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Rajneesh
Chandra
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 Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Bio Chandra Mohan Jain, called Osho in only the last year of his life, was born on December 11, 1931 and died on January 19, 1990. Osho was born in the home of his maternal grandparents, in Kuchwada, located in the Madhya Pradesh state in India. He lived with his grandparents until he was seven years old. He was spoiled by his grandmother – he did not have to go to school or do anything that he did not want to do. His family were members of the Taran Panth sect of Jainism (a religion that calls for a path of non-violence towards all living beings, and relies on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness.) His grandfather died when he was seven, and Osho was sent to live with his parents in Gadarwara. By this time they had had several more children – indeed Osho would eventually be the eldest of eleven children. Osho was then sent to school, where he turned out to be a gifted student, but rather rebellious. As a teen, he became involved in two Indian independence movements: the Indian National Army and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. (India, under the rule of the British raj from 1612, was partitioned in 1947 into a secular India, with Hindi as the main religion, and the Muslim country of Pakistan. In 1952, India held its first general elections as a sovereign country.) In 1951, at the age of nineteen, Osho entered Hitkarini College in Jabalpur. However, his rebelliousness continued, and he was soon asked to leave. He transferred to D. N. Jain College, also in Jabalpur. There, he did not attend classes, and only sat for examinations, because of his outspoken nature in the classroom. Osho earned a BA in
philosophy in 1955, and an MA in philosophy in 1957. He subsequently secured
teaching posts in a variety of universities, but his outspokenness, and
popularity with students, once again got him into trouble. He was considered
“a danger to his students' morality, character and religion.”
In the spring of 1970,
Osho presented his Dynamic Meditation method for the first time. Dynamic
Meditation is a technique in which one does not sit in silence to meditate,
but rather jumps up and down, shouts, dances and celebrates life. Osho and his followers lived in Mumbai from 1970 to 1974, but the hot and humid climate their affected his health, and he shifted base to Pune from 1974 to 1981. In Pune, Osho and his followers occupied two adjoining houses and 6 acres of land. (The two buildings are the heart of the Osho International Meditation Resort, still in existence.) By 1981, the property in Pune was too small to house the thousands of visitors that Osho and his ashram (religious hermitage) received each year (over 30,000 in 1981 – by this time, mostly Europeans and Americans), but the Indian government blocked his attempts to purchase larger tracts of land to house a new facility. In 1981, Osho travelled
to the United States. He was allowed into the country for medical purposes,
but his true purpose was to create an ashram there. From 1981 to 1985,
his commune in Oregon was extremely popular – even though he himself
did not speak on a daily basis, as he had at his ashram in India. Although not implicated
in them, Osho became persona non grata in the United States. Because he
had stated originally that he had come into the United States for medical
reasons, rather than to create an ashram, he was found guilty of lying
on his immigration forms. He was fined heavily and deported. In 1990, he adopted the name Osho. He died of a heart attack at the age of 58 on January 19, 1990. Osho set out the following
“commandments” when pressed to do so by a follower: |
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