Osho - A psychopathic cult leader

I want to add that in Osho case he doesnt teach he just talks about all kind of things and that is it.My opinion on him is that he was reading a lot of books and use it to make his talks.He doesnt say nothing in practical sense,what to "do" to change,he just talks and that is in my opinion not enough.

Main thing is that he doesnt have teaching,he just use what he read,he didnt even realize that knowledge is not for masses of people,Osho said that he was enlightenment in very young age (23 or 24 years old,I,m not sure) and he achieved this all alone and in esoteric sense that is "impossible",Gurdjieff said it too.

But Osho is difficult one.


I cannot say that I spent so much time on Osho, as I can find people produced 225 books (Wikipedia said 600) mainly based on audiotapes from his talks. I read just a few book but in general my impression about him is that he is a person, who was in flow with the life, without any barriers, someone who reach enlightenment as pretty young and just talk, talk and talk using mostly his intuition, logic, knowledge without many respect to any authorities.
That is something that helps me at the beginning of my deprogramming process, many things was scandalous, incomprehensible, hard to digest but made some "friction" on my side to start to think and look to some "common knowledge" from different angle.

To be honest this was in my case too,but after some time I just didnt find any practical method or teach and I dont read him like before,in his talks there is no such methods and understandings like in G. talks.

I believe that most of us knows about his life from few years he spent in US. But as fast as I know he comes there at the end of his life (1981.) when he was 50 year old. Before that he tried hard to learn as much as possible from direct experience, meditations, reading thousands of books (both eastern and western), works as a professor on the University, and started to teach around India and comes to many direct and very dangerous confrontation especially with religious leaders (few murder attempts, last was in 1980. possibly that was connected with decision to move to US).

Yes it is true,he reads a lot,but I dunno if all his talks are from direct experience.
He doesnt talks about hyperdimensional reality for example.

But I cannot judge him becouse I dont know yet who he realy was.
 
I am getting a general idea of him as a materialist who never learned self control and external consideration. While he made some good points about organized religion, he seems generally not concerned about spiritual progress as much as he was concerned about "physical freedom" of the capitalist kind - survival of the fittest.

Some passages from the wikipedia article about him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_%28Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh%29

In his school years, he was a rebellious, but gifted student, and acquired a reputation as a formidable debater.
In 1951, aged nineteen, Osho began his studies at Hitkarini College in Jabalpur.[21] After acute conflicts with an instructor, the principal asked him to leave the college, and he transferred to D. N. Jain College, also in Jabalpur.[22] Having proved himself to be disruptively argumentative in Hitkarini College, he was not required to attend college classes in D. N. Jain College except for examinations, and used his free time to work for a few months as an assistant editor at a newspaper.[23] He also began speaking in public, initially at the annual Sarva Dharma Sammelan held at Jabalpur, organised by the Taranpanthi Jain community into which he was born, participating there from 1951 to 1968.
Sounds like an opinionated teenager that simply didn't respect the choice of others to have their own philosophies about life, and was impulsively driven to argue and debate them, which most likely included paramoralisms to shut down the critical thinking of others.

Osho later said he became spiritually enlightened on 21 March 1953, when he was 21 years old.
In parallel to his university job, he travelled throughout India, giving lectures critical of socialism and Gandhi, under the name Acharya Rajneesh (Acharya means teacher or professor; Rajneesh was a nickname he had acquired in childhood).[18][31][33] Socialism, he said, was a dead loss that would only socialise poverty.[33] Gandhi was a masochist and reactionary who worshipped poverty.[18][33] To escape its backwardness, Osho said, India needed capitalism, science, modern technology and birth control
I'm not sure how enlightened it is to defend one corrupt system over another. At least socialism is good in theory if it wasn't for the pathocrats who "execute" it, but capitalism is not even pretending to care about others - it blatantly promotes total selfishness. Seems like another clue to Osho's true values. And what little I know about Gandhi seems that he accomplished a lot of great things in very smart and non-selfish ways, like with non-violent civil disobedience, etc. He lived humbly because he did not value personal riches, and he did not try to put himself "above" others and did everything he could to help the poor and oppressed. I do not see how he was a "masochist", nor that he worshipped poverty - sounds like blatant paramoralisms.

