Rolls Royce Guru

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SPIRITUALLY INCORRECT MYSTIC: Osho; St.Martin's Press, 175, Fifth Avenue, New York,NY 10010. $. 25.95.

THIS BOOK, bearing a bizarre title, is the print-form of the audio record of Acharya Rajneesh (1931-90). Perhaps because of this reason, the narration is tellingly impressive and forceful. The author was born of Jain parents, in a village in Madhya Pradesh. Even as a child he had displayed an extraordinary character. He called himself Osho, though this was to occur much later in life, borrowing it from Zen works where it means a person of respect and honour; it was also reminiscent of ``oceanic'' of William James. Right from early childhood, Osho was unconventional, ever-questioning, and rebellious, even rational and nihilistic. Mark his new definition of spirituality - ``an honest individuality, not allowing any kind of dependence, creating a freedom for itself, never in the crowd, because the crowd never finds the truth; spirituality is finding oneself.''

Osho evidently inherited, in his blood, the Jain's denial of God. While in his teens, he chose his career as a philosopher, very much against the elders' persuasion to the contrary. As a graduate student in Jabalpur University, he used to devote all his time to studying in the library, skipping most of the lectures. It is here that he switched over to wooden sandals, forsaking leather shoes on principle, offending the professors by reason of the noise produced. When he served the Sagar University as a professor, he blazed a new trail - encouraging discussion, argument, dissent and original study, discarding the dull routine of lecturing. Osho claims that he was ``atheistic, irreligious and amoral''. Nevertheless early impacts on one's mind die hard: thus he expresses great admiration for a Jain Mantra (sic) that had this meaning: ``I touch the feet of all those who have known themselves,'' which he had learnt from his mentor, his grandmother, very early as a child.

It is recorded that astrologers had predicted at his birth, that he would not live beyond seven years of age; that even if he managed to survive it, he would die at the age of 14. But, then, whoever would think of conducting a self-exercise of waiting for death at the respective birth dates, closing oneself in a room for days on end, foregoing meals, anxiously expecting the meeting with Death? Not only that; he had, from early childhood, the unusual habit of sitting beside a corpse, watching the reactions of the relatives, following the funeral procession and so on, whosoever the person be. Even from such oddities one could not have expected him to become a religious preceptor. But then, he was, as he himself admits, a bundle of inconsistencies.

His nature was to point out inconsistencies in others, boldly and disrespectfully too. While at the Sagar University, in his late teens, he was attending the Vice-Chancellor's address on a Buddha Poornima day. There was a large crowd of professors, scholars and students. The speaker was heard to exclaim with an emotion-tinged tone and tearful eyes, ``Had I been born in the Buddha's time, I would never have left his feet.'' Everyone appeared touched, but not Osho. He stood up and admonished the speaker: ``Take your words back. They are false; you have lived in Ramana Maharshi's time. He was the same kind of man. His was the same self- enlightenment. And you have never visited him. Why do you try to befool us?'' The Vice-Chancellor had to concede to Osho in all humility.

As a speaker he had great ability; he would always steal the platform of any religious speaker and talk for hours keeping all spell-bound by his logic and language. He would only speak his philosophy and yet the audience - whatever be its colour - would listen to him with attention and admiration. Later when he became a master to thousands of disciples, he became a ``Rolls Royce Guru''; for the reason of his peculiar interpretation of sex serving as an exercise in meditation, he acquired the opprobrium of ``sex guru''. He had an irrepressible ego. He claimed he was the third great teacher in the series. Adinatha and the Buddha, each appearing 25 centuries after the predecessor. The first disposed of God; the second replaced God by meditation; the third carried the concept of meditation to every nook and corner of the world. But in his view, meditation had nothing to do with religion or God; it was no concentration on any item; it is the creation of a wall between you and existence, reaching a super- consciousness; it is a mind-washing, cathartic, exercise; it would bring light, bliss and peace. He authored a book explaining the 112 types of meditation as perfected by Siva.

The book abounds in parables. They have a clear moral. However, one would be unable to agree with his anomalous etymologies for words like Bhagavan, human, etc. For the term ``Bhaga'' he gives a phallic interpretation reminiscent of Katherine Mayo; its meaning is indeed rich in content according to Sanskrit classics, not vulgar and unrefined like the one given by Osho.

According to him man is both sensuous and spiritual and so he contends he was a combination of Epicurus and Christ. He coined the term, ``Zorba the Buddha'' to apply to himself. For style, cold logic, unconventional arguments and iconoclastic theories reverberating in page after page, this book may appeal to the mind and especially for knowing Osho's mind. Very attractively printed with photographs, a helpful bibliography and an index, the book is sure to satisfy Osho's admirers; it might be of interest to the general reader as well.

V. N. VEDANTA DESIKAN

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