Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was born on December 11, 1931 in Kuchwada, India. In 1951, he graduated from high school and started attending Hitkarini College in Jabalpur. Rajneesh's philosophy courses were the catalyst for his spiritual struggle. In 1953, after taking a year off from college to soul search and meditate, Rajneesh claimed that he had achieved enlightenment. In 1955, after graduating from Hitkarini, he went on to pursue a Master of Arts degree in philosophy at Saugar University. Following graduation in 1957, he accepted a position as an assistant professor of philosophy at Raipur Sanskrit College. Just one year later, he became a full professor at Jabalpur University, located in his hometown.

Spiritual Leadership

While teaching at Jabalpur University, Rajneesh traveled throughout India, spreading his unconventional and controversial ideas about spirituality. Among his theories was the belief that sex was the first step toward achieving "superconsciousness." By 1964, he started conducting meditation camps and recruiting followers. Within two years, he resigned from his professorship to focus more fully on spreading his spiritual teachings.

In 1970, Rajneesh founded the concept of "dynamic meditation," which, he alleged, enables people to experience divinity. The prospect enticed young Westerners to come reside at his ashram in Pune, India, and become Rajneesh's devout disciples, called sannyasin. In their quest for spiritual enlightenment, Rajneesh's followers took new Indian names, dressed in orange and red clothes, screamed, cast clothing aside and engaged in group promiscuity. By the late 1970s, the six-acre ashram was so overcrowded that Rajneesh relocated to a larger commune in Jadhavwadi.

Rajneesh's movement met with violent resistance from Indian traditionalists, and in 1980, an assassination attempt was made on his life. Rajneesh fled to the United States with his disciples, settling on a 100-square mile ranch in central Oregon, which he named Rancho Rajneesh. There, Rajneesh and the sannyasin started building their own city, called Rajneeshpuram. Disapproving neighbors contacted local officials in an attempt to close down Rajneeshpuram, asserting that it violated Oregon's land-use laws, but Rajneesh was victorious in court and continued to expand the commune.

Arrest

In 1985, police arrested Rajneesh while he was trying to flee the United States to escape charges of immigration fraud. Several of his commune's leaders had already fled after committing a number of crimes—including drug smuggling and prostitution—over an extended period of time.