve watched the documentary. Can you give any insight into what kind of person you think she is based on the time you spent with her? 

Definitely courageous. No question. She was this kind of high-powered, fast-moving, quick-talking, quick-thinking, intelligent, courageous, go-getting person, and everyone went “Great! This is wonderful.” By sort of early ’81, Sheela’s really everybody’s favorite. It’s we who chose Sheela, and Osho who crowned her. And she’s an incredibly able administrator, able to get things done. Yet she had no sense of Osho’s vision. She thought Osho’s vision was to create a community. But Osho’s vision was to help people become themselves. He’s not interested in creating an alternative society. He’s interested in people who go into the normal life and live beautifully wherever they find. In my opinion, what Einstein was to the 19th century, Osho will be to the 20th century. Instead of being about the outer cosmology, it will be about the inner cosmology.

Why was she so out for you? She claims that you were planning to give Osho euthanasia and that you had got him addicted to drugs and so forth. Is that all a lie? And if so, why did she try to have you killed?

Yeah, of course. The key was, she attacked his household and everybody in it and found any excuse she could to do that. She constantly hated the fact that we had access to Osho. We were a constant threat to her total monopoly on power.

Were you frightened during all this?
No, not really. I mean, you know, I wasn’t dead, I’m alive.

To what extent were you aware of the stuff that was happening in the wider community? You know, the salmonella poisonings and the assassination attempts. 

No one would have dreamed of it. She had a very, very little tight community. No one had a clue. By the time she left, everyone was horrified. It was kind of a pretty major moment. She just got in that plane and, I remember, she flew off in the middle of September. 1985. That was it, she was gone. Everyone’s like “What?” Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, you know? “Wow, she’s gone!” “Hey, it’s party time.”

I’ve talked to a lot of people who were on the commune and there are sort of mixed feelings about the film. What was it like for you to watch the Netflix version of it? 

Some of it was very beautiful. Though you didn’t really quite understand how it sort of got going to start with. They lay a very beautiful foundation of the background, but the specifics were a little loose. Let’s start with “guru.” What is a guru? Osho has spoken against gurus and religious leaders, and [against] this game of hierarchy and how God is the ultimate dictator and this endless business of creating middle men. He’s very precisely clear, “My whole effort is to leave you alone with no mediator.” You’re here because of your interest in meditation. You’re not here to be friends with each other. You’re not here to create some group. You’re not here because of each other, you’re here because of yourself. The bridge is single-file. So the whole idea of a cult is absolutely antithetical to everything he presents.

Then [this notion of] a sex cult, I mean … Osho’s understanding is very simple: [Sexuality is] your vital life energy. Very simple. And it’s completely natural. In order to grow spiritually, whatever you wanna call that, you cannot repress sexuality. One thing that he was very, very strong on was giving responsibility to women. That was, in a way, the most beautiful thing.

Sheela, oddly enough, has kind of become this feminist empowerment meme on the internet.
Yes, I saw all the “tough titties” stuff all over the place. She was strong. I mean, as a woman, she would take no crap from anybody. In today’s world, good on her.

Were you able to feel any sympathy for Jane (Shanti Badra) , who is sort of the only character in the story who seems to feel like she was sort of brainwashed and then later deprogrammed?

Well, you’re watching someone who’s completely unconscious. She was unconscious then, and she’s unconscious now, and all you can do is look at this person and go, “Well, you were dumb then, and you’re dumb now.”

Also, by the way, we haven’t mentioned the other famous subject: of course, his Rolls-Royces.

Osho thought: In a society obsessed with stuff, I can write, I can produce 600 books on meditation and no one is interested. But Get 93 Rolls-Royces and the world will never forget. Basically, here is this nonwhite male from India who wears a robe and a funny hat, and drives around the city where everyone wears red and doesn’t get paid, they’re all vegetarians with no interest in the family or private property, right in the middle of cowboy country — you could see how the inevitable game unfolds. But by having cars, and driving these cars, and having 93 of them in the country which has the biggest and the best — you know, ‘make America great again’ — if anyone’s going to have the most cars, we have to have the most cars. And here’s the nonwhite guy, he’s got more cars than we have. So it turns into kind of a joke about consumerism. Fantastic.