In a 1968 lecture series, later published under the title From Sex to Superconsciousness, he scandalised Hindu leaders by calling for freer acceptance of sex.[36] His advocacy of sexual freedom caused public disapproval in India, and he became known as the "sex guru" in the press.[7] When he was invited in 1969 – despite the misgivings of some Hindu leaders – to speak at the Second World Hindu Conference, he used the occasion to raise controversy again.[36] In his speech, he said that "any religion which considers life meaningless and full of misery, and teaches the hatred of life, is not a true religion. Religion is an art that shows how to enjoy life."[37] He characterised priests as being motivated by self-interest, incensing the shankaracharya of Puri, who tried in vain to have his lecture stopped.
Somehow I think his focus on sexual freedom and "enjoying life" is related to his materialism. It sounds that he was basically advertising "free love", that "enjoying life" means carnal pleasures without restriction - and this is further evidenced from his lifestyle. So while it is true that religion that makes you "hate life" and want to escape from life is bad, a religion that focuses on embracing materialistic pleasures is also missing the point entirely. His indication that he became suddenly enlightened in a brief experience seems to suggest a free lunch mentality - that enlightenment is not a lifelong learning but an instant infusion. The fact that he felt qualified to teach others just from that brief "enlightenment" seems to point at hubris.

To decide which therapies to participate in, visitors either consulted Osho or made selections according to their own preferences.[57] Some of the early therapy groups in the ashram, such as the Encounter group, were experimental and very controversial, allowing a degree of physical violence as well as sexual encounters between participants.[58][59] Conflicting reports of injuries sustained in Encounter group sessions began to appear in the press.[60][61][62] Richard Price, at the time a prominent Human Potential Movement therapist and co-founder of the Esalen institute, found that Osho's version encouraged participants to be violent rather than play at being violent (the norm in Encounter groups conducted in the United States), and he criticised the therapies for featuring "... the worst mistakes of some inexperienced Esalen group leaders".[63] Price is alleged to have exited the Pune ashram with a broken arm following a period of eight hours locked in a room with participants who were armed with wooden weapons.[63] Bernard Gunther, his Esalen colleague, fared better in Pune and wrote a book, Dying for Enlightenment, featuring photographs and lyrical descriptions celebrating the flavour of the meditations and therapy groups.[63]

Violence in the therapy groups eventually ended in January 1979, when the ashram issued a press release stating that violence "had fulfilled its function within the overall context of the ashram as an evolving spiritual commune."[64] Besides the controversy around the therapies, allegations of drug use amongst sannyasins began to mar the ashram's image.[65] Some Western sannyasins were financing their extended stays in India through prostitution and drug running.[66][67] A few of them later said that, while Osho was not directly involved, they discussed such plans and activities with him in darshan, and he gave his blessing.[68]
The more I read about him the more it reminds me of Eric Pepin. Someone using his self-bestowed status as a spiritual guru of sorts who expoits others and is obsessed with materialistic pleasures. The fact that he says something true every now and then is what lures others, those who truly are looking for assistance from someone, into his trap.

By 1981, Osho's ashram hosted 30,000 visitors per year.[65] In stark contrast to the period up to 1970, when his following was overwhelmingly Indian, daily discourse audiences were at this time composed predominantly of Europeans and Americans.[73][74] Many observers noted that Osho's lecture style changed in the late seventies, becoming intellectually less focused and featuring an increasing number of jokes intended to shock or amuse his audience.
On 13 June 1981, Sheela's husband bought, for US$5.75 million, a 64,229-acre (260 km2) ranch located across two Oregon counties (Wasco and Jefferson), previously known as "The Big Muddy Ranch".[86] The following month, work began on setting up the so-called Rancho Rajneesh commune; Osho moved there on 29 August.[87] The initial reactions of the host community ranged from hostility to tolerance, depending on the observer's distance from the ranch.[88] Within a year of arriving, Osho's followers had become embroiled in a series of legal battles with their neighbours, the principal conflict relating to land use.[89] In May 1982, the residents of Rancho Rajneesh voted to incorporate the city of Rajneeshpuram on the ranch.[89] The conflict with local residents escalated, with increasingly bitter hostility on both sides, and over the following years, the commune was subject to constant and coordinated pressures from various coalitions of Oregon residents.[89][90] For its own part, the commune leadership took an uncompromising and confrontational stance and behaved impatiently with locals.[91] Its behaviour was implicitly threatening, and the repeated changes in the commune's stated plans looked like conscious deception, whether they were or not.[91]

