The Canon · No. 113
The Rajneesh Movement
Osho; Neo-sannyas
c.1970 CE – present · New Religious Movement · Living · India (Pune), formerly Oregon; worldwide
VIII. POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY — 1945 – PRESENT
How many
No membership rolls. The Pune resort draws visitors from around the world and Osho's books sell in large numbers, particularly in India, Italy and Japan.
Who began it
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931–1990), later called Osho, a philosophy lecturer from Madhya Pradesh.
What it is for
To produce the new man, Zorba the Buddha — a person combining full engagement with the material world and full spiritual awareness, against what Rajneesh saw as the life-denying asceticism of all existing religions.
What it worships
None. Rajneesh rejected worship and, in principle, rejected belief itself; his followers nonetheless treated him with intense personal devotion.
What it holds
Enlightenment is available now and is blocked chiefly by conditioning — by religion, morality, nationalism and repression, especially sexual repression. Meditation must be preceded by catharsis because modern people are too tense to sit still. Belief systems as such are obstacles; Rajneesh spoke on Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Sufism and Zen and treated all of them as raw material rather than as authorities. He deliberately contradicted himself and said so.
What it does
Dynamic Meditation — an hour in five stages: chaotic breathing, uninhibited catharsis including screaming and thrashing, jumping with a shouted mantra, sudden freezing, then celebration. Several other active meditations: Kundalini, Nadabrahma, Whirling. Group therapy imported from the Western human potential movement. Orange or maroon robes and a mala with the teacher's picture, later dropped. Sexual permissiveness in the 1970s and early 80s, later curtailed.
After death
Reincarnation is assumed within the broadly Indian framework, and Rajneesh discussed past lives, but the teaching is overwhelmingly about the present moment. His position was that fear of death is the engine of religion and that a person who is fully alive now has no afterlife question to answer.
Its texts
No written scripture. Several hundred books transcribed from spoken discourses, including The Book of Secrets, The Mustard Seed and Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic.
Its branches
Osho International Foundation and the Pune resort; numerous independent former disciples teaching similar meditations; the therapy-and-meditation methods have diffused widely into the wellness industry without attribution.
Of note
Included because it is the sharpest available test of a hard question: a movement can produce meditation techniques that thousands of people find genuinely valuable, and simultaneously commit mass poisoning. Both facts belong in the same entry.
Its timeline
- 1953 CE Rajneesh reports enlightenment at 21.
- 1960s CE Lectures across India attacking Gandhi, socialism and organised religion; he becomes notorious.
- 1974 CE Ashram established in Pune; large numbers of Western seekers arrive.
- <strong>1981–1985 CE</strong> Rajneeshpuram, Oregon. The movement buys a 64,000-acre ranch and builds a city of several thousand. Conflict with the neighbouring town of Antelope and with the county escalates rapidly.
- <strong>1984 CE</strong> The Rajneeshee salmonella attack. Members contaminate salad bars in The Dalles, Oregon, sickening 751 people in an attempt to suppress voter turnout in a county election. It remains the largest bioterrorist attack in United States history.
- 1985 CE The plot unravels; Ma Anand Sheela and others are convicted of attempted murder, wiretapping and immigration fraud. Rajneesh is arrested, pleads to immigration charges, is deported, and is refused entry by 21 countries.
- 1987–1990 CE Return to Pune; renamed Osho in 1989; dies in January 1990.
- 1990s–present The Pune resort continues as a commercial meditation centre; long-running litigation over the Osho trademark and copyrights.
- 2018 CE The Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country brings the Oregon episode to a global audience.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.