I know there’s been some controversy about Osho’s death and that you were with him at the time, with some people alleging that there was foul play involved. Can you give your own account of what happened?

So I’m saying to Osho, “We need proper intensive care now, should I call the cardiologist?” And he says, “No, existence has its timing.” So then you’re a doctor sitting there, like “Well, the guy says no to any further medical intervention and it’s his body and one thing he’s always been quite clear about, everyone has a right to their own body, no one else has any right to interfere.” When people go, “Someone must have killed him,” it’s like -  that’s such crap.

Did you ever feel that your ethical duties as a doctor conflicted with your devotion to Osho’s teachings?

No. He was really scientific. I mean, in a way, this is a really funny role, but in a way I was a research assistant, that’s really what I was.

Rashid Maxwell

Artist/painter and farmer living in England. Lived at Rajneeshpuram for four years.

Because of my agricultural experience, I was one of the first people to go to Rajneeshpuram. My job then was taking the land, which had been totally neglected and overgrazed, and getting the basics of agriculture started. Very soon after that I had many disagreements with Sheela, I never got on with her. It didn’t feel to me like she was intelligent, even. She was cunning, clever, but not intelligent.

The arguments were about policy. She said we should have chickens because we’d need lots of eggs, and I said, Yeah, we should have them all scattered around, and she said, No, put them all together. And I said then you have the likelihood of disease and you need to give them antibiotics. And she said, so give them antibiotics. And that was really not my way, I was an organic farmer. And there were more profound disagreements. Like, I did have contact with the Nike shoes guy in the documentary [rancher Bill Bowerman]. I had very nice contact with him: I went over to his ranch, we talked about growing grapes and having a vineyard, and he taught me how to roll cigarettes one-handed on a horse. But somehow I couldn’t and wouldn’t go along with Sheela’s aggression towards the neighbors, so within another three months, I was out of farming and gardening and in the pot room washing pots. I was very unhappy in the pot room because I felt like my dream of an environmental paradise was just lost, and she handed it over to someone who would be more obedient to her wishes.

I didn’t like or trust Sheela but none of us had any clue what was going on — the poisonings, the fire-bombing. It was inconceivable to me. After it all came out, we were all sort of wandering in shock for days. I just remember walking down one of the roads not knowing what I was doing, what, what, where am I?

The documentary — I felt quite queasy watching it. Actually like a feeling of nausea. I’m not very supportive of the film, people talk about it as being balanced, but it was balanced between villains and rednecks. It felt to me like a male, puritan, American movie, lavished with the usual ingredients of sex, guns, and money.

I went to Osho to have the rug pulled out from under my feet — the sort of comfortable rug that I was given in my education and my upbringing. I could go on forever about how important that experience was for me. I’m 80 and I just feel so happy, so rich, so free, so my life is so joyous. And I blame him for all that! He did the work on me. I also read a few days ago that 42 percent of millennials say they are engaged in meditation of one sort or another. So I think that’s amazing that that message, that understanding that we have struggled and fought and battled with — that they got it just like that. Meditation was the tool Osho gave us — stepping out of ego, and stepping out of the busy traffic of the mind.

https://youtu.be/RrqhGOndewk

I dont share this view at all. Telling him to bug his own room, or knock off Amrito, just rubbish.

Here is another example well contoured in Maneesha’s book “Osho the Buddha for the Future” (which is about to be republished. )

Maneesha writes in her book:

“So how, you will wonder, did we reconcile all that Osho is saying about religion and priests versus true religiousness with the fact that we are now ‘Rajneeshees’, of the religion of ‘Rajneeshism’, with a bible called The Book of Rajneeshism and our very own pope, with her papal regalia for special occasions, in the form of Sheela? Osho has reiterated so many times that the last place you can expect to experience God or feel the essence of religiousness is within the confines of a formal religion. Yet that is exactly what Sheela appears to have created – I presume because we were applying for permission for Osho to stay under the category of his being a religious teacher. She wants to substantiate that by having all the trappings of a formal religion. Apparently, our lawyers have advised her that this is not necessary. In fact, it will prove obstructive when it comes to the issue of the separation of church and state.