Osho resided at Rajneeshpuram, living in a purpose-built trailer complex with an indoor swimming pool and other amenities. He did not lecture and only saw the majority of his followers on his daily drive-bys, when he would slowly drive past the long line of sannyasins waiting for him by the side of the road.[92] In this period, he gained notoriety for the large number of Rolls-Royce luxury cars[93] that his followers bought for his use, eventually numbering 93 vehicles.[94][95]
He might be competing with Jay Leno, both as a joker, and in his collection of luxury cars. It is not surprising, and perhaps not a result of him being a psychopath - he may have simply seriously underestimated the general law and succumbed to his own predator and external pressures. Without a collinear network, there's just no hope to detoxify our minds, emotions, bodies, and soul. So if he wasn't a conscious agent, his own selfishness and ignorance was used against him, and he was used as just another distraction for millions of people.
 
Thanks for the review SAO. That was very helpful. After reading it, I do get a similar impression of Osho as yours. He sounds like he once was a very opinionated and rebel teenager - so much so that one day he simply decided that he had been 'enlightened', which is another way of saying that everyone else is wrong. And off he went to build his life and 'teachings' based upon his own subjectivities and his likes and dislikes. It seems to me that if he defended sex, it wasn't because he saw any benefit in it for the spirit, but because he liked it. If he defended capitalism, it wasn't because he really thought it would bring freedom and a better life to people, but because he liked money.

Had he kept his ideas for himself, he would just have been a self-centered and selfish opinionated guy like many others out there. But he had to 'teach', and God knows how many people were lead astray and into great confusion because of that. :rolleyes:

That is the impression I get at the moment. But if anyone has any solid evidence that contradicts it, please share it!
 
Windmill knight said:
That is the impression I get at the moment. But if anyone has any solid evidence that contradicts it, please share it!
Ditto - we all know that wikipedia isn't in and of itself the best source to rely on, so I hope that those more familiar with Osho can correct if they see any inaccuracies. But as of now I don't see Osho being worth the effort to dig deeper, and I'm fairly confident that unless all of the above quotes are just blatant lies, that the above brief assessment of Osho is probably close enough for horseshoes.
 
I also wish to thank you SAO, for your review.
In all honesty, I realize having a subjective idea of Osho and his ideals, mainly formed years ago after having read quite a few of his books and watched some documentaries. But I realized after having posted previously in this thread that I had given course to the feeling I had, but lacked clear and clean data to back it up, except from a few memories. That gave me a pause to re think the issue, and ponder that perhaps one should think more carefully before posting :rolleyes:.

Your post SAO, made quite a few bells ring though. You pretty much summarized the impression I was under.

prasimix said:
That is something that helps me at the beginning of my deprogramming process, many things was scandalous, incomprehensible, hard to digest but made some "friction" on my side to start to think and look to some "common knowledge" from different angle.

The same happened with me, and that is what kept me reading. I would sometimes have interesting discussions about his books with an aunt of mine, whose views I valued. This fed a spark inside me to question a number of things.
Today, after having read further and learnt more about his life, I question whether this man was not one of those cases where trues are masterfully wrapped within lies, as it happens with many popular gurus or spiritual masters. This is an honest question.

I think it is important to look beyond the words, and see the acts. The reason why I'm saying this is that when one looks at Osho's reported actions, there seems to be something, and a big something, disturbingly materialistic. It is indeed a tricky question, for we don't really know what went on, and we know how easy it is to spread deception on someone's life.
Having said that, so far, the collected data on Osho's life doesn't seem to shine a very positive light.
 
