Acharya and Rajneesh

Submitted To. Dr. P. P. Joy. By: Doujalal Haokip, Resham Lal. M. Div
3rd

I. Introduction: Religious veneration of humans is a fairly common phenomenon in India

today. It had many of the characteristics of the adoration and worship of God. Such
veneration is much more common today then in precious periods of India history. It appears
to be an aspect of the religious renaissance in contemporary India... Among the devotees
are found men and women from academic and official circles like professors, minister and
highly placed officers. Some of their Gurus have devotees in foreign counties and even
have centers of propagation all over the world. 1 In this paper we to going to deal with one of
the most popular Guru and more influential Guru of the contemporary India called Acharya
Rajneesh movement and teaching briefly.

II. Early Life of Rajneesh: Rajneesh Chandra Mohan was born from a Jain family 11th
December 1931 in the village of Kuchwad, in central India, a small farming village in the
valley of the Vindhya Mountains of Madhya Pradesh. He was the eldest son of a family with
five sisters and six brothers2…. His father was an unsuccessful businessman. Rajneesh
spent much of his early childhood with his grandparents. 3

1. Education: In 1944-51 he studied at Jabalpur for B.A. By 1957 he completed his M.A in
Philosophy at Saugor University as a top student and also serve as assistant editor for a
daily paper “Navabharat”. He resigned to devotee his life totally to the Spiritual regeneration
of humanity, to spread practical spirituality for every man. 4

2. His Experience: At the age of 7, he experienced Samdhi-cosmic consciousness. At the

age of 21, he achieved full enlightenment. He used to meditates sitting on a branch of tree,
One day he had a strange experience that he felt his body fell to the ground but his real self
or should remained where it was. For 6 months a series of similar experience followed. He
could realize the real person in himself. 5

III. His work and Ministry: He stayed in Jobalpur and went on preaching and giving
lectures in all India. For sometime, he started in Bombay with the Jivan Jyoti Kendra and he
came to Pune in 1974, he had only seven disciples. In 1980 every morning. 3000 disciples
were listening to his discourse. Each year 60,000 people were making their way to his
ashram in Pune. 1,50,000 people had taken Sannyas either at one other of the 250
Rajneesh meditation centers through correspondence. He had 2,50,000 followers in the
world. His disciples came from Europe, Brazil, Japan, Australia, America, Kenya and ever
Russia. Every words uttered by Rajneesh was preserved in books and cassettes. 220
books have been published in Hindi and English about the Rajneesh. Thirteen of these have
been translated into other languages. 6
Rajneesh left the Pune Ashram on May 31 st 1981 and went to USA. There in the
state of Oregon the purchased the town of Antelope and re-named it RajneeshPuram. 144

1
Aleyamma Zachariah, Modern Religious And Secular Movements In India (Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 1992), 229.
2
Tal Brooke, Riders of the Cosmic Circuit (Tring: Lion Publishing plc, 1986), 107.
3
Ronald enroth & Others, A Guide to Cults & New Religions (Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1983), 44.
4
Teachers Prepare notes (Dr. P.P. Joy). Unit 2.2 Acharya Rajneesh.
5
Class notes B.Th SS IV Acharya Rajneesh (MRSM).
6
Aleyamma Zachariah.op.cit., 248.
crores of rupees was spent to build it. It was a 64,229-acre plot. He set up a commune
there with 3000 members and spent four and a half years there. 7
Rajneesh was found guilt for immigration violations conducting sham marriages and
thirty-three others crimes. He was arrested, imprisoned and released on bail on Nov 8 th for $
500,000. He pleaded guilty and paid $4000,000 on fines and prosecution charges and left
Rajneeshpuram. The U.S.A bankruptcy judge appointed trustees to overseer liquidation of
the commune. Non- Rajneeshis were sworn in as Major and council members in Antelope
replacing the last vestige of Rajneesh rule over the small center Oregon town. On Nov 14 th
1985 he came to India. Spent a few weeks in Manali, Kulu Valley, (H.P) then he went to
Nepal for a visit. From there he went to Crete, Ireland, South America and other places.
On Dec 10th 1985, the U.S.A District Judge Helen J. Frye declared that the creation of
Rajneeshpuram itself violated the constitutional provisions of U.S.A, which separated church
and state. After sheela’s betrayal Rajneesh announced that he was no longer a guru and
had no followers. He returned to India in July 1986 and died there in his old Ashram in Pune
in 19th Jan 1990.8

IV. His Mission: His mission is to man’s consciousness back to the sile through meditation,
to transform him completely into his auntic. Divine life. “I teach you how to devote yourself
(in the cosmic ocean of meditation)” so that you may cross the ocean, so that you can be
what you really are. “ For him only the rich can become Spiritual and spread practical
Spiritual for every man.9

V. His Movement: Rajneesh consider himself to be the “Master of the Masters” and
therefore cannot instruct just anybody. He has attracted a following sharp people from the
western would many from Upper-income brackets.

