What struck me most were his eyes: large and mesmeric. A woolen cap on his head a light, saffron-coloured gown hanging down to his ankles. A wispy, flowing beard greying on the sides. An average-sized Indian–a frail, sallow complexioned man in his forties. That fact in itself entitled him to be heard with respect.Įnter Rajneesh. Rajneesh was perhaps the first of the great teachers who had carefully examined tenets of other faiths he could rightly claim to be the only teacher who was a scholar of comparative religions. None of the early teachers laid claim to erudition. The theology of the latest of the great religions of India, Sikhism, is largely based on Vedanta. Islam boasts that its founder Prophet Mohammed was totally unlettered. We know that Christianity, and following Christianity, Islam heavily borrowed from the teachings of the prophets of the Old Testament. We are on better ground to dig into the material on which Jewish prophets built the edifice of the Hebrew faith. I am not sure what Zarathustra knew when he elevated the flame into a symbol of purity. Jain Mahavira and the Buddha knew Hinduism but nothing else. Rajneesh had.Ĭonsequently while others had only their religions or what they vaguely learnt at second hand, Rajneesh had studied them from original sources and evolved an eclectic faith of his own. Other gurus read very little beyond Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, the Upanishads and the epics, and rarely bothered to read books on Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Some had libraries meant for the use of disciples but most consisted of books on religious subjects or tracts summarizing sermons of their gurus. It occurred to me that I had not seen books in ashrams I had visited. I was baffled by the range of subjects: religion, theology, philosophy, history, literature, biographies, autobiographies down to books on humour and crime. Most of the collection was in English a few in Sanskrit and Hindi. I was told to wait a few minutes for the Acharya. I arrived at Woodlands at the appointed time and was shown into a large, airy room lined with books.
I was told not to wear any perfume or cologne (I never do) and not use perfumed soap for my bath that morning. Why did they flock in their hundreds and thousands from all parts of the world to listen to their discourses and live in austerity prescribed by ashram rules? What was it that they got and I did not? I had no particular problem and went to see Rajneesh more out of curiosity than to learn anything. What I found more interesting than the teachings of these godmen was to study their impact on their followers. It was no more than pouring new wine in old bottles. Most of their sermons were variations of the theme that God dwells within every human being and if people looked inwards they would find Illumination, Truth, and Reality.
In this quest I had visited many ashrams and heard discourses by gurus and godmen. I had no great desire to meet Rajneesh but was persuaded by his admirers that he was different from other teachers of the spiritual and that I might get answers to questions which bothered me. He was still known as Acharya (teacher) honorifics Bhagwan (God) and Osho were some years away. I had read about him in the papers and met a couple of his disciples who draped themselves in saffron robes and wore a medallion bearing his picture round their necks. I met Rajneesh only once – that was some time in the early 1970s when he was living in ‘Woodlands’ close to Kemp’s Corner in Bombay. Foreword by Khushwant Singh to this bestseller at Penguin that describes the life and legacy of Osho.
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