My take on Rajneesh is quite negative based on some of the "facts" of his life, some statements he made as well as the effect he has had on his followers. The practices he encouraged were quite hedonistic in nature while couched in cushy terminology like following the way of the heart, creativity etc. He perhaps possessed an excess of what Gurdjieff called animal magnetism and could mesmerize followers by his presence. If he had any magnetic center, it is likely to be a black magnetic center imo.
Regarding facts of his life, he was clearly unable to resolve his self importance setting himself up as something of a God to his followers. He seemd to exhibit severe pathologies.
Regarding some of his statements, his comments putting Hitler and Gandhi on the same pedestal (Hitler tortured others and Gandhi tortured himself - so they are in the same boat), his allegedly pro-Hitler statements (he apparently gave pro-Hitler lectures which many people claim to have heard but these and other questionable comments were edited out of the books that were published by his followers in the later years) puts serious question marks on his spiritual orientation.
Regarding his effect on followers, except for the disgruntled rebels he seemed to have successfully produced a lot of infatuation and lack of critical thinking. In ISOTM, Gurdjieff said that one of the characteristics of "black magic" was to use other people without their understanding by producing faith and infatuation in them. Rajneesh's effects seem to be exactly on these lines.
Couple of websites with a lot of information, along with quotes from his direct disciples
_http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/rajneesh.html
_http://meditation-handbook.50webs.com/osho2.html
 
obyvatel said:
My take on Rajneesh is quite negative based on some of the "facts" of his life, some statements he made as well as the effect he has had on his followers. The practices he encouraged were quite hedonistic in nature while couched in cushy terminology like following the way of the heart, creativity etc. He perhaps possessed an excess of what Gurdjieff called animal magnetism and could mesmerize followers by his presence. If he had any magnetic center, it is likely to be a black magnetic center imo.

Yes, that's the same impression I got after reading about his life. I think Osho might have thought that he was actually lampooning the guru shtick by driving all his Rolls-Royces so as to show that he wasn’t really identified with it all but he was only fooling himself. He seemed to be totally clueless of the General Law (and the nature of the Jinn) and in the end he and his followers became consumed by that very thing that they were trying to escape from.

Evidently his magnetism was a result of his absorbing the energy of his worshiping followers because of their fascination with his ‘special guruness’ and he became a living phenomenon as a result of this fascination and then his followers became even more entrapped as they became even more fascinated by the phenomenon that they created with their own energy. Osho then became a slave to it all. The General Law must of loved this. Without his followers worship of the 'Osho phenomenon', the phenomenon would cease to exist since there would be no more energy to energize it into existence.
 
kenlee said:
Evidently his magnetism was a result of his absorbing the energy of his worshiping followers because of their fascination with his ‘special guruness’ and he became a living phenomenon as a result of this fascination and then his followers became even more entrapped as they became even more fascinated by the phenomenon that they created with their own energy. Osho then became a slave to it all. The General Law must of loved this. Without his followers worship of the 'Osho phenomenon', the phenomenon would cease to exist since there would be no more energy to energize it into existence.
A large part of the appeal of people like Rajneesh lies in their ability to transfer or confer energy in other people. This is usually referred to as "shaktipat" in the Hindu tradition. This phenomenon is likely very real and not a product of people's imagination. Gurdjieff had a very highly developed energy transference power which he talks about in Life Is Real Only Then When "I Am".