1. Initiation: It is considered something very special to an initiated member in the

movement. The ritual of initiation is a very powerful experience for almost all who undergo it,
and the event is often spoken of as a spiritual rebirth, in the ceremony, Rajneesh gives his
kneeling disciples a mala (a necklace of wooden beads with a locket displaying Rajneesh’s
photography) which is worn with the orange clothing as a sign of discipleship. Then he
presses the initiates forehead with his thumb and “opens his third eye.” And experience that
often elicits a strong physical response, said to be “Cosmic energy”. Finally, the devotee is
given a piece of paper, signed by Rajneesh, with a selected Hindu name, which severs him
or her from all past identity.10

2. Enlightenment: Rajneesh is not just a humanistic Psychologist. His mediation centers

provides consciousness allering techniques ranging from the martial arts to mirror –gaying,
from the saturation experience of “rebirthing” to Lilly sensory deprivation tanks and from free
Sex to Zen Buddhism. To obtain the ultimate experience that devotees must hurt him
implicitly and be willing to meet whatever demands Rajneesh makes. They must be ready to
give up not only their families and occupations, but also their minds and personalities, to
become “Passive” and “Mindless’. Rajneesh asserts, “Mind is a prison”. 11 The Rajneesh
ashram in Pune was characterized by the acceptance of violence and sex in its therapy.
Rajneesh and his group leaders believe that the beauty, uniqueness and divine nature of
man can emerge only when suppressed emotional patterns and sensual desires are acted
out.12
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid., 249.
9
Teachers Prepare Note, op.cit. 2.2.
10
Ronald Enroth & Others, op.cit., 48.
11
Ibid. ,
12
Ibid., 49.
VI. Rajneeshs Teaching: Trying to understand Rajneesh can be a confusing, frustrating
experience his entire aim is to overthrow one’s reliance on the mind, so he sees nothing
wrong with contradicting himself or giving two people different answers to the same question.
However, when a large number of Rajneesh’s messages are examined at length, a
recognizable ideology emerges.13

1. Authority: Rajneesh forbids the use of the mind to determine the truth of his claims. If
we are to experience God, he argues, the human mind cannot be involved in the process, of
it causes to see a hostile, divided universe.” Rajneesh feels his teaching cannot be
communicated; only experienced. He frequently insisted on this point “Form the one who is
being initiated, nothing but surrender will do. Initiation means surrendered… if can never be
partial. If you surrendered partially you are not surrendering. Rajneesh’s authority rests
solely upon his own assertion, and the devotee has no choice but to drop all questioning and
to surrender totally. There is no higher court of appeal. 14

2. God: God and the universe are not two separate things as Rajneesh views them. He
called it God sometime Brahman, Silence, Void, Beingness or consciousness. There is no
distinction between God and world, creator and Created. Thus everything can be called
God, and all that exists is divine. Existence is divine; to exist is be divine. 15

3. Humanity: Rajneesh teaches that the mind of man prevents him from seeing the
oneness of all things. He believed that man does not realize that he is truth (or God)
because he is un enlightened and ignorant. We are ignorant because we try to know reality
by our intellect. Another problem with man is the ego, which man mistakenly believes to be
his true self. Man’s true self is God, understood as emptiness or Void; and man’s false self
is the ego or mind, causing the illusion of individuality. He declares, “The self is not
something to be protected; it is something to be destroyed. Man’s struggle is with the ego,
which is always active, always thinking; it desires purpose, meaning fulfillment and survival
of the self. He argues, however, that existence is no purposive - it is play. Thus, it is
necessary to “drop” or abandon the ego. 16