It’s just a gesture and almost certainly none of us take it seriously. But later I wonder if Sheela used the situation to consolidate her position. For sure many of her strategies to gain and then maintain power have a popish ring about them.

Perhaps, because Sheela is not listening to him, Osho tries to warn us all through discourses that what we are doing, or allowing to be done, to his vision is the very thing that has been done to masters in the past. Perhaps what usually happens only after the master is dead, Osho is allowing to be played out now, while he is still alive, to watch what our response will be and to guide us.

Does any Christian who has any real understanding of Jesus believe that the pope embodies the precepts of Jesus’ vision? What would Jesus find, and what would he do about it, if he came back to earth today and met the pope in the Vatican?

In any case, one incident in particular illustrates Sheela’s popish behaviour: her editing of Osho’s discourses. By ‘editing’ I don’t mean the kind Devaraj, Devageet and I were doing – adding commas or correcting the English, as he has asked us to.

Unknown to most of us, Sheela actually cuts whole sentences and passages from not one but several discourses. Her rationale is that she is protecting Osho and the commune from unnecessary political or legal repercussions; that Osho is speaking on subjects of which he is ‘meant’ to have no knowledge and is thus incriminating himself.

Later, Osho spells out very clearly that not only are his acknowledged enemies trying to stop him talking, even his disciples wanted to hinder his message. He says he knows exactly what he is saying and is aware of the ramifications. But according to several sannyasins who know Sheela, her attitude towards Osho is that he doesn’t understand much that goes on in the world and it is up to her to protect him and to take care of certain matters without his guidance.

That she sets herself up as protector, one might argue, though misguided, is well intentioned. However, consider the position Sheela puts herself into as protector of Osho and censor of his words. Without his knowledge, advice, or consent, Sheela can, and does, interfere with Osho’s message to his sannyasins and the rest of the world.

From one particular discourse (December 19, 1984), she deletes several pages in which Osho talks about how he envisions certain corporations within the commune functioning. These many separate bodies he sees as necessary to decentralize power and avoid a concentration of power in the hands of just one person.

Now, why should the spiritual head of the commune be endangering his status by talking about how to decentralize and so avoid the abuse of power? To say that the discourse implies Osho is involved in the details of running the commune is analogous to saying that if the pope makes a comment about nuclear warfare he is making bombs! The more likely explanation as to why these passages are removed is that they signify a threat to Sheela personally…

[…] It is here that several passages are deleted. I for one would even dispute whether the phrase ‘other religious affairs’ is Osho’s and not Sheela’s; it does not strike me as a phrase that is characteristic of the way Osho talks. I could be wrong on that score but certainly there is no question that two pages later a phrase of Osho’s has been replaced with one that is not his. Osho has been saying that we should learn from the past and not allow organizations to use us…

‘And if you can see all the possibilities that destroy religion…’ Osho continues, ‘and before they get hold of my religion I am going to finish all these possibilities. Sannyasins can have a totally different organization. That promise you can always remember: I will not leave you under a fascist regime.’ 

But in the written discourse you will find the last phrase reads, ‘I will not leave you in a state of chaos.’

From Ignorance to Innocence, Ch 20, Q 1

Devaraj and Devageet are both present at this discourse, and they remember this particular phrase as originally said. In fact, they remember a good deal of the discourse and are aware, when they see the transcript given to them, that much material has been edited out. Trusting that if it has been omitted it is for a good reason, they ask no further about the matter.

Only some time later I hear that Zeno – who worked in the tape and video department where the initial editing had to be done – does ask about why so many of Osho’s words need to be cut and changed. Subsequently, she is falsely and deliberately diagnosed as having a positive AIDS antibody test and is sent to live with others in a special area set up for those having the syndrome. (This form of incarceration is used as punishment for at least one other sannyasin; apparently, rumour has it, because when asked to be involved in a drug run by one of Sheela’s gang he refused to.)”