[quote author=G in LIROTW]
In my past life, being forever merciless to my natural weaknesses, and almost all the time jealously keeping watch over myself, I could attain almost anything within the limits of man's possibilities, and in some fields attained even to such a degree of power as not one man, perhaps not even in any past epoch, had ever attained. For instance, the development of the power of my thoughts had been brought to such a level that by only a few hours of self-preparation I could from a distance of tens of miles kill a yak; or, in twenty-four hours, could accumulate life forces of such compactness that I could in five minutes put to sleep an elephant.
[/quote]
But G subordinated these powers towards his esoteric progress and willingly deprived himself of their use so that he could "self-remember".
Energy transference powers are also exhibited by a very few highly accomplished martial artists. My current thinking based on the data I have is that such powers are possible by proper training which leads to a very highly developed motor/moving center.
Now people who develop these powers may or may not take the STO path of esoteric progress. Gurdjieff did but many others did not.
Mouravieff talks about this type (sorcerers, magicians, false prophets) in Gnosis Book2 page 181-184. He says that this is the case of man 1 whose highly developed moving center completely dominates his emotional center. The negative part of the intellectual center is paralysed while the positive part is completely dominated by the motor center. So this man does not have doubts, has extraordinary strength and a suggestive, hypnotic dynamism. Such a man develops a black magnetic center which is directed towards the well known objectives of exterior life - money, women, power in all their forms. The influences emanating from this type of man easily brings under his sway esoteric seekers who are looking for the "marvellous".
Rajneesh and quite a few present day "teachers" seem to belong to this category described by Mouravieff. A common element in their teachings is the stress on removal of all doubt which is a function of the negative half of the intellectual center. The positive half of the intellectual center in the students is used in projects and service which ultimately benefit the teacher but sometimes also has some social impact which works towards further stifling of doubts in the minds of the disciples. The magnetic effect of the teacher is amplified by the adulation of the disciples bringing more and more in their fold as Kenlee wrote above. I have had some first hand experience with the disciples of such teachers and it is quite heart-rending to see otherwise intelligent, gentle and kind people being led down the path towards entropy. The pain of honoring the free-will of others in such contexts is perhaps one of the more difficult lessons in 3D imo.
 
Hi All,

I want to chim in on Osho discussion.
I want to say that he has made the most impact on my life in the last 5 years of my awakening. Without concentrating on him but on his "teaching" I can say from my whole being that no other has pushed me as much and awaken lust and love for Life and faith in myself as he.

My story of him:
Osho was a rebel, a person who enjoyed life immensely, and who embraced all life had to offer. That was his religion = life. Sex, materialism, spiritualism, everything , no stranger to all that. He encouraged people to be more rebellious, more authentic, more aware of the now and self and he made alot of jokes :)

If this discussion goes on I'd participate :)
 
Osho on Gurdjieff:

_http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Life_of_Masters/Gurdjieff/Gurdjieff_and_Nicoll.htm

More talk on the bottom of page :)
 
It's been on my mind for a while to post to this thread and I'd like to thank EgonGaGa for reviving the thread and reminding me about it. This post has turned out to be rather long!

I went to Poona, India, and became an Osho sannyasin back in 1980 when he was still calling himself Rajneesh. I've read dozens of his books. Osho's teachings and techniques, at least where they most matter, are almost diametrically opposed to the work of Laura, the Cs and Gurdjieff. Osho was very good at transmitting energy, and was quite charismatic. He had many women around him, particularly westerners, which was the source of many rumours concerning his sexual transgressions against them. I have heard from one or two Osho people that these rumours were founded in fact. Quite a common theme among the new age guru types.

I have some experience with his meditation techniques, particularly Dynamic Meditation.

Dynamic Meditation is in five stages as follows:
Stage 1 - 10 minutes fast ‘chaotic’ breathing through the nose with the emphasis on the out breath.
Stage 2 - 10 minutes catharsis: yelling, screaming, physical expression – whatever is necessary at the time. The first stage is designed to arouse one’s repressed emotions. The second stage is where you let it all out.
Stage 3 - 10 minutes jumping on the spot with arms raised above the head chanting ‘Hoo’ as one lands on the feet. This stage ends with the sudden command to ‘Stop!’
Stage 4 - 15 minutes remaining motionless in the position one stopped in.
Stage 5 - 15 minutes dancing in gratitude and celebration.

Great claims are made for Dynamic meditation by Osho and his followers, such as release of long held negative emotions. It is supposed to be a fast-track method to achieve great spiritual results in a short amount of time.

I did Dynamic Meditation daily for 9 months (many years ago) and I found none of these claims to be true. In fact I came to quite the opposite conclusion. It seems to me that repeatedly stirring up and then expressing negative emotion entrains the machine and the personality into a certain pathway, and practitioners often end up being addicted to Dynamic Meditation as a kind of safety valve.