4. Deliverance: Rajneesh’s maintain that, in the absolute sense, humanity needs no

salvation. “Nobody is a sinner, even while you are in the darkest hold of your life, you are
still divine. There is no need for salvation, it is within you. 17The purpose of his mediations,
lectures, therapies and even sex groups is to bring about this state of emptiness, creating
the mindless man. The mindless man is the enlightened man; he has no past, no future, no
thought, no attachment, no mind, no ego and no self. The way to deliverance is broad in
theory. But in practice Rajneesh’s keeps it quite narrow. Enlightenment is possible only in
the presence of a living master, he points to himself. 18

VII. Christian Responses:

1. Authority: For Christian, the mere fact that Rajneesh’s claims enlightenment is not
sufficient reason for us to lay down our all and follow him. There are thousands who claim
religious authority on the basis of their private mystical experiences. They cannot all be
correct. The fact that he can do so only proves that a transcendent experience is
reproducible in others; it does not mean that contact is being made with the Ultimate (that is,
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid., 51.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid., 52.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid.
God) or that altered states are qualitatively higher, truer or more valued than normal states of
consciousness. 19 Christian faith cites the Bible as its authority for maters of faith and
practice. The authority of the Bible has been accepted by the Christian church for eighteen
centuries, Bible does not contradict itself (unlike Rajneesh), and different part of the Bible
attest to the authority of the whole Bible (2 Tim: 3: 16,
2 Pet: 1: 19-21)

2. God: Rajneesh’s entire philosophy must either stand or fall one the validity of monism.
The Bible presents God very different from Rajneesh’s constantly evolving Beingness, a God
little more than a Synonym for emptiness. Scripture declares from the very beginning that
god is the creator of the universe (Gen: 1: 1) God is seen not only as creator but also as
possessing self-identity and personality. The bible portrays God as being both immanent to
the world and transcendent (Ps: 139: 3-12, Is: 66: 1, Jer: 23: 23-23, Acts: 17: 27-28). We
must not confuse God’s immanence (his nearness, approachability) with pantheism, which
actually identifies the universe with God. The Bible affirms God’s transcendence. Although
God is in the world, he is separate and distinct from it. 20

3. Humanity: Rajneesh’s denial of sin is one of the Pillars of his teaching. “I declare, that
you are not sinner, that no one is a sinner”. He announces. “I declare that God resides in
you in his utter purity. You are Virgin God’s”. Rajneesh denies both sin and guilt. For him,
man’s problem is one of ignorance- not recognizing his inner divine perfection. According to
the Bible the human problems is one of rebellion – no admitting innate sinfulness. Not only
does man’s fallen nature prevent him from becoming what he can be and from fulfilling the
purpose fro which god designed him. But his fallen ness also incurs the judgment of God. In
a very judicial sense, sin has a penalty: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom: 6: 23). 21

4. Deliverance: To free us from the burden of sin, God sent his son to his son to redeem
us. Jesus took the penalty that we deserve for our disobedience and suffered death. The
Bible tells us. “There is one God. And there is one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all “ (I Tim: 2: 5-6). Unlike Rajneesh, Jesus
came to give men and women personal and spiritual freedom (Jn: 8: 36/ Gal: 5: 1). Yet in
Christ we are free to live in relationship to a loving God. We find freedom in a life that is lived
in harmony with God, benefiting from his direction and guidance. People like Rajneesh
promise (disciples) freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. 22

VIII. Conclusion: Rajneesh was a crafty businessman. He was taking full advantage of the
gullibility of his followers. He was a pervert and a charlatan, he asked people to drop their
ego but his own ego was very big. He advocated sex and spirituality in equal measure. His
teaching lacks sexual restraints.23 (This free sex and undue over emphasis on sex is the one
thing for which he sis criticized and strongly opposed by traditional fundamental Hindus and
many other religious and N.G.O all our the world.

Bibliography

Brooke, Tal. Riders of the Cosmic Circuit. Tring: Lion publishing plc, 1986.

Class notes B.Th SS IV Acharya Rajneesh (MRSM).

19
Ibid., 53.
20
Ibid., 54.
21
Ibid., 55.
22
Ibid., 56.
23
Aleyamma Zachariah, op.cit., 249.
Enroth, Ronald & Others. A Guide to Cults & New Religions. Illinois: Inter Varsity Press,
1983.

Teachers Prepare notes (Dr. P.P. Joy). Unit 2.2 Acharya Rajneesh.

Zachariah, Aleyamma. Modern Religious And Secular Movements In India. Bangalore:

Theological
Book Trust, 1992.