“On September 8th we celebrate Mahaparinirvana Day (the day on which we celebrate all those sannyasins, past or present, who have died enlightened). Sheela is absent – it is the first ranch celebration day she has missed – and returns a few days later. It’s common knowledge that Sheela’s trips away from the commune, ostensibly to visit centres all around the world, have become increasingly frequent and lengthy. On her return from this latest visit she writes a letter to Osho saying that she no longer feels so excited when she comes back to the commune, that she enjoys more when her work takes her to Europe, Australia and elsewhere.

Osho responds to this on the evening of Friday, September 13, 1985 in the press conference in Jesus Grove. As it happens, Sheela is not present; she has a cold. Needless to say, Osho’s response spreads rapidly among those of us who are not present.

‘Perhaps she is not conscious,’ Osho tells the forty or so sannyasins present – ‘and this is the situation for all – she does not know why she does not feel excited here anymore. It is because I am speaking and she is no longer the central focus. She is no longer a celebrity. When I am speaking to you, she is no longer needed as a mediator to inform you of what I am thinking. Now that I am speaking to the press and to the radio and TV journalists, she has fallen into shadow. And for three and a half years she was in the limelight because I was silent.

‘It may not be clear to her why she does not feel excited coming here and feels happy in Europe. She is still a celebrity in Europe – interviews, television shows, radio interviews, newspapers – but here all that has disappeared from her life. If you can behave in such foolish, unconscious ways even while I am here, the moment I am gone you will be creating all kinds of politics, fight. Then what is the difference between you and the outside world? Then my whole effort has been a failure. I want you to behave really as a new man.

‘I have given Sheela the message that this is the reason: “So think it over and tell me. If you want me to stop speaking just for your excitement, I can stop speaking.” To me there is no problem in it. In fact, it is a trouble. For five hours a day I am speaking to you, and it is creating unhappiness in her mind. So let her do her show business. I can move into silence. But that indicates that deep down those who have power will not like me to be here alive, because while I am here nobody can have any power trip. They may not be conscious about it; only situations reveal your power trip…’

The Last Testament, Vol 2, Ch 23

How is Sheela going to receive this ‘hit’? We don’t have to wait too long to find out. The following day around 1:45 p.m. I receive a phone call from Mary Catherine who, for the past year or so, has been an editor with The Rajneesh Times. ‘Maneesha, I’m down at Jesus Grove,’ she says breathlessly. ‘I don’t know if you guys are aware of it, but Sheela is planning to leave. I think Osho ought to be told.’ ²

Excerpts from Osho: The Buddha for the Future by Maneesha James

Netflix Docuseries “Wild Wild Country” A Review

by Nick Allen

The latest must-binge original offering from Netflix comes in the shape of a six-part documentary series about a small religious movement (or cult, if you prefer) that moved into a small Oregon town in the 1980s. Under the wisdom of their then-silent Indian guru Bhagwan, a large swarm of Rajneeshees (made up seemingly of mostly white westerners, but with all of them dressed in bright red) turned a vacant ranch plot into their own utopia. It was a gobsmacking, full-functioning community that included rows of homes, a massive assembly hall, a pizza parlor, a dam and a private airstrip. But the construction of this self-made paradise proved to be just the beginning, as they clashed with the Oregonians who saw their size and growing influence as a threat, despite arriving in peace: biochemical warfare, assassination attempts, electoral chaos and much more ensued.

Easily one of the craziest documentaries I’ve ever seen, Chapman and Maclain Way’s six-part series “Wild Wild Country” boasts a profound narrative with intricate human beings, an amass of intellectual themes and more twists than you can count. Told chronologically and using 250+ hours of footage and extensive new interviews, it places you into the contrasting experiences of people in this bizarre saga, leaving you to wonder in part how such a story could have been so forgotten by American history. And after the six-plus hours of “Wild Wild Country” flies by, you won’t want an approach to this story any different or shorter than what the Ways do: The Ways know that they have the constructs of a great drama just as much an extremely potent list of discussion topics, and are able to make their presentation of these events the very definition of fascinating entertainment.