Stage 3 is particularly punishing and I read somewhere (I don't have the reference to hand) that jumping with the arms raised puts one at risk of cardiac arrest.

One of the first rules of esoteric work is: do not express negative emotions. This is much more difficult but more rewarding than ‘letting go’ into catharsis, and you can find this suggestion as something the seeker can do at the beginning of Work, in many of the books recommended on this forum, yet it is missing from Osho's teachings. This alone puts Osho way off track.

Osho often described the goal of meditation as the cessation of thought. He described Nirvana as ‘when the candle goes out’, the candle being the mind. Enlightenment is said by him to be a blissful state of awareness beyond thought, although one can return to the mind and use it as a tool.

I first read Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous about five years ago and could not help but notice that Osho's ‘teachings’ can be found in that book. He added therapy groups, meditations and a large helping of sex to attract Western seekers. In the early days of the therapy groups Osho's attitude was 'anything goes' and was indeed encouraged by the group leaders, with the result that there was violence and sex in the groups. Some people actually had limbs broken.

He was very fond of using other authors' titles for his own books. In his own books, which are transcribed talks, the signal to noise ratio is extremely poor; basically he waffles, seemingly endlessly!

I could never understand why he needed 93 Rolls Royces. That was just greed, pure and simple, imho.

In the early 1980s he moved to a large ranch in an isolated location in Oregon, USA. It was previously known as the Big Muddy Ranch, and John Wayne once filmed a Western there. The nearest small town was called Antelope, whose residents were not very pleased when the Rajneeshies decamped on their doorstep.

His secretary, a woman called Ma Anand Sheela, ran the place while Osho spent his time watching films, snorting nitrous oxide, or driving around the ranch in one of his Rolls Royces, stopping occasionally and waving graciously to the faithful. I was there one summer, and Osho in his car stopped a few feet away from me. Everyone around was singing, clapping and dancing to celebrate the presence of the master. I did too. I really tried my best to feel the energy and be like all the others, but my impression was that the celebration was empty. What I really wanted was to be still and sense what was going on. Maybe all the singing and dancing that Osho encouraged was in fact a mask for emptiness. Or perhaps I was truly unable to connect with the energy. After all, everyone else seemed to be able to feel it!

I once met Sheela. My impression was of a person with a very negative malignant aura, an impression borne out by her physical appearance. She had those dark bags under the eyes that indicate a toxic body. I didn’t actually talk to her, I just sat next to her quietly and that was the impression I received. Perhaps this is the impression one gets of a black magnetic centre, I don't know, but Osho certainly lost some credibility for me after that encounter.

Near the end of the Osho commune in Oregon, it had its own police force (the ‘Peace Force’, with ‘Peace Officers’) who were armed and drove around in jeeps with machine guns mounted in the rear windows. There were many accusations of vote rigging, poisoning, and other criminal activities laid against the commune during this time. Sheela claimed that the commune needed armed ‘Peace Officers’ because it was surrounded by hostile people . . . rather reminiscent of Israel‘s pathological excuse for its arsenal. This was certainly not being 'wise as serpents and gentle as doves'. In fact, looking back, I realise that even though Osho had read ISOTM, he had completely ignored the concept of external considering.

Sheela was eventually imprisoned, in Germany, for fraud and wiretapping offences. The sentence was around three years if memory serves. None of this of course is mentioned on her current website.

Osho was addicted to nitrous oxide. He alleged that he had been poisoned by Ronald Regan’s government while in gaol in the USA. The results of this poisoning were said to be substantial hair and weight loss, and the loss of the teeth on one side of his mouth. He alleged that he was given a radioactive mattress to sleep on, and the teeth fell out on whichever side he normally laid on to sleep. He also alleged that he was given some bread in a tasteless grey sauce which he claimed was the vehicle for thallium poisoning. But all these symptoms were later shown to be signs of the degeneration suffered by those addicted to nitrous oxide.