“Wild Wild Country” concerns the beginning of life, in the Rajneeshee sense, with an expansive spiritual awakening lead by someone who wants to create what he calls “The New Man.” As we hear from select members of the group, each who had a huge influence on the dramatic events that follow, there’s a nonpareil sense of the harmony, and how it gave Rajneeshees something deeper than family. “We really did feel like we were the chosen people,” one of them says. Throughout, they talk fondly about what Bhagwan’s teaching meant to them, and the purpose it gave them. But in the case of his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela, who speaks quietly in a dark room as if sharing the most mind-blowing bedtime story ever told, there’s a clear of the power the Rajneeshees had as an enterprise, for good and for evil. In just one of its offerings, “Wild Wild Country” essentially offers the full story of a true civilization, its glorious rise and unbelievable downfall.

Fear of the outsider is certainly one timeless theme within this tale, as exemplified by the unassuming but charismatic people who live in Antelope, Oregon, which was known for its population of 40 people, most of them retirees. The residents who speak on camera talk about the absolute culture shock of the Rajneeshees coming in next door, and it becomes clear that the fear only sparked more defensiveness that turned into aggression on both sides. The images seen in the docuseries’ beginning moments, of swarms of people in red strolling through their quiet Oregon town as if it were a peaceful invasion, are startling enough. But that evolves into more surprising tension, especially when the American legal system gets involved, and tries to find any bureaucratic way possible to shut down the Rajneeshees.

Designated as a “film” in the end credits, “Wild Wild Country” is broken into six parts with excellent cliffhangers leading into the next one, but fear not: it’s a binge-ready epic in which the filmmakers are dedicated to all major plot details; the juicier bits might be more exciting than the bureaucratic stuff, but the pacing of the story never drops out. Curiously, the Ways don’t introduce their subjects a second time as so many documentaries do, but that seems like an artistic statement itself: the people are all very memorable, and become symbols of their respective viewpoints. The talking head interviews add more to the story instead of normalizing the production, and like with the contemporary, excellent songs used to proclaim further storytelling inspiration, “Wild Wild Country” proves to be invigorating historical documentary filmmaking.

The size of “Wild Wild Country” especially pays off as the film explores so many huge and various issues: old vs. young; believers vs. nonbelievers; conservatism vs. free love; fear vs. compassion; the honest potential for perfection when humans are themselves imperfect. These all become more fascinating given the story’s complications between who is right and who is wrong in this story. The Ways never take a stance or simplify the issues.

As one of the Rajneeshees advises about the journey of following Bhagwan (Osho), “the truth lies within.” That might be the largest force within “Wild Wild Country,” the way its logic always goes back to the seed of belief, how a feeling deep in one’s gut can send a person on the wildest of journeys. Watching this documentary becomes a personal experience itself for the viewer, as the viewer is not only invited to take whichever side in this story, but their feelings towards these subjects are guaranteed to change from part to part. Hearing about this story in a way that’s equally vivid and surreal, you are faced with an endless amount of questions about what this all means, and what you would do if you were an Oregonian confronted with so many outsiders, or a Rajneeshee willing to die for what you believe in. By handling this story so intelligently and by opening its heart to a very complicated idea of good and evil, “Wild Wild Country” has a profound, mesmerizing power itself.

“The first commune was destroyed because of women’s jealousies.

They were fighting continuously.

The second commune was destroyed because of women’s jealousies .

And this is the third commune – and the last, because I am getting tired. Once in a while I think perhaps Buddha was right not to allow any women in his commune for twenty years. I am not in favor of him: I am the first who has allowed men and women the same, equal opportunity for enlightenment.

But I have burnt my fingers twice, and it has always been the jealousy of the women.”

– discourse from Osho in Pune two.