Osho's nitrous oxide addiction and more is detailed in a book called Life of Osho by Sam. You can download a pdf version free of charge at _http://www.lofo.da.ru/

Osho did criticise the Powers That Be, and he was refused permission to land his aircraft at many countries on his ‘world tour’ in the mid 1980s, including the UK. Why? Actually, I have no idea. I don’t think he was nearly as much of a threat to the PTB as Laura and Cs. He appeared to have no knowledge of pathology. Or, if he did, I never came across it in his books.

Allegedly, Margaret Thatcher herself refused him permission to land in the UK, although this may be narcissism on Osho's part. He said that while in a holding room at the UK airport, he was left alone for a short time and sneaked a look at the file left on the desk, only to see Thatcher's name on a document.

Towards the end of his life, he claimed that Buddha's soul, which had been orbiting the Earth since his physical death, had entered his body, and they were now arguing about which side he should lie on to sleep. He claimed that he was in fact the Maitreya of Buddhist prophecy.

He never really took care of his followers, certainly not in the way that Gurdjieff did. In fact when he left India to go to America in 1981, he deserted, without warning, all the people who had come to Poona to see him. He actually referred to the sannyasins as disciples which suggests a rather narcissistic or messianic self-image. Gurdjieff had students, not disciples.

Gurdjieff made money and used it help his students. Osho never did that. He seems to have been extremely greedy. He was a salesman. He would often say that the seeker needed only to spend a few days in therapy groups or catharsis, which of course he would have to pay for the privilege of attending, and then one would be ready to go into deep and blissful meditative states. He did talk about self-observation, but the focus on external considering and non-expression of negative emotions that we find in Gurdjieff is missing from Osho.

Osho’s world is and was a hierarchy. The big O is at the top of the pyramid, feeding on the adulation of those lower down, and who knows what was feeding on him? His teaching, imho, appeals to those who want to escape from the world and the pain of living in it to a blissful state of endless happiness.

All things considered, there is in my opinion no real comparison between the objective reality-based work that has as its foundation Laura and the Cs and Gurdjieff, and that of Osho who just wanted people to 'turn on, tune in and drop the lot'.

Now, as to the article you linked quoting Osho on Gurdjieff. We should remember that Osho himself wrote many of the questions that were asked of him in his talks. My impression is that this is one such question. So he may well have written the question. In any event, Gurdjieff never 'talked about the sly man Who stole his Enlightenment from the Master.' The sly man reference comes from ISOTM where Ouspensky quotes G as saying:

G said:
The fourth way is sometimes called the way of the sly man. The sly man knows some secret which the fakir, monk and yogi do not know. How the 'sly man' learned this secret – it is not known.

Given Osho's highly materialistic nature, it's very interesting that he chooses to reinterpret G's description as theft.

The incident on the train did happen, but not as Osho describes it, and it happened with Fritz Peters, not Maurice Nicoll. You can read about it in one of Peters' books. Their titles are: 'Boyhood with Gurdjieff'; Gurdjieff Remembered; Balanced Man. The train episode appears, I believe, in the second book.

Here's Osho talking about Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson, and he may well be describing his own experience with the book.

Osho said:
Gurdjieff was really a remarkable Mystic, one of the most remarkable who has ever walked on the earth. But to understand him is more difficult than to understand anybody else. With Gurdjieff it was true – he was very secretive. If anybody wanted to get anything from him, it was not an easy job. Even if you read his book, you cannot read more than ten pages. It is a one-thousand-page book. All And Everything is the name of the book, but you cannot go on more than ten pages, for the simple reason that he writes in such a way that to find out what he is saying is difficult. One sentence goes on running over the whole page.

By the time you end the sentence you have forgotten the beginning. And what happened in the middle, nobody knows. He was inventing words of his own, so you cannot consult any dictionary. Those words belonged to no language, he simply invented them. And they are long words – sometimes half the sentence is only one word. Even to read it is difficult, to pronounce it is difficult. In that book of one thousand pages, perhaps there are ten sentences at the most which are really profound.

Gurdjieff could have printed them on a postcard, but that man was a category in himself. He wants you to find those ten sentences in that one-thousand-page book, which he has made as difficult as possible. No book has been written the way Gurdjieff’s book was written. People go to silent places, holiday homes, beaches, mountains, to write books. Gurdjieff used to go to restaurants, pubs. And sitting in the middle of the restaurant where everything was going on – hundreds of people coming in and going out, all kinds of talk – he was writing his book, his masterpiece.

The impression I get from this is that although Osho appears to be praising Gurdjieff, he is actually belittling him and his work. Yes, Beelzebub's Tales is hard work, but it is also very rewarding. Beelzebub's Tales has a very specific purpose, and that is: To destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world. It seems that Osho just wasn't ready for that.

And here is Osho again, firstly comparing Gurdjieff to Stalin, then saying that he (Osho) is more 'user friendly' than Gurdjieff:

Gurdjieff was Caucasian, and the Caucasus is famous for producing really strong men. Another Caucasian was Joseph Stalin. The word ‘stalin’ in Russian means man of steel. But Gurdjieff was far ahead of Joseph Stalin. This was a test for the follower. Just think of yourself – you would have escaped. Seeing the situation, that he is going to be caught and thrown into a jail.... That’s what the driver and the conductor and the engineer were all saying: ”If you don’t stop, we are going to throw your master into jail. At the next station the police will be there, we have already informed them.”

But to trust a man like me is very simple. I will not put you in any such situation. You need not steal anything from me, because I am putting everything on the table before you. So Gurdjieff’s statement is relevant only to him and to his disciples. It is absolutely irrelevant to me and you. I am not your master, I am not hiding anything from you. You need not steal. I am trying to give you the gift and you go on running!

Consider Osho's avowal in this next excerpt, that he is trying to give his disciples the truth, as a gift, and compare that with the assertions of Laura, Gurdjieff and many others that truth requires long, dedicated work. It requires years of struggle. It seems also that Osho has completely misunderstood the concept of the sly man. The world does not need adults who are 'innocent children'. It needs mature individuals who are willing to work and do.

Osho said:
I am trying to present you the truth, as a gift. But truth – even to accept it as a gift – is a difficult phenomenon, because if you accept the truth, then all the lies that you have been living up to now have to be dropped. Gurdjieff was his type. I am my type. And I know there is no need for me to hide anything, because you are hiding from me, and I am trying to push truth, love, compassion, meditation – everything – into your pockets. And you go on running away from me because you know that I am a lazy man and I will not run after you.

You have simply to receive with grace. There is no need to steal here. Why should you be reduced to thieves? Why should you be made the sly man? I want you to be the innocent child, who is ready and open and vulnerable. And I am so full of my ecstasy that I want to rain on anybody without asking his qualifications, his characteristics. But you are so afraid seeing the rain cloud coming up, you rush into your homes just to save your clothes, afraid that they will get wet. Yes, it is true you are dry, and if you allow me to shower on you, you are going to become juicy.
 
Thank you Endymion. That was a very informative post. I get a very clear picture of Osho now and it confirms what I thought. Basically he was a selfish man ruled by his likes and dislikes and subjectivities which he sought to impose on others. Such a typical story. :rolleyes:
 
Good post Endymion.

I have never studied Osho but have looked at some of the Gurdjieff 'movement' videos on youtube. It is fairly obvious that he has copied the outer form without understanding the inner posture that underlies it, to draw an analogy they look like a poor martial arts school attempting to copy a form with no understanding of the application of the form.
 
Thanks Endymion for your most enlightening post! In the Reiki and 'body work' circles I constantly hear people endorsing Osho as somekind of teacher of teachers. People who have studied with Osho are talked(whispered) about with great respect. It's amazing how well rooted and well spread his reputation is. It's good that the truth of this man is starting to emerge, or so I hope. I've tried a few of his different meditations as 'warm up exercises' in our Bioenergetics course and they were not that bad, but I didn't get the feeling of wanting to do them again or on my own. On our next weekend course we are supposed to do this dynamic meditation you mentioned, let's see how that goes. :shock:
 
Compare

Gurdjieff Movements demonstrated by lineage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jbdj5KjDuM&feature=related

Oshos copies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7ILDZM7lE&feature=related / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7ILDZM7lE&feature=related
 
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